That is why I only consume stuff now from Colorado grown orchards. I KNOW that these came from here. The big labels are using China. That is also why I do not order apple juice out of any restaurant, and esp. NOTHING from California. California does not grow enough apple trees to produce and yet, they create a lot of apple juice. Can you say mercury? Sure you can.
California is the 5th largest apple producer in the nation, and the 2nd largest apple exporter in the U.S. In 2008 (the latest year I can find complete numbers for), California produced 360 million pounds of apples; Colorado produced 18 million pounds (for comparison, the number one state, Washington, produced over 5.6 billion pounds). Of that, 160 million pounds were used "fresh", while the remaining 200 million pounds were processed into juice and other products.
California does indeed import apples, but a lot of the imports actually come from Chile. Apple season in California runs roughly September - December, which overlaps with production in other states (Washington tends to be a little earlier, I think August-October), and imports from South America are popular to provide fresh apples during our off-season (as opposed to China, where the apple season is similar to ours). The larger juice makers do indeed import a lot of juice from China, though this is true throughout the nation and is not specific to California.
SPOILER: A renegade was manipulating everyone, and the only reason Russia is involved is because they want to get their nukes back before anyone realizes they lost them to begin with.
That doesn't sound like the Battlefield 3 I know. The only renegade I'm familiar with is that ass that just blew up the jeep I was trying to hop into with our base AA.
Oh, I see. You must have made the mistake of clicking on "Campaign." That's actually just there as punishment for anyone unfamiliar with the Battlefield series - it isn't actually meant to be, you know, played.
In fact, we would be legally liable for failing our fiduciary duty to our shareholders
This is not strictly true, though it is often quoted from someplace, usually someoneâ(TM)s ass.
A company has the responsibility to do what is best for the stockholders. There is NO law requiring publically traded companies to pursue profit above all other considerations.
And what's best for the stockholders is, almost always, increased profits. That's why the stockholders hold the stock, after all. Now, if you could show that an action would increase profits temporarily but prove disastrous in the long run then perhaps increasing profit would not be the fiduciarily responsible thing to do - but that is only because you are trading relatively minor short-term profit for (potentially) much greater long-term profits.
It seems to me that a well edited summary of the story might give us an idea of what Spear Phishing is.. at least, why is it different than normal phishing?
Is it because it has a trojan? What? huh?
help us out a bit here
I wouldn't have thought the term would need explanation on Slashdot, as it is a standard industry term. A "spear phishing" attack is similar to regular phishing, but instead of targeting masses the attack targets specific, high-value individuals. Usually the attacks require a significant amount of research on the part of the attackers.
I get that it is an important distinction between GNU/Linux and Linux, but there are very few things I find more difficult to pronounce in English than "GNU". I always feel like saying that is like tripping over a slightly raised edge in a sidewalk: moving along quite well until I suddenly stumble and feel like I am making some mistake as if I was just learning to walk (or talk). That is why I tend to just say, "Linux" (additionally, GNU/Linux will confuse a lot of people, and I do not always want to educate someone on the difference).
What do you mean, GNU is easy to pronounce. All you have to do is ignore the self-absorbed ramblings of a semi-literate, and say "new".
Not that it is less confusing when pairing it with Linux, but then nobody outside of a dedicated few actually care if you include GNU anyway.
I tend to like music that has a feeling of dance in it, but I sometimes like other kinds too. However, I usually dislike the various genres that are popular in the US, such as rock, country, rap, reggae, techno, and composed American "folk". Please tell me what unusual music and dance forms are present; I can tell you if I am interested.
I'd much rather sleep on someone's couch and hang out with locals than be chauffeured around and entertained constantly.
The temperature must be perfectly modulated. If it climbs so much as 1 degree above 72, you must supply an electric fan. God help you if the temperature reaches 75.
Also, no using any internet access that requires him to log in. His preference is apparently for you to give him your credentials so that he may log in to your account whenever he feels like it.
Those were two that just jumped out at me. Not saying these are entirely unreasonable, he just doesn't sound like someone I would have any interest in dealing with. I'm glad I have absolutely no interest in inviting him to speak anywhere (or listening to him speak), I don't think I'd be able to resist screwing with him and taking his lists of don'ts as a list of to-dos.
