Phantom Menace did have cool effects at least, which my spoiled ass thinks the first three did not (although they made it much worse in the Special Editions)
You know, it's really funny. I remember watching _Empire_ on video when it was about 10 years old (about the time that Jurassic Park came out) and thinking, "These asteroid effects are AMAZING, who needs computers anyway?" Then I discovered that it was Not to Be ReReleased until the Special Ed. was out. You're right: the SE made the movies much worse -- but you're also wrong: the effects in the original _Empire_ were incredible.
he really didn't answer the question asked about the Tiny Toons... Yes, I guess it would ahve been a certain age group watching that series (I was one of them) but I didn't get my start w/TMBG w/that show..
I would say that the show did give them a little more widespread acceptance but it wasn't a BIG reason for their fame.
I think the main credit for TMBG's fame is their tireless dedication to the music and the fans. I never saw this Tiny Toons episode, but I can think of a number of other things that would have made TMBG fans out of various folks -- touring with Frank Black, for example, or Dial-a-Song, or the numerous interviews they give. What it comes down to is that they're professionals, but also nice people, and they've prospered as a result.
OT: Confounded metric system!
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Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cassini is screwed up. JPL has a problem with that (NOT Lockheed. JPL didn't bother to notice what units were being used for thrust, they just assumed they were metric).
Why is it even an issue what type of units they're going to use? Of _course_ they assumed metric units, they're engineers. Any firm that uses a system of measurement based on a wooden rod that was destroyed by fire years ago is not qualified to explore outer space.
In my scheme, planets are non-star bodies never having had any fusion of any kind in their cores (excluding brown dwarfs), that are large enough to be roughly spherical.
When I was way back in eighth grade, taking "earth sciences," I was told that we're not sure whether or not some minor fusion occurs in the Earth's core? Is this something that's been disproven, or was I just making it up?
Instead of sending a high tech piece of machinery across the system which will be obsolete by the time it gets there, why not send high tech equipment (or even food) half way around the world to real people who can use it before its expiry date comes of age.
This is a pretty common argument against NASA. It seems to assume two things:
1) A economy can and should gear toward one particular goal or product sector, like "guns" or "butter."
2) A NASA probe launched in 2004 will be obsolete by the time it reaches its distant destination, presumeably because your Gateway Yourware lease has been renewed three times in that time.
These are both, of course, false. No economy is able to efficiently produce only one product, and no society is able to satisfactorily move toward one goal. To think of it in the simplest possible terms, imagine you have 1000 people with advanced degrees at your disposal. Some are lawyers, some are medical doctors, some are engineers -- the distribution of degrees is not under your control. You're always going to end up with a number of them who are entirely unqualified to meaningfully work on a world hunger project. Fortunately, you can solve the problems of world hunger with only 1% of your GDP. So why not put the astrophysicists and computer scientists on your team onto a project other than world hunger?
In other words, we're talking about 500 million, here. My _county_ has a larger budget than that.
Also, I'd like to point out that a large number of the engineers and scientists who work for NASA and the defense contracters (who would probably bid on the PKE probe) make good enough salaries that they, as private individuals, send money or equipment halfway across the world to real people, usually their families.
As for your perception of obsolescence, you're either buying the Dell/Gateway/Compaq FUD that you need to upgrade a machine every five years, or you're simply employing Zeno's paradox:
"Can we send it now, sir?"
"No, we've got a better camera in development."
"How about now, sir?"
"No, this new engine will do it better."
"Now?"
"Wait on the improved energy source. This is going to be one _rocking_ probe!"
"Uh, sir?"
"The bastards gave our funding to a 'faith-based' endowment to promote space exploration. Bleeding Scientologists...."
Recently, president Clinton signed a law stating that any state which did not set a 0.08 blood alchohol level standard for DUI would lose (some) federal funding for highways. The DUI laws (and standards) are entirely in the states' authority, not the federal. In effect, the federal government has usurped a power reserved for the states.
Sorry pal, but I'm pretty sure that if you asked your local governor, state delegate, or Supreme Court justice about this one, he or she would tell you that Congress is just regulating commerce among the states. Article I, section 8. You know -- drunk driver hits a tractor trailer on one of those federally funded Post Roads mentioned in same section.
