Frankly, scratching one's ass is a better (if it can even be said to be different) use of one's time than Slashdot.
Idly, I wonder: why is correct spelling and syntax something you consider special?
Don't be lazy.
And, in the sense of elite meaning, "the choice or best of anything considered collectively, as of a group or class of persons," the Elite also know how to spell "ridiculous."
Yeah. The English word "American" denotes two classes of people: citizens (or denizens) of the United States of America, and citizens (or denizens) of any of the many countries in the Americas. Spanish resolves the tension with the word "estadounidense" to denote the former. Every once in a while I see somebody try to introduce this term into English, and it just seems dumb. It's clumsy. There are plenty of labels already available.
Dude. Seriously. "I couldn't get to the poll?" I bet in school your dog ate your homework.
Register as a permanent absentee voter - you vote on your time, you mail the vote in (or drop it off at the county) and you avoid last-minute crap like people reregistering you in a different precinct.
If voting ain't a personal priority, that's your deal. But if you don't vote, then it's not, "because I had to work late," it's because you're a lazy bastard. Own it.
I realize I came across sounding like a proponent of hugely invasive regulation, and that's not really where I stand. However, I get amazingly annoyed when otherwise intelligent people get stupid about the damage their freedom inflicts on the people around them.
I'm happy that the combined resources of the nation are available to impose and enforce a whole host of regulations, from product safety through truth in advertising to public behavior. If it were up to the individual, then the penalty for theft or rape or misrepresenting jewelry as safety equipment would be merely having to insulate oneself from the reach of the affected individual. By imposing regulations and handing enforcement and inspection capability to a group with a long and powerful reach, holding the perpetrators accountable is made a lot easier.
It's true that I haven't voted directly on a traffic law. It is also true, however, that I regularly contact my elected representatives and let them know what I think about existing and proposed legislation. I think that having individual laws subject to popular vote is a really dumb idea -- it's that very capability that has landed California in its current sad financial state 1. I much prefer having representatives whose job it is to get informed about the nuances of the laws, gather public opinion, and then make decisions and have their performance reviewed periodically.
As to driving licensing: the process is deeply flawed and unfair. Absolutely true. I also think that having no standard at all is a worse situation than having a bar that's too low. Evidently you disagree. I'll let you get back to your libertarian utopia.
1. Over the years ballot initiatives have place various restrictions on the way the state's money gets spent, and at the same time other initiatives have placed restrictions on the power of the state to raise money. At this point, a great deal of the budget is dictated by laws voted on directly by the people. These laws, however, interact in ways that make very little sense, and leave the legislature no real room to balance the budget.
So, you don't think that requiring automobile drivers to pass a (very) basic skill and knowledge test (the passing of which a driver's license is proof) is a good idea? You reckon that anyone who wants to should be able to drive a car, whether they are able to do so safely or not? And the solution to their fuckups is to sue them?
Oh, wait! Even better! Anyone who wants to should be able to build any damn thing and drive it around on the road, no matter what kind of foul emissions it spews and no matter what kind of performance profile it's got.
Yeeeehaww! Fire up the lawnmower engine on the Radio Flyer, forget about putting brakes or turn signals on it, and screw the vehicle code - it's not a law, it's just a set of suggestions for other people.
And the traffic jams, the incidental damage, the injuries and deaths -- those are not really the problem of society, they're your fault specifically and it's up to the victims individually to track you down and get some kind of redress.
Bullshit.
I and a bunch of other voters have decided that our common good is served when we stop asshats from doing whatever fool thing pops into their putative minds. Regulation and enforcement are a good idea.
Yeah, it's been thought of. Heinlein uses it in "The Man Who Sold the Moon" and "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" and many others have used the idea as well. It's really cool, and it just seems like it ought to work.
A while ago (or maybe a couple of whiles...I'm old and I forget details) I read a summary of a report on various launch technologies. (The report was, I believe, from JPL. Someone with more patience for their website than I will probably find it.) But it boiled down to: no way. Not, "physically impossible," but, "hideously expensive and inefficient." As I recall, it took huge amounts of energy - so that even in energy terms it is cheaper to use rockets.
