Well, not if you consider (as many seem to do) "the way Europeans do it" as the template for behavior, then no the US isn't 'ahead' (whatever that means) of Europe in any aspect of life. (Nor can it be.) And really, that's what people seem to believe - just look at the reactions in this thread... "America offers options that you don't get in Europe, well it must be America that is wrong". No consideration, no comparison, just knee-jerk dogma.
They complain of checks not being secure... Well, if you aren't doing 100% of your transactions personally and online, credit/debit cards aren't any more secure. There's no difference between handing a waiter a check and handing him your credit card. If I put my personal info along with my debit card info on a bill and stick it in my mailbox, it's the same situation. It's no more secure than a check.
Not to mention, I've never heard a report of a laptop with customers checking information being stolen.
If Europeans have all but eliminated the option of using a check, then it's they who are backwards in my opinion.
And that was a big part of it, the stability of the platforms during that era. A C64 was exactly the same as every other one, a Tandy Coco was identical to the million others of it's kind. Later models tended to retain as close to 100% backward compatibility as possible so knowledge and software tools retained value.
And because those computers insisted on remaining frozen in time is why vanished - because they became irrelevant as the world moved on and they didn't.
Now you buy a lot of PCs with the understanding that a year from now you won't be able to buy more of the exact model even if you stick to Optiplexes and such that promote the relative stability of the platform.
Nor do they need to be the exact same model. Software is smarter now-a-days and can run on a variety of non-identical machines of the same type.
Derek, as you might have noticed I was keeping it short on the comet disaster.
One can be short without being wrong. You were both short *and* wrong.
The people who built the Comet we no dummies so clearly they discovered a scaling issue in metal no one had encountered before nor new how to design for at that time.
No, actually they discovered (as is widely documented in aviation histories) that they failed to correctly account for the stresses caused by multiple pressurization and depressurization cycles. They knew perfectly well how to design for metal fatigue, but lacked information on how that fatigue would manifest itself.
The point I was making was that just because you can't foresee a problem in something new does not mean you cant anticipate there might be problems you can't foresee. The switch to composites opened up the same sort of issues that the comet did.
I merely pointed out how you have the story wrong, not that your point was false.
I've said time and time again, "Never replace hardware with software" because something dedicated to the task will always work better, or be less failure prone (more often than not).
On the flip side, the USN replaced complicated and heavy hardware analog computing systems for [SSBN] missile guidance systems with software running on a digital computer, and MTBF went through the roof and maintenance man hours and MTTR through the floor. The same thing happened when they replaced the analog torpedo fire controls with digital ones. The same thing happened again when the hovering system controls were upgraded to digital.
Now, before you claim that is a limited set of examples, I invite you to consider the millions of incident free flight hours accumulated by fly-by-wire aircraft. Or the replacement of DIP switches in PC's with software configuration. Etc... Etc...
Next week I'll tell you about how the ancient shocking lesson of the British Commet aluminum aircraft wings falling off led to the unanticipated discovery of metal fatigue and probably was the reason Boeing was slow to move to composite materials in commercial aircraft (but not in military aircraft).
This one comment makes me wonder about the veracity of the balance of your account.
Metal fatigue was known about long before the Comet took wing in 1949.
The fatigue cracks on the Comet's occurred at skin penetrations (windows and hatches).
In hind sight we have heard of many tales of the composite tails of plane falling off as the reason for the loss of control before a crash.
Then there is crunchy bit of FUD, which fails to mention that more than a few of those accidents are also associated with extreme control surface movements (inducing extreme stresses) prior to the failure.
Way to Go, slashdot readers! Completely overgeneralizing a research article!
If you actually bother to read the article, the grandparent pretty much got it right. The information the study located is information people (mostly) aren't particularly trying to hide. (And if you read the study, you'll also note they made no effort to determine or confirm if the data is accurate.)
The point is that it doesn't even have to be "most" of your Facebook friends. You can infer a surprising amount of information based on a relatively small sampling of people.
Which discover amounts to "duh". If you look at my friends list on Facebook or Livejournal, it's trivially easy to determine my interests. But, as the grandparent correctly points out - that's because I make no effort to hide those interests.
