But just for kicks - let's suppose I happened to have sex with a 15-year-old girl from Georgia (illegal to have sex outside of marriage), and she ended up getting some kind of VD. That WOULD cause bodily harm to her when she came back to the states (some cause infections of the ovaries, requiring them to be removed), and it would probably affect the monetary status of her parents. Now you have grieveous bodily harm - what then?
Well, the first time I had sex I was 15; this would be legal in 4 states, making it illegal in 47 states (DC isn't a state, I know) - that's PRETTY close to making it a wholesale ban, AND all four states are marked as 14/16 what ever that means (I don't think it means 14/16th years old;-)
Then there's the other 16-year-old girl I had sex with; at that point I was 21... now I don't know how the laws are on that point, but I'm fairly certain someone somewhere would love to incarcerate me for that one... hehe.
Then there's sodomy laws (oral and anal sex); this is illegal in some states (I have no idea how many), and when I read about Georgia I found out that they have a "law that makes all sexual relationships between unmarried people -- including all gay sex -- illegal"! How's that for progressive thinking? They are right in line with countries like Saudia Arabia and Iran! Half of the AXIS OF EVIL(!!!) is represented in that list for Christ sakes! North Koreas laws aren't listed, so it might be THE ENTIRE AXIS OF EVIL(!!!)
What next? Will I be extradited for having had sex with a 16-year-old (illegal in the US)? How about drinking alcohol in public, which is illegal in many countries (Saudi Arabia for instance), or hell - buying alcohol at the tender age of 15 (illegal in the US)? How about having had sex before I was 18 (also illegal in the US)? Having had sex outside of marriage (probably illegal in Iran)? Having had anal sex while there was a third party in the sexual congress (illegal in the UK).
I'm sure I've done SOMETHING that is perfectly legal where I live, that would be sentenced very harshly in other countries. Of course the things I just mentioned are things that "hurt" other people as opposed to the almighty profit of US coorporations, so I suppose that I won't be extradited anytime soon.
Suppose a German scientist offered YOU the blueprint for a FLYING CAR. A WORKING flying car. He is willing to give YOU the blueprints for the FLYING CAR, but you have to let him cut off your foot.
If you put it in public domain it belongs to EVERYBODY and they can use it as they please. If you put it under BSD license it belongs to you, but everybody can use it as they please (except claim that it's theirs).
It has plenty to do with your house's temperature. Let's say you have a somewhat smart A/C installed... one that doesn't just heat the air in the house, but one that constantly dumps the air outside - this is particularly neat for people with astma and is generally much healthier than just heating/cooling the same old stale air.
What you do there is to first run the exhaust air through a heat exchanger to reuse as much as the indoor heat to warm up the outside air. Now, if it's 30 deg C outside, you might want the heat exchanger running to cool the air DOWN, so the software turns it on. If it's below room temperature outside, you want to reuse as much of the heat as possible, so you turn the heat exchanger on. This is controlled by software in real time, saving you money constantly.
You then measure the temperature of the heated air and heat/cool it additionally to get it to the required temperature before you pump it into the house. Again, the heaters and coolers in that part of the A/C is controlled by software in real time.
This is how it works in huge office buildings, and you can even get A/C equipment for you house that operates on the exact same principle.
Imagine that - having a constant supply of fresh air in your house and you don't even need to open a window! In addition you can make the A/C do it's best to reduce energy spending, but letting it turn off the A/C for periods of time when the house isn't in use. How to do that depends on what you want, and can be rather tricky to calculate. Again this is done in software - all you have to do is set a period of time where you want it to go into low energy mode.
Sure, it's rather costly up front, but in the long run you can save quite a lot of money. If you refit an existing house it's the most expensive, but if you build a new house with it, you can sometimes save money by going with a setup like the one I just described, simply by way of the savings from not having a heater in every single room, no plumbing for radiators etc.
