"Thanks, guys, but I would rather've seen you do this in 1980, when you first forced me to use your stupid boxes."
They "forced" you to do that so that they could put more channels in. Standard VHF/UHF television tuners (ie. not cable ready) can only tune to the 60-some-odd television channels alloted to the VHF/UHF spectrum (go figure).
"Mandate that any set-top box with two output connectors (analog and digital), support output to both connectors. Because there are dozens of manufacturers out there just begging to sell boxes with connectors that don't do anything. Thank you, cable TV industry, for protecting us from these monsters!"
Change the first sentence to read:
Mandate that any set-top box with two output connectors (analog and digital), support output to both connectors at the same time.
This ensures that, no matter how much they screw up digital "recording," you will always be able to perform analog recording without having to disconnect your digital television.
"Also, why the Exeter? Is there any reason given as to why the Federation would name a ship after an East Coast prep school with a history of buggery?"
On a hunch, I entered "HMS Exeter" into Google. It was a York-class heavy cruiser that saw action against the Graf Spee early in the war and was sunk in the Battle of Java Sea in 1942. It looks like it was one of the "not-a-battleship" classes that the RN was notorious for building in the 1920's and 1930's.
IMO, a CC is closer to "NCC" than a CV-ish name like "Enterprise." What the heck does the N stand for, anyway?
In Soviet Russia, the browser changes to suit the website!
Re:can someone explain to me
on
E ~ mc^2
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· Score: 1
"What c is relative to?"
I may as well throw in my $0.02.
Don't think of it as a speed, think of it as a fixed ratio. Meters and seconds mean different things to different observers, but no matter where they are or what they're doing, there's always 3E8 meters per second.
c is constant. It's space and time that are relative.
"By putting it on the curb, you have shown that you want the city to come and take it away."
No, I want the city (or, more accurately, the city's contractor) to come and collect my garbage for disposal and disposal only. That's what the contract says and that's what I expect. If they want to do other things, at the very least I expect my money back (for violation of the terms of said contract).
Heck, I wonder if the contractor can be held legally responsible for anything that the police do with evidence they find in your garbage without a warrant. They obviously failed in their job to dispose of it.
What next, putting letters in a federal mail box becomes an invitation for them to read my mail? "You just wanted us to deliver it to its destination. You didn't say anything about not reading it."
First off, that ain't digital. That comes from the entirely analog problem of my mother picking up the @#$# phone when I'm trying to download EGA GIFs from the local BBS on my 2400 baud modem.
(Our porn had 16 colors and took an hour to download! And we liked it! We'd all sit around and say to each other "At least it's not CGA!" or "At least it wasn't over xterm!" And don't even ask how long it took to find and download a GIF viewer!)
At any rate, this is an example of a different kind of deterioration. When was the last time any of you talked to your modem through a terminal emulator? Heck, when was the last time your modem connections didn't involve PPP?
Because we are physiologically omnivores and need both animals as well as plants to stay healthy. Vegetarians in general and vegans in particular need to go through effort to find suitable replacements for the protiens they would be getting otherwise in order to maintain status quo. And even then, they usually end up eating more mass of food than a non-vegetarian in order just to keep up.
When you're on a manned space mission where a million things can go horribly wrong, why do you want to add more complexity for the crew to deal with? Let alone the extra mass needed for the food...
Re:Let's hope this means the end of veal
on
Lab-Grown Steak
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· Score: 1
"This is a perfect example of why groups like PETA are not taken seriously."
And here I thought it was because PETA are a bunch of loonies who seem much more interested in garnering attention for themselves than their cause. Or maybe that's just me...
"We need to teach history accurately, and give children a solid foundation in Science and logic so they can reach their own conclusions when confronted with someone selling snake oil."
That's a double-edged sword. You need to make sure students are able to make their own valid conclusions without any hand-holding from you to what you think is right.
For example, you mention you need to teach history "accurately." By who's standard? Why is it that teaching "accurate history" in the US today always involves a eurocentric worldview? Is that somehow "more accurate" than any of the other possible viewpoints?
"Now we all get Smallpox vaccine, well not all of us the Government doesn't want to be blamed for the few deaths that will happened, they would rather give you the option to take it, then ask you to fill out a waiver of responsibility."
First off, you seem to think that giving out the small pox vaccinations immediately is patently the "right thing." This begs the question "What happens when (not if) thousands die in a nationwide small pox vaccination program and it turns out there never was going to be a small pox attack at all?"
Secondly, you seem to think that the small pox vaccine is just a little prick in the arm. It's not. The small pox vaccine has changed little (if at all) over the centuries. In fact, it is quite literally the first vaccine ever.
