About 1/4 of the United States has experianced that. We call it the US Civil War (the ones who were invaded call it the War of Northern Agression)
Granted, it's been 140 years since the US was invaded by anything other than the Sony and Toyota corporations, but the memories of the Southern Good Ol' Boys are long and bitter. Even though Great Great Grampa was the last person in the family to hold a musket and kill some Yankees, Lil Johnny Reb has got a confederate flag over the back of his pick up (made in Michigan, but who's counting).
There are no "rights" in the international system. Who will garuntee them? Soverign States have the ability to defy multi-national organizations so long as no international will exists to enforce what those organizations do. Saddam capitalized on that. The United States does too.
States have whatever "Natural Rights" the system affords them. Since the international system is one of Anarchy those rights are literaly unbounded. In short, whatever they can get away with.
Does the United States have the right to carry out a nuclear holocaust against Iraq? Yes... but other countries have the right to respond as they see fit.
The only place a government is given rights is within it's own boarders. Locke stipulates that a government has a contract with its citizens. Jefferson echos that in his famous (and oft quoted on slashdot) remark "The tree of liberty must be refereshed from time to time with the blood of patriots." Translated from Jefferspeak, that means that the government rules only with the consent of the governered. It means that the people must be willing to give their lives to ensure that the government does not get out of hand.
With respect to military force abroad though, the only check is the willingness of the people of a State to go fight. Professional armies tend to shy away from this, though in wars that are massively unpopular reistance is still encountered (see Vietnam... where a professional army wasn't enough, the draft was used... and resisted).
England wasn't established by a war WITHIN ENGLAND.
If you'll recall, however, the beginings of the English Parlimentry Democracy were set forth in the Magna Carta (the first step to establishing a democracy is to neuter the king).
Now the Magna Carta was signed by John the Softsword (John II? I forget) while Richard the Lionheart was off fighting a crusade (the 3rd I think).
At this point John was forced to sign the Magna Carta (Runnymede in 1215). John wasn't happy about this, and tried to go back on his word.
In 1216 he intentionaly violated the Magna Carta. His barrons declared war on him shortly thereafter.
So as you can see, it took two wars to give birth to the British Democracy. One of them involved killing Muslims. No wonder Blair thinks that's how its done.
I think the key issue here is the fundamental differences between a brick and morter establishment and a web based one. Now, I understand the legal differences between an order placed on line and buying something at the checkout at wallmart, but look at it from the customers point of view.
When I walk up to the counter at wallmart to buy an item I pay for it, they hand it to me, and I take it home. It's mine now. The price can not be contested. I take it out of the store and take it home.
Any questions about the price have to be resolved at the checkout register or thereabouts. Once I've left the store, with our without the product, the negotion phase is over. I either have or do not have the product.
With a web based retailer things are different. I give them my credit card information and they say the order is placed. I then exit the website and (may) receive an email telling me that my order is being processed.
Subjectively, from the customer's point of view the transaction is now closed. Customers will now record the transaction, etc. Most web-vendors will send you a recipt as part of the order.
The point is that at this point both the customer at Wallmart and the one at Wallmart.com see the transaction as over.
Only in the case of the web store does wallmart have the right to decide, after the fact, that the pricing was inaccurate and renegotiate the contract. Granted, technicly there was no contract in the first place, but the customer has certainly left the site with the impression that there was.
This may not be illegal. It may not even be immortal. But it is deceptive. It does not make me, as a customer, feel comfortable dealing with these parties.
When does the "price mistake" stop being a price mistake? Amazon uses either a LIFO (stack) or FIFO (queue) invantory model. Are "price mistakes" at Amazon subject to changes in supplier prices?
When this happens at Christmas or around a birthday this can drasticly affect someone's plans. Little Timmy's present was all taken care of until Amazon hikes the price on me claiming a "mistake." Now I have to re-order from somewhere else, find something at a brick and morter establishment, or accecpt their new price? Either way it's pay Amazon's new hike or take a cut in convenience/timelyness.
Come on people. Many of us design user interfaces for a living. You don't let people do something suicidialy stupid without at least asking "Are you SURE you want to do this?" How hard would it be for Amazon to flag questionable data, requiring approval before posting?
The proper way to say "thanks" for taking care of me for a dozen or so years is to love your parrents and try to help them as best you can.
Providing my parrents with tech-support serves only to convice me that my parrents are brain-dead. It also manages to instill my father with the paranoid fear that I am conspiring to destroy his (non-functional, or why would he call me) computer.
My family is a much happier and healther thing if they just call Gateway/Dell/whoever. I thank them by having them do that... and buying them gear that has a warentee for that sort of thing.