The study notably fails to demonstrate that by such analysis that you can find out anything 'surprising' (E.G. not already publicly disclosed).
The proper extension is that this type of research indicates it's possible to infer other information (like shopping, political, geographic, demographic, etc) from information reflected by your friends.
This type of research demonstrates no such thing. They don't even demonstrate the accuracy of their current research by comparing their predictions with ground truth.
Myouterspace.com is, in the captain's own words, '... a Sci Fi Social Network for those with a passion for the arts.'
But that is exactly why it won't catch on. The reason why Facebook is so popular is because -everyone- can use it.
It might not catch on among everyone, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have a niche. I participate in two social networking sites dedicated to woodworking, another dedicated to bookbinding, and another dedicated to soapmaking. (Not to mention half a dozen forums on the same topics, which really only differ from 'social networking' sites only in formant.)
That's the beauty of the Internet - we don't need One Site To Bind Them All.
This is inevitable. Not only will we see more of this, but it's going to get a lot more invasive. Politicians have decided it's their responsibility to look out for our well-being.
Given that people are asking to be taken care of by the goverment more and more, it's a natural conclusion for the politicians to make.
Yes, that is why the label says 0g and not transfat-free. FDA guidelines allow rounding down 0.49g to 0g for a single serving. So now it's just a matter of serving size manipulation to get it to 0.49g.
Which is why such serving size manipulation has been banned by the FDA for a number of years now. For example, both the can of coke and bag of chips next to my keyboard used to be listed as two servings per container. Now they are both listed as one serving.
I've been trying to teach to family to correlate the food labels with the serving size and deduce what is consumed with a portion size (what you choose to eat). Who eats just one cookie?
The only cookies in my house are some Girl Scout cookies I picked up week before last - and they list the serving size as between four and seven cookies depending on the type.
I thought I was OK because I was eating chicken, but I read in the NEJM that chicken is injected with salt and water (so that I can buy water at the price of chicken). Nothing on the label about that. Thanks, FDA.
Actually, if you bother to read the label you'll note that it says "injected with a solution" or "retains processing liquid" or some such. I can't remember the exact verbiage off of the top of my head as I avoid anything other than minimally processed like the plague.
The problem isn't with the FDA, the problem is you are a idiot who "believes" he is safe (for no apparent reason) by eating chicken - but who can't be bothered to read the label and make the effort to understand it.
Unfortunately for the free-market personal choice crowd, you can't simply reduce salt in your diet by avoiding the salt shaker.
So the only way to reduce salt in your diet is to get to the source -- the manufacturers (and the restaurants) who put salt in your food without telling you.
I don't know what planet you're posting from, but salt has been required to be listed among the ingredients for decades, and sodium content listed on the nutritional information panel for years. As above, the problem isn't the manufacturers, the problem is you are an idiot who can't be bothered to read the packaging.
I could be totally off base here, but I'm guessing that the prof's need feedback too. If they see every face in the classroom looking emotionless at their laptops, the prof's have no idea if anyone is listening at all.
From my experience as an instructor in the Navy, you've pretty much hit the nail on the head here. You watch the students, and their body language as well as their facial expressions, to see whether they are "getting it" or not. Teaching, especially good teaching, is an interactive process.
As long as you are 18 (in Wisconsin at least), you don't even need a driver's education course. All you need to do is pass the test, which is ridiculously easy, and you get a license for the rest of your life.
Wisconsin is different then than the states I've held a driver's license in then. Everywhere I've lived, a license isn't for life but must be renewed at regular intervals and part of the renewal process is always an eye exam. (Here in Washington, if you have points on your record they may also require a written test and/or a driving test.)
The game never made it to any other version of Windows
That's because BOP wasn't a windows game - it was a DOS game. Depending on it's graphics you may still be able to run it today. (I'm still stuck at W95, so YMMV.)
"And no, there are no animations of cities in flames or body parts flying about. This game does not reward failure."
(Closing text from Balance Of Power if you managed to ignite thermonuclear war and thus lose the game. I spent many hours myself finding new and creative ways to not win...)
Sorry to burst your bubble of gas, but German scientists have already proved that you can supply a power grid with _only_ renewable energy - wind, solar and biogas.