Why is it that states' righters always complain about things like federal speed limit laws and DUI laws? It makes it sound like you're saying "I want to be allowed to recklessly endanger my fellow citizens" rather than "I want the governor and state legislature to decide what's dangerous and what's not."
I agree that there's a big case to be made for states' rights these days, but DUI laws are not the proper angle of attack.
Another pet peeve I have with states' rights advocates, and this is something I _didn't_ see in your post, but you should still watch out for when talking to others, is the fellah who'll argue that a federal regulation is a violation of constitutional liberty and how only the states should be allowed to regulate this sort of thing, and then when a state tries to regulate it, he keeps on going about how government _in general_ should not violate our _philosophical_ liberties...the impression I get from this is that these folks (who write for the CATO Institute, BTW, I'm not talking about people I read on alt.flame) assume that federal govt.=strong and therefore =bad, and state governments are naturally weak and confused, so they're OK.
I do remember a certain sense of frustration in ZORK I at trying to recreate the programmers' idea of a "correct procedure" for solving puzzles, which could sometimes lead to that wonderful YOU HAVE DIED (asterixes excluded) message. However, at the time, I was eight years old and had never heard the phrase "bell, book, and candle."
In the case of the Hitchhiker's Babel Fish scene, however, I think you're missing the point that it was supposed to be _fun_ to have the Vogons take you away and blast you. That entire game conspired against the player in ingenious ways, like the exit "to port" which is actually aft (or vice-versa?). If it makes you feel better, by the time I got my hands on a copy of HHG for my Apple, it was the early 90s, and my disk drive was broken in such a way that I couldn't save games. So I had to start from the beginning every time I died in that game. Despite that user-side technical hiccup, it's still one of the most enjoyable games I've ever played.
I spent all my time going "I remember there's something you need to get out of the fscking house that lets you go across the rainbow in the gulf or something like that... How do I get it?"
You cross the rainbow by waving the sceptre you find in the temple.
Of course, without the brass lantern, which is found in the house, you are unlikely to suceed in that endeavor.
You know how in _Farenheit 451_ people "become" books by memorizing them? In the dystopia of the future, when now interpreters for the "Z-machine" are available, I'll "become" Zork I-III and allow someone else to take care of weightier matters for me.
(My favorite ZORK game was the third one. The strange rotating multi-panelled room at the end verged on the ridiculous in its complexity; that room was probably the only place in ZORK where a GUI (like Myst) would have been better than the text interface.)
Solar Power does require quite a bit of acreage to supply a lot of electricity, but imagine what it could do to _supplement_ the current grid in a city like, say, Washington, DC.
Put a photovolt panel on top of every traffic light in the city. Those power the traffic lights. Put photovolt panels on the rooftops of major buildings, and you power things like stairwell lights, elevators, exterior lights for the building. Put photovolt panels on top of streetlamps. All of these systems can switch to the main fossil-burning grid as a "backup."
The technology will advance by leaps and bounds if state and national governments decide to invest in it.
Ralph Nader, speaking at Madison Square Garden in October, talked about solar power projects. He claimed that the reason the tech hasn't advanced much since the 70s was that the fossil fuel companies don't want it to, because once every consumer has solar panels powering their electric stoves, the utility companies won't be able to control the prices by eclipsing the sun.
"Every since the dawn of Man he has yearned to destroy the sun."
--Montgomery Burns
There's also wind power, tidal current generation, lots of things that can be looked into. A-and don't forget fuel cell technology, which can quietly and efficiently power an entire office building with one ENIAC-sized (or smaller)room.
The Rev. Maskelyne, the villain of _Longitude_ (in, I believe, Sobel's own words), also makes an appearance in Pynchon's _Mason & Dixon_. Said novel includes a scene of Maskeylene's clock talking to Mason's clock, IIRC.
Re:Good book, but out ages ago!
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Longitude
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Yes, next week on slashdot.org:
+Book reviews: _Origin of the Species_ by Charles Darwin and _Caves of Steel_ by Isaac Asimov.
+Technology: preview of Microsoft's "Windows 95."
+United States: analysis and discussion of the Clinton-Dole election results.
Timothy, please understand: I mock you because you have the gall to think slashdot readers haven't heard of an international bestseller that came out five years ago.