If we ignore the fact, that Ingvar Kamprad gave pretty much the entire company to a foundation back in 1982 then sure - his fortune would be greater than Bill Gates. But this is reality and he doesn't have that much money now.
Okay, I have the Bleeagnarg Sauce, but what kind of server should I add? A quad Opteron? And should I just add the entire rackmount or should I prepare the server somehow? Grating it?
A friend of mine recently upgraded from an nForce2 based Athlon system to an nForce3 based Athlon 64 and it didn't require so much as a reload. Swapped the board and CPU, plugged in his drives and that was it.
So? This is more a proof of how mature Windows is by now... case in point is the computer I'm using right now. The windows-installation (XP) was originally done onto my laptop. Only thing those two computers have in common is that they're both Athlons... apart from that and the harddrive, they share no common hardware.
Sure, it took two reboots (for some reason Windows-Update needed two visits to update the drivers for my hardware, before it was satisfied.
George Carlin has one for you; well, it's more of a situational instruction for the rest of us:
Did you ever meet somebody, and you go to shake the guy's hand... and you suddenly realize... he doesn't have a complete hand! And you gotta make believe it feels great! Right? You can't go "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" You can't do that! It's not even an option!
If you reject the acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling, the terrorists will win.
Of course, that means that Bush's idea about preventing homosexual from marrying and his call for young people to abstain from sex are actually his way of supporting terrorism!
instead of identifying the real problem (plurality voting, where voting for two people ruins the ballot and a spoiler can throw the election to the overall loser
Uhm... not entirely sure where to start with that one.
How about this way: You apparently don't want people to have more than two options (dmbas1 and dmbas2) - this hardly seems fair, nor does it seem like a very democratic thing to do. If you REALLY, REALLY only want people to choose between two people, then either move somewhere where choice is not an option OR start pushing for runoff elections like they have in *shudder* France. Then you'd end up with the two people who got the most votes running against each other. This would of course require you to drastically alter the way you hold your elections, and seeing how you like to stuff a gazillion questions onto the same ballot, well... I don't see that happening.
Then there's the bit about "throw[ing] the election to the overall loser". That's just plain untrue. The overall loser of an election would either be anyone not winning OR anyone not receiving any votes OR the contestant with the fewest received votes.
Your problem seems to be, that you cannot fathom that someone who would vote for, say, Ralph Nader would rather have George W. Bush as president than John F. Kerry. Granted, this is rather unlikely, but it's not impossible.
You CANNOT make guesses as to what people really wanted to vote - all you can do is go by what they gave you. A singular vote for someone or a ruined ballot. That simple.
Or you could use votingsystems where you have multiple choices. Like "Bush for President: Ranked 247 of 247 options".
Trivial. We have a regime change every four years. We toss the bums out of Congress every two years. We hand our Senators their marching papers every six years.
No. You have the OPTION of doing so, but how often do you actually USE that option?
"In a variety of electoral situations, incumbents win substantially more than half of the time. This is sometimes referred to as an incumbency advantage; in the U.S. Senate, for instance, incumbents win approximately 75 percent of the time." PDF
"It is an article of faith that incumbency is the ultimate electoral advantage for members of Congress. The re-election rates for sitting members of the House are impressive: in elections since 1946, 92.1 percent have prevailed." PDF
So, you have 100 senators, who are up for election every six years, and you oust 25 of those. But check out this section of the second pdf: "Since the passage of the 17th amendment to the Constitution (1913) establishing direct election of United States Senators, 174 Senators have been appointed to fill intra-term vacancies caused by an incumbents death or resignation. Of the 110 who subsequently sought election, exactly 50 percent have prevailed (U.S. Senate 2002). The performance of appointed Senators is strikingly inferior to that of their elected peers (freshman Senators seeking their first re-election), 82.5% of whom have won reelection since the first full class of directly elected Senators came up for re-election in 1920. This curious discrepancy is the starting point for this paper."
So, you don't actually use your power to oust the people in power. You have the option, but you rarely use it.
