One of the more interesting aspects of basal ganglia is that it, along with the thalamus, make up the limbic system. Located below the cerebral cortex, this is the area of the brain where base emotions are generated, such as aggression and impulse.
While researching speech in relation to the brain, it was discovered that while regular, everyday speech originated from the pars opercularis and pars triangularis of the inferior frontal gyrus, cursing originated from the basal ganglia.
We know intuitively that cursing 'feels' different than regular speech when you do it, at an emotional level. They have proven that it actually is different, at the biological level.
What's supercool about this experiment, is they increased the mouse's capacity to curse.
What I wouldn't pay for a mouse that could curse. Or good god a monkey. Give me a cursing monkey and I'll tithe you every paycheck 'til I die.
This is a sidebar in relation to something she said, "LÃpez said in an interview that the Internet had given her a new lease of life and in one of her last posts, published in February, she wrote; 'When I'm on the internet, I forget about my illness. The distraction is good for you â" being able to communicate with people. It wakes up the brain, and gives you great strength.'"
I've often thought the Internet would be a fabulous tool for the elderly, though unfortunately, they are the group least likely to embrace it, as any of you with grandparents can attest. You know I love you, grandma, but if you fucking right-click ONE MORE GOD DAMNED TIME WHEN I TELL YOU TO LEFT-CLICK, I SWEAR TO GOD I WILL STRANGLE YOU WITH MOUSE CORD.
Sorry, flashback. Anyway, with nothing but free time on their hands, and declining physical abilities, the elderly have a dirt cheap, incredibly entertaining and mentally stimulating (depending on where you go) alternative to the idiot box, that is merely a phone jack away. My grandfather, who passed before the Internet was popular, would have absolutely loved it. He was very smart. He loved to read. He loved to research things. He tinkered with small engines and held a couple patents related to coloring fiberglass. He made stained glass windows for churches in his spare time. With a tool like the Internet, who knows what he would have done with his final 10 or 20 years of life.
I've seen the vast majority of senior citizens I know wasting away in their recliners, spending their final years listening to Oprah, Judge Judy and reruns of Green Acres. I'm not sure they enjoy it so much as they are simply limited to what they can do at that age. They are usually on a fixed income, physically infirm to some degree, and have declining mental faculties. The Internet is a great way for them to spend their time, if only there was an easier way to get them to understand the technology behind it. Even interactive games would keep their synapses firing a lot more than soap operas and cribbage.
Not every senior citizen would use the Internet to further their education; in fact most wouldn't. But I'd personally rather watch my great aunt ding 80 in Warcraft than have her sit through the 8th rerun of Green Acres where Arnold gets in the vegetable patch.
"There used to be a lot of equipment manufactured by various countries (Germany is the first one that comes to mind) that lasted virtually forever..."
I understand the principle you are referring to, but I'm not really sure if it's a case of people remembering, or even imagining things more fondly than they really were. And I mean that literally; I'm not sure.
My grandfather, who passed away 16 years ago, left behind in his garage a lawnmower with a Briggs & Stratton engine. He originally purchased this lawnmower sometime in the late 50's. That lawnmower is *still* in my mother's garage, and still fully operational, some 50 years later. The only maintenance required is a bit of gasoline and a new spark plug every 10 years or so.
*50* years and still running strong
Fast forward to a car I owned in college. It was a 1985 Volkswagen Golf. The car was 5 years old when I got it; my mother owned it before me. It had about 60,000 miles on it when I got it, but it already had a cracked head (faulty radiator), CV joints were replaced 3 times (it was an engineering defect - anyone who owned a Golf or Jetta from about that time can attest to this), faulty fuel injector (it would stick at WOT sometimes when you floored it), headliner collapsed, sunroof broke twice (couldn't open it), and several other minor problems, and this was BEFORE I got it. I owned it for under two years and by then it was such a heap of garbage we decided to simply trade it in on something new, as it was too expensive to keep repairing. Mt grandfather bought me a 1992 Nissan pick-up, the no-frills base model, and it was mechanically the best vehicle I've owned to date, and I'm currently on my 8th automobile. I put over 200,000 (really rough) miles on it, and the only thing that ever failed was a bearing in the transmission, which was most likely my fault for driving it like a dragster. Was only $600 to repair, including parts and labor. Everything else worked great.