I remember the first time I used a Mac with one of those bloody control strips. I spent an hour trying to switch it off. I defies use. Like the Windows Start menu and the Gnome/KDE strips it take up space and is a half-arsed replacement for a decent file/application manager.
You're trolling, right?
Try using the "Control Strip" control panel. Click on "Hide Control Strip."
What about the moon? Anything worth getting there?
Yes. Read the article. First paragraph of the section that starts "Figuring out how...."
Also, just hypothetically, what would happen if a private group or company landed on the moon and set up a perminent base. Would they own it?
The 1979 Moon Treaty bans private appropriation of lunar territory or materials. So no, probably not. The USA never ratified this treaty, though, so who knows what could happen?
How do define ownership? People, or rather NASA, seems to think that space is theirs. Sooner or later people will get out there. And then what? Have someone decide that they own Mars, or that asteroid, or anything.
This article talks about making/saving money up there, but that alone opens the door to tremendous conflict over ownership.
There's actually a multi-lateral treaty on the books re: ownership of objects in space. It's the 1967 Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies. The common title is the "Space Treaty." (There's a second treaty from 1979 that deals with the Moon exclusively.)
The Space Treaty says that no _states_ have sovreignity over celestial bodies (private parties are not considered by the treaty), and that outer space is "the province of all mankind," but adds that any vehicle or object launched from Earth into space remains in the sovereign control of the government that launched it.
The Moon Treaty, which was never ratified by the USA, specifically bans appropriation of lunar territory by private parties. The implication is that the earlier Space Treaty did not ban such appropriation of "celestial bodies."
The general impression that I get from the (little) literature that I've read on the subject (and, BTW, IANAL) is that space exploration will inherit a lot of law and tradition from ocean exploration, the other great frontier of the next century. There may someday have to be a United Nations commission that grants asteroid mining patents, much the same way the U.S. government granted/grants patents for claiming and mining federal land in the West.
What I suppose I'm trying to say is that when NASA, ASARCO, or whoever sends the first prototype mining vessels to near-Earth asteroids, they will find...lawyers.
Traditionally it was held that magnetic fields have no effect on living organisms - but this is far from true. Given a constant force present in the environment it makes sense that a creature would evolve to account for it in some way. The earth has had a magnetic field since the dawn of life - it is not surprising that living creatures take advantage of it.
NOAA warns that class G1 and above magnetic storms may affect animal migrations.
Yup.
What is this, a _tree_house?
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Did anyone else notice a similarity between Jamie's vision of voting in the year 2004 and the news blurb "Man Builds House He Designed When He Was Eight Years Old" in this week's Onion?
There is no way to conclude that a voter in Texas has more power in the electoral system. If you were a Rep, well, your vote didn't matter because everyone else is too. If you were a Dem, your vote was 100% worthless, because it has 0 impact on the election, and 0% chance of turning the election.
This means that, not only were Texas voters without any power, there was also no need for either major candidate to campaign there. This would be like a world series in which it is a foregone conclusion that game 2 is going to the Yankees, so neither the Yankees nor the Pirates show up to play.
Your argument is limited to this election, and is based on a few faulty assumptions, as well. The specific "foregone conclusion" here is not structural, but strategic -- if this were the World Series, the manager of the NL team decided to rest his players. Your statement seems to imply something more like "NL team will always lose on astroturf." (The baseball analogy dissolves after this point, so I won't get more specific than that.)
The Dems's decision to not "mess with Texas" is questionable (what happened to the Texas of Lloyd Bentsen, Ann Richards, and LBJ, huh?), but I don't think it can be held as indicative of a larger failing of the electoral system.
Finally, I'd like to point out that Texas (or any state) is free to choose its method of assigning electors as it will. It doesn't have to be winner-take-all in the state, but only the people of that state can decide whether it should be or not. If Texans (or Californians, etc.) feel that their votes for President are marginalized b/c of the current electoral system, then perhaps they should start a campaign to change the state government.
Of course, such a campaign would be ill-advised with first examining the issue in a forum possessed of more academic rigor than Slashdot.:)
If they are truly interested in checking for irregularities, why not check election procedures in all 50 states? Gore won California by only 5%. Let's check and see how many CA voters were illegal aliens. Nah. Democrats aren't interested in that since the illegal aliens prefer Gore over Bush.