For laying fiber in rural areas, a quick search comes up with a cost of between $16,000 and $80,000 per mile. This appears to include digging a ditch, laying the cable, repeaters, etc. So, for $4.5 billion we should be able to lay about 90,000 miles of fiber. Of course, pretty much all of these rural places that need broadband should already have phone service (and power; internet is probably not terribly useful without it), so in theory we should be able to hang new fiber on the existing utility poles - that should bring the cost closer to the $16,000 figure, which would allow 280,000 miles of fiber to be strung up, ignoring all costs of "subsidizing" people who already have connections.
Oh, just noticed that only $300 million is earmarked for deployment, so I guess we're only looking at 6,000 - 18,000 miles of fiber next year. Maybe it's time to move to the country - it seems I would be far more likely to get better internet there than waiting for AT&T or Comcast to ever actually upgrade their systems.
But this brought up an interesting question. I know that California state law requires a certain number of handicapped spaces for all public parking lots and structures (public including lots intended for customers and employees), but I haven't been able to find anything about enforcing handicapped parking in private lots. Presumably, the city parking police wouldn't be cruising through a privately-owned campus like Apple's. Could an employee (or passerby) call to report such a violation? Or would the entity that owns the lot have to invite the police to enforce the handicapped parking space?
Absolutely an asshole move to do this, I'm just wondering, legally, how it works to enforce handicapped parking in private lots. Presumably one of those who keyed the car might have considered calling to report the parking violation, so I'm thinking that the municipality's parking police aren't allowed to do anything unless the owner of the property invites them to do so (which most shopping centers etc. would likely do).
Yeah it's a good thing he didn't let his fortune change him...
Swapping luxury vehicles every six months, parking scofflaw,...
I don't know, a friend of mine does similar things (though not the parking in handicapped spots bit). When he buys a new car (which isn't terribly frequent, but he has bought two in the last three or four years) he doesn't put the plates on until he is actually pulled over and told he needs to (so far hasn't received a ticket for it). His minivan made it about 8 months without plates, his new Tundra about a year. During that time he makes full use of the ability to avoid bridge tolls by using the FasTrak lane, and has been known to run red lights at intersections with cameras -after stopping and making sure it was safe - just because. He is also the type of guy that always pushes for the very best deals, negotiating on pretty much everything he possibly can.
It drives his wife crazy, and he acknowledges that it is sort of asshole behavior, but he just can't help it. I wouldn't at all be surprised if Jobs was this way even before making money - some people are just wired like that.
Because the 787 was a disaster of a project until ANA stepped in and re-engineered most of it. It kind of makes me angry the article just forgot to mention that. Without ANA the 787 would still be delayed and the final product wouldn't be as nice.
Give credit where credit is due.
ANA didn't do any "re-engineering". They were the launch customer, which (as with pretty much every recent airliner project) gave them additional input into the design and development of the aircraft - but not from the engineering perspective. Some airlines might have wanted it a little bit bigger or a little bit smaller - being the launch customer, ANA had a much stronger voice in helping Boeing finalize the size and (interior) layout of the aircraft than others. They also had a voice in designing the usage scenario - things like,"should we trade some range for better high-altitude airport takeoff performance? Should we add 10 seats, or extend the range by 200 NM?" Things where the aircraft design could go either way equally easily, ANA had a voice in making decisions such that the delivered aircraft would best meet their specific planned usage scenarios.
USA has been losing the drug war. After trillions of dollars spent with 3 (almost 4) decades of losses the WoD UStrategy has moved to mother-nature manipulation to initiate volcanic activity in global regions that produce and export drugs to US for power and profit. Finally a WoD UStrategy that will destroy the organic source of the problem. No more crops, way less consumers, and the end of another underground economy.
I was wondering where the tin-foil hats came in; should have known there was a conspiracy involved somewhere.
Obviously the solution is to transition away from the current paradigm, where every person has their own physical hardware. We must move to a new architecture, where a single body can concurrently run numerous minds, greatly increasing overall efficiency and reducing waste.
I would come up with a clever acronym, but schizophrenia has way too many letters.
"I don't mind a few chuckles between explosions" leads to the Culture series (fine) but "I don't have a sense of humor that I'm aware of" and "I just like my action intense" goes to the Vorkosigan Saga? What the hell? Bujold is funnier than most sf on her worst day. And sure, there's _some_ intense action, but just as much, well, character comedy and romance. I'm, er, not sure if the person who did that bit of the flowchart ever actually read the books at all...