Going back in time again, I also have some of my grandfather's toys. They are stored away, and never touched, but the craftsmanship was so delicate, they never would have made it this long if continually played with. Even simple mechanisms like the Jack-in-the-Box readily break.
So taking into consideration the materials used in the past (heavy duty plastic, metal, solid wood) versus those in use today (thin plastic, cheap alloys, synthetic/pressed wood), as well as the business ethics of planned obsolescence (i.e. build something that breaks right after warranty) I would say that overall, if all manufactured products were compared to their equivalent from many decades past, it does seem that a higher percentage of products are now built more cheaply than they once were.
However, considering engineering advances, I'd put my Nissan up against any 1950's Ford or Chevy for reliability. And as has been mentioned by other posters, it's often what you pay and who you buy from. If you buy cheap, you shouldn't expect longevity. Of course there are exceptions to that, as well. My Nissan pick-up in 1992 was $9,000 out the door. The next most reliable car I've owned is my Viper, but it cost 10x as much as my old Nissan.
To further clarify this, there ARE polar orbit satellites, but, the problem is that while they are orbiting on a North-South trajectory, the Earth is spinning West-East. This makes it difficult for communications satellites because unless the orbit is perfectly synchronized with the Earth's rotation, which is difficult due to an irregularly shaped planet, axis tilt, elliptical orbits resulting in weird apogees, etc., then when the sat passes over, it's in a different spot every day. Geosynchronous orbit sats are always in the same spot spinning with the Earth at the same speed; very easy to tell your antenna to look at a fixed point in space.
So, the highly prized areas you are referring to are for communication satellites, and to a slightly lesser degree, television satellites.
North America and Europe are the two largest markets, but you're discounting Asia rather heavily.
To optimize the satellite's placement in relation to population density, you'll find sats towards the West side of the Atlantic, over the equator, serving the eastern seaboard of the U.S. along with the eastern part of South America and the Caribbean. Sats over the Atlantic towards the East will service western Europe and western Africa. Sats placed over the Indian ocean will service Southeast Asia, the Middle East, East Africa and western Australia. Sats over the Pacific will service East Asia (China, Japan) and the eastern seaboard of Australia, along with the west coasts of North and South America.
There is some overlap. For example, I can tune into AOR-W (Atlantic Ocean Region - West) or IOR (Indian Ocean Region) sats while I'm in the Mediterranean, but, I generally get the best reception on AOR-E due to it's location over the east Atlantic.
Polar orbit sats are still used, but they are not optimal due to most population centers in the world being near the equator, and you would need several sats in the same loop for 24/7 operation, as when your antenna tracked the satellite falling off the southern horizon, it would need another sat rising in the north to retune to.
When I was 17, I had a 15 year old girlfriend. We performed every unholy sexual act under the sun, even ass-to-mouth. We were both very athletic, very curious teens with very high libidos, even by teen standards.
Technically, what I was doing, was statutory rape. Because we took photos and made videos of our acts, I also technically produced child pornography.
But really, I did neither.
We knew what we were doing, we were both consenting, we were also two of the smartest kids in school (AP/Honors classes, blah blah, etc.), so it wasn't a case of the stupids.
Now just because the currents laws aren't perfect doesn't mean child porn can't be identified, nor does it mean because the laws are flawed that it doesn't exist.
They need to make one roughly the size of a killer whale that targets and chases sharks out of areas where people engage in water activities, such as surfing.
I know a few tax lawyers. The tax laws of the U.S. have grown so complex over the decades that it has become literally impossible for one person to know them all. Tax law firms have lawyers dedicated to specific portions of the tax code.
When you have a set of rules as ridiculously long as the U.S. tax codes, it basically makes it impossible to comply 100%, because no matter what you do, there will be a segment SOMEWHERE in that massive wall of text that you unintentionally violate.
The novelty about the deeply complicated tax laws is that loopholes abound - it may be the specific reason the government maintains its complexity.
