OK, Zero__Kelvin, I surrender. I am not going to argue the validity of my comparisons any longer.
YOU, on the other hand, need to learn to focus on the reality of DELIBERATELY un-vaccinated children lowering the herd immunity and causing pain, suffering, and sometimes even death to those that did not have the opportunity to get their vaccinations - whether through recent immigration, economic issues, or simple ignorance.
I hope you never have to live through the grief I am still living with because of a simple MEASLES vaccination (MMR) that was late - and my daughter is deaf - FOR LIFE - because she caught the disease from a 'religious objector' (through no fault of his). I will live with this issue for the rest of my life - because I was not timely in getting Deborah's MMR booster on time.
Get off your BS nit-picking and actually try to do something that HELPS the world - not just a piss-ant word-war on who is the most explicitly accurate in their analogies!
I've tried - really hard, considering, to be decent about this debate, but you are basically just a royal asshole.
I may get banned - but YOU will have to learn to live with your conscious - - - and just MIGHT eventually learn to be civil and courteous when posting.
There can NEVER be enough warnings and sound medical advice to give to ANY expectant mother. I'll take the hit gracefully. I just hope it gets to at least ONE more new mother-to-be and gets her to take the proper nutritional care of her developing child.
Sorry I came across that way on the issue of 'state mandated injections'. That was NOT the issue - it is that IF you don't vaccinate, then stay out of the general population. That is a far milder point of contention than 'state mandated anything', and a much fairer alternative! Unless you are willing to accept the liability of causing disease, disability, or even death to other children, then get your child vaccinated.
It's sorta' like giving your child a cap gun pistol to play with (vaccinated), vs a loaded 9mm (un-vaccinated). One is fun, the other is life-threatening, not only to the child but to his/her classmates. (OK, so let's not get into the issue of playing with guns - ALL kids do, even if it's just finger-pointing and saying "BANG-BANG")
IF a child - who is NOT inoculated spreads a disease throughout his/her peer group, then it's high time to start prosecuting their parents for criminal mischief, at the very least, for allowing their child to be a carrier and disease vector simply because they refused to get that child vaccinated. Prosecution levels should even be allowed to go as high as "involuntary manslaughter", although, to me, it's NOT involuntary, it's premeditated, and should be criminalized to the full extent of those statutes. Granted, this doesn't solve the problem resulting from that incident, but it WILL send a message to all the other parents that refuse to get their children vaccinated. Basically, if you allow your child to be a disease carrier, then YOU are responsible for all the harm caused to the other children who are harmed, disabled, crippled, or even killed - ALL THROUGH YOUR OWN NEGLIGENCE, or your BELIEF SYSTEM. It makes no difference whether the issue is religious, personal, or just plain obstinate hard-headedness - YOU are the reason another child (or children) contracted a disease that could have been prevented with current vaccination regimes.
OK, so it's a sad and sometimes horrific (in case of permanent disability or death) situation, and there are many who would say that the parents (and child) have suffered enough - - - BUT the situation is SOLELY the responsibility of the child's parents / guardians to see that they are given the best medical care available - and that INCLUDES THE VACCINATIONS !
There is a serious line of demarcation between religion and scientific medical processes - and if the 'BELIEF' faction is allowed to put the health and lives of the other children at risk, then I BELIEVE they should be removed from the general population - - - as in ISOLATION WARDS / CAMPS.
Sorry if this sounds a bit fascist, or absolute socialistic, but there is just too much at stake to allow this type of behavior to endanger the health and well-being of the majority of the population - - - simply because someone says "My FAITH says I should NOT do this". Take your FAITH and use it to cure the harm caused to the other children endangered by your actions (or INactions).
GET YOUR VACCINATIONS - REGULARLY and ON TIME - - - to protect the whole world.
For all the newly pregnant mothers-to-be - - - pre-natal vitamins are NOT a joke - they are a vital necessity for your child's health and welfare ! ! !
FINALLY ! It's been about 50 years that the NERVA program has been on hold - mostly because of the atmospheric nuclear test ban treaties of the time, and also the space nuclear bans related to those test bans.
I was in high school, and missed out on actually seeing one of the tests at Jackass Flats in early 1967 because I was underage and couldn't get the security clearance needed - really sucked.