Definitely agree, Bujold is awesome. Banks' books have far less humour, much of it limited to naming of ships (and some of there conversations, particularly in Excession). I'm rather surprised Bujold's fantasy works didn't make the list as well (Curse of Chalion books, anyway; I never could get into The Sharing Knife series).
There are some very questionable decisions on that flowchart that suggest whoever put it together isn't actually familiar with the material. For example, to get to The Wheel of Time you have to say yes to "Does the series have to be finished?", never mind that the next book won't be out until March at the earliest.
IMDB has become so hideously ugly and poorly designed that no one will notice anyway.
Like usual, it looks like this is a little more complicated than it looks at first. It seems they only got her real DOB when she entered it while signing up for an account; I would guess that they might not have made clear that any information entered in the account creation process became public. So, maybe a leg to stand on in that respect - but very hard to believe she will get far claiming that her DOB should not be printed if she doesn't want it to be.
You can try to spin this whatever way you want, but facts are facts. CALPers is trying to tank a stock it owns, to the financial detriment of the people CALPers represents.
Bullshit. They point out several major problems that have cropped up at News International recently. Illegal activity that appears to have been approved (or at least knowingly ignored) at the highest levels, selling access to supposed news columns, and little or no oversight from the board. These issues have the potential to very rapidly destroy the company; CalPERS, along with other institutional and private investors, are looking for a way to bring some oversight to the top-level executives, which happen to be Murdoch and family (among others). Yes, Rupert Murdoch has been very effective in building value over time - but recent events have shown that, whether through a failure to properly oversee operations or willing participation in these activities, they are taking much greater risks than some investors are comfortable with. It isn't the ideology espoused by the News Corp outlets that is at issue - that hasn't changed since CalPERS and the others invested, and frankly most of them probably don't care as long as the returns are good - it is the policies of the corporate leadership that they see as trending towards corruption.
That isn't to discount the fact that CalPERS members are likely to be largely opposed to the ideological viewpoint espoused by many of the News Corp properties. CalPERS has, in the past, moved out of industries it has ideological problems with (or specific companies) on numerous occassions. But to say that they would intentionally destroy the value in a stock they plan on (apparently) continuing to hold is just letting your own ideology color your view of events. News Corp seems to be out of control, from the perspective of some of the investors. They want more oversight of executive activities and decisions in order to reduce the risk of being blindsided by continued negligence (or criminal activity), which means removing or diluting the Murdochs' presence on the board.
But yeah, more fun just to yell and scream that the evil liberals are trying to silence the voice of conservatives.
Did all manufacturers get hit by the flood? If not, lawsuits of price fixing might follow if they all start to increase prices for no reason.
Lol. You do realize that a 25% reduction in output means the same demand must be met by fewer manufacturers, right? When demand remains constant and supply suddenly decreases, the natural market reaction is a price increase until demand decreases to match supply (or until supply recovers).
Sure, the other manufacturers may be able to increase supply somewhat to counter this, but prices are bound to increase in the short term. Not due to price fixing, but due to normal market forces.
An 11% improvement in a subjective, multifactorial category like 'relaxation' and they're calling it the World's Best Music for that purpose? Why are we reading this mumbo jumbo, even in idle?
I don't know whose editorial judgment sucks more, samzenpus or Timothy. I'd say samzen just took a major lead for the day, though.
Didn't you see the photo with the guy in a lab coat? It's science.
4-5 years ago, my friends were always asking me to stop inviting them to facebook, because they were already members. It was funny because I wasn't even a member myself. Yet, somehow they were getting invited by me to join.
Cut to a few years later, I joined facebook only because I wanted to see how well integrated it worked with my palm pre. It integrated really well. A few days into my membership, I got an friend request from a college buddy. There was a shadow profile, but I had figured that he hadn't filled his profile out yet. So I accepted. The next day he told me he said f*ck it and joined on my invitation. So, he wasn't a member and hadn't done a friend request. I felt so stupid for falling for it. My acceptance of his friend request generated an invite to join FB from me. I should have known better. Needless to say, I researched how to delete my account. Funny enough, there's still a shadow profile of me naturally. My buddy, on the other hand, lives on the site. I guess he can blame me once he wakes up from his FB daze.