You're toeing the fine line between troll and Buchanan supporter there, friend.
So how do we fix the pollution that has been caused already. Well, why don't we have the government pay for it like we do now? (Superfund) This makes you and me, the average shmoe have to pay for big belching factories' boo-boos. Well, what Nader is proposing is simply taxing pollutors. Think of it as a pollution fine or "paying for the privalage" of f*cking up our ecosystem.
What is wrong about asking those responsible for pollution to contribute the most to fix.
IANAL, but from my understanding of the law, you seem to be misinformed on the workings of Superfund, which is the common name for the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) of 1980, 42 U.S.C. section 9601 et. seq.
Here's how Superfund works (AFAIK):
1) EPA, or usually a state EPA, discovers pollution.
2) EPA, or its contractors, are called in to clean up the pollution. Depending on the situation, the clean-up is either an immediate, short-term response action, or a long-term recovery action. EPA pays its cleanup contractors out of a big pile of cash known as the Superfund.
3) In the meantime, usually before EPA's contractors have gotten the OK to start a cleanup, EPA's lawyers have identified one or several possible Principal Responsible Parties (PRPs), who can be the owners of the land, owners or operators of the facility from which the pollution originated, or a variety of other persons or corporations.
4) Once the clean-up is in its final stages, and the dollar cost of the cleanup is known to the EPA, legal action is taken against the PRPs to determine liability for and recover the costs of the cleanup. Those who are found liable (either in settlement or in a federal court action) write a check to the Superfund.
The idea of the Superfund is that if the pollution is, indeed, a threat to human health, human welfare, or the environment, it wouldn't do to well to sit around for a few years trying to get the money to clean it up from the polluters. They pay retroactively.
Sometimes, the government does end up paying for it, because a PRP cannot be found, or no PRP can be found liable. But also sometimes, countries don't pay for the costs of wars they waged against other countries (reparations).
Re:A stroke of originality!
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Yeah, but what do you expect?
Trailers are often produced by the same sort of studios that make commerical jingles, etc. They are, after all, just 2-minute long ads for a movie. Also, the soundtrack is usually the last thing added to a movie. As such, they usually resort to libraries of soundtracks for the trailer. Swordfights get Orff. Ominous alien movies get the theme from _Alien_. Happy movies get that same freakin' Third Eye Blind song. And so on.
Why is it that trailers are so popular on the web, when the product itself is so lousy, they're so heavy on bandwidth, and all they're good for is to let you know what you should be buying in a few months?
Re:Don't give your money to time warner
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Sneak into the movie without paying for it.
Problem solved!
Actually, this raises the new issue of harm to the theater at which the movie is playing, which gets half the ticket price. Always remember the labor relations angle to any political problem. You don't want 16-year-old popcorn-selling kids out on the streets, do you?
My recommendation is that you pay to see an independent film at that theater, and then see the D&D movie instead. For best results, do this after Lord of the Rings has oppened, 'cuz the theater management will have concentrated all of its bouncer-powers onto that particular theater, and all the geeks will have moved away from the D&D theater anyway.
It being a D&D movie, though, you always have a 5% chance of failure when trying to sneak in. Always.
Almost any posting that does not say "Good" things abour Gore or Nader gets moderated down. And thanks to the new "improved" metamoderation systems if you try to correct those mods you will get punished because you do not agree with the majority of people who metamoderate.
Here's a question for ya'll:
If the Libertarians come onto Slashdot and post that the invisible hand should be the only form of government, and they get modded down and out of sight, does that make them right or wrong?
(Incidentally, the metamoderation system is the reason I am no longer willing to moderate.)
No matter HOW much money a person makes, it is NOT right to feel you can dig a good chunk of it out of their pocket, because they can afford it.
Unless, that is, you have evidence that, contrary to what their daddy told them, their success, wealth, and income are dependent upon federal actions and infrastructure, like highways, foreign trade negotiations (NAFTA, anyone?), and so forth.
When Dick Cheney said that the government had nothing to do with his success, I suspect he was "exaggerating," as people have taken to calling the mistakes (simple errors) and lies (simple deceits) coming from Gore's mouth.