In 2006 Congress passed the Digital Piracy Prevention Act, increasing the minimum sentance for on-line piracy to 50 years in prison and a fine for the market value of the content pirated. The Homeland Security Agency was tasked with protecting the nations intelectual property and a new division created for the enforcement of on-line laws and regulations. In a bizarre parody of fiction, this force became known as Net-Force in reference to a partuclarly bad series of books published by the Tom Clancy estate.
Net Force derived most of of its power from the Patriot I, and II bills, removing its need for warrents, or even probably cause for its various searches and seizures. Rumor and accusation were enough to incur its wrath.
Ownership of a private personal computer soon became a liability in the United States. By 2014 every personal computer was required to have a unique government identification number and to pay a licence fee to the Federal Government to fund the organizations necessary to monitor it.
In 2015 the maffia entered the picture. Using chips and other components aquired overseas, small illegal hack-houses began building and distributing pirate systems. Specificly designed without the vulribilities Net Force and the DOHS required, these systems provided an expensive but unregulated medium to exchange information.
I suppose I could add more, but lets leave that up to someone else. Sure, it's largly based on that love song for napster peice... but is it really so much of a stretch?
Or you could take a tip from the Kennedy's and try playing football while sking.
Seriously. Wearable computing has its place. That place is generaly not in athletics. Sure, there are some devices that could be usefull, but for the most part those devices will incorporate low profile displays with minimal data so as to allow you to concentrate on what's important.
In the case of skiing, that would be the Blue Spruce you're plumeting towards at 55 MPH.
Frankly I don't need to know that the Blue Spruce is a member of the Picea Genus, Species Pungens. Nor do I need to know the average height, density, and, and chemical compositions of the trees wood. I need to be able to see the damn thing so I don't hit it with my face.
On the other hand, being able to read a novel on the chair lift, or being given small unobtrusive guidance to the trail I select would be great.
To me a cell phone isn't a leash. I'm more than happy to put it in total silent mode and not pay it the slightest heed when it rings. My cell is there for my conveniance, and not anyone elses. If I don't want to be reached that's my priority. They've no idea if it's just low on battery power, still in the car, or if I left it in my breifcase in vibrate mode.
"Sorry I missed your call"
The same applies with wireless wearable gear. You don't have to treat it like a leash. Granted, the world will probably not be a better place when the cell phone chatting ditzy blondes at the supermarket are replaced by Soap Opera watching ditzy blondes. At the same time, the ability to access information in as much depth as the user desires at all times would be invaluable. With decent GPS and image recognition technology the possibilities are vitualy limitless.
Just please don't go sking with this on, or the Ski Patrol will be be removing the USB port from your nostrils with a pair of tweezers.
The question the McD's execs should be asking themselves is this. If they're not eating at our chain, where are they eating?
If the answer is "other fast food joints" then wi-fi is a good plan. It makes McD's unique in some way, and will add something to McD's in a feild of relitively identical goods.
Once again I get to explain how deterance theory works and once again I will be ignored. Tis my lot in life.
First lets start with some definitions.
1.) Weapons Of Mass Destruction - One could make an argument that anything more dangerous than a large stick or handy rock constitutes such a weapon, but for the sake of this argument we'll define WOMD as Chemical, Nuclear, or Biological Weapons.
2.) First Strike Capability - The ability to hit an opponent with a WOMD at will, or at least with a modest effort.
3.) Second Strike Capability - The ability to protect WOMD from a first strike thereby allowing a retalitory strike no matter how powerfull the first strike was.
4.) Rational Actor - Someone who's not totaly insane. In short, a person or country that reacts to threats in a logical manner. (no heros, suicides, or zelots need apply)
Now lets look at the situation with Iraq.
Assumed - Iraq has Weapons of Mass Destruction.
From this assumption we can infer that Iraq has a first strike capability, if not against the United States itself, against US interests in Europe and Israel. Not all WOMD need be launched on missiles. Boats, trucks, crop-dusters, and heavy bombers are also accecptable methods of deploying them.
But does Iraq have a second strike capability. Should the United States or some other country decide to provide the Middle East with "The Great Glass Parking Facility" where Iraq currently exists it is highly unlikely that Iraqi WOMD would survive the attack. No evidence of hardened silos exists, nor does anyone think that Iraq has a submarine with NBC (Nuke/Bio/Chemical) capability. Thus Iraq has no second strike capability.
Let us now assume that Iraq and Saddam are rational actors. That is to say that Saddam wishes to remain in power and that he wishes to protect himself and his country from massive military force.
We know that Saddam has WOMD and no second strike capability. This means that Saddam's rational responce (should he feel that an attempt to oust him from power is impending) would be to raise the cost of an attack as high as possible by useing his WOMD on attacking troops and the attacking country. Why? Because conventional resistance by his forces has allready been proven to be inadequate. Saddam will feel himself in a "use it or loose it" position with his WOMD and will surely deploy them at the first sign of a march on Baghdad.