I've had similar experiences where Facebook outright lied about where an invitation came from (just as your case above), and about one friend adding another friend who was not on my Facebook. That was a strange one - it told me that my cousin was friends with a person I knew in grad school, which seemed very unlikely seeing as how they live 2,500 miles apart and didn't seem to have any reason to know each other. But hey, it's a small world, so I checked my cousin's profile - turned out Facebook was lying, just trying to get me to add the person I knew in grad school by claiming an unlikely relationship existed that would presumably pique my interest and get me to add them to say, "OMG! How do you know my cousin?!?!?!" No real reason not to add them (though I generally limit my Facebook usage to responding to other people's friend requests), I just found it really odd that Facebook would lie about them knowing each other in an attempt to generate interest and get me to add additional people... does it really benefit them that much to map out (and potentially create) relationships?.
The... interesting font choice and yahoo email address as primary contact do not instill a sense of confidence in the 2011 paper. That, and it doesn't appear to have been published anywhere other than arxiv.org. Maybe at least wait for it to make it through peer review before having big discussions about it? This is one of the problems with arxiv.org - it is an archive of preprints, which may or may not have gone anywhere. From arxiv.org:
Disclaimer: Papers will be entered in the listings in order of receipt on an impartial basis and appearance of a paper is not intended in any way to convey tacit approval of its assumptions, methods, or conclusions by any agent (electronic, mechanical, or other). We reserve the right to reject any inappropriate submissions. (Emphasis added)
So, until this actually appears in a journal it might be a bit premature for those of us not in the field to be discussing it (and some of the issues pointed out in Bad Astronomer and elsewhere probably mean that it won't be getting published, at least in the current form).
In the case of the iPad, one of the primary uses is to impress people from across the room^h^h^h^h independent, organic free-trade coffee shop.
So, yes, 10 feet is the usual using distance.
Yeah, but in those cases the other people usually see the side or back of the device, which are clearly different on the Samsung and Apple products. So this "tell the fronts apart from 10 feet" is clearly bogus.
I don't know much about the geology, but could it possibly be the result of a shield volcano?
That's basically the current/default understanding - the rilles were created from subsurface flows of lava that left empty lava tubes, which collapsed leaving the rilles behind. Similar to what you see, on a much smaller scale, in places like Lava Beds on the Modoc plateau in Northern California.
This study points out that some of the rilles don't appear to really be starting or ending at identifiable volcanic vents/craters, and so they are questioning whether they are actually the result of volcanic activity. If you take a look at this photo, you can sort of see what they mean. The feature pointed out with the arrows looks a lot more like a stream bed than it does a collapsed lava tube. It is hard to really form a strong opinion from the photo, though; it is difficult to tell if the feature is actually following topography like a gravity flow.
Yep, you are exactly correct. Making up fake science, or using it selectively is politicization in true form. Scientization would be taking a politically contentious topic and limiting its policy to what is determined to be most effective by the scientific method. Luckily we already have that to some extent in the field of medicine, but we could do with more.
The problem with science is that it rarely gives black and white answers to complicated questions, so your results often depend a lot more on what you ask than the actual science behind the answer. Yucca Mountain has been extensively studied, and there is ample scientific evidence to argue both for and against a nuclear waste repository there - the answer depends entirely on how much risk you are willing to accept. Choosing an acceptable risk level is almost purely political in nature, and can change with the political tide. Looking at the acceptable risk when the project started, the scientific investigations conducted since then suggest that Yucca is probably an appropriate place to store waste. Looking at the acceptable risk now, with a more politically powerful Nevada that fought to decrease the acceptable risk level, the scientific evidence suggests that Yucca is not feasible. The science hasn't changed (well, actually it has quite a bit since the beginning of the project, but that isn't really relevant here), it isn't being used selectively, the thing that has changed is the politically-determined acceptable risk. It is quite valid to say that the science doesn't support building a waste repository at Yucca - the science doesn't support it (at a given acceptable risk level).
The thing that is problematic about this is that the politicians increasingly use this to hide the political decision. They focus on saying that the science doesn't (or does) support X or Y, when really they should be saying that the science doesn't support it at our chosen risk criteria. They do their best to avoid discussion of the risk criteria, which is what the political discussion should be about.