Slashdot Mirror
Phantom Menace did have cool effects at least, which my spoiled ass thinks the first three did not (although they made it much worse in the Special Editions)
You know, it's really funny. I remember watching _Empire_ on video when it was about 10 years old (about the time that Jurassic Park came out) and thinking, "These asteroid effects are AMAZING, who needs computers anyway?" Then I discovered that it was Not to Be ReReleased until the Special Ed. was out. You're right: the SE made the movies much worse -- but you're also wrong: the effects in the original _Empire_ were incredible.
he really didn't answer the question asked about the Tiny Toons... Yes, I guess it would ahve been a certain age group watching that series (I was one of them) but I didn't get my start w/TMBG w/that show..
I would say that the show did give them a little more widespread acceptance but it wasn't a BIG reason for their fame.
I think the main credit for TMBG's fame is their tireless dedication to the music and the fans. I never saw this Tiny Toons episode, but I can think of a number of other things that would have made TMBG fans out of various folks -- touring with Frank Black, for example, or Dial-a-Song, or the numerous interviews they give. What it comes down to is that they're professionals, but also nice people, and they've prospered as a result.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cassini is screwed up. JPL has a problem with that (NOT Lockheed. JPL didn't bother to notice what units were being used for thrust, they just assumed they were metric).
Why is it even an issue what type of units they're going to use? Of _course_ they assumed metric units, they're engineers. Any firm that uses a system of measurement based on a wooden rod that was destroyed by fire years ago is not qualified to explore outer space.
In my scheme, planets are non-star bodies never having had any fusion of any kind in their cores (excluding brown dwarfs), that are large enough to be roughly spherical.
When I was way back in eighth grade, taking "earth sciences," I was told that we're not sure whether or not some minor fusion occurs in the Earth's core? Is this something that's been disproven, or was I just making it up?
Instead of sending a high tech piece of machinery across the system which will be obsolete by the time it gets there, why not send high tech equipment (or even food) half way around the world to real people who can use it before its expiry date comes of age.
This is a pretty common argument against NASA. It seems to assume two things:
1) A economy can and should gear toward one particular goal or product sector, like "guns" or "butter."
2) A NASA probe launched in 2004 will be obsolete by the time it reaches its distant destination, presumeably because your Gateway Yourware lease has been renewed three times in that time.
These are both, of course, false. No economy is able to efficiently produce only one product, and no society is able to satisfactorily move toward one goal. To think of it in the simplest possible terms, imagine you have 1000 people with advanced degrees at your disposal. Some are lawyers, some are medical doctors, some are engineers -- the distribution of degrees is not under your control. You're always going to end up with a number of them who are entirely unqualified to meaningfully work on a world hunger project. Fortunately, you can solve the problems of world hunger with only 1% of your GDP. So why not put the astrophysicists and computer scientists on your team onto a project other than world hunger?
In other words, we're talking about 500 million, here. My _county_ has a larger budget than that.
Also, I'd like to point out that a large number of the engineers and scientists who work for NASA and the defense contracters (who would probably bid on the PKE probe) make good enough salaries that they, as private individuals, send money or equipment halfway across the world to real people, usually their families.
As for your perception of obsolescence, you're either buying the Dell/Gateway/Compaq FUD that you need to upgrade a machine every five years, or you're simply employing Zeno's paradox:
"Can we send it now, sir?"
"No, we've got a better camera in development."
"How about now, sir?"
"No, this new engine will do it better."
"Now?"
"Wait on the improved energy source. This is going to be one _rocking_ probe!"
"Uh, sir?"
"The bastards gave our funding to a 'faith-based' endowment to promote space exploration. Bleeding Scientologists...."
Recently, president Clinton signed a law stating that any state which did not set a 0.08 blood alchohol level standard for DUI would lose (some) federal funding for highways. The DUI laws (and standards) are entirely in the states' authority, not the federal. In effect, the federal government has usurped a power reserved for the states.
Sorry pal, but I'm pretty sure that if you asked your local governor, state delegate, or Supreme Court justice about this one, he or she would tell you that Congress is just regulating commerce among the states. Article I, section 8. You know -- drunk driver hits a tractor trailer on one of those federally funded Post Roads mentioned in same section.