That said, let us examine the United States.
Saddam, while in possession of WOMD, is ulikely to hand them off to Terrorists etc. Why? Because most of these chemicals and bio-agents are traceable. It would not take an intelegence coup to determine where a large quantity of VX gas came from, or what strain of Anthrax was sprayed over a given city. Similarly, more vicious viruses like Small Pox and any hemoragic fevers the Iraqis might have gotten their hands on are rare and fairly easy to keep track of.
This means that Saddam would and could expect a retaliation even if he used terrorist organizations to deploy his weapons for him, let alone if he used a missile or launched from a boat etc.
Retaliation amounts to nuclear weapons which goes right back to Saddam out of power and the Big Glass Parking Lot senario. Worst possible outcome for Iraq.
Thus we can assume that Saddam would not use his weapons against a similarly equiped target.
So why is the US pushing for war with Iraq? War will almost certainly lead to one of two possible outcomes.
1 - The US fails to oust Saddam. Hilarity ensues. 2 - The US mounts a successfull march on Baghadad, and Saddam uses WOMD to defend the city.
Since both of these options suck, we might try the second option. The US is simply blustering. Now, I don't belive that for a second, but it is the only logical and rational action to take at this time.
There are instances where the Rational Actor model can fail. This may be one of those options. You might remember that Saddam made plans to have George HW Bush assassinated some time ago. President Bush may not have taken planned attempts on the life of his father well. A family vendeta takes Bush out of the Rational Actor model. His priorities would then no longer line up with what is best for the United States. Bush then becomes a loose cannon on the International Stage... and we can expect him to... well... do pretty much what he's doing right now.
Right now only time will tell. If this comes to war it won't be pretty. It'll be prettier than a war with China... but then again most things are.
Or maybe the Aliens will send a giant probe that will send ultrasonic messages into the oceans in an attempt to get a certain harmonic to occur in New Zion.
Of course this will disrupt earths weather pattersn and the AI will send someone back in time to 1980s San Fransisco in order to capture two completely sentient members of the human race.
This is getting confusing. I wonder if they'll run into Sara Conner.
To be fair, sticky tape generaly does not refer to celophane tape (which is the non-brand-specific name for Scotch(tm) Tape). Sticky tape refers to a fabric based tape (rather than plastic) with a fairly viscus adhesive applied in substantial quantity.
Duct Tape (another brand blur if I remember correctly) is a perfect example of such sticky tape. It is used heavily in biological containment because the layer of adhesive acts as an effective barrier to foreign substances and the flexable tape can be fitted into a seel around nearly any junction/opening/gap/etc.
I thought they could be used to transport patients infected with truely horrific and contagious diseases, but that's about it. Oh, and they're pretty to look at if you visit Air and Space in DC.
no way dood lol thats the new im chat english:):):) i luv riting like this!!!!! i do this 4 all my schol papers n like get like a's n stuff. im so cool!!! u just wish u were as cool as me!!!:):):)
I'm married to a teacher. I see papers like that go across her desk. She relishes giving them Zeros. -=I=- relish seeing them get Zeros. It's gut wrenching that we're creating a generation that prides itself on its stupidity.
Before you go off on me, no I didn't spell check this. Spelling Nazis cease and desist. I know I'm a worthless clod who can't spell hippopotomu... hipopto... ah fuck it
I will never forget a trip to Japan I took just after I graduated from college. There was a large arcade next to my hotel, and geek that I am, I couldn't resist the idea of checking out the latest and greatest from our friends across the Pacific.
Imagine how supprised I was to find that this arcade contained not only the cutting edge of both American and Japanese gameing companies, but also the old classics as well.
I kept a croud of 15 kids enraptured with my exploits on "Battle of Midway" (or whatever it's called) for about 20 mins before I realized that the plane I was -=flying=- was a Zero and the planes I was shooting down were Mustangs and B29s.
The artical and story both seem to be insinuating that we're reaching a kind of computing nirvana (to quote a previous post) where in the demand for faster processors is falling off.
That simply isn't the case.
Yes, the 64 bit Itaniums are a bit ahead of their time. Google doesn't need them, and there probably aren't billions of dollars in industrial applications for them yet.
But the key word is yet.
Prices WILL fall. Software WILL evolve to take advantage of the new architecture, and in time, I promise you every Dell and Gateway will come standad with a 64 bit architecture. It might not be this month, or even this year, but it will happen.
Applications like voice recognition, real time image processing, and other "killer apps" will make these processors standard and eventualy even outmoded in due course.
And as they become outmoded they will be come cheeper. Eventualy we'll see an artical about the new 128 bit architecture processors from Intel and their affect on the server market (again, none)... and someone will quote Google's CEO as saying "Well no, these won't affect us much, we're rebuilding our server farm using those old Itaniums. Clustering outmoded processors is just cheeper."