The first thing that popped into my mind when reading the title was the Heechee novels by Frederik Pohl. They were an alien species that required low-level microwave background energy to maintain body warmth, and to power the 'old ones', digitally(?) preserved brain images of the deceased. I've often wondered when the level of background radiation was going to become high enough to allow devices to 'capture' this background flux and use it to power low-power devices. OK, so it smacks of the 'TESLA' radiated energy schemes, still - it's everywhere in industrialized areas of the world, and it was only a matter of time before the flux density became high enough to be scavenged and put to use powering small, low-power devices.
Very true - but if it disassembles your rocket due to stress overload, your totally up the proverbial creek - - - and the docs I've read about the structural stress loads on the Falcon indicate that it can NOT withstand more than 2 engines at full thrust in it's current configuration. So - - - whatcha' gonna' do? - build a completely new rocket, or use what you have and boost the system with PAIRS of engines firing together? Hell, the most efficient thrust system today is to fire off a small nuke under your arse and then use extra thrusters to finalize the orbital logistics - but - - - since you'll be red jelly smeared on the bottom of a (probably) vaporized launch vehicle, you'd best factor in other technical issues - LIKE STRUCTURAL STRESS OVERLOADS!
How about strapping FOUR outboard engines (or even SIX in a hexagonal array) wrapped around the central engine. OK, so the thrust of even 3 full-burn engines over-stresses the vehicle, burn the outboards at 2-at-a-time max thrust, with all others throttled down, then jettison the exhausted engines and ramp up the next 2 to full thrust.
With a 4x set of outboards, the range is vastly expanded - geosync and moon insertion.
And with a 6-pack - burning 2 at a time, Mars and the Asteroids become real possibilities.
For near-earth orbits, the payload capacity becomes HUGE - equal / exceeding the Saturn V with the 4 outboard (plus central core) - - - and REALLY HUGE using the 6-pack plus core configuration.
Hell, with the 6-pack configuration, you could conceiveably deliver TWO fully loaded engines to low-to-medium orbit so they could be strapped onto another vehicle - - - to be used for Lunar, Mars, and Asteroid missions.
1) note the word 'planned' - even Musk is down-playing the full success of the initial launch
2) only the 2 out-board engines will land at Kennedy - the central engine burns longer and thus Kennedy is outside it's return/landing capability - - - it will land on a barge in the Atlantic
3) Item of Interest - the 2 out-board engines have been 'flight-tested', they are recycled launch engines
All-in-all, a very nice YouTube vid - but the odds of some kind of failure are pretty high. Still, I wish the best of luck for Musk and his team. They have done wonders over the last few years in turning the governmentally-controlled space-launch industry into a viable commercial business.
GO - MUSK - GO . . . It's gonna' be neat to see the 2 outboard engines landing simultaneously at Kennedy.
AGREED! - These journals exist solely for profit - and generally can barely spell their own publication's name correctly (lol). The fundamental purpose of their existence is to suck up $$$'s, £££'s, and €€€'s from anybody that happens to THINK they are legitimate - generally from semi-bogus URL links, or sometimes from search engine results. The sad part of this issue is that even the reputable publications often use the same pricing strategies to bolster their bottom line, with no regard to the public interest - - - and charge exorbitant fees because they have a 'lock-in' with the scientific publication industry solely to make money, even though they get their material from scientific researchers who are trying desperately to gain accreditation through the 'published' avenue (even those who do their research on the public's dime) - listing their papers so that they can stay in the 'publish-or-perish' game of academia.
Jeeez, guys - get a grip. This is equivalent to storing a dozen words - - - and stating that they have stored an encyclopedia. OK, so it's an animated GIF-like sequence - it's STILL ONLY FIVE IMAGES - NOT a FUCKING MOVIE ! ! !
Granted, the technology will eventually graduate to the data density needed to actually STORE A MOVIE, it's still in it's early infant stage and just doesn't even come close to the article TITLE ! ! !
Break out the mod points and have a ball, I'm karma flush - - - and THIS article deserves even WORSE than I stated - - - it's basically pure bull-shit sensationalism - - - and seems to have made it to the/. pages because it's a slow news day.
Damn! I'd mod this up +1 as RELEVANT and up +1 as Well Thought Out if I had any mod points left.
Seems like it's a lose-lose situation when a law can't be voided when more than 1/3 of the people in the country want it to be GONE, and even worse when MORE than half want a law revoked but can't get it NULL'ed out.