Why is it that states' righters always complain about things like federal speed limit laws and DUI laws? It makes it sound like you're saying "I want to be allowed to recklessly endanger my fellow citizens" rather than "I want the governor and state legislature to decide what's dangerous and what's not."
I agree that there's a big case to be made for states' rights these days, but DUI laws are not the proper angle of attack.
Another pet peeve I have with states' rights advocates, and this is something I _didn't_ see in your post, but you should still watch out for when talking to others, is the fellah who'll argue that a federal regulation is a violation of constitutional liberty and how only the states should be allowed to regulate this sort of thing, and then when a state tries to regulate it, he keeps on going about how government _in general_ should not violate our _philosophical_ liberties...the impression I get from this is that these folks (who write for the CATO Institute, BTW, I'm not talking about people I read on alt.flame) assume that federal govt.=strong and therefore =bad, and state governments are naturally weak and confused, so they're OK.
I do remember a certain sense of frustration in ZORK I at trying to recreate the programmers' idea of a "correct procedure" for solving puzzles, which could sometimes lead to that wonderful YOU HAVE DIED (asterixes excluded) message. However, at the time, I was eight years old and had never heard the phrase "bell, book, and candle."
In the case of the Hitchhiker's Babel Fish scene, however, I think you're missing the point that it was supposed to be _fun_ to have the Vogons take you away and blast you. That entire game conspired against the player in ingenious ways, like the exit "to port" which is actually aft (or vice-versa?). If it makes you feel better, by the time I got my hands on a copy of HHG for my Apple, it was the early 90s, and my disk drive was broken in such a way that I couldn't save games. So I had to start from the beginning every time I died in that game. Despite that user-side technical hiccup, it's still one of the most enjoyable games I've ever played.
I spent all my time going "I remember there's something you need to get out of the fscking house that lets you go across the rainbow in the gulf or something like that... How do I get it?"
You cross the rainbow by waving the sceptre you find in the temple.
Of course, without the brass lantern, which is found in the house, you are unlikely to suceed in that endeavor.
You know how in _Farenheit 451_ people "become" books by memorizing them? In the dystopia of the future, when now interpreters for the "Z-machine" are available, I'll "become" Zork I-III and allow someone else to take care of weightier matters for me.
(My favorite ZORK game was the third one. The strange rotating multi-panelled room at the end verged on the ridiculous in its complexity; that room was probably the only place in ZORK where a GUI (like Myst) would have been better than the text interface.)
Whew. For a second there, I thought this article would be a list of projects and technologies abandoned by Apple after Steve Jobs took over.
:)
That said, the e-mate's handwriting recognition interface should be on the list.
Solar Power does require quite a bit of acreage to supply a lot of electricity, but imagine what it could do to _supplement_ the current grid in a city like, say, Washington, DC.
Put a photovolt panel on top of every traffic light in the city. Those power the traffic lights. Put photovolt panels on the rooftops of major buildings, and you power things like stairwell lights, elevators, exterior lights for the building. Put photovolt panels on top of streetlamps. All of these systems can switch to the main fossil-burning grid as a "backup."
The technology will advance by leaps and bounds if state and national governments decide to invest in it.
Ralph Nader, speaking at Madison Square Garden in October, talked about solar power projects. He claimed that the reason the tech hasn't advanced much since the 70s was that the fossil fuel companies don't want it to, because once every consumer has solar panels powering their electric stoves, the utility companies won't be able to control the prices by eclipsing the sun.
"Every since the dawn of Man he has yearned to destroy the sun."
--Montgomery Burns
There's also wind power, tidal current generation, lots of things that can be looked into. A-and don't forget fuel cell technology, which can quietly and efficiently power an entire office building with one ENIAC-sized (or smaller)room.
The Rev. Maskelyne, the villain of _Longitude_ (in, I believe, Sobel's own words), also makes an appearance in Pynchon's _Mason & Dixon_. Said novel includes a scene of Maskeylene's clock talking to Mason's clock, IIRC.
Yes, next week on slashdot.org:
+Book reviews: _Origin of the Species_ by Charles Darwin and _Caves of Steel_ by Isaac Asimov.
+Technology: preview of Microsoft's "Windows 95."
+United States: analysis and discussion of the Clinton-Dole election results.
Timothy, please understand: I mock you because you have the gall to think slashdot readers haven't heard of an international bestseller that came out five years ago.