Cluster vs Single Processor isn't going to be resolved one way or the other. Some applications need one, some need the other. But companies like Intel will continue to develop faster procesors so long as it is economicaly and technicaly feasable to do so.
I'd say the best technical solution I've seen to breaking the SPAM system is the use of the internets distributed nature against the spammer.
Consider the following. We all access the internet from a fixed and typicaly small number of physical and virtual locations. Were we to map the internet as a whole, starting from any given location the map would look like an expanding cone.
In short, almost all of the traffic from a given point flows through a very small number of servers and routers at some point close to the source.
Since spam messages are sent by the millions and it is fairly easy to determine what messages are likely to BE spam why not set up a filtering system on the routers that determines the rough content of a message based on both its Spam Precentage and the number of identical messages sent.
I.E. If the router sees 500,000 messages of nearly identical content with a 89% spam rating it blocks all of them. If it sees 44 messages with a 23% spam content it lets them through.
Thoughts anyone? I'm sure this idea has gaping flaws in it... what would have to be chnaged for it to work? What are the critical flaws? Is this a viable model or am I missing something major?
So use controled air-space. Since we're talking about a 50B investment here (or whatever) stick it in some part of the Pacific that's well off the established flight paths and keep a huge chunk of air space cordoned off.
That, and due to its enormous height and weight it wouldn't be difficult to mount some fairly impressive and high altitude air defences on it. I don't imagine anyone would be keen to fly towards something that can launch big ugly SAMs from ABOVE them.
Sticking it in the water has the added advantage of allowing spashdown for emergancy evacuation and a very cheep and easy way to move heavy components towards the base for lifting.
My understanding of the shuttle would lead to several possible explanations.
1 - The crew died at 7:59. 2 - As the shuttle re-enters the atmosphere friction generates a huge amount of heat. The atmosphere around the shuttle becomes superheated, and forms a plasma cacoon around the craft. Plasma, as you know, is a highly energetic gas comprised of ions. Not exactly great for radio communication.
I think Columbus and the Atlantic is an excelent paralell. In the 1960s the space program was about one thing, demonstrating american technological and military prowess to the world.
Today, it's about putting satelites in orbit with a government subsidized program. Sure, there are experiments, and those are at least interesting, but the value of those experiments is limited by what they are working with.
So we can grow insulin in space. Great... now if we could just put an insulin production facility in space. See my point?
I want to see NASA get back to its roots. Expanding the scientific horizons, challenging the idea of what's possible. Frankly I think my tax money should pay these people to take enormous risks. That's what the Apollo crews did.
So here's what it boils down to. Space Elevator? All for it. And if it costs me an extra hundred or so on my taxes by all means take it. Catapult launch system? Sounds like fun, just don't lease the land. We should learn a lesson from Panama. Moon outposts? Combine with one of the other technologies and it'll pay for itself in tourism.
I want to see NASA do things that make me proud of what my country can do. I want to turn on the news and be awed and amazed. If we can re-capture the feeling of seeing Earthrise on the moon for the first time, than there is no cost too high. The rewards will far outweigh it.
One of the problems could be that the Star Trek alien races were little more than exagerated reflections of elements in our own world in the 1970s.
The Borg: Making all that it encoutered part of itself, ever expanding. Faceless, lacking individuality and above all ENORMOUSLY huge. -- Red China
The Federation: Defending free space, protecting free trade, espousing high minded idealism and the betterment of the individual -- The United States (free world).
The Vulcans: Perfectly logical creatures devoid of emotion in nearly all respects -- A biological reflection of the beginings of the information age.
The Klingons: Warlike and brutal, obsessed with combat and conquest. -- The Soviet Union
One reason the series is dieing out is that these sterotypes and these ways of viewing the world are vanishing as the Cold War fades from our memory. China becoming part of the world for the first time, the Russians are our friends, and the "neutral territores" i.e. the third world is disappearing rapidly.
Cigarettes are addictive. Nicotine makes Cigarettes addictive. Selling an addictive product to children is wrong.
Nicotine free cigaretts are not addictive, but still carry all the image and appeal (to the youth croud) of smoking. Many here have said the habbit of smoking is just as powerfull as the addiction.
Has anyone considered the possibility that this could be the first step in an attempt to change the tobacco laws into Nicotine laws?
It kills two birds with one stone. Sell cigarettes to minors and tax Niqoderm and Nicorette.
Slashdot Mirror
About 1/4 of the United States has experianced that. We call it the US Civil War (the ones who were invaded call it the War of Northern Agression)
Granted, it's been 140 years since the US was invaded by anything other than the Sony and Toyota corporations, but the memories of the Southern Good Ol' Boys are long and bitter. Even though Great Great Grampa was the last person in the family to hold a musket and kill some Yankees, Lil Johnny Reb has got a confederate flag over the back of his pick up (made in Michigan, but who's counting).