Now, why can't you use thrusters to decelerate to 0mph and then just get 'pulled in' by gravity?
Well, what are you going to be pushing out of those thrusters? The really basic problem with space travel is that we like to think of it like terrestrial travel: we want to be able to make big changes in velocity over short periods of time. The problem is that in space, there's not a lot of stuff to grab onto and throw around. About the only thing you've got lots of is light, but photons aren't very massive, so solar sails take a long time to effect a large delta-vee.
So, there's not a lot of stuff lying around. So, bring some with you! Except, for each ton of stuff you bring up the gravity well, you have to throw away several tons in the process (check out the relative size of the space shuttle and the liquid fuel tank and solid rocket boosters it uses to get up into orbit). Those extra tons of propellant translate directly into dollars, and that's what makes it expensive to get up there and then come back.
This is why people are constantly looking for a way to get stuff up into LEO without burning up lots and lots of propellant. Space elevators, balloons, high-altitude airplane launches...
As Christian Parenti has documented, the "war" on drugs has been laying this groundwork for decades. In the Reagan years we were already at a point where people's goods or persons could be carted off and locked up merely as a result of someone (not even a government employee) saying, "That guy is a drug dealer."
Earnings calls are ALWAYS scheduled for after the market closes. It's so that everyone will have the night to think about what got disclosed and then go trade in the morning.
fluid ounces are different from dry ounces. One is a unit of volume, another is a unit of force (force equals mass times acceleration).
And anyway, it's a pint of milk that's a pound, but that obviously differs with the temperature and fat content of the milk (density varies with both).
"A pint's a pound, the world around...if by this mnemonic you mean to remember that there are 16 units called 'ounces' in each, although the actual dimension being measured is different, and if by 'world' you mean 'United States of America and its territories.'" But that's a really long thing to remember.
You know, this sounds great in theory. And then the theory hits reality and smashes into smithereens.
Here's the scenario. Stay with me, here; it may seem complicated, but it'll be easier to follow than Ayn Rand's straw men...
1) Joe Poorguy has very little education. He knows the details of how to operate very simple machinery, and he's pretty good at scrounging bits and pieces from scrapheaps to repair a bicycle or a wheelbarrow. He's also pretty smart, being able to come up with novel and workable solutions to his problems. But he can't read, and his arithmetic skills are rudimentary.
2) Fred Doogooder shows up and says, "Hey, Joe, let me tell you how we do things back in Prosperityland!" He hangs around Joe for a month or so, telling him all about how he needs to use information to get ahead. He tells Joe about reading and education. He maybe even teaches Joe to read. Then he says, "Okay, Joe, now you know about the value of information. Tell you what I'm gonna do: for the low, low price to you of four months' labor I'm gonna let you have this Information Appliance. How to power it, how to get it hooked up to an information source, and how to pay ongoing maintenance costs will be up to you, but this here opportunity is one you don't wanna pass up."
3) Joe looks at this Fred dude and wonders how in hell this supposedly smart guy made it across the street without getting run over. He's got this "opportunity" of going without food for four months in order to get a device which will tell him all about how he can use his nonexistent resources to be a better producer. Joe may not know how to do calculus, but this isn't a particularly difficult arithmetic problem.
Now, step four of this scenario differs based on who's writing it. I could make up a whole bunch of endings and let the mods argue about funny versus flamebait, but instead I'll just write my own fantastic ending and let y'all enjoy it:
4) Joe goes to his neighbor, Charlie Kneecapper, and says, "Hey, there's this haoli dude who's got a bunch of high-tech gear he's trying to sell off to the poor chumps around here, and he's convinced that we're both as dumb as dirt AND that we believe that someone else might pay us for the information we get out of these boxes. I've got a better idea: let's empty his warehouse and beat the crap out of him. He goes back to Prosperityland thinking that he's lucky to be alive and you and I split the proceeds from selling his weird TVs on the beach."