I remember the first time I used a Mac with one of those bloody control strips. I spent an hour trying to switch it off. I defies use. Like the Windows Start menu and the Gnome/KDE strips it take up space and is a half-arsed replacement for a decent file/application manager.
You're trolling, right?
Try using the "Control Strip" control panel. Click on "Hide Control Strip."
What about the moon? Anything worth getting there?
Yes. Read the article. First paragraph of the section that starts "Figuring out how...."
Also, just hypothetically, what would happen if a private group or company landed on the moon and set up a perminent base. Would they own it?
The 1979 Moon Treaty bans private appropriation of lunar territory or materials. So no, probably not. The USA never ratified this treaty, though, so who knows what could happen?
How do define ownership? People, or rather NASA, seems to think that space is theirs. Sooner or later people will get out there. And then what? Have someone decide that they own Mars, or that asteroid, or anything.
This article talks about making/saving money up there, but that alone opens the door to tremendous conflict over ownership.
There's actually a multi-lateral treaty on the books re: ownership of objects in space. It's the 1967 Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies. The common title is the "Space Treaty." (There's a second treaty from 1979 that deals with the Moon exclusively.)
The Space Treaty says that no _states_ have sovreignity over celestial bodies (private parties are not considered by the treaty), and that outer space is "the province of all mankind," but adds that any vehicle or object launched from Earth into space remains in the sovereign control of the government that launched it.
The Moon Treaty, which was never ratified by the USA, specifically bans appropriation of lunar territory by private parties. The implication is that the earlier Space Treaty did not ban such appropriation of "celestial bodies."
The general impression that I get from the (little) literature that I've read on the subject (and, BTW, IANAL) is that space exploration will inherit a lot of law and tradition from ocean exploration, the other great frontier of the next century. There may someday have to be a United Nations commission that grants asteroid mining patents, much the same way the U.S. government granted/grants patents for claiming and mining federal land in the West.
What I suppose I'm trying to say is that when NASA, ASARCO, or whoever sends the first prototype mining vessels to near-Earth asteroids, they will find...lawyers.
Traditionally it was held that magnetic fields have no effect on living organisms - but this is far from true. Given a constant force present in the environment it makes sense that a creature would evolve to account for it in some way. The earth has had a magnetic field since the dawn of life - it is not surprising that living creatures take advantage of it.
NOAA warns that class G1 and above magnetic storms may affect animal migrations.
Yup.
Did anyone else notice a similarity between Jamie's vision of voting in the year 2004 and the news blurb "Man Builds House He Designed When He Was Eight Years Old" in this week's Onion?
There is no way to conclude that a voter in Texas has more power in the electoral system. If you were a Rep, well, your vote didn't matter because everyone else is too. If you were a Dem, your vote was 100% worthless, because it has 0 impact on the election, and 0% chance of turning the election.
:)
This means that, not only were Texas voters without any power, there was also no need for either major candidate to campaign there. This would be like a world series in which it is a foregone conclusion that game 2 is going to the Yankees, so neither the Yankees nor the Pirates show up to play.
Your argument is limited to this election, and is based on a few faulty assumptions, as well. The specific "foregone conclusion" here is not structural, but strategic -- if this were the World Series, the manager of the NL team decided to rest his players. Your statement seems to imply something more like "NL team will always lose on astroturf." (The baseball analogy dissolves after this point, so I won't get more specific than that.)
The Dems's decision to not "mess with Texas" is questionable (what happened to the Texas of Lloyd Bentsen, Ann Richards, and LBJ, huh?), but I don't think it can be held as indicative of a larger failing of the electoral system.
Finally, I'd like to point out that Texas (or any state) is free to choose its method of assigning electors as it will. It doesn't have to be winner-take-all in the state, but only the people of that state can decide whether it should be or not. If Texans (or Californians, etc.) feel that their votes for President are marginalized b/c of the current electoral system, then perhaps they should start a campaign to change the state government.
Of course, such a campaign would be ill-advised with first examining the issue in a forum possessed of more academic rigor than Slashdot.
If they are truly interested in checking for irregularities, why not check election procedures in all 50 states? Gore won California by only 5%. Let's check and see how many CA voters were illegal aliens. Nah. Democrats aren't interested in that since the illegal aliens prefer Gore over Bush.
