I also find it irritating that scores for non-USA teams are often not displayed, even when they showed their event participation (e.g., Chinese women's gymnastics scores). No, I don't need to see coverage of East Elbonia, but if they're the gold medal team, they deserve to have their names and scores on TV, just like the Americans.
Nope. We can't train ordinary people simple tactics and gun safety.
Like driving, which everyone complains about, just because you're driving doesn't make you any good at it. Just because you sat through 30 hours of school and had 30 - 60 hours of practice, doesn't mean you're not going to screw up, willfully, or through negligence, ignorance, or lack of wisdom.
Right, but that's not what is proposed. What NRA and similar groups keep saying is that everyone has a right to carry any kind of firearm, anywhere. Furthermore, that this should be encouraged among the general public.
What I say: People can't drive -- even with extensive training -- but we expect they'll use a firearm with care?
We bought a precertified Toyota Sienna with about 29k miles from a dealership. They said the previous owner was a rental company. While driving it home (Dallas to Austin), it crapped out. Turns out the engine was sludged out because the oil had never been changed. Fortunately, since it was precertified, Toyota picked up the tab for the brand new engine.
However, lesson learned. Just because you think someone might take care of it doesn't mean they actually did.
Also, these cars are being rented based on their looks. If you're spending the money to rent a high-end car, you want it to be pristine. So any scratch. scrape, bump, or blemish will be your responsibility.
This is true of regular cars as well. Worse, insurers have no-contest agreements with rental agencies so that they pay whatever the rental company charges them and then they jack up your rate at renewal -- even if you were not at fault. This happened to my wife, once. She rented a car with some existing luggage scrapes. The rental company charged us for them because she hadn't noted them on the condition report (she didn't notice them).
At this point, I always take photos and video of the car before I drive off in it. It's stupid, but better than getting dinged on your insurance for something you didn't do.
I'd post a tabular comparison if/. allowed tables.
Considering how bad the ASCII art trolls used to be on top of the difficulty of fixed width tables on mobile devices, I think I can live with that limitation.
OTOH, if it defaulted to hidden but you could click a "show table" link to unhide it, that could work.
I love the scene in What's Eating Gilbert Grape? where Gilbert walks into the fake Walmart -- archrival to the small grocery he works for -- to get a cake for his brother's party.
Yeah, I think what he means is that the tube can point anywhere but that nevertheless the tube itself is a nice and smooth trajectory. Whereas, putting a spin on the ball makes it much more likely the tube will point in one of a few specific directions.
If you've taken differential equations, I imagine the spin makes the trajectories narrow to a few sinks but the knuckleball does not. Many, many curves are valid.
A variant of [1] that is being actively pursued at a number of institutions is specialization. Random example: Classics. It is very expensive to maintain a Classics department. There are few grants and other moneymaking opportunities outside of pure tuition. Some schools are saying they'll offer classics and other schools will subscribe to their curriculum. The remote students will utilize online learning to participate with professors at the supporting institution. Tuition for the remote students is typically less but it will still net more dollars for the subscribing institution.
Cutting pay: Colleges seldom use straight-up pay cuts. What they do is eliminate tenured positions via attrition and have both higher adjunct/faculty and student/instructor ratios. They can usually make up for it by offering more tutoring, which is relatively cheap.
Have you looked at the Western Governors model? For the self-motivated student who 1) doesn't need collegiate networking and 2) wants a real degree (not some University of Phoenix garbage or untrustworthy opencourseware-y start-up product), it is a good and inexpensive option.
AT&T and Verizon could live without cable TV because they don't create content. If Netflix continues growing and is successful creating exclusive content, I can easily see AT&T or Verizon partnering with them for a low-end, cable TV-ish service (YouTube could go this route, as well). That would give them a selling point against TimeWarner and Comcast who hate Netflix for the additional reason that it prevents commercials from paying for their content production units.
It will be very interesting to see how this all works out! -l
but they're okay with these kind of things because they are trying to migrate all of their customers to fiber/VOIP so they can dismantle their copper networks as soon as possible
Not exactly... AT&T is pursuing fiber-to-the-node. That is, they run fiber to some neighborhood nodes, but everything still runs over copper to your house from that node. Last time I checked, Verizon wasn't aggressively building out their FIOS network anymore, just relying on new construction and regular maintenance to grow.
The real reason AT&T and Verizon are less concerned about Netflix is that they do not create content. Yes, they have TV service available and don't want to see it lost to Netflix. However, the balance sheet for TV production exists for Time Warner and Comcast and they have to ensure they get enough commercials viewed to recoup production costs. Thus, they hate Netflix for two reasons instead of one.