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That is why I only consume stuff now from Colorado grown orchards. I KNOW that these came from here. The big labels are using China. That is also why I do not order apple juice out of any restaurant, and esp. NOTHING from California. California does not grow enough apple trees to produce and yet, they create a lot of apple juice. Can you say mercury? Sure you can.
California is the 5th largest apple producer in the nation, and the 2nd largest apple exporter in the U.S. In 2008 (the latest year I can find complete numbers for), California produced 360 million pounds of apples; Colorado produced 18 million pounds (for comparison, the number one state, Washington, produced over 5.6 billion pounds). Of that, 160 million pounds were used "fresh", while the remaining 200 million pounds were processed into juice and other products.
Data from here.
California does indeed import apples, but a lot of the imports actually come from Chile. Apple season in California runs roughly September - December, which overlaps with production in other states (Washington tends to be a little earlier, I think August-October), and imports from South America are popular to provide fresh apples during our off-season (as opposed to China, where the apple season is similar to ours). The larger juice makers do indeed import a lot of juice from China, though this is true throughout the nation and is not specific to California.
Then you didn't actually play BF3 did you?
SPOILER: A renegade was manipulating everyone, and the only reason Russia is involved is because they want to get their nukes back before anyone realizes they lost them to begin with.
That doesn't sound like the Battlefield 3 I know. The only renegade I'm familiar with is that ass that just blew up the jeep I was trying to hop into with our base AA.
Oh, I see. You must have made the mistake of clicking on "Campaign." That's actually just there as punishment for anyone unfamiliar with the Battlefield series - it isn't actually meant to be, you know, played.
In fact, we would be legally liable for failing our fiduciary duty to our shareholders
This is not strictly true, though it is often quoted from someplace, usually someoneâ(TM)s ass.
A company has the responsibility to do what is best for the stockholders. There is NO law requiring publically traded companies to pursue profit above all other considerations.
And what's best for the stockholders is, almost always, increased profits. That's why the stockholders hold the stock, after all. Now, if you could show that an action would increase profits temporarily but prove disastrous in the long run then perhaps increasing profit would not be the fiduciarily responsible thing to do - but that is only because you are trading relatively minor short-term profit for (potentially) much greater long-term profits.
So how far do we have to go to get out of the Slow Zone?
It seems to me that a well edited summary of the story might give us an idea of what Spear Phishing is.. at least, why is it different than normal phishing?
Is it because it has a trojan? What? huh?
help us out a bit here
I wouldn't have thought the term would need explanation on Slashdot, as it is a standard industry term. A "spear phishing" attack is similar to regular phishing, but instead of targeting masses the attack targets specific, high-value individuals. Usually the attacks require a significant amount of research on the part of the attackers.
I get that it is an important distinction between GNU/Linux and Linux, but there are very few things I find more difficult to pronounce in English than "GNU". I always feel like saying that is like tripping over a slightly raised edge in a sidewalk: moving along quite well until I suddenly stumble and feel like I am making some mistake as if I was just learning to walk (or talk). That is why I tend to just say, "Linux" (additionally, GNU/Linux will confuse a lot of people, and I do not always want to educate someone on the difference).
What do you mean, GNU is easy to pronounce. All you have to do is ignore the self-absorbed ramblings of a semi-literate, and say "new".
Not that it is less confusing when pairing it with Linux, but then nobody outside of a dedicated few actually care if you include GNU anyway.
I thought this one was interesting:
I tend to like music that has a feeling of dance in it, but I
sometimes like other kinds too. However, I usually dislike the
various genres that are popular in the US, such as rock, country, rap,
reggae, techno, and composed American "folk". Please tell me what
unusual music and dance forms are present; I can tell you if I am
interested.
Polka it is, then.
The temperature must be perfectly modulated. If it climbs so much as 1 degree above 72, you must supply an electric fan. God help you if the temperature reaches 75.
Also, no using any internet access that requires him to log in. His preference is apparently for you to give him your credentials so that he may log in to your account whenever he feels like it.
Those were two that just jumped out at me. Not saying these are entirely unreasonable, he just doesn't sound like someone I would have any interest in dealing with. I'm glad I have absolutely no interest in inviting him to speak anywhere (or listening to him speak), I don't think I'd be able to resist screwing with him and taking his lists of don'ts as a list of to-dos.