I haven't found any statistics on the US Presidency, but it could be interesting to see, if there is a larger chance of getting a second term, if you weren't the vice president during the election process.
How many nations throughout history can boast the same power we Americans take for granted? The power to overthrow our government on a regular basis, without violence, without guns, without military might?
Of do get off your high horse, before someone beats you over the head with statistics for the number of democratically elected governments the US have overthrown...
Besides - this is Slashdot - most of the people here are from democratic countries, and the population of those VASTLY outnumber the population of the US of A. India, for example, has more than a BILLION inhabitants - ~three times that of the US. The 25 member countries of EU has a combined total of 450 million. Indonesia has 230 million, and Brazil has 180 million. These are four of the top 5 countries sorted by population*.
That's 1.86 billion people living under democracy OUTSIDE of the US - almost 6½ tmes the number of people living in the US. Yes, it may be, that most people in the world aren't living under democracy, but the US is sure as hell nothing more than a small drop in the bucket of democratic countries...
The law states that in order to be in violation, it has to be proven that the P2P application's only method of commercially viability is by inducing copyright violations.
So, if I make a P2P program, that can ONLY (through magic) share music and video against the wishes of the copyrightholders, and I make it a GPL program, thereby making it (pretty much) commercially unviable (as in, I can't really sell the program and expect a profit), then it would be legal? Somehow I doubt that.
P2P is, in case you failed to notice, an abreviation. It's short for "Peer to Peer" which means that the communication between P2P-clients take place without the use of a central server.
Skype does not have a central server; the communication protocol is indeed Peer to Peer.
P2P is a description of the way a communication protocol works, not of the function of any program.
Ah, yes - I'm certain that I'll be a happy camper, when I lie there, dying, blood oozing out of my head, that it doesn't matter, that I was killed by an UNinsured driver rather than an insured driver.
My next of kin might care, but personally I think I'd prefer not being killed.
When I travel I feel bad that I'm not supposed to tip the bellhop, or the waiter in some countries no matter how good the service.
This is not true - you tip if the service is worth it. The triade from Mr. Pink in the start of Resevoir Dogs is right in most of the world - you don't tip because it's expected - you tip because someone deserves it. If the service you get is higher than you expect and feel you deserve, then you tip. If this means that you tip everywhere you go abroad, then tip. If this means that you don't tip anywhere, then don't tip. Fairly simple.
As for taxi drivers, they will rip you off in any country, I think its part of the test to get their license.
Not true either - at least not around here. I've stopped counting the number of times when they've told me it would be faster, cheaper and easier to just take the subway or metro - hell, one of them even help me put my luggage(!!!) on the bus I needed to catch (yes, I did tip him for it...).
But I'm not saying it doesn't happen - your milage will vary greatly.
Slashdot Mirror
That was a rather contrieved situation ... :-)
But just for kicks - let's suppose I happened to have sex with a 15-year-old girl from Georgia (illegal to have sex outside of marriage), and she ended up getting some kind of VD. That WOULD cause bodily harm to her when she came back to the states (some cause infections of the ovaries, requiring them to be removed), and it would probably affect the monetary status of her parents. Now you have grieveous bodily harm - what then?
Well, the first time I had sex I was 15; this would be legal in 4 states, making it illegal in 47 states (DC isn't a state, I know) - that's PRETTY close to making it a wholesale ban, AND all four states are marked as 14/16 what ever that means (I don't think it means 14/16th years old ;-)
... now I don't know how the laws are on that point, but I'm fairly certain someone somewhere would love to incarcerate me for that one ... hehe.
Then there's the other 16-year-old girl I had sex with; at that point I was 21
Then there's sodomy laws (oral and anal sex); this is illegal in some states (I have no idea how many), and when I read about Georgia I found out that they have a "law that makes all sexual relationships between unmarried people -- including all gay sex -- illegal"! How's that for progressive thinking? They are right in line with countries like Saudia Arabia and Iran! Half of the AXIS OF EVIL(!!!) is represented in that list for Christ sakes! North Koreas laws aren't listed, so it might be THE ENTIRE AXIS OF EVIL(!!!)