We hosted an accessibility conference a few weeks ago and the iPhone was the clear winner as most usable device. Is it 100%? No, of course not. But it is far ahead of Android, though Google has been working on it.
Haptics would certainly make it even more awesome. Can you imagine using maps with haptics for elevation? For the blind, you could have different heights to represent different features (e.g., highways might be deeper than side roads), all with Braille labels. That would be sweet.
Anyhow, Knobility is an awesome organization. Check it out if you're into hacking the Web for non-standard users.
SpaceX will live or die by its reputation, so it's very unlikely they would. In the general case, though, governments often write poor specifications and then complain that the vendor cut corners. OK, that's not limited to governments either - better to spend lots of effort on a specification than to wish you had afterwards.
I'm less worried about catastrophe than, e.g., substandard radiation shielding, poor filtering, etc. Little things that are easy to overlook and unlikely to do anything in the short- to medium-term but have long-term harm.
It's unlikely SpaceX, Orbital Sciences, or Bigelow will have these issues, being platinum class operations. I'm more concerned when a low-cost-but-man-rated Indian or Chinese competitor comes on the scene and drives down global prices.
The only way to combat that is to force a level playing field by only man-rating craft which meet rigorous specifications, as you say. But will other nations cooperate in this effort? Long-term, the space game will be played by many nations and if the US is the only one with sensible standards, our people will go out of business and so will safety.
If you had access to a weather balloon, how much rocket would you need to eject an extremely small rover (RC car sized) out of Earth orbit onto an eventual moon landing?
Imagine the tiny rover is in a bouncy shell thing that will unfurl when it lands. Imagine you only care that the rover lands in under 5 years.
Call it a semipro moon bounce. Is this at all feasible? -l
Slashdot Mirror
I also find it irritating that scores for non-USA teams are often not displayed, even when they showed their event participation (e.g., Chinese women's gymnastics scores). No, I don't need to see coverage of East Elbonia, but if they're the gold medal team, they deserve to have their names and scores on TV, just like the Americans.
Fer cryin out loud.
-l
Great, next you'll be telling me about nominative, accusative, and ablative bonds.
-l
Nope. We can't train ordinary people simple tactics and gun safety.
Like driving, which everyone complains about, just because you're driving doesn't make you any good at it. Just because you sat through 30 hours of school and had 30 - 60 hours of practice, doesn't mean you're not going to screw up, willfully, or through negligence, ignorance, or lack of wisdom.
-l
Right, but that's not what is proposed. What NRA and similar groups keep saying is that everyone has a right to carry any kind of firearm, anywhere. Furthermore, that this should be encouraged among the general public.
What I say: People can't drive -- even with extensive training -- but we expect they'll use a firearm with care?
Really?
-l
P.s., I'm a moderate on this topic.
We bought a precertified Toyota Sienna with about 29k miles from a dealership. They said the previous owner was a rental company. While driving it home (Dallas to Austin), it crapped out. Turns out the engine was sludged out because the oil had never been changed. Fortunately, since it was precertified, Toyota picked up the tab for the brand new engine.
However, lesson learned. Just because you think someone might take care of it doesn't mean they actually did.
-l
Also, these cars are being rented based on their looks. If you're spending the money to rent a high-end car, you want it to be pristine. So any scratch. scrape, bump, or blemish will be your responsibility.
This is true of regular cars as well. Worse, insurers have no-contest agreements with rental agencies so that they pay whatever the rental company charges them and then they jack up your rate at renewal -- even if you were not at fault. This happened to my wife, once. She rented a car with some existing luggage scrapes. The rental company charged us for them because she hadn't noted them on the condition report (she didn't notice them).
At this point, I always take photos and video of the car before I drive off in it. It's stupid, but better than getting dinged on your insurance for something you didn't do.
-l
In Soviet Russia, DVR timeshifts you!
My apologies.
-l
I'd post a tabular comparison if /. allowed tables.
Considering how bad the ASCII art trolls used to be on top of the difficulty of fixed width tables on mobile devices, I think I can live with that limitation.
OTOH, if it defaulted to hidden but you could click a "show table" link to unhide it, that could work.
-l
Source: How The Taste Of Tomatoes Went Bad (And Kept On Going)
You're welcome,
-l
I love the scene in What's Eating Gilbert Grape? where Gilbert walks into the fake Walmart -- archrival to the small grocery he works for -- to get a cake for his brother's party.
-l
Blinking text? Really? Ye gads, man!
-l
Yeah, I think what he means is that the tube can point anywhere but that nevertheless the tube itself is a nice and smooth trajectory. Whereas, putting a spin on the ball makes it much more likely the tube will point in one of a few specific directions.