Simple resolution (OK, so it's simplISTIC), but it should take 2/3 of the population to implement a law, but only 1/3 to delete a law - - - things would get MUCH better within a single year. (note that with 2/3 and 1/3 ALL voting, it could be a stalemate, hence a NULL operand on the law - i.e. NOT passed).
AND, with this simplistic setup, we wouldn't need to go through "the year they killed all the lawyers".
Crap! Did I wave the flag too hard ? Or did I just make a point that didn't resonate with any of the/. readers?
I can live with being 'dinged' as a patriot, but to be down-graded from my basic +1 by someone as 'over-rated' is just about the limit.
Apparently there are no readers that lived through the Viet Nam debacle - hence I didn't even get a single response except from someone that believes that my basic +1 is OVER-RATED, even though I had the balls to include my real name and my military service history - including my service-connected disability.
Or, maybe the VN-era vets are just to browned-off by the federal government to post in this arena (or too wary of consequences resulting from their posts).
I really wonder what would have been the response had I been a middle-east veteran (probably the limit of the life span of the down-grading poster).
Maybe it's time for me to do the same as all the rest of the older military crowd - and just blow-off this site as a load of crap-a-doodle posters that still live in their parent's basement.
I really hope there is someone still existing and free to help YOU when the jack-boots come a-stomping at YOUR front door.
Happy Trails to You, horses-ass.
Yeah, yeah, yeah - flame-bait at it's worst - so have fun wasting your moderator points on someone that actually cares, and who would actually try to help you if you got pegged by the 'security' services of this once-great nation.
And there we have it - the TRUTH of the MATTER - TOO many people are willing - even eager - to sacrifice their rights in order to obtain 'protection' from the savages at the gate (actually, the savages that have already broken down the gate) who are dead-set on destroying our domestic freedoms.
Had a few, and don't remember the exact quote - but - - - those that are willing to give up their liberties for the sake of 'safety' / 'security', will have, and deserve, neither ! ! !
God Bless America - since apparently nobody else will, and we (collective WE) are giving up our most precious freedoms in the name of, and for the sake of, a security that doesn't exist ! ! !
I served in the military during Viet Nam (OK, so it was a shit war-scenario), but I STILL demand the right to my privacy, my rights to freedom and self-expression, and my right to live my life as I see fit.
God Damn the Politicians and Lawyers that have gotten into bed with the multi-national corporations that are continuing to suck the life out of our once-great country.
Yes, I still have firearms in my house, and I'll go down shooting when they try to break down my front door just because I expressed an opinion that is contrary to the 'politically correct' flavor-of-the-day !
My ONE SINGLE lifetime desire is to live long enough to witness 'the year they shot all the lawyers'.
STILL A PROUD VETERAN ! ! !
Ssgt Richard L. Pebworth, USAF, disabled veteran (service connected).
I'm karma solvent, so blast away with your piss-ant responses.
Yes, I know this is/. and reading the article is not required to post in this arena. However, I still support my original point that this is NOT the headline-grabbing Artificial Womb.
It IS a means of providing extended womb-like support for really early premature births, and should be lauded as a serious accomplishment in it's own merits, as it provides a MUCH better option than a premature birth installed in an oxygenated tank for 'hopeful' completion of the embryo's development.
There is no reason to over-sell it's accomplishments, since the fundamental issue of providing life-support for these premature embryos is a major accomplishment in itself.
Yes, it could very well lead to the actual development of a REAL artificial womb, capable of supporting full embryonic growth from sperm-egg inception to a live birth, but that is another issue altogether - requiring the development of the umbilical link, the development of the nutrient support, the development of the hormone additives (to determine the sex of the embryo), and the development of the 'unknown' issues involved in the early stages of gestation.
Thanks to all the supporters and readers of this forum for your input.
The apparatus did NOT 'grow' a sheep, it merely kept a premature sheep embryo alive long enough to separate it from the device, and then have it submitted to the knife of the 'scientists' so they could evaluate the effectiveness of the artificial womb.
OK, I am NOT anti-science, and I really do appreciate the accomplishments of this endeavor - - - therefore there is NO reason to blow the accomplishments out of proportion.
THIS 'device' is being put forward as a means to extend the viability of really early premature birth infants so they actually have a chance to survive - - - and NOT as an ARTIFICIAL WOMB with the ability to actually grow an infant from sperm-egg inception to birth.