Regarding the alkaline battery charger, someone correct me, but doesn't an alkaline battery use acid to corrode a piece of metal inside the battery to produce the chemical reaction needed to produce electricity?
No, you're thinking of an acid battery (such as the ones commonly found in automobiles). A lead-acid battery is actually rechargeable, so long as the lead doesn't get completely dissolved by the sulphuric acid.
On the other hand, an alkaline battery such as the AAA batteries commonly used in pagers, does not contain any acid. It's got zinc electrodes and some sort of magnesium powder in there. Go ahead and break one open -- you'll see the black powdery stuff, the long silvery core, and the cardboard that insulates the two poles from each other.
Sure, sure, it's a technology issue. There's no consideration here of rights...except that many people have this notion of a right to privacy or anonymity, which any kind of authentication scheme has the potential to erode.
My dad lived in Palouse, WA when he was a kid. He tells me that on the north wall of their kitchen there was a pantry which had no insulation from the exterior; there was just a board or something. The temperature inside the pantry was a close approximation of the temperature outside, and since that wall was always shaded it never got too hot. In the winter, it was like a second fridge.
If you've installed IDEA, why do you need NetBeans? And, has NetBeans gotten any faster in the past year? Last time I tried NetBeans was in the spring of 2003 and it was just big and slow. I was instantly sold on IDEA after that.
Reminds me of a saying my friends and I had back during undergrad CS classes: "It was perfect, so I fixed it." This explains a lot about software development.
Slashdot Mirror
Frankly, scratching one's ass is a better (if it can even be said to be different) use of one's time than Slashdot. Idly, I wonder: why is correct spelling and syntax something you consider special? Don't be lazy.
And, in the sense of elite meaning, "the choice or best of anything considered collectively, as of a group or class of persons," the Elite also know how to spell "ridiculous."
They have 1.5 million customers.
:)
Um, over 3 million, actually.
Yeah. The English word "American" denotes two classes of people: citizens (or denizens) of the United States of America, and citizens (or denizens) of any of the many countries in the Americas. Spanish resolves the tension with the word "estadounidense" to denote the former. Every once in a while I see somebody try to introduce this term into English, and it just seems dumb. It's clumsy. There are plenty of labels already available.
;)
I'll take yanqui and just go home.
Dude. Seriously. "I couldn't get to the poll?" I bet in school your dog ate your homework.
Register as a permanent absentee voter - you vote on your time, you mail the vote in (or drop it off at the county) and you avoid last-minute crap like people reregistering you in a different precinct.
If voting ain't a personal priority, that's your deal. But if you don't vote, then it's not, "because I had to work late," it's because you're a lazy bastard. Own it.
I haven't owned a TV that was hooked up to an antenna since 1987.
I am married and have two kids. None of us watches TV.
And you know the best thing about it? Getting stuff done around the house instead of vegetating on the couch.
All of which is why my wife does NaNoEdMo in January.
I realize I came across sounding like a proponent of hugely invasive regulation, and that's not really where I stand. However, I get amazingly annoyed when otherwise intelligent people get stupid about the damage their freedom inflicts on the people around them.
I'm happy that the combined resources of the nation are available to impose and enforce a whole host of regulations, from product safety through truth in advertising to public behavior. If it were up to the individual, then the penalty for theft or rape or misrepresenting jewelry as safety equipment would be merely having to insulate oneself from the reach of the affected individual. By imposing regulations and handing enforcement and inspection capability to a group with a long and powerful reach, holding the perpetrators accountable is made a lot easier.
It's true that I haven't voted directly on a traffic law. It is also true, however, that I regularly contact my elected representatives and let them know what I think about existing and proposed legislation. I think that having individual laws subject to popular vote is a really dumb idea -- it's that very capability that has landed California in its current sad financial state 1. I much prefer having representatives whose job it is to get informed about the nuances of the laws, gather public opinion, and then make decisions and have their performance reviewed periodically.
