"Given the choice of Hubble or the space station it is very clear which will produce more science, Hubble is the winner by miles. Hubble is providing more data about the early state of the universe than any other source. The occupants of the space station are doing no experiments at all, they are just keeping the station running. "
But then you have to answer the next question: "What gain to we get from learning about the early state of the universe?"
Some people might argue that the pursuit of that knowledge is just as useless (in a practical sense) as the knowledge gained through manned spaceflight.
"I doubt that the Justices will find the Betamax ruling precedent for a pro-Grokster ruling."
How could they not? In each case, the offending person is using a piece of technology to distribute copyrighted materials to which they have no right to distribute.
1) Two VCRs sitting next to each other, one set to record and the other to play, connected via RF cables.
2) One VCR attached to a wireless RF video distribution device set to play, ten VCRs attached to RF receivers set to record.
3) One computer playing a song via it's audio out jack, one computer recording via the audio in jack.
4) One computer hosting an audio file via a network, 100,000 computers receiving that file.
In each case, the mechanism of distribution changes, but the core principle stays the same. The Betamax case found the creators of the distribution mechanism not liable for the unlawful use (copying copyrighted materials without permission) of it's users.
Of course, there are huge differences. The original case somewhat hinged on the right of Fair Use -- a right the **AA has been trying to destroy at every turn. They believe the only "fair" use is when you pay them for each playback of the content.
In addition, there was no such thing as the DMCA. We can only hope that if / when they try to bring up the DMCA as an argument, the court finally gets a whack at it and declares it unconstitutional (or at least inconsistent with pre-existing fair use right declarations).
"If you really want low server load, switch over to an RP server. The crowd can be a little kooky at times, but the smoother gameplay is easily worth it."
Please don't. If you don't want to actually Role Play your character (thus the RP server designation, the extended ruleset, the expectations of behavior, then please don't join an RP server.
If you can't chat in complete sentences, please don't join an RP server. It's not an environment for d00dz looking for ph@t l3wt. kthxbye.
And so was the overhead FLIR tapes of automatic weapons fire from OUTSIDE the building, firing into the kitchen area (in the back, away from view of the news cameras).
This tape was shown during presentations to Congress (the board doing the investigation, I believe), and the source was the govt's own chopper circling overhead.
The reasoning the govt gives for the flashes of light seen on the FLIR? Sunlight reflected from debris.
Anyone who knows how FLIR works knows that sunlight reflecting off of a piece of small debris, sitting on the ground 10,000 feet below a helicopter in a slow orbit, is not going to create tight-point hotspots which also happen to pulse several times a second, then pause, then pulse several more times a second. If it were a light-sensitive instead of a heat-sensitive camera, perhaps... but the sun glinting off of a perfect mirrored object on the ground that far up isn't going to create enough radiant heat to show up that hot on a FLIR camera. Just not possible.
Go view the tape for yourself. The program is called "Waco: The Rules of Engagement" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120472/, and has been shown on The History Channel several times.
The company I work for is running Extreme everywhere except the WAN (Cisco 2600/3600s). Alpine 3808s, Summit 200/300/400s, Black Diamond 6808s in the core.
If I had one wish for Christmas, it would be to rip out all this purple Barney-box shit (and I do mean shit) and go with Cisco 4500s / 6500s. Hell, I would even use the stackable 3750s if I had to.
Buggy to nonexistant POE, NO gig POE, boxes that roll over and die for no reason, blades that fail but pass extended diagnostics...
But worst of all, their support sucks royal donkey ass. You can't find any real example configs past the obvious "how do I use this feature" stuff, but I can find 1000 different sites with Cisco configs and diagrams on any number of subjects.
"It also makes real education worthless. Why go to school if employers require constant learning of "new skills?" Of what value are old skills like those learned to earn a degree? They are of no value, which explains why employers have nothing but contempt for education."
OMG you can't be serious. The world changes. Old skills become outdated. What to blame someone? Blame the school you went to, for not keeping up and actually teaching you something useful.
Remember who is paying you... it's the company. It's the company that determines whether your skills are valuable or not.
The days of the Win 3.1 desktop tech are probably over in 99% of places. I know you're not going to hire someone who calls themselves a Win3.1 tech, are you?
If you do, then as a manager you're hiring someone who has questionable value... why are you hiring them at all? Charity?
We in the non-Hollywood scene see a fair number of outspoken individuals on one side of the political spectrum, a few on the other, and it *always* gets press anytime anyone on either side speaks out about any political issue.