What next? Will I be extradited for having had sex with a 16-year-old (illegal in the US)? How about drinking alcohol in public, which is illegal in many countries (Saudi Arabia for instance), or hell - buying alcohol at the tender age of 15 (illegal in the US)? How about having had sex before I was 18 (also illegal in the US)? Having had sex outside of marriage (probably illegal in Iran)? Having had anal sex while there was a third party in the sexual congress (illegal in the UK).
I'm sure I've done SOMETHING that is perfectly legal where I live, that would be sentenced very harshly in other countries. Of course the things I just mentioned are things that "hurt" other people as opposed to the almighty profit of US coorporations, so I suppose that I won't be extradited anytime soon.
Suppose a German scientist offered YOU the blueprint for a FLYING CAR. A WORKING flying car. He is willing to give YOU the blueprints for the FLYING CAR, but you have to let him cut off your foot.
Would you accept the deal?
Why is that insightful? And in what way is that different than pedistrians being killed by out of control cars now?
If you put it in public domain it belongs to EVERYBODY and they can use it as they please. If you put it under BSD license it belongs to you, but everybody can use it as they please (except claim that it's theirs).
It only has 2568 characters ... that's not so bad.
It has plenty to do with your house's temperature. Let's say you have a somewhat smart A/C installed ... one that doesn't just heat the air in the house, but one that constantly dumps the air outside - this is particularly neat for people with astma and is generally much healthier than just heating/cooling the same old stale air.
What you do there is to first run the exhaust air through a heat exchanger to reuse as much as the indoor heat to warm up the outside air. Now, if it's 30 deg C outside, you might want the heat exchanger running to cool the air DOWN, so the software turns it on. If it's below room temperature outside, you want to reuse as much of the heat as possible, so you turn the heat exchanger on. This is controlled by software in real time, saving you money constantly.
You then measure the temperature of the heated air and heat/cool it additionally to get it to the required temperature before you pump it into the house. Again, the heaters and coolers in that part of the A/C is controlled by software in real time.
This is how it works in huge office buildings, and you can even get A/C equipment for you house that operates on the exact same principle.
Imagine that - having a constant supply of fresh air in your house and you don't even need to open a window! In addition you can make the A/C do it's best to reduce energy spending, but letting it turn off the A/C for periods of time when the house isn't in use. How to do that depends on what you want, and can be rather tricky to calculate. Again this is done in software - all you have to do is set a period of time where you want it to go into low energy mode.
Sure, it's rather costly up front, but in the long run you can save quite a lot of money. If you refit an existing house it's the most expensive, but if you build a new house with it, you can sometimes save money by going with a setup like the one I just described, simply by way of the savings from not having a heater in every single room, no plumbing for radiators etc.
If we ignore the fact, that Ingvar Kamprad gave pretty much the entire company to a foundation back in 1982 then sure - his fortune would be greater than Bill Gates. But this is reality and he doesn't have that much money now.
Sure, it took two reboots (for some reason Windows-Update needed two visits to update the drivers for my hardware, before it was satisfied.
How long before someone comes up with a port knocker called "Cypher Operated Combination Key Knocker"?
And wasn't he played by Mark Hamill?
Yes, because all natives eat poisoned food ...
If God shows you the way, then why did he make you in a way, where you can't see where you're going?
How about this way:
You apparently don't want people to have more than two options (dmbas1 and dmbas2) - this hardly seems fair, nor does it seem like a very democratic thing to do. If you REALLY, REALLY only want people to choose between two people, then either move somewhere where choice is not an option OR start pushing for runoff elections like they have in *shudder* France. Then you'd end up with the two people who got the most votes running against each other. This would of course require you to drastically alter the way you hold your elections, and seeing how you like to stuff a gazillion questions onto the same ballot, well
Then there's the bit about "throw[ing] the election to the overall loser". That's just plain untrue. The overall loser of an election would either be anyone not winning OR anyone not receiving any votes OR the contestant with the fewest received votes.