They've 'proven' it on a 1:10000 scale model - which is roughly akin to 'proving' that a Pentium can work by performing basic math operations on a hand calculator.
But they're going to run into significant challenges scaling it up - they're going to need biogas plants in hot standby to provide peaking loads as wind power availability waxes and wanes over the course of the day and year due to changing weather. They'll need biogas plants for the same reasons plus changing insolation with the changing seasons for solar, and more still to take the baseload as solar production does to zero overnight. (Either that, or the wind and solar legs will have to be grossly over provisioned.)
Not to mention the significant problem of assuring a stable year round supply of large quantities of biogas and the maintenance of sufficient reserves to cover 'droughts' in the other sources and periods of abnormally high demand.
So, while this type of grid will almost certainly work well at a limited scale, I find it hard to believe that it will work on a national scale for other than the smallest of countries.
The Reason you use gas is it's easier to turn on and off the Coal/Nuclear.
Gas is only marginally easier than coal - it's the preheat time for the water in the loop that's the real killer AIUI. Nuclear could be fast reacting as well, naval nuclear reactors certainly are, and I don't know why civilian ones aren't.
Disclaimer: I have served onboard a nuclear powered submarine, though as a strategic weapons tech not as a nuke. I have a working familiarity with nuclear power plants however.
Slashdot Mirror
Since, in the US, checks are rarely if ever a necessity... your point is what exactly?
Well, not if you consider (as many seem to do) "the way Europeans do it" as the template for behavior, then no the US isn't 'ahead' (whatever that means) of Europe in any aspect of life. (Nor can it be.) And really, that's what people seem to believe - just look at the reactions in this thread... "America offers options that you don't get in Europe, well it must be America that is wrong". No consideration, no comparison, just knee-jerk dogma.
They complain of checks not being secure... Well, if you aren't doing 100% of your transactions personally and online, credit/debit cards aren't any more secure. There's no difference between handing a waiter a check and handing him your credit card. If I put my personal info along with my debit card info on a bill and stick it in my mailbox, it's the same situation. It's no more secure than a check.
Not to mention, I've never heard a report of a laptop with customers checking information being stolen.
If Europeans have all but eliminated the option of using a check, then it's they who are backwards in my opinion.
And because those computers insisted on remaining frozen in time is why vanished - because they became irrelevant as the world moved on and they didn't.
Nor do they need to be the exact same model. Software is smarter now-a-days and can run on a variety of non-identical machines of the same type.
One can be short without being wrong. You were both short *and* wrong.
No, actually they discovered (as is widely documented in aviation histories) that they failed to correctly account for the stresses caused by multiple pressurization and depressurization cycles. They knew perfectly well how to design for metal fatigue, but lacked information on how that fatigue would manifest itself.
I merely pointed out how you have the story wrong, not that your point was false.
Nike went out of service by 1974 - Perl was developed in 1987. You do the math.
On the flip side, the USN replaced complicated and heavy hardware analog computing systems for [SSBN] missile guidance systems with software running on a digital computer, and MTBF went through the roof and maintenance man hours and MTTR through the floor. The same thing happened when they replaced the analog torpedo fire controls with digital ones. The same thing happened again when the hovering system controls were upgraded to digital.
Now, before you claim that is a limited set of examples, I invite you to consider the millions of incident free flight hours accumulated by fly-by-wire aircraft. Or the replacement of DIP switches in PC's with software configuration. Etc... Etc...
This one comment makes me wonder about the veracity of the balance of your account.
Then there is crunchy bit of FUD, which fails to mention that more than a few of those accidents are also associated with extreme control surface movements (inducing extreme stresses) prior to the failure.
If you actually bother to read the article, the grandparent pretty much got it right. The information the study located is information people (mostly) aren't particularly trying to hide. (And if you read the study, you'll also note they made no effort to determine or confirm if the data is accurate.)
Which discover amounts to "duh". If you look at my friends list on Facebook or Livejournal, it's trivially easy to determine my interests. But, as the grandparent correctly points out - that's because I make no effort to hide those interests.
The study notably fails to demonstrate that by such analysis that you can find out anything 'surprising' (E.G. not already publicly disclosed).