Yes, it did.
There are no "rights" in the international system. Who will garuntee them? Soverign States have the ability to defy multi-national organizations so long as no international will exists to enforce what those organizations do. Saddam capitalized on that. The United States does too.
States have whatever "Natural Rights" the system affords them. Since the international system is one of Anarchy those rights are literaly unbounded. In short, whatever they can get away with.
Does the United States have the right to carry out a nuclear holocaust against Iraq? Yes... but other countries have the right to respond as they see fit.
The only place a government is given rights is within it's own boarders. Locke stipulates that a government has a contract with its citizens. Jefferson echos that in his famous (and oft quoted on slashdot) remark "The tree of liberty must be refereshed from time to time with the blood of patriots." Translated from Jefferspeak, that means that the government rules only with the consent of the governered. It means that the people must be willing to give their lives to ensure that the government does not get out of hand.
With respect to military force abroad though, the only check is the willingness of the people of a State to go fight. Professional armies tend to shy away from this, though in wars that are massively unpopular reistance is still encountered (see Vietnam... where a professional army wasn't enough, the draft was used... and resisted).
England wasn't established by a war WITHIN ENGLAND.
If you'll recall, however, the beginings of the English Parlimentry Democracy were set forth in the Magna Carta (the first step to establishing a democracy is to neuter the king).
Now the Magna Carta was signed by John the Softsword (John II? I forget) while Richard the Lionheart was off fighting a crusade (the 3rd I think).
At this point John was forced to sign the Magna Carta (Runnymede in 1215). John wasn't happy about this, and tried to go back on his word.
In 1216 he intentionaly violated the Magna Carta. His barrons declared war on him shortly thereafter.
So as you can see, it took two wars to give birth to the British Democracy. One of them involved killing Muslims. No wonder Blair thinks that's how its done.
I think the key issue here is the fundamental differences between a brick and morter establishment and a web based one. Now, I understand the legal differences between an order placed on line and buying something at the checkout at wallmart, but look at it from the customers point of view.
When I walk up to the counter at wallmart to buy an item I pay for it, they hand it to me, and I take it home. It's mine now. The price can not be contested. I take it out of the store and take it home.
Any questions about the price have to be resolved at the checkout register or thereabouts. Once I've left the store, with our without the product, the negotion phase is over. I either have or do not have the product.
With a web based retailer things are different. I give them my credit card information and they say the order is placed. I then exit the website and (may) receive an email telling me that my order is being processed.
Subjectively, from the customer's point of view the transaction is now closed. Customers will now record the transaction, etc. Most web-vendors will send you a recipt as part of the order.
The point is that at this point both the customer at Wallmart and the one at Wallmart.com see the transaction as over.
Only in the case of the web store does wallmart have the right to decide, after the fact, that the pricing was inaccurate and renegotiate the contract. Granted, technicly there was no contract in the first place, but the customer has certainly left the site with the impression that there was.
This may not be illegal. It may not even be immortal. But it is deceptive. It does not make me, as a customer, feel comfortable dealing with these parties.
When does the "price mistake" stop being a price mistake? Amazon uses either a LIFO (stack) or FIFO (queue) invantory model. Are "price mistakes" at Amazon subject to changes in supplier prices?
When this happens at Christmas or around a birthday this can drasticly affect someone's plans. Little Timmy's present was all taken care of until Amazon hikes the price on me claiming a "mistake." Now I have to re-order from somewhere else, find something at a brick and morter establishment, or accecpt their new price? Either way it's pay Amazon's new hike or take a cut in convenience/timelyness.
Come on people. Many of us design user interfaces for a living. You don't let people do something suicidialy stupid without at least asking "Are you SURE you want to do this?" How hard would it be for Amazon to flag questionable data, requiring approval before posting?
You misunderstand.
The proper way to say "thanks" for taking care of me for a dozen or so years is to love your parrents and try to help them as best you can.
Providing my parrents with tech-support serves only to convice me that my parrents are brain-dead. It also manages to instill my father with the paranoid fear that I am conspiring to destroy his (non-functional, or why would he call me) computer.
My family is a much happier and healther thing if they just call Gateway/Dell/whoever. I thank them by having them do that... and buying them gear that has a warentee for that sort of thing.
In 2006 Congress passed the Digital Piracy Prevention Act, increasing the minimum sentance for on-line piracy to 50 years in prison and a fine for the market value of the content pirated. The Homeland Security Agency was tasked with protecting the nations intelectual property and a new division created for the enforcement of on-line laws and regulations. In a bizarre parody of fiction, this force became known as Net-Force in reference to a partuclarly bad series of books published by the Tom Clancy estate.