Having seen it from the inside, how pervasive is politics in the workplace in the projects you've been involved in? Is it something that comes up every once in a while, like the rest of us, during office discussions... or is it something more "tangible", where you basically know where everyone around you stands - and you'd better hope you either stand the same way or don't say much?
Have you ever felt pressure from someone with regard to politics? Have you ever felt that your political viewpoint would affect your chances of working on a project?
So you're offering to become a teacher for free, pay for the building used to teach them in, heat/light for that building, their lost wages while retraining, etc?
Hmm... sounds like an "effect on the economy" to me!
Climate change is real, and if we don't do something about it, we're all going to be screwed.
Climate change *is* real. And it was going on waaaay before we got here, and it'll be going on waaaay after we're gone.
Even one of the latest issues of Scientific American had an article talking about how they've discovered periods in geologic history when the climate changed by 5-7 deg C in a decade (remembering roughly).
It's like any other data problem. Our dataset is just too small to provide an accurate picture. Hell, we're just now discovering that the solar cycle might have something to do with climate (duh).
This is what gets me the most, though. Who actually believes that you can make statements about small (0.5%) variations in a system when your dataset only covers 0.0000001% (number not actually calculated) of the lifetime of the system? (300 years of weather data vs 4.5 billion years that the earth has existed)
Given those raw numbers, no scientist would say they could give you any rational data about the "system". Now replace system with weather and they think they know exactly how it works.
So the guy who has been working at a steel plant for the last 15 years who is now losing his job because the plant puts out too much in emissions... he just suddenly becomes an expert at energy sources? He's able to just stop work at the factory on Friday and pick up in a consulting gig on Monday?
It doesn't work that way, and it's utopian to think so. It *will* cause people to lose their jobs, and there *will* be people who won't be able to find a new job that they can do that pays an equivalent wage.
"Note to the US Kyoto activists: you can't have your cake and eat it, too. Either we lose jobs and US companies to places like China, or we sign on to Kyoto. Yes, there's a lot of nuance, but I'm afraid that it's that simple."
It is only when you expand your beliefs of what is "possible" beyond the limits of your 'basic science education' that real discoveries are possible. Lots of people in history have been laughed out of town that turned out to make significant scientific discoveries.
I mean, *everone* knows the Earth is the center of the universe.../rolleyes (That darned Copernicus)
And as for those "invisible streams of particles" - *I* don't see any particles, and I don't feel them either! Everyone knows you're making it up!! (Radioactivity? Marie Curie, anyone?)
Tiny little dimensions curled up so small that even particle accelerators can't see them? Science fiction (oh yeah, that's called String Theory, isn't it?)
And...
And...
Remote Viewing sounds a lot like the work of Edgar Cayce - whose actions still mystify people today. Being able to go into a "trance" and deliver accurate medical diagnoses of people whom he had never touched, only had the address and a rough physical description... even to the point of breaking off the diagnosis session when the person died ACROSS THE ATLANTIC OCEAN...
Whether it's real or not, I'm not sure anyone really knows or can prove one way or another yet. However, there have always been theories on a 'collective unconscious' or something similar - something like a giant radio channel on which the thoughts and actions of everyone everywhere is available.
Don't laugh at the 'unbelievable' too hard. It might be next year's Science Today.
Let's say you wanted to invade Iran. Where would you rather be?
1) Launching from carriers in the Persian Gulf and from bases in Turkey, if you get their permission - more likely Diego Garcia.
2) Launching from right across the border in the good old US of Iraq.
Sometimes it's more strategic to take out a weaker but bothersome enemy to gain his turf, then use that turf to provide a better base to strike from. And oh, by the way, to keep the focus on the new turf FAR FAR AWAY from your real home base...
Yep, sure do. And they have already said that if Kerry is elected, that you'll probably see the same military exodus that you saw when Clinton was elected.
I have a personal friend who was a Captain in the USAF at the time, doing secure communications for newly-setup bases. Academy graduate. He was on the second plane dropped into Somalia when they were setting up the Mogadishu airport (air traffic lands first). He was starting the final process for his promotion to Major, but was so dissatisfied with Clinton, his cuts to the military, his lack of everything needed to be Commander in Chief, that he left the military. And he was one of lots of his peers that did the exact same thing.
We're just now really recovering from the loss of that group, since it takes a good few years just to get someone up to snuff and promoted a couple of times into the places you really need them - the places we're really hurting in.