Google trying to minimize its tax burden is just good business. That they seem to have done it in a way that is suspect doesn't mean they intentionally broke a law, it probably means they did it so well that the IRS isn't sure it's legal or not.
But again, with tax codes as complex as ours, it will probably fall into the realm of ambiguity so that it can either be legal OR illegal, which is yet another governmental advantage of highly complicated tax laws.
This would be good for people like myself who accidentally bought "I Wanna Fuck You" by Noreaga & Scarlett instead of the Akwon and Snoop Dog version. It would be nice to get the money refunded, and they can gladly take that song back.
I don't know about the rest of you, but iris scanners scare the crap out of me. Every time I look into the peephole to get scanned, I'm relatively certain a large needle will shoot out from behind the glass and stab me in the eye.
And all this time I thought it was the pizza, beer, nachos and salsa I cram into my face daily. Now that I know it's bacteria, I have to make a call for some anti-biotics...and another double pepperoni!
Seagate has the lowest failure rate of any drive mfg I've come across. Maxtor has the highest. This is empirical evidence gathered from the repair of hundreds, possibly thousands of PCs.
I just replaced my IBM DeathStar with a Seagate Barracuda.
Slashdot Mirror
One of the more interesting aspects of basal ganglia is that it, along with the thalamus, make up the limbic system. Located below the cerebral cortex, this is the area of the brain where base emotions are generated, such as aggression and impulse.
While researching speech in relation to the brain, it was discovered that while regular, everyday speech originated from the pars opercularis and pars triangularis of the inferior frontal gyrus, cursing originated from the basal ganglia.
We know intuitively that cursing 'feels' different than regular speech when you do it, at an emotional level. They have proven that it actually is different, at the biological level.
What's supercool about this experiment, is they increased the mouse's capacity to curse .
What I wouldn't pay for a mouse that could curse. Or good god a monkey. Give me a cursing monkey and I'll tithe you every paycheck 'til I die.
"A billion years ought to be enough for anybody." - Me
This is a sidebar in relation to something she said, "LÃpez said in an interview that the Internet had given her a new lease of life and in one of her last posts, published in February, she wrote; 'When I'm on the internet, I forget about my illness. The distraction is good for you â" being able to communicate with people. It wakes up the brain, and gives you great strength.'"
I've often thought the Internet would be a fabulous tool for the elderly, though unfortunately, they are the group least likely to embrace it, as any of you with grandparents can attest. You know I love you, grandma, but if you fucking right-click ONE MORE GOD DAMNED TIME WHEN I TELL YOU TO LEFT-CLICK, I SWEAR TO GOD I WILL STRANGLE YOU WITH MOUSE CORD.
Sorry, flashback. Anyway, with nothing but free time on their hands, and declining physical abilities, the elderly have a dirt cheap, incredibly entertaining and mentally stimulating (depending on where you go) alternative to the idiot box, that is merely a phone jack away. My grandfather, who passed before the Internet was popular, would have absolutely loved it. He was very smart. He loved to read. He loved to research things. He tinkered with small engines and held a couple patents related to coloring fiberglass. He made stained glass windows for churches in his spare time. With a tool like the Internet, who knows what he would have done with his final 10 or 20 years of life.
I've seen the vast majority of senior citizens I know wasting away in their recliners, spending their final years listening to Oprah, Judge Judy and reruns of Green Acres. I'm not sure they enjoy it so much as they are simply limited to what they can do at that age. They are usually on a fixed income, physically infirm to some degree, and have declining mental faculties. The Internet is a great way for them to spend their time, if only there was an easier way to get them to understand the technology behind it. Even interactive games would keep their synapses firing a lot more than soap operas and cribbage.
Not every senior citizen would use the Internet to further their education; in fact most wouldn't. But I'd personally rather watch my great aunt ding 80 in Warcraft than have her sit through the 8th rerun of Green Acres where Arnold gets in the vegetable patch.
Good for you, Mrs. Lopez, and rest in peace.
"There used to be a lot of equipment manufactured by various countries (Germany is the first one that comes to mind) that lasted virtually forever..."
I understand the principle you are referring to, but I'm not really sure if it's a case of people remembering, or even imagining things more fondly than they really were. And I mean that literally; I'm not sure.