For laying fiber in rural areas, a quick search comes up with a cost of between $16,000 and $80,000 per mile. This appears to include digging a ditch, laying the cable, repeaters, etc. So, for $4.5 billion we should be able to lay about 90,000 miles of fiber. Of course, pretty much all of these rural places that need broadband should already have phone service (and power; internet is probably not terribly useful without it), so in theory we should be able to hang new fiber on the existing utility poles - that should bring the cost closer to the $16,000 figure, which would allow 280,000 miles of fiber to be strung up, ignoring all costs of "subsidizing" people who already have connections.
Oh, just noticed that only $300 million is earmarked for deployment, so I guess we're only looking at 6,000 - 18,000 miles of fiber next year.
Maybe it's time to move to the country - it seems I would be far more likely to get better internet there than waiting for AT&T or Comcast to ever actually upgrade their systems.
But this brought up an interesting question. I know that California state law requires a certain number of handicapped spaces for all public parking lots and structures (public including lots intended for customers and employees), but I haven't been able to find anything about enforcing handicapped parking in private lots. Presumably, the city parking police wouldn't be cruising through a privately-owned campus like Apple's. Could an employee (or passerby) call to report such a violation? Or would the entity that owns the lot have to invite the police to enforce the handicapped parking space?
Absolutely an asshole move to do this, I'm just wondering, legally, how it works to enforce handicapped parking in private lots. Presumably one of those who keyed the car might have considered calling to report the parking violation, so I'm thinking that the municipality's parking police aren't allowed to do anything unless the owner of the property invites them to do so (which most shopping centers etc. would likely do).
Yeah it's a good thing he didn't let his fortune change him...
Swapping luxury vehicles every six months, parking scofflaw, ...
I don't know, a friend of mine does similar things (though not the parking in handicapped spots bit). When he buys a new car (which isn't terribly frequent, but he has bought two in the last three or four years) he doesn't put the plates on until he is actually pulled over and told he needs to (so far hasn't received a ticket for it). His minivan made it about 8 months without plates, his new Tundra about a year. During that time he makes full use of the ability to avoid bridge tolls by using the FasTrak lane, and has been known to run red lights at intersections with cameras -after stopping and making sure it was safe - just because. He is also the type of guy that always pushes for the very best deals, negotiating on pretty much everything he possibly can.
It drives his wife crazy, and he acknowledges that it is sort of asshole behavior, but he just can't help it. I wouldn't at all be surprised if Jobs was this way even before making money - some people are just wired like that.
Most systems should be able to give you a ticket based on your VIN, too, which is visible through the windshield...
Well, assuming it isn't covered up. As far as I know there is no law against covering the VIN, only removing or obliterating it.
Because the 787 was a disaster of a project until ANA stepped in and re-engineered most of it. It kind of makes me angry the article just forgot to mention that. Without ANA the 787 would still be delayed and the final product wouldn't be as nice.
Give credit where credit is due.
ANA didn't do any "re-engineering". They were the launch customer, which (as with pretty much every recent airliner project) gave them additional input into the design and development of the aircraft - but not from the engineering perspective. Some airlines might have wanted it a little bit bigger or a little bit smaller - being the launch customer, ANA had a much stronger voice in helping Boeing finalize the size and (interior) layout of the aircraft than others. They also had a voice in designing the usage scenario - things like,"should we trade some range for better high-altitude airport takeoff performance? Should we add 10 seats, or extend the range by 200 NM?" Things where the aircraft design could go either way equally easily, ANA had a voice in making decisions such that the delivered aircraft would best meet their specific planned usage scenarios.
USA has been losing the drug war. After trillions of dollars spent with 3 (almost 4) decades of losses the WoD UStrategy has moved to mother-nature manipulation to initiate volcanic activity in global regions that produce and export drugs to US for power and profit. Finally a WoD UStrategy that will destroy the organic source of the problem. No more crops, way less consumers, and the end of another underground economy.
I was wondering where the tin-foil hats came in; should have known there was a conspiracy involved somewhere.
Obviously I have not been wearing mine enough.
Obviously the solution is to transition away from the current paradigm, where every person has their own physical hardware. We must move to a new architecture, where a single body can concurrently run numerous minds, greatly increasing overall efficiency and reducing waste.
I would come up with a clever acronym, but schizophrenia has way too many letters.
Er...