Now you want to turn around and elect another guy who will if nothing else, instill the *fear* that he will do the exact same thing to the military (and intelligence - remember who tried to eliminate the CIA?) that Clinton did? Even if he never even does those things, just his election will result in the tearing up of lots of reinlistment papers.
Very very few in the military are upset with GWB about his policies with regard to the Middle East. I hope you're not one of those who watches CNN and CBS, sees those hour long documentaries about Military Mothers Against the War (or whatever) and the *throngs of people supporting them* and deduces that a lot of people in the military must be unhappy about the situation.
Quite the opposite. Track how the military votes - you'll find it's overwhelmingly Republican. If they didn't want him as the CIC again, they wouldn't vote for him.
It has to do with the radiation pattern from the antenna. It's not like sound or light - it doesn't go equally in all directions (like you would think it would) from a seemingly omnidirectional antenna.
Even an omni dipole has "lobes". And they're different depending on the axis you're viewing.
I know that I personally had an exchange with Scott Hazen Mueller (of CAUCE) via email back in 1999 or 2000, proposing this very thing.
Where we use MX records for sending, I proposed an MS record for authorized Mail Senders. That's all it did, but at least you could look to DNS to see if this remote system was actually a designated speaker for that domain.
Of course, he told me it would never work and that it was unreasonable to use DNS to provide such a service.
If I walk up to some woman on the street, stand beside her and start digging quietly through her purse, making notes of what stores she's shopped at, her telephone number, her address...
Then I go visit her house, quietly walk in and make more notes about her life, use her phone to call it in to my associates...
I'd be arrested for so many violations of the law it wouldn't be funny. So why the hell is this tolerated in the virtual world?
Slashdot Mirror
"Given the choice of Hubble or the space station it is very clear which will produce more science, Hubble is the winner by miles. Hubble is providing more data about the early state of the universe than any other source. The occupants of the space station are doing no experiments at all, they are just keeping the station running. "
But then you have to answer the next question: "What gain to we get from learning about the early state of the universe?"
Some people might argue that the pursuit of that knowledge is just as useless (in a practical sense) as the knowledge gained through manned spaceflight.
I've heard of it, but I haven't seen any proof.
Yet again, correlation is not causation.
http://stat.tamu.edu/stat30x/notes/node42.html
With all that methane being generated, it should warm the place up quickly
"I doubt that the Justices will find the Betamax ruling precedent for a pro-Grokster ruling."
How could they not? In each case, the offending person is using a piece of technology to distribute copyrighted materials to which they have no right to distribute.
1) Two VCRs sitting next to each other, one set to record and the other to play, connected via RF cables.
2) One VCR attached to a wireless RF video distribution device set to play, ten VCRs attached to RF receivers set to record.
3) One computer playing a song via it's audio out jack, one computer recording via the audio in jack.
4) One computer hosting an audio file via a network, 100,000 computers receiving that file.
In each case, the mechanism of distribution changes, but the core principle stays the same. The Betamax case found the creators of the distribution mechanism not liable for the unlawful use (copying copyrighted materials without permission) of it's users.
Of course, there are huge differences. The original case somewhat hinged on the right of Fair Use -- a right the **AA has been trying to destroy at every turn. They believe the only "fair" use is when you pay them for each playback of the content.
In addition, there was no such thing as the DMCA. We can only hope that if / when they try to bring up the DMCA as an argument, the court finally gets a whack at it and declares it unconstitutional (or at least inconsistent with pre-existing fair use right declarations).
"If you really want low server load, switch over to an RP server. The crowd can be a little kooky at times, but the smoother gameplay is easily worth it."
Please don't. If you don't want to actually Role Play your character (thus the RP server designation, the extended ruleset, the expectations of behavior, then please don't join an RP server.
If you can't chat in complete sentences, please don't join an RP server. It's not an environment for d00dz looking for ph@t l3wt. kthxbye.
And so was the overhead FLIR tapes of automatic weapons fire from OUTSIDE the building, firing into the kitchen area (in the back, away from view of the news cameras).
This tape was shown during presentations to Congress (the board doing the investigation, I believe), and the source was the govt's own chopper circling overhead.
The reasoning the govt gives for the flashes of light seen on the FLIR? Sunlight reflected from debris.
Anyone who knows how FLIR works knows that sunlight reflecting off of a piece of small debris, sitting on the ground 10,000 feet below a helicopter in a slow orbit, is not going to create tight-point hotspots which also happen to pulse several times a second, then pause, then pulse several more times a second. If it were a light-sensitive instead of a heat-sensitive camera, perhaps... but the sun glinting off of a perfect mirrored object on the ground that far up isn't going to create enough radiant heat to show up that hot on a FLIR camera. Just not possible.