Net Force derived most of of its power from the Patriot I, and II bills, removing its need for warrents, or even probably cause for its various searches and seizures. Rumor and accusation were enough to incur its wrath.
Ownership of a private personal computer soon became a liability in the United States. By 2014 every personal computer was required to have a unique government identification number and to pay a licence fee to the Federal Government to fund the organizations necessary to monitor it.
In 2015 the maffia entered the picture. Using chips and other components aquired overseas, small illegal hack-houses began building and distributing pirate systems. Specificly designed without the vulribilities Net Force and the DOHS required, these systems provided an expensive but unregulated medium to exchange information.
I suppose I could add more, but lets leave that up to someone else. Sure, it's largly based on that love song for napster peice... but is it really so much of a stretch?
Or you could take a tip from the Kennedy's and try playing football while sking.
Seriously. Wearable computing has its place. That place is generaly not in athletics. Sure, there are some devices that could be usefull, but for the most part those devices will incorporate low profile displays with minimal data so as to allow you to concentrate on what's important.
In the case of skiing, that would be the Blue Spruce you're plumeting towards at 55 MPH.
Frankly I don't need to know that the Blue Spruce is a member of the Picea Genus, Species Pungens. Nor do I need to know the average height, density, and, and chemical compositions of the trees wood. I need to be able to see the damn thing so I don't hit it with my face.
On the other hand, being able to read a novel on the chair lift, or being given small unobtrusive guidance to the trail I select would be great.
To me a cell phone isn't a leash. I'm more than happy to put it in total silent mode and not pay it the slightest heed when it rings. My cell is there for my conveniance, and not anyone elses. If I don't want to be reached that's my priority. They've no idea if it's just low on battery power, still in the car, or if I left it in my breifcase in vibrate mode.
"Sorry I missed your call"
The same applies with wireless wearable gear. You don't have to treat it like a leash. Granted, the world will probably not be a better place when the cell phone chatting ditzy blondes at the supermarket are replaced by Soap Opera watching ditzy blondes. At the same time, the ability to access information in as much depth as the user desires at all times would be invaluable. With decent GPS and image recognition technology the possibilities are vitualy limitless.
Just please don't go sking with this on, or the Ski Patrol will be be removing the USB port from your nostrils with a pair of tweezers.
The question the McD's execs should be asking themselves is this. If they're not eating at our chain, where are they eating?
If the answer is "other fast food joints" then wi-fi is a good plan. It makes McD's unique in some way, and will add something to McD's in a feild of relitively identical goods.
My understanding was that the moon missions were undertaken to communicate one thing and one thing only.
If we can land a little tinfoil lander on at target some 380,000 (and change) kilometers away, we can damn sure land a warhead on Moscow.
Once again I get to explain how deterance theory works and once again I will be ignored. Tis my lot in life.
First lets start with some definitions.
1.) Weapons Of Mass Destruction - One could make an argument that anything more dangerous than a large stick or handy rock constitutes such a weapon, but for the sake of this argument we'll define WOMD as Chemical, Nuclear, or Biological Weapons.
2.) First Strike Capability - The ability to hit an opponent with a WOMD at will, or at least with a modest effort.
3.) Second Strike Capability - The ability to protect WOMD from a first strike thereby allowing a retalitory strike no matter how powerfull the first strike was.
4.) Rational Actor - Someone who's not totaly insane. In short, a person or country that reacts to threats in a logical manner. (no heros, suicides, or zelots need apply)
Now lets look at the situation with Iraq.
Assumed - Iraq has Weapons of Mass Destruction.
From this assumption we can infer that Iraq has a first strike capability, if not against the United States itself, against US interests in Europe and Israel. Not all WOMD need be launched on missiles. Boats, trucks, crop-dusters, and heavy bombers are also accecptable methods of deploying them.
But does Iraq have a second strike capability. Should the United States or some other country decide to provide the Middle East with "The Great Glass Parking Facility" where Iraq currently exists it is highly unlikely that Iraqi WOMD would survive the attack. No evidence of hardened silos exists, nor does anyone think that Iraq has a submarine with NBC (Nuke/Bio/Chemical) capability. Thus Iraq has no second strike capability.
Let us now assume that Iraq and Saddam are rational actors. That is to say that Saddam wishes to remain in power and that he wishes to protect himself and his country from massive military force.
We know that Saddam has WOMD and no second strike capability. This means that Saddam's rational responce (should he feel that an attempt to oust him from power is impending) would be to raise the cost of an attack as high as possible by useing his WOMD on attacking troops and the attacking country. Why? Because conventional resistance by his forces has allready been proven to be inadequate. Saddam will feel himself in a "use it or loose it" position with his WOMD and will surely deploy them at the first sign of a march on Baghdad.
That said, let us examine the United States.