Lovely piece of junk - consumed more of my time than girls (even THINKING about girls).
Next one was a solder-the-chips, burn your own boot ROM, board built around an 8080a - using the ROM I developed in college. Those were the days - fine-tuning a program at the byte-level to fit into the tiny memory space. AND those days were the end of actually BUILDING a computer - vs the modern process of plugging in boards onto a purchased motherboard, installed in an off-the-shelf case & power supply. Nowadays, building a computer is pretty much a cookbook affair of assembling a motherboard-processor-memory, power supply, case, and handling a screwdriver to fasten it all together - - - gotta' love progress - - - and pity the poor dweebs that don't even know what eutectic means (reference to 63-37 solder, solid to liquid with no-or-minimal plasticity stage)
Was a real 'ego-trip' to beat your fellow classmates' models by a few microseconds and a few hundred bytes . . . lol
Pity the current gen of kids with GIGs to play with, assemblers/compilers that use generic 'calls' (dll's), and don't give-a-shit about byte-control size or instruction execution times I 'lived' for the code control and re-use of command-call segments that reduced the overall program size, by CALL'ing into a part of a subroutine to reduce memory usage, and re-using as much code as possible - for as many tasks as possible ! ! !
Eventually (HOPEFULLY) the coding community will re-live those days, and AGAIN deal with minimalist code that optimizes the code to the processor, and reduces the surplus garbage inherent in using 'generalized' DLL's to produce a usable program that doesn't require a DVD for storage space. My best-guess will be around 2025 for 32-bit processors, and 2045 for 64-bit processors. -lol- Actually, that is just a pipe-dream, as memory continues to increase in size/density, processor speeds increase, and byte-level tweeking gets delegated to the same category as 'flint-knapping'.
OK, so I'm old, and to lazy to look it up, but I do seem to remember a GUI program that was Win XT comparable, running off a 1.2meg floppy.
Hey, is there anybody out there as old as me, that remembers the Bill Gates' intro to voice controlled computing - - - when someone in the audience yelled out "Format see colon return" - and the computer did it - - - rofl. I never did find out what happened to the poor fool that scuppered BG's prime time demo.
Just wait until someone figures out how to diddle the phones to switch to 'speaker-phone', and then proceed to totally trash the house's voice control network ! ! !
The next thing we'll see is a cold-call sales group turning ON your speaker-phone, and then disabling or screwing with all your voice activated appliances within earshot.
Wonder how long it'll take THIS little jewel to surface ?
on SATA - I believe that the majority of the external USB spinning rust consists of a generic SATA drive coupled thru a SATA-to-USB interace. What I'd really like to see is one of these SBC's with a generic SATA connection along with a set of USB ports so that I could have a chance of recovering the data from old external USB drives. Someone is going to make a small fortune designing and configuring one of the SBC's for this specific application . . .
Break open the 'dead' external USB drive box, connect the appropriate cable to your SBC, plug in to the USB port for your desktop link, and BINGO - the dead drive can now be copied out to another storage location.
MANY of the external USB failures are because the interface has failed, and replacing that with a generic SBC link, plus appropriate power to the drive and platter, will allow you to recover most, if not all, of the data from the 'dead' external USB drive.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you could always cannibalize a working USB drive for its interface, but that means taking down a working drive on the off-chance that the interface is compatible - not the best solution.
AND there is the issue of compatibility between various interface cards - - - but that is the purpose of using a SBC for the interface - configurable software packages for each type of SATA-to-USB configuration.
Slashdot Mirror
OK, Zero__Kelvin, I surrender. I am not going to argue the validity of my comparisons any longer.
YOU, on the other hand, need to learn to focus on the reality of DELIBERATELY un-vaccinated children lowering the herd immunity and causing pain, suffering, and sometimes even death to those that did not have the opportunity to get their vaccinations - whether through recent immigration, economic issues, or simple ignorance.
I hope you never have to live through the grief I am still living with because of a simple MEASLES vaccination (MMR) that was late - and my daughter is deaf - FOR LIFE - because she caught the disease from a 'religious objector' (through no fault of his).
I will live with this issue for the rest of my life - because I was not timely in getting Deborah's MMR booster on time.