As to driving licensing: the process is deeply flawed and unfair. Absolutely true. I also think that having no standard at all is a worse situation than having a bar that's too low. Evidently you disagree. I'll let you get back to your libertarian utopia.
1. Over the years ballot initiatives have place various restrictions on the way the state's money gets spent, and at the same time other initiatives have placed restrictions on the power of the state to raise money. At this point, a great deal of the budget is dictated by laws voted on directly by the people. These laws, however, interact in ways that make very little sense, and leave the legislature no real room to balance the budget.
So, you don't think that requiring automobile drivers to pass a (very) basic skill and knowledge test (the passing of which a driver's license is proof) is a good idea? You reckon that anyone who wants to should be able to drive a car, whether they are able to do so safely or not? And the solution to their fuckups is to sue them?
Oh, wait! Even better! Anyone who wants to should be able to build any damn thing and drive it around on the road, no matter what kind of foul emissions it spews and no matter what kind of performance profile it's got.
Yeeeehaww! Fire up the lawnmower engine on the Radio Flyer, forget about putting brakes or turn signals on it, and screw the vehicle code - it's not a law, it's just a set of suggestions for other people.
And the traffic jams, the incidental damage, the injuries and deaths -- those are not really the problem of society, they're your fault specifically and it's up to the victims individually to track you down and get some kind of redress.
Bullshit.
I and a bunch of other voters have decided that our common good is served when we stop asshats from doing whatever fool thing pops into their putative minds. Regulation and enforcement are a good idea.
...to ESPN 8, "The Ocho!"
Yeah, it's been thought of. Heinlein uses it in "The Man Who Sold the Moon" and "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" and many others have used the idea as well. It's really cool, and it just seems like it ought to work.
A while ago (or maybe a couple of whiles...I'm old and I forget details) I read a summary of a report on various launch technologies. (The report was, I believe, from JPL. Someone with more patience for their website than I will probably find it.) But it boiled down to: no way. Not, "physically impossible," but, "hideously expensive and inefficient." As I recall, it took huge amounts of energy - so that even in energy terms it is cheaper to use rockets.
Now, why can't you use thrusters to decelerate to 0mph and then just get 'pulled in' by gravity?
Well, what are you going to be pushing out of those thrusters? The really basic problem with space travel is that we like to think of it like terrestrial travel: we want to be able to make big changes in velocity over short periods of time. The problem is that in space, there's not a lot of stuff to grab onto and throw around. About the only thing you've got lots of is light, but photons aren't very massive, so solar sails take a long time to effect a large delta-vee.
So, there's not a lot of stuff lying around. So, bring some with you! Except, for each ton of stuff you bring up the gravity well, you have to throw away several tons in the process (check out the relative size of the space shuttle and the liquid fuel tank and solid rocket boosters it uses to get up into orbit). Those extra tons of propellant translate directly into dollars, and that's what makes it expensive to get up there and then come back.
This is why people are constantly looking for a way to get stuff up into LEO without burning up lots and lots of propellant. Space elevators, balloons, high-altitude airplane launches...
As Christian Parenti has documented, the "war" on drugs has been laying this groundwork for decades. In the Reagan years we were already at a point where people's goods or persons could be carted off and locked up merely as a result of someone (not even a government employee) saying, "That guy is a drug dealer."
Earnings calls are ALWAYS scheduled for after the market closes. It's so that everyone will have the night to think about what got disclosed and then go trade in the morning.
fluid ounces are different from dry ounces. One is a unit of volume, another is a unit of force (force equals mass times acceleration).
And anyway, it's a pint of milk that's a pound, but that obviously differs with the temperature and fat content of the milk (density varies with both).
"A pint's a pound, the world around...if by this mnemonic you mean to remember that there are 16 units called 'ounces' in each, although the actual dimension being measured is different, and if by 'world' you mean 'United States of America and its territories.'" But that's a really long thing to remember.