My grandfather, who passed away 16 years ago, left behind in his garage a lawnmower with a Briggs & Stratton engine. He originally purchased this lawnmower sometime in the late 50's. That lawnmower is *still* in my mother's garage, and still fully operational, some 50 years later. The only maintenance required is a bit of gasoline and a new spark plug every 10 years or so.
*50* years and still running strong
Fast forward to a car I owned in college. It was a 1985 Volkswagen Golf. The car was 5 years old when I got it; my mother owned it before me. It had about 60,000 miles on it when I got it, but it already had a cracked head (faulty radiator), CV joints were replaced 3 times (it was an engineering defect - anyone who owned a Golf or Jetta from about that time can attest to this), faulty fuel injector (it would stick at WOT sometimes when you floored it), headliner collapsed, sunroof broke twice (couldn't open it), and several other minor problems, and this was BEFORE I got it. I owned it for under two years and by then it was such a heap of garbage we decided to simply trade it in on something new, as it was too expensive to keep repairing. Mt grandfather bought me a 1992 Nissan pick-up, the no-frills base model, and it was mechanically the best vehicle I've owned to date, and I'm currently on my 8th automobile. I put over 200,000 (really rough) miles on it, and the only thing that ever failed was a bearing in the transmission, which was most likely my fault for driving it like a dragster. Was only $600 to repair, including parts and labor. Everything else worked great.
Going back in time again, I also have some of my grandfather's toys. They are stored away, and never touched, but the craftsmanship was so delicate, they never would have made it this long if continually played with. Even simple mechanisms like the Jack-in-the-Box readily break.
So taking into consideration the materials used in the past (heavy duty plastic, metal, solid wood) versus those in use today (thin plastic, cheap alloys, synthetic/pressed wood), as well as the business ethics of planned obsolescence (i.e. build something that breaks right after warranty) I would say that overall, if all manufactured products were compared to their equivalent from many decades past, it does seem that a higher percentage of products are now built more cheaply than they once were.
However, considering engineering advances, I'd put my Nissan up against any 1950's Ford or Chevy for reliability. And as has been mentioned by other posters, it's often what you pay and who you buy from. If you buy cheap, you shouldn't expect longevity. Of course there are exceptions to that, as well. My Nissan pick-up in 1992 was $9,000 out the door. The next most reliable car I've owned is my Viper, but it cost 10x as much as my old Nissan.
Just because it's on the books doesn't mean anyone will follow it, ever.
Did you know there is a law in Chester, England allowing you to shoot a Welshman with a bow and arrow if found inside the city walls at midnight?
UK government members received this message shortly after the news that they wouldn't be funding the upkeep of Bletchley Park:
"Hp gvdl zpvstfmg, qbsmjbnfou."
To further clarify this, there ARE polar orbit satellites, but, the problem is that while they are orbiting on a North-South trajectory, the Earth is spinning West-East. This makes it difficult for communications satellites because unless the orbit is perfectly synchronized with the Earth's rotation, which is difficult due to an irregularly shaped planet, axis tilt, elliptical orbits resulting in weird apogees, etc., then when the sat passes over, it's in a different spot every day. Geosynchronous orbit sats are always in the same spot spinning with the Earth at the same speed; very easy to tell your antenna to look at a fixed point in space.
So, the highly prized areas you are referring to are for communication satellites, and to a slightly lesser degree, television satellites.
North America and Europe are the two largest markets, but you're discounting Asia rather heavily.
To optimize the satellite's placement in relation to population density, you'll find sats towards the West side of the Atlantic, over the equator, serving the eastern seaboard of the U.S. along with the eastern part of South America and the Caribbean. Sats over the Atlantic towards the East will service western Europe and western Africa. Sats placed over the Indian ocean will service Southeast Asia, the Middle East, East Africa and western Australia. Sats over the Pacific will service East Asia (China, Japan) and the eastern seaboard of Australia, along with the west coasts of North and South America.
There is some overlap. For example, I can tune into AOR-W (Atlantic Ocean Region - West) or IOR (Indian Ocean Region) sats while I'm in the Mediterranean, but, I generally get the best reception on AOR-E due to it's location over the east Atlantic.