Get off your BS nit-picking and actually try to do something that HELPS the world - not just a piss-ant word-war on who is the most explicitly accurate in their analogies!
I've tried - really hard, considering, to be decent about this debate, but you are basically just a royal asshole.
I may get banned - but YOU will have to learn to live with your conscious - - - and just MIGHT eventually learn to be civil and courteous when posting.
hmmmm - - - downgraded as 'REDUNDANT'
So be it.
There can NEVER be enough warnings and sound medical advice to give to ANY expectant mother.
I'll take the hit gracefully.
I just hope it gets to at least ONE more new mother-to-be and gets her to take the proper nutritional care of her developing child.
cheers
Sorry I came across that way on the issue of 'state mandated injections'. That was NOT the issue - it is that IF you don't vaccinate, then stay out of the general population. That is a far milder point of contention than 'state mandated anything', and a much fairer alternative! Unless you are willing to accept the liability of causing disease, disability, or even death to other children, then get your child vaccinated.
It's sorta' like giving your child a cap gun pistol to play with (vaccinated), vs a loaded 9mm (un-vaccinated). One is fun, the other is life-threatening, not only to the child but to his/her classmates. (OK, so let's not get into the issue of playing with guns - ALL kids do, even if it's just finger-pointing and saying "BANG-BANG")
I hope all your children have had their jabs.
cheers
IF a child - who is NOT inoculated spreads a disease throughout his/her peer group, then it's high time to start prosecuting their parents for criminal mischief, at the very least, for allowing their child to be a carrier and disease vector simply because they refused to get that child vaccinated. Prosecution levels should even be allowed to go as high as "involuntary manslaughter", although, to me, it's NOT involuntary, it's premeditated, and should be criminalized to the full extent of those statutes.
Granted, this doesn't solve the problem resulting from that incident, but it WILL send a message to all the other parents that refuse to get their children vaccinated. Basically, if you allow your child to be a disease carrier, then YOU are responsible for all the harm caused to the other children who are harmed, disabled, crippled, or even killed - ALL THROUGH YOUR OWN NEGLIGENCE, or your BELIEF SYSTEM.
It makes no difference whether the issue is religious, personal, or just plain obstinate hard-headedness - YOU are the reason another child (or children) contracted a disease that could have been prevented with current vaccination regimes.
OK, so it's a sad and sometimes horrific (in case of permanent disability or death) situation, and there are many who would say that the parents (and child) have suffered enough - - - BUT the situation is SOLELY the responsibility of the child's parents / guardians to see that they are given the best medical care available - and that INCLUDES THE VACCINATIONS !
There is a serious line of demarcation between religion and scientific medical processes - and if the 'BELIEF' faction is allowed to put the health and lives of the other children at risk, then I BELIEVE they should be removed from the general population - - - as in ISOLATION WARDS / CAMPS.
Sorry if this sounds a bit fascist, or absolute socialistic, but there is just too much at stake to allow this type of behavior to endanger the health and well-being of the majority of the population - - - simply because someone says "My FAITH says I should NOT do this".
Take your FAITH and use it to cure the harm caused to the other children endangered by your actions (or INactions).
GET YOUR VACCINATIONS - REGULARLY and ON TIME - - - to protect the whole world.
cheers . . .
For all the newly pregnant mothers-to-be - - - pre-natal vitamins are NOT a joke - they are a vital necessity for your child's health and welfare ! ! !
WOW! You must be as old as I am to remember the old 'bang-bang' propulsion system of the REAL ORION spacecraft -lol-
FINALLY !
It's been about 50 years that the NERVA program has been on hold - mostly because of the atmospheric nuclear test ban treaties of the time, and also the space nuclear bans related to those test bans.
Check out these 2 sites / articles for some history of a WORKING nuclear powered rocket engine - - -
NERVA testing - https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
and - http://www.daviddarling.info/e...
I was in high school, and missed out on actually seeing one of the tests at Jackass Flats in early 1967 because I was underage and couldn't get the security clearance needed - really sucked.
The first thing that popped into my mind when reading the title was the Heechee novels by Frederik Pohl. They were an alien species that required low-level microwave background energy to maintain body warmth, and to power the 'old ones', digitally(?) preserved brain images of the deceased.
I've often wondered when the level of background radiation was going to become high enough to allow devices to 'capture' this background flux and use it to power low-power devices.