Your problem seems to be, that you cannot fathom that someone who would vote for, say, Ralph Nader would rather have George W. Bush as president than John F. Kerry. Granted, this is rather unlikely, but it's not impossible.
You CANNOT make guesses as to what people really wanted to vote - all you can do is go by what they gave you. A singular vote for someone or a ruined ballot. That simple.
Or you could use votingsystems where you have multiple choices. Like "Bush for President: Ranked 247 of 247 options".
Well, if Gator's involved, what's the difference?
Actually, if you don't masturbate or copulate or do something else to ejaculate, your body simply discharges the surplus sperm into your urin.
That's not searching bookmarks - that's searching your history.
Unless you mean "looking for this page about fixing roof leaks with scotch tape that you stumbled upon six months ago and bookmarked " of course.
"In a variety of electoral situations, incumbents win substantially more than half of the time. This is sometimes referred to as an incumbency advantage; in the U.S. Senate, for instance, incumbents win approximately 75 percent of the time." PDF
"It is an article of faith that incumbency is the ultimate electoral advantage for members of Congress. The re-election rates for sitting members of the House are impressive: in elections since 1946, 92.1 percent have prevailed." PDF
So, you have 100 senators, who are up for election every six years, and you oust 25 of those. But check out this section of the second pdf:
"Since the passage of the 17th amendment to the Constitution (1913) establishing direct election of United States Senators, 174 Senators have been appointed to fill intra-term vacancies caused by an incumbents death or resignation. Of the 110 who subsequently sought election, exactly 50 percent have prevailed (U.S. Senate 2002). The performance of appointed Senators is strikingly inferior to that of their elected peers (freshman Senators seeking their first re-election), 82.5% of whom have won reelection since the first full class of directly elected Senators came up for re-election in 1920. This curious discrepancy is the starting point for this paper."
So, you don't actually use your power to oust the people in power. You have the option, but you rarely use it.
I haven't found any statistics on the US Presidency, but it could be interesting to see, if there is a larger chance of getting a second term, if you weren't the vice president during the election process.
Of do get off your high horse, before someone beats you over the head with statistics for the number of democratically elected governments the US have overthrown
Besides - this is Slashdot - most of the people here are from democratic countries, and the population of those VASTLY outnumber the population of the US of A. India, for example, has more than a BILLION inhabitants - ~three times that of the US. The 25 member countries of EU has a combined total of 450 million. Indonesia has 230 million, and Brazil has 180 million. These are four of the top 5 countries sorted by population*.
That's 1.86 billion people living under democracy OUTSIDE of the US - almost 6½ tmes the number of people living in the US. Yes, it may be, that most people in the world aren't living under democracy, but the US is sure as hell nothing more than a small drop in the bucket of democratic countries
*EU is a conglomerate of countries.
All number taken from Wikipedia
P2P is, in case you failed to notice, an abreviation. It's short for "Peer to Peer" which means that the communication between P2P-clients take place without the use of a central server.
Skype does not have a central server; the communication protocol is indeed Peer to Peer.
P2P is a description of the way a communication protocol works, not of the function of any program.
Ah, yes - I'm certain that I'll be a happy camper, when I lie there, dying, blood oozing out of my head, that it doesn't matter, that I was killed by an UNinsured driver rather than an insured driver.
My next of kin might care, but personally I think I'd prefer not being killed.
Not true either - at least not around here. I've stopped counting the number of times when they've told me it would be faster, cheaper and easier to just take the subway or metro - hell, one of them even help me put my luggage(!!!) on the bus I needed to catch (yes, I did tip him for it
But I'm not saying it doesn't happen - your milage will vary greatly.