"I don't mind a few chuckles between explosions" leads to the Culture series (fine) but "I don't have a sense of humor that I'm aware of" and "I just like my action intense" goes to the Vorkosigan Saga? What the hell? Bujold is funnier than most sf on her worst day. And sure, there's _some_ intense action, but just as much, well, character comedy and romance. I'm, er, not sure if the person who did that bit of the flowchart ever actually read the books at all...
Definitely agree, Bujold is awesome. Banks' books have far less humour, much of it limited to naming of ships (and some of there conversations, particularly in Excession). I'm rather surprised Bujold's fantasy works didn't make the list as well (Curse of Chalion books, anyway; I never could get into The Sharing Knife series).
There are some very questionable decisions on that flowchart that suggest whoever put it together isn't actually familiar with the material. For example, to get to The Wheel of Time you have to say yes to "Does the series have to be finished?", never mind that the next book won't be out until March at the earliest.
IMDB has become so hideously ugly and poorly designed that no one will notice anyway.
Like usual, it looks like this is a little more complicated than it looks at first. It seems they only got her real DOB when she entered it while signing up for an account; I would guess that they might not have made clear that any information entered in the account creation process became public. So, maybe a leg to stand on in that respect - but very hard to believe she will get far claiming that her DOB should not be printed if she doesn't want it to be.
You can try to spin this whatever way you want, but facts are facts. CALPers is trying to tank a stock it owns, to the financial detriment of the people CALPers represents.
Bullshit. They point out several major problems that have cropped up at News International recently. Illegal activity that appears to have been approved (or at least knowingly ignored) at the highest levels, selling access to supposed news columns, and little or no oversight from the board. These issues have the potential to very rapidly destroy the company; CalPERS, along with other institutional and private investors, are looking for a way to bring some oversight to the top-level executives, which happen to be Murdoch and family (among others). Yes, Rupert Murdoch has been very effective in building value over time - but recent events have shown that, whether through a failure to properly oversee operations or willing participation in these activities, they are taking much greater risks than some investors are comfortable with. It isn't the ideology espoused by the News Corp outlets that is at issue - that hasn't changed since CalPERS and the others invested, and frankly most of them probably don't care as long as the returns are good - it is the policies of the corporate leadership that they see as trending towards corruption.
That isn't to discount the fact that CalPERS members are likely to be largely opposed to the ideological viewpoint espoused by many of the News Corp properties. CalPERS has, in the past, moved out of industries it has ideological problems with (or specific companies) on numerous occassions. But to say that they would intentionally destroy the value in a stock they plan on (apparently) continuing to hold is just letting your own ideology color your view of events. News Corp seems to be out of control, from the perspective of some of the investors. They want more oversight of executive activities and decisions in order to reduce the risk of being blindsided by continued negligence (or criminal activity), which means removing or diluting the Murdochs' presence on the board.
But yeah, more fun just to yell and scream that the evil liberals are trying to silence the voice of conservatives.
Did all manufacturers get hit by the flood? If not, lawsuits of price fixing might follow if they all start to increase prices for no reason.
Lol. You do realize that a 25% reduction in output means the same demand must be met by fewer manufacturers, right? When demand remains constant and supply suddenly decreases, the natural market reaction is a price increase until demand decreases to match supply (or until supply recovers).
Sure, the other manufacturers may be able to increase supply somewhat to counter this, but prices are bound to increase in the short term. Not due to price fixing, but due to normal market forces.
An 11% improvement in a subjective, multifactorial category like 'relaxation' and they're calling it the World's Best Music for that purpose? Why are we reading this mumbo jumbo, even in idle?
I don't know whose editorial judgment sucks more, samzenpus or Timothy. I'd say samzen just took a major lead for the day, though.
Didn't you see the photo with the guy in a lab coat? It's science.
4-5 years ago, my friends were always asking me to stop inviting them to facebook, because they were already members. It was funny because I wasn't even a member myself. Yet, somehow they were getting invited by me to join.
Cut to a few years later, I joined facebook only because I wanted to see how well integrated it worked with my palm pre. It integrated really well. A few days into my membership, I got an friend request from a college buddy. There was a shadow profile, but I had figured that he hadn't filled his profile out yet. So I accepted. The next day he told me he said f*ck it and joined on my invitation. So, he wasn't a member and hadn't done a friend request. I felt so stupid for falling for it. My acceptance of his friend request generated an invite to join FB from me. I should have known better. Needless to say, I researched how to delete my account. Funny enough, there's still a shadow profile of me naturally. My buddy, on the other hand, lives on the site. I guess he can blame me once he wakes up from his FB daze.