OK, so it smacks of the 'TESLA' radiated energy schemes, still - it's everywhere in industrialized areas of the world, and it was only a matter of time before the flux density became high enough to be scavenged and put to use powering small, low-power devices.
Agreed. But if you want to do it NOW, you use what you have - basically the current launch vehicle with extra strap-on engines.
Very true - but if it disassembles your rocket due to stress overload, your totally up the proverbial creek - - - and the docs I've read about the structural stress loads on the Falcon indicate that it can NOT withstand more than 2 engines at full thrust in it's current configuration. So - - - whatcha' gonna' do? - build a completely new rocket, or use what you have and boost the system with PAIRS of engines firing together?
Hell, the most efficient thrust system today is to fire off a small nuke under your arse and then use extra thrusters to finalize the orbital logistics - but - - - since you'll be red jelly smeared on the bottom of a (probably) vaporized launch vehicle, you'd best factor in other technical issues - LIKE STRUCTURAL STRESS OVERLOADS!
Here's one for the BOTE crowd - - -
How about strapping FOUR outboard engines (or even SIX in a hexagonal array) wrapped around the central engine.
OK, so the thrust of even 3 full-burn engines over-stresses the vehicle, burn the outboards at 2-at-a-time max thrust, with all others throttled down, then jettison the exhausted engines and ramp up the next 2 to full thrust.
With a 4x set of outboards, the range is vastly expanded - geosync and moon insertion.
And with a 6-pack - burning 2 at a time, Mars and the Asteroids become real possibilities.
For near-earth orbits, the payload capacity becomes HUGE - equal / exceeding the Saturn V with the 4 outboard (plus central core) - - - and REALLY HUGE using the 6-pack plus core configuration.
Hell, with the 6-pack configuration, you could conceiveably deliver TWO fully loaded engines to low-to-medium orbit so they could be strapped onto another vehicle - - - to be used for Lunar, Mars, and Asteroid missions.
Very nice animation - - - BUT
1) note the word 'planned' - even Musk is down-playing the full success of the initial launch
2) only the 2 out-board engines will land at Kennedy - the central engine burns longer and thus Kennedy is outside it's return/landing capability - - - it will land on a barge in the Atlantic
3) Item of Interest - the 2 out-board engines have been 'flight-tested', they are recycled launch engines
All-in-all, a very nice YouTube vid - but the odds of some kind of failure are pretty high. Still, I wish the best of luck for Musk and his team. They have done wonders over the last few years in turning the governmentally-controlled space-launch industry into a viable commercial business.
GO - MUSK - GO . . . It's gonna' be neat to see the 2 outboard engines landing simultaneously at Kennedy.
cheers . . .
AGREED! - These journals exist solely for profit - and generally can barely spell their own publication's name correctly (lol). The fundamental purpose of their existence is to suck up $$$'s, £££'s, and €€€'s from anybody that happens to THINK they are legitimate - generally from semi-bogus URL links, or sometimes from search engine results.
The sad part of this issue is that even the reputable publications often use the same pricing strategies to bolster their bottom line, with no regard to the public interest - - - and charge exorbitant fees because they have a 'lock-in' with the scientific publication industry solely to make money, even though they get their material from scientific researchers who are trying desperately to gain accreditation through the 'published' avenue (even those who do their research on the public's dime) - listing their papers so that they can stay in the 'publish-or-perish' game of academia.
Jeeez, guys - get a grip. This is equivalent to storing a dozen words - - - and stating that they have stored an encyclopedia.
OK, so it's an animated GIF-like sequence - it's STILL ONLY FIVE IMAGES - NOT a FUCKING MOVIE ! ! !
Granted, the technology will eventually graduate to the data density needed to actually STORE A MOVIE, it's still in it's early infant stage and just doesn't even come close to the article TITLE ! ! !
Break out the mod points and have a ball, I'm karma flush - - - and THIS article deserves even WORSE than I stated - - - it's basically pure bull-shit sensationalism - - - and seems to have made it to the /. pages because it's a slow news day.
Damn! I'd mod this up +1 as RELEVANT and up +1 as Well Thought Out if I had any mod points left.
Seems like it's a lose-lose situation when a law can't be voided when more than 1/3 of the people in the country want it to be GONE, and even worse when MORE than half want a law revoked but can't get it NULL'ed out.
