What I won't bring my kids to is babies having their necks snapped, or the sex scene where the Cylon skin-job mounted on top of Baltar, with her spine lighting up as she has an orgasm.
So your complaints with the show revolve entirely around a single episode?
I'm a recent college graduate desperately seeking a job. Having been browsing through listings for the past several months, I can say with a high degree of confidence that European employers are seeking far more science graduates than their American counterparts (virtually no American companies are hiring unexperienced science graduates below the PhD level)
Perhaps I misrepresented myself: I'm not necessarily taking a jab at his philosophy. He's right about a lot of things, and has some good points about cloud computing. I could debate the merits of the GPL and his other (strongly voiced) opinions at great length, and not reach a satisfactory conclusion. There are usually excellent points to be made on both sides of the argument.
He tends to choose controversial topics, and it should come as no surprise that he's a controversial figure.
However, I take great issue with RMS being treated as some sort of leader or spokesman. His opinions most certainly do not represent a great many members of the free software movement, which is particularly bad, considering that virtually all of us echo the same sentiment (while our so-called leader frequently brings pedantry and senseless infighting (ie. GNU/Linux) to the forefront).
There's also the issue of his interpersonal skills and physical image -- the incident where he demanded an audience with the Prime Minister of France (and was subsequently outraged when it was denied) comes to mind rather immediately. It wouldn't kill him to shave and wear a suit when making public appearances -- I'm not one for judging based upon appearances, although it's going to be mighty hard for him to sell Free Software to the business world if he looks homeless.
You can find less eccentric (and less easy targets) than RMS among those who support the GPL.
Yes -- RMS is quite the eccentric, and pretty much the antithesis of what you'd want to have in a spokesman.
Part of the problem is that he insists on taking "ownership" of the GPL, and frequently acts as though he's a spokesperson for the entire open source community. The GNU/Linux naming "war" that he's been waging for some time now is outright embarrassing for all parties involved.
He's also responsible for turning GNU from an open-source software collective into a pseudo political advocacy group. GNU's philosophy page reads like some sort of paranoid rant -- It's virtually impossible to take it seriously.
Perhaps the smoking gun is this mailing list post RMS made two years ago, admitting that he hasn't yet embraced hypertext. He browses the web through a HTTP-Mail gateway, and strips out the HTML. (On the flipside, GNU appears to have finally hired a competent web designer. Stephen Fry on the homepage is a rather nice touch)
Torvalds is a much better role model to follow. He keeps quiet, and insists that Linux is a community effort, of which he is only a small part.
You're assuming the entire country does have cell coverage. It doesn't. Consider that Alaska and most of the West is virtually uninhabited.
New Jersey is more densely populated than any European nation,* and I can't get decent coverage in quite a large portion of the state, even in some of the more densely-populated areas.
The I-95 corridor from Florida to Maine is has roughly the same population density as Western Europe. I'd gladly pay for a cell plan that only includes this area, given that I rarely ever travel outside of it!
(*Not including micronations such as Monaco or the Vatican)
The Polo Bluemotion uses a Diesel engine, which you'd hope would get better mileage than an equivalent petrol engine, given that diesel fuel stores more energy per unit of volume.
How does your analogy work? iPhone lock-in aside, Apple's machines and devices have always tended to support prevailing standards.
The batteries in the current generation of Macbooks are not user replaceable due to engineering concerns to reduce the weight/thickness of the machine. This isn't seen as much of an issue, given that the Li-Pol batteries used are expected to last for up to 5 years without losing much of their capacity.
Ditto for the iPod -- you'd have to greatly increase the size of the device in order to accommodate a user-replaceable battery.
In both cases, the batteries actually *are* replaceable with a little bit of elbow grease, and there's an entire cottage industry set up to sell these replacement batteries. I'll go out on a limb and say that any self-respecting slashdotter has the knowledge and ability to replace an iPod battery.
Up north in places such as Alaska, most parking spaces have standard 110V outlets directly adjacent so that people can power their tank/block heaters. Most cars have short cords hanging out of their front grilles to accommodate this (the cars that don't have those cords don't do much driving in the winter...)