You know, this sounds great in theory. And then the theory hits reality and smashes into smithereens.
Here's the scenario. Stay with me, here; it may seem complicated, but it'll be easier to follow than Ayn Rand's straw men...
1) Joe Poorguy has very little education. He knows the details of how to operate very simple machinery, and he's pretty good at scrounging bits and pieces from scrapheaps to repair a bicycle or a wheelbarrow. He's also pretty smart, being able to come up with novel and workable solutions to his problems. But he can't read, and his arithmetic skills are rudimentary.
2) Fred Doogooder shows up and says, "Hey, Joe, let me tell you how we do things back in Prosperityland!" He hangs around Joe for a month or so, telling him all about how he needs to use information to get ahead. He tells Joe about reading and education. He maybe even teaches Joe to read. Then he says, "Okay, Joe, now you know about the value of information. Tell you what I'm gonna do: for the low, low price to you of four months' labor I'm gonna let you have this Information Appliance. How to power it, how to get it hooked up to an information source, and how to pay ongoing maintenance costs will be up to you, but this here opportunity is one you don't wanna pass up."
3) Joe looks at this Fred dude and wonders how in hell this supposedly smart guy made it across the street without getting run over. He's got this "opportunity" of going without food for four months in order to get a device which will tell him all about how he can use his nonexistent resources to be a better producer. Joe may not know how to do calculus, but this isn't a particularly difficult arithmetic problem.
Now, step four of this scenario differs based on who's writing it. I could make up a whole bunch of endings and let the mods argue about funny versus flamebait, but instead I'll just write my own fantastic ending and let y'all enjoy it:
4) Joe goes to his neighbor, Charlie Kneecapper, and says, "Hey, there's this haoli dude who's got a bunch of high-tech gear he's trying to sell off to the poor chumps around here, and he's convinced that we're both as dumb as dirt AND that we believe that someone else might pay us for the information we get out of these boxes. I've got a better idea: let's empty his warehouse and beat the crap out of him. He goes back to Prosperityland thinking that he's lucky to be alive and you and I split the proceeds from selling his weird TVs on the beach."
Regarding the alkaline battery charger, someone correct me, but doesn't an alkaline battery use acid to corrode a piece of metal inside the battery to produce the chemical reaction needed to produce electricity?
No, you're thinking of an acid battery (such as the ones commonly found in automobiles). A lead-acid battery is actually rechargeable, so long as the lead doesn't get completely dissolved by the sulphuric acid.
On the other hand, an alkaline battery such as the AAA batteries commonly used in pagers, does not contain any acid. It's got zinc electrodes and some sort of magnesium powder in there. Go ahead and break one open -- you'll see the black powdery stuff, the long silvery core, and the cardboard that insulates the two poles from each other.
See also, How Stuff Works
Man, you shoulda seen this one coming. I pronounce 'SCO', "SCO."
Sure, sure, it's a technology issue. There's no consideration here of rights...except that many people have this notion of a right to privacy or anonymity, which any kind of authentication scheme has the potential to erode.
My dad lived in Palouse, WA when he was a kid. He tells me that on the north wall of their kitchen there was a pantry which had no insulation from the exterior; there was just a board or something. The temperature inside the pantry was a close approximation of the temperature outside, and since that wall was always shaded it never got too hot. In the winter, it was like a second fridge.
If you've installed IDEA, why do you need NetBeans? And, has NetBeans gotten any faster in the past year? Last time I tried NetBeans was in the spring of 2003 and it was just big and slow. I was instantly sold on IDEA after that.
...even at the RNC Where they're certain that we'll find those Iraqui WMDs, even if we have to plant them ourselves.
I thinks it's about time I look for some encryption programs.
/usr/ports/security
You're late by decades. It is way past time you look for some encryption programs. May I suggest
Reminds me of a saying my friends and I had back during undergrad CS classes: "It was perfect, so I fixed it." This explains a lot about software development.