I've had similar experiences where Facebook outright lied about where an invitation came from (just as your case above), and about one friend adding another friend who was not on my Facebook. That was a strange one - it told me that my cousin was friends with a person I knew in grad school, which seemed very unlikely seeing as how they live 2,500 miles apart and didn't seem to have any reason to know each other. But hey, it's a small world, so I checked my cousin's profile - turned out Facebook was lying, just trying to get me to add the person I knew in grad school by claiming an unlikely relationship existed that would presumably pique my interest and get me to add them to say, "OMG! How do you know my cousin?!?!?!" No real reason not to add them (though I generally limit my Facebook usage to responding to other people's friend requests), I just found it really odd that Facebook would lie about them knowing each other in an attempt to generate interest and get me to add additional people... does it really benefit them that much to map out (and potentially create) relationships?.
The 2011 paper can be read here: http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1110/1110.2798.pdf
Bonilla's 1885 paper can be read here: http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k2096403/f351
The... interesting font choice and yahoo email address as primary contact do not instill a sense of confidence in the 2011 paper. That, and it doesn't appear to have been published anywhere other than arxiv.org. Maybe at least wait for it to make it through peer review before having big discussions about it? This is one of the problems with arxiv.org - it is an archive of preprints, which may or may not have gone anywhere. From arxiv.org:
So, until this actually appears in a journal it might be a bit premature for those of us not in the field to be discussing it (and some of the issues pointed out in Bad Astronomer and elsewhere probably mean that it won't be getting published, at least in the current form).
In the case of the iPad, one of the primary uses is to impress people from across the room^h^h^h^h independent, organic free-trade coffee shop.
So, yes, 10 feet is the usual using distance.
Yeah, but in those cases the other people usually see the side or back of the device, which are clearly different on the Samsung and Apple products. So this "tell the fronts apart from 10 feet" is clearly bogus.
I don't know much about the geology, but could it possibly be the result of a shield volcano?
That's basically the current/default understanding - the rilles were created from subsurface flows of lava that left empty lava tubes, which collapsed leaving the rilles behind. Similar to what you see, on a much smaller scale, in places like Lava Beds on the Modoc plateau in Northern California.
This study points out that some of the rilles don't appear to really be starting or ending at identifiable volcanic vents/craters, and so they are questioning whether they are actually the result of volcanic activity. If you take a look at this photo, you can sort of see what they mean. The feature pointed out with the arrows looks a lot more like a stream bed than it does a collapsed lava tube. It is hard to really form a strong opinion from the photo, though; it is difficult to tell if the feature is actually following topography like a gravity flow.
Yep, you are exactly correct. Making up fake science, or using it selectively is politicization in true form. Scientization would be taking a politically contentious topic and limiting its policy to what is determined to be most effective by the scientific method. Luckily we already have that to some extent in the field of medicine, but we could do with more.
The problem with science is that it rarely gives black and white answers to complicated questions, so your results often depend a lot more on what you ask than the actual science behind the answer. Yucca Mountain has been extensively studied, and there is ample scientific evidence to argue both for and against a nuclear waste repository there - the answer depends entirely on how much risk you are willing to accept. Choosing an acceptable risk level is almost purely political in nature, and can change with the political tide. Looking at the acceptable risk when the project started, the scientific investigations conducted since then suggest that Yucca is probably an appropriate place to store waste. Looking at the acceptable risk now, with a more politically powerful Nevada that fought to decrease the acceptable risk level, the scientific evidence suggests that Yucca is not feasible. The science hasn't changed (well, actually it has quite a bit since the beginning of the project, but that isn't really relevant here), it isn't being used selectively, the thing that has changed is the politically-determined acceptable risk. It is quite valid to say that the science doesn't support building a waste repository at Yucca - the science doesn't support it (at a given acceptable risk level).
The thing that is problematic about this is that the politicians increasingly use this to hide the political decision. They focus on saying that the science doesn't (or does) support X or Y, when really they should be saying that the science doesn't support it at our chosen risk criteria. They do their best to avoid discussion of the risk criteria, which is what the political discussion should be about.