Go view the tape for yourself. The program is called "Waco: The Rules of Engagement" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120472/, and has been shown on The History Channel several times.
A quick search on Google brings the following review:
http://www.waco93.com/washingtonweekly.htm
The company I work for is running Extreme everywhere except the WAN (Cisco 2600/3600s). Alpine 3808s, Summit 200/300/400s, Black Diamond 6808s in the core.
If I had one wish for Christmas, it would be to rip out all this purple Barney-box shit (and I do mean shit) and go with Cisco 4500s / 6500s. Hell, I would even use the stackable 3750s if I had to.
Buggy to nonexistant POE, NO gig POE, boxes that roll over and die for no reason, blades that fail but pass extended diagnostics...
But worst of all, their support sucks royal donkey ass. You can't find any real example configs past the obvious "how do I use this feature" stuff, but I can find 1000 different sites with Cisco configs and diagrams on any number of subjects.
"Pursuit of happiness" is just that... allowing you to try to attain it.
It's not a guarantee of success.
Perhaps you would be happier by moving to a socialist state?
"It also makes real education worthless. Why go to school if employers require constant learning of "new skills?" Of what value are old skills like those learned to earn a degree? They are of no value, which explains why employers have nothing but contempt for education."
OMG you can't be serious. The world changes. Old skills become outdated. What to blame someone? Blame the school you went to, for not keeping up and actually teaching you something useful.
Remember who is paying you... it's the company. It's the company that determines whether your skills are valuable or not.
The days of the Win 3.1 desktop tech are probably over in 99% of places. I know you're not going to hire someone who calls themselves a Win3.1 tech, are you?
If you do, then as a manager you're hiring someone who has questionable value... why are you hiring them at all? Charity?
Wil,
We in the non-Hollywood scene see a fair number of outspoken individuals on one side of the political spectrum, a few on the other, and it *always* gets press anytime anyone on either side speaks out about any political issue.
Having seen it from the inside, how pervasive is politics in the workplace in the projects you've been involved in? Is it something that comes up every once in a while, like the rest of us, during office discussions... or is it something more "tangible", where you basically know where everyone around you stands - and you'd better hope you either stand the same way or don't say much?
Have you ever felt pressure from someone with regard to politics? Have you ever felt that your political viewpoint would affect your chances of working on a project?
Thanks!
So you're offering to become a teacher for free, pay for the building used to teach them in, heat/light for that building, their lost wages while retraining, etc?
Hmm... sounds like an "effect on the economy" to me!
Climate change is real, and if we don't do something about it, we're all going to be screwed.
Climate change *is* real. And it was going on waaaay before we got here, and it'll be going on waaaay after we're gone.
Even one of the latest issues of Scientific American had an article talking about how they've discovered periods in geologic history when the climate changed by 5-7 deg C in a decade (remembering roughly).
It's like any other data problem. Our dataset is just too small to provide an accurate picture. Hell, we're just now discovering that the solar cycle might have something to do with climate (duh).
This is what gets me the most, though. Who actually believes that you can make statements about small (0.5%) variations in a system when your dataset only covers 0.0000001% (number not actually calculated) of the lifetime of the system? (300 years of weather data vs 4.5 billion years that the earth has existed)
Given those raw numbers, no scientist would say they could give you any rational data about the "system". Now replace system with weather and they think they know exactly how it works.
Hmm... let's see...
So the guy who has been working at a steel plant for the last 15 years who is now losing his job because the plant puts out too much in emissions... he just suddenly becomes an expert at energy sources? He's able to just stop work at the factory on Friday and pick up in a consulting gig on Monday?
It doesn't work that way, and it's utopian to think so. It *will* cause people to lose their jobs, and there *will* be people who won't be able to find a new job that they can do that pays an equivalent wage.
Given those 2 choices, I say we sign on. :)
Then in light of that statement, I propose you and your family be the first to lose their jobs.
What? Don't like that idea?
"Note to the US Kyoto activists: you can't have your cake and eat it, too. Either we lose jobs and US companies to places like China, or we sign on to Kyoto. Yes, there's a lot of nuance, but I'm afraid that it's that simple."
Don't confuse the situation with facts!!
SpiderGrep (tm)
Yep, especially since I've had this nick since 1989. I can't help what writers do with the same name in their books.