Simple resolution (OK, so it's simplISTIC), but it should take 2/3 of the population to implement a law, but only 1/3 to delete a law - - - things would get MUCH better within a single year. (note that with 2/3 and 1/3 ALL voting, it could be a stalemate, hence a NULL operand on the law - i.e. NOT passed).
AND, with this simplistic setup, we wouldn't need to go through "the year they killed all the lawyers".
Just got off the line with an Amazon rep (Indian, by name - THREE of them) and was told this offer DOES NOT APPLY TO THE US
Isn't it wonderful how our world-wide network works - against the founding country?
OK, so I'm a bit bitter, but as a totally disabled Viet Nam vet, I was really looking forward to a decent discount for a few months.
The originating author can go suck desert rocks - and then learn to get his facts straight before posting !
Crap! Did I wave the flag too hard ? Or did I just make a point that didn't resonate with any of the /. readers?
I can live with being 'dinged' as a patriot, but to be down-graded from my basic +1 by someone as 'over-rated' is just about the limit.
Apparently there are no readers that lived through the Viet Nam debacle - hence I didn't even get a single response except from someone that believes that my basic +1 is OVER-RATED, even though I had the balls to include my real name and my military service history - including my service-connected disability.
Or, maybe the VN-era vets are just to browned-off by the federal government to post in this arena (or too wary of consequences resulting from their posts).
I really wonder what would have been the response had I been a middle-east veteran (probably the limit of the life span of the down-grading poster).
Maybe it's time for me to do the same as all the rest of the older military crowd - and just blow-off this site as a load of crap-a-doodle posters that still live in their parent's basement.
I really hope there is someone still existing and free to help YOU when the jack-boots come a-stomping at YOUR front door.
Happy Trails to You, horses-ass.
Yeah, yeah, yeah - flame-bait at it's worst - so have fun wasting your moderator points on someone that actually cares, and who would actually try to help you if you got pegged by the 'security' services of this once-great nation.
And there we have it - the TRUTH of the MATTER - TOO many people are willing - even eager - to sacrifice their rights in order to obtain 'protection' from the savages at the gate (actually, the savages that have already broken down the gate) who are dead-set on destroying our domestic freedoms.
Had a few, and don't remember the exact quote - but - - - those that are willing to give up their liberties for the sake of 'safety' / 'security', will have, and deserve, neither ! ! !
God Bless America - since apparently nobody else will, and we (collective WE) are giving up our most precious freedoms in the name of, and for the sake of, a security that doesn't exist ! ! !
I served in the military during Viet Nam (OK, so it was a shit war-scenario), but I STILL demand the right to my privacy, my rights to freedom and self-expression, and my right to live my life as I see fit.
God Damn the Politicians and Lawyers that have gotten into bed with the multi-national corporations that are continuing to suck the life out of our once-great country.
Yes, I still have firearms in my house, and I'll go down shooting when they try to break down my front door just because I expressed an opinion that is contrary to the 'politically correct' flavor-of-the-day !
My ONE SINGLE lifetime desire is to live long enough to witness 'the year they shot all the lawyers'.
STILL A PROUD VETERAN ! ! !
Ssgt Richard L. Pebworth, USAF, disabled veteran (service connected).
I'm karma solvent, so blast away with your piss-ant responses.
wow! Thanks for all the kind remarks.
Yes, I know this is /. and reading the article is not required to post in this arena.
However, I still support my original point that this is NOT the headline-grabbing Artificial Womb.
It IS a means of providing extended womb-like support for really early premature births, and should be lauded as a serious accomplishment in it's own merits, as it provides a MUCH better option than a premature birth installed in an oxygenated tank for 'hopeful' completion of the embryo's development.
There is no reason to over-sell it's accomplishments, since the fundamental issue of providing life-support for these premature embryos is a major accomplishment in itself.
Yes, it could very well lead to the actual development of a REAL artificial womb, capable of supporting full embryonic growth from sperm-egg inception to a live birth, but that is another issue altogether - requiring the development of the umbilical link, the development of the nutrient support, the development of the hormone additives (to determine the sex of the embryo), and the development of the 'unknown' issues involved in the early stages of gestation.
Thanks to all the supporters and readers of this forum for your input.
cheers . . .
Jeez, get a grip - and READ THE ARTICLE.