Polar orbit sats are still used, but they are not optimal due to most population centers in the world being near the equator, and you would need several sats in the same loop for 24/7 operation, as when your antenna tracked the satellite falling off the southern horizon, it would need another sat rising in the north to retune to.
This isn't a prob for the geosynch'd sats.
Define child porn, you say?
When I was 17, I had a 15 year old girlfriend. We performed every unholy sexual act under the sun, even ass-to-mouth. We were both very athletic, very curious teens with very high libidos, even by teen standards.
Technically, what I was doing, was statutory rape. Because we took photos and made videos of our acts, I also technically produced child pornography.
But really, I did neither.
We knew what we were doing, we were both consenting, we were also two of the smartest kids in school (AP/Honors classes, blah blah, etc.), so it wasn't a case of the stupids.
Now just because the currents laws aren't perfect doesn't mean child porn can't be identified, nor does it mean because the laws are flawed that it doesn't exist.
There are many things in life that can not be defined accurately with words, but, you know it when you see it.
Everyone gets hacked.
We're just more open about it.
You really think the Chinese or Russian or Iranian or North Korean governments would admit publicly to getting hacked?
"...the students posted an apology this afternoon."
In the words of Vince Vaughn, "Apologize for what, baby? Being awesome?"
"Fast boots could be a true advance in the history of computing."
-- Henry Kingman, 2009-01-28
Not to mention footwear.
Fi Noly Ilnux ahd a psellchecker.
Yeah, but falling down my stairs doesn't scare the fuck out of me.
They need to make one roughly the size of a killer whale that targets and chases sharks out of areas where people engage in water activities, such as surfing.
Can someone explain it to me...why Microsoft went into these deals anyway?
Yes.
Winux
I know a few tax lawyers. The tax laws of the U.S. have grown so complex over the decades that it has become literally impossible for one person to know them all. Tax law firms have lawyers dedicated to specific portions of the tax code.
When you have a set of rules as ridiculously long as the U.S. tax codes, it basically makes it impossible to comply 100%, because no matter what you do, there will be a segment SOMEWHERE in that massive wall of text that you unintentionally violate.
The novelty about the deeply complicated tax laws is that loopholes abound - it may be the specific reason the government maintains its complexity.
Google trying to minimize its tax burden is just good business. That they seem to have done it in a way that is suspect doesn't mean they intentionally broke a law, it probably means they did it so well that the IRS isn't sure it's legal or not.
But again, with tax codes as complex as ours, it will probably fall into the realm of ambiguity so that it can either be legal OR illegal, which is yet another governmental advantage of highly complicated tax laws.
This would be good for people like myself who accidentally bought "I Wanna Fuck You" by Noreaga & Scarlett instead of the Akwon and Snoop Dog version. It would be nice to get the money refunded, and they can gladly take that song back.
I don't know about the rest of you, but iris scanners scare the crap out of me. Every time I look into the peephole to get scanned, I'm relatively certain a large needle will shoot out from behind the glass and stab me in the eye.
My father always said that laughter was the best medicine, which is why so many of us died of tuberculosis.
"...scientists from the UK and France have may found a gene responsible for controlling the fertilization of a new egg."
Shortly after this discovery, the gene that controls bad grammar was found in gollum123.
And all this time I thought it was the pizza, beer, nachos and salsa I cram into my face daily. Now that I know it's bacteria, I have to make a call for some anti-biotics...and another double pepperoni!
Where's "here"?
BellSouth offers DSL Lite; a 256/128 dsl circuit for $24.95 per month. Perhaps your local DSL provider offers something similar.
Or, download NetStumbler and sniff out an open WAP in your neighborhood and leech bandwidth. There are about 5 I can reach from my house.
You saved the best for last :)
Seagate has the lowest failure rate of any drive mfg I've come across. Maxtor has the highest. This is empirical evidence gathered from the repair of hundreds, possibly thousands of PCs.
I just replaced my IBM DeathStar with a Seagate Barracuda.
There is speculation that it might be a gorilla/chimp hybrid species. I'm hoping the chimp was the 'giver' in that scenario.