Ironic as it might be, Fairbanks, AK might very well be the most prepared city in the US for electric vehicles.
If we're talking about logotypes in general, there's actually quite a lot of interesting reading:
Coke vs. Pepsi branding Paul Rand's staggeringly impressive portfolio (More here) -- IBM, NeXT, OS/2, ABC, Enron, Westinghouse, and UPS logos were all designed by Rand. Rand also proposed (a fairly swanky) new logo for Ford in the 60s, although the company continues to use the same logo that it did in 1912. Famous logo nicknames Raymond Loewy designed quite a few iconic oil company logos (and the US mail!). Best and worst logos of 2008
That all said, I'm pretty fed up with the arbitrary memory restrictions that manufacturers seem to place on their machines today. (A practice unfortunately not unique to Apple)
I have a 10-year old 450MHz Apple G4 that can take up to 2GiB of RAM. I have a 2-year old Mac Mini that has the same exact limit. Come on Apple....you can do better than this!
The memory controller used in the final generation of PPC PowerBooks cannot address more than 2 GiB of RAM. The 12" model only has one SODIMM slot, plus 256MiB soldered directly to the motherboard (in the true Apple tradition of making innocuous but completely bizarre hardware design decisions). If you placed a 2gb SO-DIMM into the slot, you'd end up with 2.25GiB total, which would likely cause stability issues.
This brings us to our second glaring problem: Nobody manufactures a 2GB DDR SODIMM.
Give it a go. You'd be amazed at how quickly you stop worrying about what's on the TV anyway.
This. I gave up TV a while ago and I don't miss it at all. It'll be one of the most liberating things you'll do. After a while, you'll be wondering why you ever let that shit get into your brain for hours a day. Just like how a chain smoker quits and starts wondering to himself why he let himself breathe in a pack a day worth of smoke and carcinogens.
Every once in a while, I'll watch the Daily Show or 30 Rock, but I figure that's like having the occasional smoke or cigar with a drink.
People can go on and on with their righteous indignation over how they record their HDTV programming but when you walk away from it, you'll realize that getting your panties in a twist about a TV program is indicative of an addiction, not rationality.
How'd you get 2GB into a 12" PowerBook? Mine was the last model produced (1.5GHz Rev. E), and the documentation clearly states that it won't take more than 1.25GB RAM.
If I can squeeze another year or two out of that machine, my wallet would definitely appreciate it. I'd love a new machine (size issues notwithstanding), but $150 for some RAM and a new battery is a lot more attractive than $1500 for a new laptop.
IMHO, it's by far the best compromise I've seen between performance and portability. In fact, there wasn't much of a "compromise" at all -- it has the full array of ports that you'd expect (including FireWire), an optical drive, a decent battery, and surprisingly good speakers. At the time of its release, its CPU, memory, and hard drive were all on par with the top-of-the-line. Even today, it's still adequately fast for most tasks.
It's small enough to take anywhere, but not small enough that you have to squint in order to read what's on the screen. The new 13" MacBooks are actually quite a bit larger (albeit still very nice machines) -- I don't know of any machines today that offer the modern equivalent of performance and portability (even on the PC side of the fence, which I'd happily consider). There's also certainly something to be said for Apple's use of an all-metal chassis for its laptops.
My only complaints about it are the 1.25GB RAM limit, and 1024x768 display, although these are forgivable, given that it's a 5 year old machine.
Someone asking marriage advice on Slashdot (of all places) -> who else can we ask something important? Mmm, probably asking George Bush about achieving world peace!
Ahh, this reminds me of George's marriage counselling days. The dude really saved our relationship. Nothing keeps a wife satisfied like shock and awe in the bedroom.
It really was a marked improvement over Reagan's "trickle down" strategy.
4 months ago, my Maxtor hard drive died after about a year of use. Sometimes these things happen.
I requested a RMA, and sent the drive off, and didn't hear anything for a few weeks. Eventually, I began to get suspicious, and contacted support, who told me (after a delay of several days) that they'd received the drive, but somehow lost it. I informed them that I would be moving in a few days, and to send the repaired drive to my new address, given the egregious delay.