The apparatus did NOT 'grow' a sheep, it merely kept a premature sheep embryo alive long enough to separate it from the device, and then have it submitted to the knife of the 'scientists' so they could evaluate the effectiveness of the artificial womb.
OK, I am NOT anti-science, and I really do appreciate the accomplishments of this endeavor - - - therefore there is NO reason to blow the accomplishments out of proportion.
THIS 'device' is being put forward as a means to extend the viability of really early premature birth infants so they actually have a chance to survive - - - and NOT as an ARTIFICIAL WOMB with the ability to actually grow an infant from sperm-egg inception to birth.
cheers . . .
Lovely piece of junk - consumed more of my time than girls (even THINKING about girls).
Next one was a solder-the-chips, burn your own boot ROM, board built around an 8080a - using the ROM I developed in college.
Those were the days - fine-tuning a program at the byte-level to fit into the tiny memory space.
AND those days were the end of actually BUILDING a computer - vs the modern process of plugging in boards onto a purchased motherboard, installed in an off-the-shelf case & power supply. Nowadays, building a computer is pretty much a cookbook affair of assembling a motherboard-processor-memory, power supply, case, and handling a screwdriver to fasten it all together - - - gotta' love progress - - - and pity the poor dweebs that don't even know what eutectic means (reference to 63-37 solder, solid to liquid with no-or-minimal plasticity stage)
Was a real 'ego-trip' to beat your fellow classmates' models by a few microseconds and a few hundred bytes . . . lol
Pity the current gen of kids with GIGs to play with, assemblers/compilers that use generic 'calls' (dll's), and don't give-a-shit about byte-control size or instruction execution times
I 'lived' for the code control and re-use of command-call segments that reduced the overall program size, by CALL'ing into a part of a subroutine to reduce memory usage, and re-using as much code as possible - for as many tasks as possible ! ! !
Eventually (HOPEFULLY) the coding community will re-live those days, and AGAIN deal with minimalist code that optimizes the code to the processor, and reduces the surplus garbage inherent in using 'generalized' DLL's to produce a usable program that doesn't require a DVD for storage space. My best-guess will be around 2025 for 32-bit processors, and 2045 for 64-bit processors. -lol-
Actually, that is just a pipe-dream, as memory continues to increase in size/density, processor speeds increase, and byte-level tweeking gets delegated to the same category as 'flint-knapping'.
OK, so I'm old, and to lazy to look it up, but I do seem to remember a GUI program that was Win XT comparable, running off a 1.2meg floppy.
cheers . . .
Hey, is there anybody out there as old as me, that remembers the Bill Gates' intro to voice controlled computing - - - when someone in the audience yelled out "Format see colon return" - and the computer did it - - - rofl.
I never did find out what happened to the poor fool that scuppered BG's prime time demo.
Just wait until someone figures out how to diddle the phones to switch to 'speaker-phone', and then proceed to totally trash the house's voice control network ! ! !
cheers . . .
The next thing we'll see is a cold-call sales group turning ON your speaker-phone, and then disabling or screwing with all your voice activated appliances within earshot.
Wonder how long it'll take THIS little jewel to surface ?
on SATA - I believe that the majority of the external USB spinning rust consists of a generic SATA drive coupled thru a SATA-to-USB interace.
What I'd really like to see is one of these SBC's with a generic SATA connection along with a set of USB ports so that I could have a chance of recovering the data from old external USB drives.
Someone is going to make a small fortune designing and configuring one of the SBC's for this specific application . . .
Break open the 'dead' external USB drive box, connect the appropriate cable to your SBC, plug in to the USB port for your desktop link, and BINGO - the dead drive can now be copied out to another storage location.
MANY of the external USB failures are because the interface has failed, and replacing that with a generic SBC link, plus appropriate power to the drive and platter, will allow you to recover most, if not all, of the data from the 'dead' external USB drive.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you could always cannibalize a working USB drive for its interface, but that means taking down a working drive on the off-chance that the interface is compatible - not the best solution.
AND there is the issue of compatibility between various interface cards - - - but that is the purpose of using a SBC for the interface - configurable software packages for each type of SATA-to-USB configuration.
cheers . . .
Well, I guess this spells the end of the 'paperless office' revolution.
Going to have to recover all those old loose-leaf binders to repurpose tham as data storage files -lol-
Who'd a thought the old paper junk could actually be digitized, in the most literal sense.