It is only when you expand your beliefs of what is "possible" beyond the limits of your 'basic science education' that real discoveries are possible. Lots of people in history have been laughed out of town that turned out to make significant scientific discoveries.
/rolleyes (That darned Copernicus)
I mean, *everone* knows the Earth is the center of the universe...
And as for those "invisible streams of particles" - *I* don't see any particles, and I don't feel them either! Everyone knows you're making it up!! (Radioactivity? Marie Curie, anyone?)
Tiny little dimensions curled up so small that even particle accelerators can't see them? Science fiction (oh yeah, that's called String Theory, isn't it?)
And...
And...
Remote Viewing sounds a lot like the work of Edgar Cayce - whose actions still mystify people today. Being able to go into a "trance" and deliver accurate medical diagnoses of people whom he had never touched, only had the address and a rough physical description... even to the point of breaking off the diagnosis session when the person died ACROSS THE ATLANTIC OCEAN...
Whether it's real or not, I'm not sure anyone really knows or can prove one way or another yet. However, there have always been theories on a 'collective unconscious' or something similar - something like a giant radio channel on which the thoughts and actions of everyone everywhere is available.
Don't laugh at the 'unbelievable' too hard. It might be next year's Science Today.
So should there be no difference between defrauding 1 person and defrauding 30,000 ?
Let's say you wanted to invade Iran. Where would you rather be?
1) Launching from carriers in the Persian Gulf and from bases in Turkey, if you get their permission - more likely Diego Garcia.
2) Launching from right across the border in the good old US of Iraq.
Sometimes it's more strategic to take out a weaker but bothersome enemy to gain his turf, then use that turf to provide a better base to strike from. And oh, by the way, to keep the focus on the new turf FAR FAR AWAY from your real home base...
Don'tcha think?
"Have any friends/fam in the millitary?"
Yep, sure do. And they have already said that if Kerry is elected, that you'll probably see the same military exodus that you saw when Clinton was elected.
I have a personal friend who was a Captain in the USAF at the time, doing secure communications for newly-setup bases. Academy graduate. He was on the second plane dropped into Somalia when they were setting up the Mogadishu airport (air traffic lands first). He was starting the final process for his promotion to Major, but was so dissatisfied with Clinton, his cuts to the military, his lack of everything needed to be Commander in Chief, that he left the military. And he was one of lots of his peers that did the exact same thing.
We're just now really recovering from the loss of that group, since it takes a good few years just to get someone up to snuff and promoted a couple of times into the places you really need them - the places we're really hurting in.
Now you want to turn around and elect another guy who will if nothing else, instill the *fear* that he will do the exact same thing to the military (and intelligence - remember who tried to eliminate the CIA?) that Clinton did? Even if he never even does those things, just his election will result in the tearing up of lots of reinlistment papers.
Very very few in the military are upset with GWB about his policies with regard to the Middle East. I hope you're not one of those who watches CNN and CBS, sees those hour long documentaries about Military Mothers Against the War (or whatever) and the *throngs of people supporting them* and deduces that a lot of people in the military must be unhappy about the situation.
Quite the opposite. Track how the military votes - you'll find it's overwhelmingly Republican. If they didn't want him as the CIC again, they wouldn't vote for him.
It has to do with the radiation pattern from the antenna. It's not like sound or light - it doesn't go equally in all directions (like you would think it would) from a seemingly omnidirectional antenna.
n a_patterns.htm
Even an omni dipole has "lobes". And they're different depending on the axis you're viewing.
Reference: http://www.rfcafe.com/references/electrical/anten
How about stepping into 2004? The two-card-monte method as applied to the Tivo Series 2 as long ago as February, 2003.
t =22154
http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/showthread.php?
I know that I personally had an exchange with Scott Hazen Mueller (of CAUCE) via email back in 1999 or 2000, proposing this very thing.
Where we use MX records for sending, I proposed an MS record for authorized Mail Senders. That's all it did, but at least you could look to DNS to see if this remote system was actually a designated speaker for that domain.
Of course, he told me it would never work and that it was unreasonable to use DNS to provide such a service.
Oh well...
If I walk up to some woman on the street, stand beside her and start digging quietly through her purse, making notes of what stores she's shopped at, her telephone number, her address...
Then I go visit her house, quietly walk in and make more notes about her life, use her phone to call it in to my associates...
I'd be arrested for so many violations of the law it wouldn't be funny. So why the hell is this tolerated in the virtual world?