Saddam, while in possession of WOMD, is ulikely to hand them off to Terrorists etc. Why? Because most of these chemicals and bio-agents are traceable. It would not take an intelegence coup to determine where a large quantity of VX gas came from, or what strain of Anthrax was sprayed over a given city. Similarly, more vicious viruses like Small Pox and any hemoragic fevers the Iraqis might have gotten their hands on are rare and fairly easy to keep track of.
This means that Saddam would and could expect a retaliation even if he used terrorist organizations to deploy his weapons for him, let alone if he used a missile or launched from a boat etc.
Retaliation amounts to nuclear weapons which goes right back to Saddam out of power and the Big Glass Parking Lot senario. Worst possible outcome for Iraq.
Thus we can assume that Saddam would not use his weapons against a similarly equiped target.
So why is the US pushing for war with Iraq? War will almost certainly lead to one of two possible outcomes.
1 - The US fails to oust Saddam. Hilarity ensues.
2 - The US mounts a successfull march on Baghadad, and Saddam uses WOMD to defend the city.
Since both of these options suck, we might try the second option. The US is simply blustering. Now, I don't belive that for a second, but it is the only logical and rational action to take at this time.
There are instances where the Rational Actor model can fail. This may be one of those options. You might remember that Saddam made plans to have George HW Bush assassinated some time ago. President Bush may not have taken planned attempts on the life of his father well. A family vendeta takes Bush out of the Rational Actor model. His priorities would then no longer line up with what is best for the United States. Bush then becomes a loose cannon on the International Stage... and we can expect him to... well... do pretty much what he's doing right now.
Right now only time will tell. If this comes to war it won't be pretty. It'll be prettier than a war with China... but then again most things are.
That's not quite fair. America has chosen enemies capable of inflicting that kind of damage. Then we let the Russians and the French fight them.
Why fight a bloody and costly war when you can get someone else to fight it for you?
Or maybe the Aliens will send a giant probe that will send ultrasonic messages into the oceans in an attempt to get a certain harmonic to occur in New Zion.
Of course this will disrupt earths weather pattersn and the AI will send someone back in time to 1980s San Fransisco in order to capture two completely sentient members of the human race.
This is getting confusing. I wonder if they'll run into Sara Conner.
To be fair, sticky tape generaly does not refer to celophane tape (which is the non-brand-specific name for Scotch(tm) Tape). Sticky tape refers to a fabric based tape (rather than plastic) with a fairly viscus adhesive applied in substantial quantity.
Duct Tape (another brand blur if I remember correctly) is a perfect example of such sticky tape. It is used heavily in biological containment because the layer of adhesive acts as an effective barrier to foreign substances and the flexable tape can be fitted into a seel around nearly any junction/opening/gap/etc.
I thought they could be used to transport patients infected with truely horrific and contagious diseases, but that's about it. Oh, and they're pretty to look at if you visit Air and Space in DC.
no way dood lol thats the new im chat english :):):) i luv riting like this!!!!! i do this 4 all my schol papers n like get like a's n stuff. im so cool!!! u just wish u were as cool as me!!! :):):)
I'm married to a teacher. I see papers like that go across her desk. She relishes giving them Zeros. -=I=- relish seeing them get Zeros. It's gut wrenching that we're creating a generation that prides itself on its stupidity.
Before you go off on me, no I didn't spell check this. Spelling Nazis cease and desist. I know I'm a worthless clod who can't spell hippopotomu... hipopto... ah fuck it
I will never forget a trip to Japan I took just after I graduated from college. There was a large arcade next to my hotel, and geek that I am, I couldn't resist the idea of checking out the latest and greatest from our friends across the Pacific.
Imagine how supprised I was to find that this arcade contained not only the cutting edge of both American and Japanese gameing companies, but also the old classics as well.
I kept a croud of 15 kids enraptured with my exploits on "Battle of Midway" (or whatever it's called) for about 20 mins before I realized that the plane I was -=flying=- was a Zero and the planes I was shooting down were Mustangs and B29s.
Yeoch.
But no that's not the point.
The artical and story both seem to be insinuating that we're reaching a kind of computing nirvana (to quote a previous post) where in the demand for faster processors is falling off.
That simply isn't the case.
Yes, the 64 bit Itaniums are a bit ahead of their time. Google doesn't need them, and there probably aren't billions of dollars in industrial applications for them yet.
But the key word is yet.
Prices WILL fall. Software WILL evolve to take advantage of the new architecture, and in time, I promise you every Dell and Gateway will come standad with a 64 bit architecture. It might not be this month, or even this year, but it will happen.
Applications like voice recognition, real time image processing, and other "killer apps" will make these processors standard and eventualy even outmoded in due course.