This type of research demonstrates no such thing. They don't even demonstrate the accuracy of their current research by comparing their predictions with ground truth.
That depends on whether or not CO2 recovery/sequestration technologies are used. (This being China, I'm betting not.)
It might not catch on among everyone, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have a niche. I participate in two social networking sites dedicated to woodworking, another dedicated to bookbinding, and another dedicated to soapmaking. (Not to mention half a dozen forums on the same topics, which really only differ from 'social networking' sites only in formant.)
That's the beauty of the Internet - we don't need One Site To Bind Them All.
Given that people are asking to be taken care of by the goverment more and more, it's a natural conclusion for the politicians to make.
Which is why such serving size manipulation has been banned by the FDA for a number of years now. For example, both the can of coke and bag of chips next to my keyboard used to be listed as two servings per container. Now they are both listed as one serving.
The only cookies in my house are some Girl Scout cookies I picked up week before last - and they list the serving size as between four and seven cookies depending on the type.
Actually, if you bother to read the label you'll note that it says "injected with a solution" or "retains processing liquid" or some such. I can't remember the exact verbiage off of the top of my head as I avoid anything other than minimally processed like the plague.
The problem isn't with the FDA, the problem is you are a idiot who "believes" he is safe (for no apparent reason) by eating chicken - but who can't be bothered to read the label and make the effort to understand it.
I don't know what planet you're posting from, but salt has been required to be listed among the ingredients for decades, and sodium content listed on the nutritional information panel for years. As above, the problem isn't the manufacturers, the problem is you are an idiot who can't be bothered to read the packaging.
You may be to young to remember when people actually bought albums for the express purpose of actually listening to them in their entirety.
You just gotta love internet debate - no facts need apply when you can just declare your opponents wrong a priori.
Some people prefer to go to the original source when one is available.
From my experience as an instructor in the Navy, you've pretty much hit the nail on the head here. You watch the students, and their body language as well as their facial expressions, to see whether they are "getting it" or not. Teaching, especially good teaching, is an interactive process.
You're suggesting it's wrong for a teacher to care about his students and their education?
Wisconsin is different then than the states I've held a driver's license in then. Everywhere I've lived, a license isn't for life but must be renewed at regular intervals and part of the renewal process is always an eye exam. (Here in Washington, if you have points on your record they may also require a written test and/or a driving test.)
Looks like what - clean and clearly organized? Why do you find that a problem?
That's because BOP wasn't a windows game - it was a DOS game. Depending on it's graphics you may still be able to run it today. (I'm still stuck at W95, so YMMV.)
"And no, there are no animations of cities in flames or body parts flying about. This game does not reward failure."
(Closing text from Balance Of Power if you managed to ignite thermonuclear war and thus lose the game. I spent many hours myself finding new and creative ways to not win...)
Hell, I'd love to have a dispenser full of these in my RV.
Assuming a method can be found to transport the filled bags - otherwise they'll just become helicopters too.
They've 'proven' it on a 1:10000 scale model - which is roughly akin to 'proving' that a Pentium can work by performing basic math operations on a hand calculator.
But they're going to run into significant challenges scaling it up - they're going to need biogas plants in hot standby to provide peaking loads as wind power availability waxes and wanes over the course of the day and year due to changing weather. They'll need biogas plants for the same reasons plus changing insolation with the changing seasons for solar, and more still to take the baseload as solar production does to zero overnight. (Either that, or the wind and solar legs will have to be grossly over provisioned.)
Not to mention the significant problem of assuring a stable year round supply of large quantities of biogas and the maintenance of sufficient reserves to cover 'droughts' in the other sources and periods of abnormally high demand.
So, while this type of grid will almost certainly work well at a limited scale, I find it hard to believe that it will work on a national scale for other than the smallest of countries.
Gas is only marginally easier than coal - it's the preheat time for the water in the loop that's the real killer AIUI. Nuclear could be fast reacting as well, naval nuclear reactors certainly are, and I don't know why civilian ones aren't.
Disclaimer: I have served onboard a nuclear powered submarine, though as a strategic weapons tech not as a nuke. I have a working familiarity with nuclear power plants however.