I received a series of baffling emails from their warehouse in the interim which seemed to indicate that my 500GB desktop drive was gone for good, and was being replaced with a 160GB notebook drive.
1 week ago, I got a call from the new residents of my old house, informing me that my hard drive had arrived there. I sent them some money to forward the package, and finally received the package containing the disassembled remains of my (original) hard drive with a note indicating that I'd voided the warranty for disassembling the drive (which is something they presumably did).
As a result of this entire ordeal, I've lost a hard drive, my data, 4 months, and about $20 in shipping fees.
I'll grant that some companies remain good at customer service. Amazon and Newegg are both fantastic. Maxtor, on the other hand, is apparently run by Vogons (who also seem to have a majority stake in Verizon Wireless).
Ah but in England at least trespassing is usually only a civil crime
Fixed that for ya. The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act of 1994 criminalised some cases of trespass.
Fixed that for you.
Don't generalize England to the entire UK. There are virtually no trespassing laws in Scotland.
This concept can be fairly disarming to some (particularly Americans such as myself), although it seems to have worked out just fine in practice. The notion that it's okay to take somebody's life for trespassing is one of my least favorite parts of American culture -- as a society, we seriously need to chill out.
another one that use to be Anderson Consultants. I can still remember Anderson Consultants, but for the life of me I can't remember what they call themselves now.
Anderson Consultants changed its name to Accenture, and was extremely lucky to do so, given the Enron scandal that destroyed its sister company, Arthur Anderson.
Even though the two companies hadn't been directly related since the 1980s, the name would have been a huge taint on their brand.
A year from now, I predict 'The Shack' will be liquidating assets under Chapter 11. Anyone wanna take that bet? It would be smarter than buying Radio Shack stock.
Bad prediction. Against all odds and logic, the company is reasonably profitable.
Here's the thing: If we're talking about short-range vehicles for urban areas, why can't we simply provide better public transportation? It reduces congestion, and is just as good for the environment (possibly better, as it doesn't draw power from the domestic grid in an unpredictable fashion)
Driving a small lightweight vehicle in New York City or LA sounds absolutely terrifying, given the extremely aggressive style of driving seen in these areas. (Owning a car in NYC is also stupid for a myriad of other reasons, particularly when you have the Subway, PATH, LIRR, NJTransit, MetroNorth, and Amtrak all able to take you much further than 100mi for a few bucks, and at a faster speed)
The air-conditioning thing is a big problem for a large part of the country. My old 35mi commute through southern Virginia seemed pretty average, but absolutely required air conditioning in the summer -- not necessarily for comfort, but for the benefit of my coworkers and my own health.
I'm also curious about how the batteries fare in colder climates. Batteries in general do an extremely poor job of holding a charge when the temperature drops below freezing. Drop the temperature to -15F, and owners of gasoline cars have to start worrying about their batteries.
I hate to be a naysayer. A 100mi electric vehicle is a huge achievement -- however, the ability to drive 100mi with Air Conditioning (or, perhaps 150-200mi without it) would dramatically increase the appeal.
I'm a bit curious as to why we haven't heard more about a fusion reactor based around Sandia's Z-Pinch.
AFAIK, the Z Machine has experimental results showing that efficient fusion could be achieved using a similar technique. Why aren't we pouring all of our resources in this direction, given that we've got evidence showing that it will work? Tokamak designs seem to have a tendency to be outrageously large, expensive, and unproven.
If you're using the proper container, spills and leaks should be virtually impossible, especially given the fact that these samples are likely to be fairly small, meaning that they can be encased in many inches of steel. (If the government is hoarding tanker trucks of pathogens, we have a separate issue to deal with)
My original post linked to a video showing a nuclear waste container remaining completely intact after a firey head-on collision with a high speed train -- pretty much the worst thing that can happen to a truck (or a train for that matter).
If you somehow manage to breach the container, it seems fairly likely that you'd destroy the sample inside in the process. (You could also line the container with something flammable or explosive that would ignite at the first sign of trouble, and destroy the sample without compromising the container)
Slashdot Mirror
What I won't bring my kids to is babies having their necks snapped, or the sex scene where the Cylon skin-job mounted on top of Baltar, with her spine lighting up as she has an orgasm.