And as they become outmoded they will be come cheeper. Eventualy we'll see an artical about the new 128 bit architecture processors from Intel and their affect on the server market (again, none)... and someone will quote Google's CEO as saying "Well no, these won't affect us much, we're rebuilding our server farm using those old Itaniums. Clustering outmoded processors is just cheeper."
Cluster vs Single Processor isn't going to be resolved one way or the other. Some applications need one, some need the other. But companies like Intel will continue to develop faster procesors so long as it is economicaly and technicaly feasable to do so.
And THAT, is the point (IMNSHO).
I'd say the best technical solution I've seen to breaking the SPAM system is the use of the internets distributed nature against the spammer.
Consider the following. We all access the internet from a fixed and typicaly small number of physical and virtual locations. Were we to map the internet as a whole, starting from any given location the map would look like an expanding cone.
In short, almost all of the traffic from a given point flows through a very small number of servers and routers at some point close to the source.
Since spam messages are sent by the millions and it is fairly easy to determine what messages are likely to BE spam why not set up a filtering system on the routers that determines the rough content of a message based on both its Spam Precentage and the number of identical messages sent.
I.E. If the router sees 500,000 messages of nearly identical content with a 89% spam rating it blocks all of them. If it sees 44 messages with a 23% spam content it lets them through.
Thoughts anyone? I'm sure this idea has gaping flaws in it... what would have to be chnaged for it to work? What are the critical flaws? Is this a viable model or am I missing something major?
So use controled air-space. Since we're talking about a 50B investment here (or whatever) stick it in some part of the Pacific that's well off the established flight paths and keep a huge chunk of air space cordoned off.
That, and due to its enormous height and weight it wouldn't be difficult to mount some fairly impressive and high altitude air defences on it. I don't imagine anyone would be keen to fly towards something that can launch big ugly SAMs from ABOVE them.
Sticking it in the water has the added advantage of allowing spashdown for emergancy evacuation and a very cheep and easy way to move heavy components towards the base for lifting.
My understanding of the shuttle would lead to several possible explanations.
1 - The crew died at 7:59.
2 - As the shuttle re-enters the atmosphere friction generates a huge amount of heat. The atmosphere around the shuttle becomes superheated, and forms a plasma cacoon around the craft. Plasma, as you know, is a highly energetic gas comprised of ions. Not exactly great for radio communication.
I think Columbus and the Atlantic is an excelent paralell. In the 1960s the space program was about one thing, demonstrating american technological and military prowess to the world.
Today, it's about putting satelites in orbit with a government subsidized program. Sure, there are experiments, and those are at least interesting, but the value of those experiments is limited by what they are working with.
So we can grow insulin in space. Great... now if we could just put an insulin production facility in space. See my point?
I want to see NASA get back to its roots. Expanding the scientific horizons, challenging the idea of what's possible. Frankly I think my tax money should pay these people to take enormous risks. That's what the Apollo crews did.
So here's what it boils down to. Space Elevator? All for it. And if it costs me an extra hundred or so on my taxes by all means take it. Catapult launch system? Sounds like fun, just don't lease the land. We should learn a lesson from Panama. Moon outposts? Combine with one of the other technologies and it'll pay for itself in tourism.
I want to see NASA do things that make me proud of what my country can do. I want to turn on the news and be awed and amazed. If we can re-capture the feeling of seeing Earthrise on the moon for the first time, than there is no cost too high. The rewards will far outweigh it.
One of the problems could be that the Star Trek alien races were little more than exagerated reflections of elements in our own world in the 1970s.
The Borg: Making all that it encoutered part of itself, ever expanding. Faceless, lacking individuality and above all ENORMOUSLY huge. -- Red China
The Federation: Defending free space, protecting free trade, espousing high minded idealism and the betterment of the individual -- The United States (free world).
The Vulcans: Perfectly logical creatures devoid of emotion in nearly all respects -- A biological reflection of the beginings of the information age.
The Klingons: Warlike and brutal, obsessed with combat and conquest. -- The Soviet Union
One reason the series is dieing out is that these sterotypes and these ways of viewing the world are vanishing as the Cold War fades from our memory. China becoming part of the world for the first time, the Russians are our friends, and the "neutral territores" i.e. the third world is disappearing rapidly.
Clearly the naming scheme was aranged for that acronym by a Clive Cussler fan.
What if there's another agenda.
Cigarettes are addictive.
Nicotine makes Cigarettes addictive.
Selling an addictive product to children is wrong.
Nicotine free cigaretts are not addictive, but still carry all the image and appeal (to the youth croud) of smoking. Many here have said the habbit of smoking is just as powerfull as the addiction.
Has anyone considered the possibility that this could be the first step in an attempt to change the tobacco laws into Nicotine laws?
It kills two birds with one stone. Sell cigarettes to minors and tax Niqoderm and Nicorette.
Be carefull, someone will change your username to Soo Soo.... ..... yea, no one got that. I didn't think they would.