You're toeing the fine line between troll and Buchanan supporter there, friend.
So how do we fix the pollution that has been caused already. Well, why don't we have the government pay for it like we do now? (Superfund) This makes you and me, the average shmoe have to pay for big belching factories' boo-boos. Well, what Nader is proposing is simply taxing pollutors. Think of it as a pollution fine or "paying for the privalage" of f*cking up our ecosystem.
What is wrong about asking those responsible for pollution to contribute the most to fix.
IANAL, but from my understanding of the law, you seem to be misinformed on the workings of Superfund, which is the common name for the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) of 1980, 42 U.S.C. section 9601 et. seq.
Here's how Superfund works (AFAIK):
1) EPA, or usually a state EPA, discovers pollution.
2) EPA, or its contractors, are called in to clean up the pollution. Depending on the situation, the clean-up is either an immediate, short-term response action, or a long-term recovery action. EPA pays its cleanup contractors out of a big pile of cash known as the Superfund.
3) In the meantime, usually before EPA's contractors have gotten the OK to start a cleanup, EPA's lawyers have identified one or several possible Principal Responsible Parties (PRPs), who can be the owners of the land, owners or operators of the facility from which the pollution originated, or a variety of other persons or corporations.
4) Once the clean-up is in its final stages, and the dollar cost of the cleanup is known to the EPA, legal action is taken against the PRPs to determine liability for and recover the costs of the cleanup. Those who are found liable (either in settlement or in a federal court action) write a check to the Superfund.
The idea of the Superfund is that if the pollution is, indeed, a threat to human health, human welfare, or the environment, it wouldn't do to well to sit around for a few years trying to get the money to clean it up from the polluters. They pay retroactively.
Sometimes, the government does end up paying for it, because a PRP cannot be found, or no PRP can be found liable. But also sometimes, countries don't pay for the costs of wars they waged against other countries (reparations).
Yeah, but what do you expect?
Trailers are often produced by the same sort of studios that make commerical jingles, etc. They are, after all, just 2-minute long ads for a movie. Also, the soundtrack is usually the last thing added to a movie. As such, they usually resort to libraries of soundtracks for the trailer. Swordfights get Orff. Ominous alien movies get the theme from _Alien_. Happy movies get that same freakin' Third Eye Blind song. And so on.
Why is it that trailers are so popular on the web, when the product itself is so lousy, they're so heavy on bandwidth, and all they're good for is to let you know what you should be buying in a few months?
Sneak into the movie without paying for it.
Problem solved!
Actually, this raises the new issue of harm to the theater at which the movie is playing, which gets half the ticket price. Always remember the labor relations angle to any political problem. You don't want 16-year-old popcorn-selling kids out on the streets, do you?
My recommendation is that you pay to see an independent film at that theater, and then see the D&D movie instead. For best results, do this after Lord of the Rings has oppened, 'cuz the theater management will have concentrated all of its bouncer-powers onto that particular theater, and all the geeks will have moved away from the D&D theater anyway.
It being a D&D movie, though, you always have a 5% chance of failure when trying to sneak in. Always.
Can anyone explain the comment at the end of the article about one being "a smidgen above zero"? Was this a scientist joke, or did I miss something?
Almost any posting that does not say "Good" things abour Gore or Nader gets moderated down. And thanks to the new "improved" metamoderation systems if you try to correct those mods you will get punished because you do not agree with the majority of people who metamoderate.
Here's a question for ya'll:
If the Libertarians come onto Slashdot and post that the invisible hand should be the only form of government, and they get modded down and out of sight, does that make them right or wrong?
(Incidentally, the metamoderation system is the reason I am no longer willing to moderate.)
No matter HOW much money a person makes, it is NOT right to feel you can dig a good chunk of it out of their pocket, because they can afford it.
Unless, that is, you have evidence that, contrary to what their daddy told them, their success, wealth, and income are dependent upon federal actions and infrastructure, like highways, foreign trade negotiations (NAFTA, anyone?), and so forth.
When Dick Cheney said that the government had nothing to do with his success, I suspect he was "exaggerating," as people have taken to calling the mistakes (simple errors) and lies (simple deceits) coming from Gore's mouth.