So your complaints with the show revolve entirely around a single episode?
I'm a recent college graduate desperately seeking a job. Having been browsing through listings for the past several months, I can say with a high degree of confidence that European employers are seeking far more science graduates than their American counterparts (virtually no American companies are hiring unexperienced science graduates below the PhD level)
Perhaps I misrepresented myself: I'm not necessarily taking a jab at his philosophy. He's right about a lot of things, and has some good points about cloud computing. I could debate the merits of the GPL and his other (strongly voiced) opinions at great length, and not reach a satisfactory conclusion. There are usually excellent points to be made on both sides of the argument.
He tends to choose controversial topics, and it should come as no surprise that he's a controversial figure.
However, I take great issue with RMS being treated as some sort of leader or spokesman. His opinions most certainly do not represent a great many members of the free software movement, which is particularly bad, considering that virtually all of us echo the same sentiment (while our so-called leader frequently brings pedantry and senseless infighting (ie. GNU/Linux) to the forefront).
There's also the issue of his interpersonal skills and physical image -- the incident where he demanded an audience with the Prime Minister of France (and was subsequently outraged when it was denied) comes to mind rather immediately. It wouldn't kill him to shave and wear a suit when making public appearances -- I'm not one for judging based upon appearances, although it's going to be mighty hard for him to sell Free Software to the business world if he looks homeless.
You can find less eccentric (and less easy targets) than RMS among those who support the GPL.
Yes -- RMS is quite the eccentric, and pretty much the antithesis of what you'd want to have in a spokesman.
Part of the problem is that he insists on taking "ownership" of the GPL, and frequently acts as though he's a spokesperson for the entire open source community. The GNU/Linux naming "war" that he's been waging for some time now is outright embarrassing for all parties involved.
He's also responsible for turning GNU from an open-source software collective into a pseudo political advocacy group. GNU's philosophy page reads like some sort of paranoid rant -- It's virtually impossible to take it seriously.
Perhaps the smoking gun is this mailing list post RMS made two years ago, admitting that he hasn't yet embraced hypertext. He browses the web through a HTTP-Mail gateway, and strips out the HTML. (On the flipside, GNU appears to have finally hired a competent web designer. Stephen Fry on the homepage is a rather nice touch)
Torvalds is a much better role model to follow. He keeps quiet, and insists that Linux is a community effort, of which he is only a small part.
You're assuming the entire country does have cell coverage. It doesn't. Consider that Alaska and most of the West is virtually uninhabited.
New Jersey is more densely populated than any European nation,* and I can't get decent coverage in quite a large portion of the state, even in some of the more densely-populated areas.
The I-95 corridor from Florida to Maine is has roughly the same population density as Western Europe. I'd gladly pay for a cell plan that only includes this area, given that I rarely ever travel outside of it!
(*Not including micronations such as Monaco or the Vatican)
The Polo Bluemotion uses a Diesel engine, which you'd hope would get better mileage than an equivalent petrol engine, given that diesel fuel stores more energy per unit of volume.
That would be a strange thing for it to do, since it would be contradicting the user's wishes.
I'm sorry Dave. I'm afraid I can't let you run the air conditioning today.
How does your analogy work? iPhone lock-in aside, Apple's machines and devices have always tended to support prevailing standards.
The batteries in the current generation of Macbooks are not user replaceable due to engineering concerns to reduce the weight/thickness of the machine. This isn't seen as much of an issue, given that the Li-Pol batteries used are expected to last for up to 5 years without losing much of their capacity.
Ditto for the iPod -- you'd have to greatly increase the size of the device in order to accommodate a user-replaceable battery.
In both cases, the batteries actually *are* replaceable with a little bit of elbow grease, and there's an entire cottage industry set up to sell these replacement batteries. I'll go out on a limb and say that any self-respecting slashdotter has the knowledge and ability to replace an iPod battery.