What is it? Is it some chemical anti-viral cocktail? Is it a dormant version of the virus in question? No, it's cow pox ("vaccine" comes from the Latin "vacus," which means "cow").
When you get this vaccine, you are given cow pox. The area on which you are vaccinated becomes a large, puss-filled blister, something that can spread around the body (like chicken pox), something that is quite contageous (like chicken pox). The area is kept bandaged to keep you or anybody else from touching it. Not that that stops all the other symptoms that will knock most otherwise healthy people on their asses for a week or so. This ain't no flu shot.
The small pox vaccine involves being voluntarily infected with a real disease. Cow pox is used because it's not as deadly as small pox. But there is a big gap between "not deadly" and "not as deadly as small pox."
"and I usually tell them that I am not worried about North Korea. I am much more worried about what the number one manufacturer of nuclear weapons in the world is trying to do"
First off, do you have numbers to back up this claim? That don't date from the 1950's? Last I heard, the US has been cutting back on its nuclear arsenal for the past several decades. Something to do with SALT, I imagine.
Secondly, it's not the country that manufactures nuclear weapons that scare me. I couldn't care less about India and Pakistan having nuclear weapons. What scares me is the country that would sell nuclear weapons to whoever is willing to cough up the money in order to try to feed a population that's always on the brink of starvation in a rusting relic of Soviet-style socialism. DPRK is the only nuclear or near-nuclear country I can think of that doesn't have a problem with nuclear proliferation. Even non-signatories (like India and Pakistan) don't like the idea.
"They often ask me what Japan can do to improve its economy, and I usually tell them that Japan needs to get all of its eggs out of the US Economic basket and spread them around, so if that basket falls, not all of the eggs will break."
When last I checked, their eggs are already showing some severe cracks. While the US was still high on fumes off the internet, Japan (and most of SE Asia with it) went through a bit of an economic melt-down. And while the yen isn't quite as bad as it used to be, there have been talks of a "banking crisis" in recent months.
Why do you think those Japanese students are asking about ways to improve the Japanese economy?
"They often ask me why I don't like the US and I usually respond by asking them why they aren't afraid of George W. Bush."
Political partisanship in the classrom. In a world where journalists work hard to keep their writing as centrist as possible, you are able to proudly proclaim your political views to the classroom? All I can say is that I hope those aren't children that you're teaching.
"And living in the only country in the world to ever be attacked with a nuclear weapon has helped me put a different perspective on things."
You're also probably living in the only country in the world that would wait until a second nuclear attack before considering surrendering.
Not that that's entirely true. After two bombs and the USSR declaring war on them (complete with veterans from the Eastern European Front), the army staged a coup to try to prevent Hirohito from surrendering.
"Hmmm...how about the fact that gov't research is being swayed by whomever is in office?"
That's because it's... well... government research, using government money. Hell, that's like saying "The direction a car is facing is being swayed by whomever is in the driver's seat."
While I'm upset that my money is being used on relatively frivilous research subjects like the ones listed (while the ISS flounders), the fact that government action is directed by who is in office this particular term shouldn't surprise anybody. It's about as newsworthy as saying "Israelis and Palestinians killed each other today."
"As far as some evil plan by the dealers to do something devious with data, I think it is giving them too much credit to think they have the brains to go too far."
It's not their desire to sell that's the problem, it's the willingness of direct marketers to bend over backwards to buy the information. Even automotive CEOs have their eyes turn to dollar signs when they have fistfulls of $100s waved under their nose. If it's there, they will try to buy it.
Come back in another decade when you can demonstrate your own personal experience can't be attributed to the 11-year solar cycle. Or any other long-term weather cycle (like El Nino).
You missed it. It falls under "beneficiaries." What, do you think the insurance is for soldiers and soldiers only, not their dependants? Whoever has the database has the medical history of the policy holder and everybody else that falls under the policy.
If they have the freaking media in their hands, no amount of software tricks can secure it. Unless forensics can catch up with them, they have all the time in the world to apply as many monkeys and typewriters as they wish. They're not going to say "Oh, gee, it's going to take days to break this encryption. We better return the computers instead."
"a bunch of local dock workers would stand up and put them where they belong."
Back then, dock workers were expected to move heavy loads by hand. Modern dock workers push buttons in the air-conditioned control booth of a highly automated crane (which is why dock workers on the US Pacific coast are worried about their job becoming "too" automated).
No, it's not reality. In Reality (at least in a capitalistic market), the vendor is very concerned with the quality of the product they sell and their customers' satisfaction. This is because the customer is always free to take their business elsewhere.
EverQuest (along with most of the video game industry today, unfortunately) doesn't play in the capitalist system very well. Instead, most of their market is of the "captive audience" variety. While whether or not the players are captives by their own design is debatable (by people with exrtra letters after their last name), they are captives nonetheless. And so the vendors can (and will) get away with the kind of apathy towards their customers that is usually present in a monopolistic environment or even organized crime.