If you've taken differential equations, I imagine the spin makes the trajectories narrow to a few sinks but the knuckleball does not. Many, many curves are valid.
-l
A variant of [1] that is being actively pursued at a number of institutions is specialization. Random example: Classics. It is very expensive to maintain a Classics department. There are few grants and other moneymaking opportunities outside of pure tuition. Some schools are saying they'll offer classics and other schools will subscribe to their curriculum. The remote students will utilize online learning to participate with professors at the supporting institution. Tuition for the remote students is typically less but it will still net more dollars for the subscribing institution.
Cutting pay: Colleges seldom use straight-up pay cuts. What they do is eliminate tenured positions via attrition and have both higher adjunct/faculty and student/instructor ratios. They can usually make up for it by offering more tutoring, which is relatively cheap.
Have you looked at the Western Governors model? For the self-motivated student who 1) doesn't need collegiate networking and 2) wants a real degree (not some University of Phoenix garbage or untrustworthy opencourseware-y start-up product), it is a good and inexpensive option.
Cheers,
-l
Gah, sorry, I didn't notice your post when I first skimmed this thread!
-l
Hrm, it says there are three Anonymous Cowards, one each in New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington.
And none of those are you?
-l
Reminds me of the only funny thing in Over the Hedge, where Hammy downs the energy drink.
-l
AT&T and Verizon could live without cable TV because they don't create content. If Netflix continues growing and is successful creating exclusive content, I can easily see AT&T or Verizon partnering with them for a low-end, cable TV-ish service (YouTube could go this route, as well). That would give them a selling point against TimeWarner and Comcast who hate Netflix for the additional reason that it prevents commercials from paying for their content production units.
It will be very interesting to see how this all works out!
-l
but they're okay with these kind of things because they are trying to migrate all of their customers to fiber/VOIP so they can dismantle their copper networks as soon as possible
Not exactly... AT&T is pursuing fiber-to-the-node. That is, they run fiber to some neighborhood nodes, but everything still runs over copper to your house from that node. Last time I checked, Verizon wasn't aggressively building out their FIOS network anymore, just relying on new construction and regular maintenance to grow.
The real reason AT&T and Verizon are less concerned about Netflix is that they do not create content. Yes, they have TV service available and don't want to see it lost to Netflix. However, the balance sheet for TV production exists for Time Warner and Comcast and they have to ensure they get enough commercials viewed to recoup production costs. Thus, they hate Netflix for two reasons instead of one.
-l
Mod parent up.
We hosted an accessibility conference a few weeks ago and the iPhone was the clear winner as most usable device. Is it 100%? No, of course not. But it is far ahead of Android, though Google has been working on it.
Haptics would certainly make it even more awesome. Can you imagine using maps with haptics for elevation? For the blind, you could have different heights to represent different features (e.g., highways might be deeper than side roads), all with Braille labels. That would be sweet.
Anyhow, Knobility is an awesome organization. Check it out if you're into hacking the Web for non-standard users.
-l
SpaceX will live or die by its reputation, so it's very unlikely they would. In the general case, though, governments often write poor specifications and then complain that the vendor cut corners. OK, that's not limited to governments either - better to spend lots of effort on a specification than to wish you had afterwards.
I'm less worried about catastrophe than, e.g., substandard radiation shielding, poor filtering, etc. Little things that are easy to overlook and unlikely to do anything in the short- to medium-term but have long-term harm.
It's unlikely SpaceX, Orbital Sciences, or Bigelow will have these issues, being platinum class operations. I'm more concerned when a low-cost-but-man-rated Indian or Chinese competitor comes on the scene and drives down global prices.
The only way to combat that is to force a level playing field by only man-rating craft which meet rigorous specifications, as you say. But will other nations cooperate in this effort? Long-term, the space game will be played by many nations and if the US is the only one with sensible standards, our people will go out of business and so will safety.
-l
Yeah, you just reboot into the game with a known O/S build and no b.s. Hello, childhood, I want my boot-to-game floppies back! :)
-l
/not really
As long as they don't cut corners on the manned side of things just to make a buck, I'm fine with it.
-l
How you got that out of my post, I'll never know.
Quantum tunneling.
-l
OK, so here's my incredibly stupid idea.
If you had access to a weather balloon, how much rocket would you need to eject an extremely small rover (RC car sized) out of Earth orbit onto an eventual moon landing?
Imagine the tiny rover is in a bouncy shell thing that will unfurl when it lands. Imagine you only care that the rover lands in under 5 years.
Call it a semipro moon bounce. Is this at all feasible?
-l
I'll plug my phone in at work
Oooo, or space heater.
-l