Up north in places such as Alaska, most parking spaces have standard 110V outlets directly adjacent so that people can power their tank/block heaters. Most cars have short cords hanging out of their front grilles to accommodate this (the cars that don't have those cords don't do much driving in the winter...)
Ironic as it might be, Fairbanks, AK might very well be the most prepared city in the US for electric vehicles.
If we're talking about logotypes in general, there's actually quite a lot of interesting reading:
Coke vs. Pepsi branding
Paul Rand's staggeringly impressive portfolio (More here) -- IBM, NeXT, OS/2, ABC, Enron, Westinghouse, and UPS logos were all designed by Rand.
Rand also proposed (a fairly swanky) new logo for Ford in the 60s, although the company continues to use the same logo that it did in 1912.
Famous logo nicknames
Raymond Loewy designed quite a few iconic oil company logos (and the US mail!).
Best and worst logos of 2008
What about Amiga? Commodore? The Mac 'smile'? MS-DOS?
The article's pretty scant on details even for the logos they did describe. Commodore might not be around any more, but their logo remains iconic.
Not your fault. I had to research this one too!
That all said, I'm pretty fed up with the arbitrary memory restrictions that manufacturers seem to place on their machines today. (A practice unfortunately not unique to Apple)
I have a 10-year old 450MHz Apple G4 that can take up to 2GiB of RAM. I have a 2-year old Mac Mini that has the same exact limit. Come on Apple....you can do better than this!
There are two problems I see:
Give it a go. You'd be amazed at how quickly you stop worrying about what's on the TV anyway.
This. I gave up TV a while ago and I don't miss it at all. It'll be one of the most liberating things you'll do. After a while, you'll be wondering why you ever let that shit get into your brain for hours a day. Just like how a chain smoker quits and starts wondering to himself why he let himself breathe in a pack a day worth of smoke and carcinogens.
Every once in a while, I'll watch the Daily Show or 30 Rock, but I figure that's like having the occasional smoke or cigar with a drink.
People can go on and on with their righteous indignation over how they record their HDTV programming but when you walk away from it, you'll realize that getting your panties in a twist about a TV program is indicative of an addiction, not rationality.
Once again, real life imitates The Onion: Area Man Constantly Mentioning He Doesn't Own A Television.
How'd you get 2GB into a 12" PowerBook? Mine was the last model produced (1.5GHz Rev. E), and the documentation clearly states that it won't take more than 1.25GB RAM.
If I can squeeze another year or two out of that machine, my wallet would definitely appreciate it. I'd love a new machine (size issues notwithstanding), but $150 for some RAM and a new battery is a lot more attractive than $1500 for a new laptop.
I (still) have a 12" PowerBook.
IMHO, it's by far the best compromise I've seen between performance and portability. In fact, there wasn't much of a "compromise" at all -- it has the full array of ports that you'd expect (including FireWire), an optical drive, a decent battery, and surprisingly good speakers. At the time of its release, its CPU, memory, and hard drive were all on par with the top-of-the-line. Even today, it's still adequately fast for most tasks.
It's small enough to take anywhere, but not small enough that you have to squint in order to read what's on the screen. The new 13" MacBooks are actually quite a bit larger (albeit still very nice machines) -- I don't know of any machines today that offer the modern equivalent of performance and portability (even on the PC side of the fence, which I'd happily consider). There's also certainly something to be said for Apple's use of an all-metal chassis for its laptops.
My only complaints about it are the 1.25GB RAM limit, and 1024x768 display, although these are forgivable, given that it's a 5 year old machine.
That's fine, I just don't want to see Slashdot rule 34.
CowboyNeal
Ahh, this reminds me of George's marriage counselling days. The dude really saved our relationship. Nothing keeps a wife satisfied like shock and awe in the bedroom.
It really was a marked improvement over Reagan's "trickle down" strategy.
Story time.
4 months ago, my Maxtor hard drive died after about a year of use. Sometimes these things happen.
I requested a RMA, and sent the drive off, and didn't hear anything for a few weeks. Eventually, I began to get suspicious, and contacted support, who told me (after a delay of several days) that they'd received the drive, but somehow lost it. I informed them that I would be moving in a few days, and to send the repaired drive to my new address, given the egregious delay.
I received a series of baffling emails from their warehouse in the interim which seemed to indicate that my 500GB desktop drive was gone for good, and was being replaced with a 160GB notebook drive.
1 week ago, I got a call from the new residents of my old house, informing me that my hard drive had arrived there. I sent them some money to forward the package, and finally received the package containing the disassembled remains of my (original) hard drive with a note indicating that I'd voided the warranty for disassembling the drive (which is something they presumably did).
As a result of this entire ordeal, I've lost a hard drive, my data, 4 months, and about $20 in shipping fees.
I'll grant that some companies remain good at customer service. Amazon and Newegg are both fantastic. Maxtor, on the other hand, is apparently run by Vogons (who also seem to have a majority stake in Verizon Wireless).
Ah but in England at least trespassing is usually only a civil crime
Fixed that for ya. The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act of 1994 criminalised some cases of trespass.
Fixed that for you.
Don't generalize England to the entire UK. There are virtually no trespassing laws in Scotland.
This concept can be fairly disarming to some (particularly Americans such as myself), although it seems to have worked out just fine in practice. The notion that it's okay to take somebody's life for trespassing is one of my least favorite parts of American culture -- as a society, we seriously need to chill out.
another one that use to be Anderson Consultants. I can still remember Anderson Consultants, but for the life of me I can't remember what they call themselves now.
Anderson Consultants changed its name to Accenture, and was extremely lucky to do so, given the Enron scandal that destroyed its sister company, Arthur Anderson.
Even though the two companies hadn't been directly related since the 1980s, the name would have been a huge taint on their brand.
A year from now, I predict 'The Shack' will be liquidating assets under Chapter 11. Anyone wanna take that bet? It would be smarter than buying Radio Shack stock.
Bad prediction. Against all odds and logic, the company is reasonably profitable.
Here's the thing: If we're talking about short-range vehicles for urban areas, why can't we simply provide better public transportation? It reduces congestion, and is just as good for the environment (possibly better, as it doesn't draw power from the domestic grid in an unpredictable fashion)
Driving a small lightweight vehicle in New York City or LA sounds absolutely terrifying, given the extremely aggressive style of driving seen in these areas. (Owning a car in NYC is also stupid for a myriad of other reasons, particularly when you have the Subway, PATH, LIRR, NJTransit, MetroNorth, and Amtrak all able to take you much further than 100mi for a few bucks, and at a faster speed)
The air-conditioning thing is a big problem for a large part of the country. My old 35mi commute through southern Virginia seemed pretty average, but absolutely required air conditioning in the summer -- not necessarily for comfort, but for the benefit of my coworkers and my own health.
I'm also curious about how the batteries fare in colder climates. Batteries in general do an extremely poor job of holding a charge when the temperature drops below freezing. Drop the temperature to -15F, and owners of gasoline cars have to start worrying about their batteries.
I hate to be a naysayer. A 100mi electric vehicle is a huge achievement -- however, the ability to drive 100mi with Air Conditioning (or, perhaps 150-200mi without it) would dramatically increase the appeal.
I'm a bit curious as to why we haven't heard more about a fusion reactor based around Sandia's Z-Pinch.
AFAIK, the Z Machine has experimental results showing that efficient fusion could be achieved using a similar technique. Why aren't we pouring all of our resources in this direction, given that we've got evidence showing that it will work? Tokamak designs seem to have a tendency to be outrageously large, expensive, and unproven.
If you're using the proper container, spills and leaks should be virtually impossible, especially given the fact that these samples are likely to be fairly small, meaning that they can be encased in many inches of steel. (If the government is hoarding tanker trucks of pathogens, we have a separate issue to deal with)
My original post linked to a video showing a nuclear waste container remaining completely intact after a firey head-on collision with a high speed train -- pretty much the worst thing that can happen to a truck (or a train for that matter).
If you somehow manage to breach the container, it seems fairly likely that you'd destroy the sample inside in the process. (You could also line the container with something flammable or explosive that would ignite at the first sign of trouble, and destroy the sample without compromising the container)