You mean the country with a half-American monarch? The country that recently ratified a free trade agreement with the US? One of the few countries in the Middle East that doesn't have any appreciable oil reserves (and the lopsided economy they bring)?
Oh, wait, I'm sorry, I'm not living up to my "stupid American" stereotype...
"As much as I enjoyed the article -- and it's nice to see folks like Roblimo working to expand Linux and Open Source opportunities abroad -- there's a kind of obvious irony in evangelizing Free Software in countries that are still working on Free [freedomhouse.org] Speech [state.gov]."
On that front, they're a heck of a lot further along than the majority of their neighbors, let alone the entire Middle East. Let's look at what the State Department says:
There were no reports of political or other extrajudicial killings by government officials.
There were no reports of politically motivated disappearance.
Prisoners detained on national security grounds often are kept in separate prisons maintained by the GID. Conditions in GID facilities are significantly better than general police detention facilities.
The Constitution provides for the independence of the judiciary
The Constitution requires that security forces obtain a warrant from the Prosecutor General or a judge before conducting searches or otherwise interfering with these rights, and the security services generally respect these constitutional restrictions
The Constitution provides for freedom of speech and of the press
And so forth. Yes, I left out the "however" comments from the website, but these statements are in no way true in most Arab countries. Try finding mention of a Saudi consitution anywhere.
" Ever since he lost his presidential bid McCain's been the Democrats Democrat (yes, I know - He's a Republican in name only). His Stances and choices usually support what the Democrats want, and often exceeds their wildest dreams."
http://www.vote-smart.org/vote-smart/profile.pht ml ?func=front&ID=S0061103&dtype=B&state=AZ&style=&ac tivecheck=1
Yeah, he's only voted with the Republicans every two out of three times, and has only voted for President Bush's proposals nine out of ten times. The horror!
Get your facts straight before you get all preachy about what so-and-so has done for the Beloved Party (either one).
Slashdot Mirror
"Thanks, guys, but I would rather've seen you do this in 1980, when you first forced me to use your stupid boxes."
They "forced" you to do that so that they could put more channels in. Standard VHF/UHF television tuners (ie. not cable ready) can only tune to the 60-some-odd television channels alloted to the VHF/UHF spectrum (go figure).
"Mandate that any set-top box with two output connectors (analog and digital), support output to both connectors. Because there are dozens of manufacturers out there just begging to sell boxes with connectors that don't do anything. Thank you, cable TV industry, for protecting us from these monsters!"
Change the first sentence to read:
Mandate that any set-top box with two output connectors (analog and digital), support output to both connectors at the same time.
This ensures that, no matter how much they screw up digital "recording," you will always be able to perform analog recording without having to disconnect your digital television.
"Also, why the Exeter? Is there any reason given as to why the Federation would name a ship after an East Coast prep school with a history of buggery?"
On a hunch, I entered "HMS Exeter" into Google. It was a York-class heavy cruiser that saw action against the Graf Spee early in the war and was sunk in the Battle of Java Sea in 1942. It looks like it was one of the "not-a-battleship" classes that the RN was notorious for building in the 1920's and 1930's.
IMO, a CC is closer to "NCC" than a CV-ish name like "Enterprise." What the heck does the N stand for, anyway?
In Soviet Russia, the browser changes to suit the website!
"What c is relative to?"
I may as well throw in my $0.02.
Don't think of it as a speed, think of it as a fixed ratio. Meters and seconds mean different things to different observers, but no matter where they are or what they're doing, there's always 3E8 meters per second.
c is constant. It's space and time that are relative.
"By putting it on the curb, you have shown that you want the city to come and take it away."
No, I want the city (or, more accurately, the city's contractor) to come and collect my garbage for disposal and disposal only. That's what the contract says and that's what I expect. If they want to do other things, at the very least I expect my money back (for violation of the terms of said contract).
Heck, I wonder if the contractor can be held legally responsible for anything that the police do with evidence they find in your garbage without a warrant. They obviously failed in their job to dispose of it.
What next, putting letters in a federal mail box becomes an invitation for them to read my mail? "You just wanted us to deliver it to its destination. You didn't say anything about not reading it."
First off, that ain't digital. That comes from the entirely analog problem of my mother picking up the @#$# phone when I'm trying to download EGA GIFs from the local BBS on my 2400 baud modem.
(Our porn had 16 colors and took an hour to download! And we liked it! We'd all sit around and say to each other "At least it's not CGA!" or "At least it wasn't over xterm!" And don't even ask how long it took to find and download a GIF viewer!)
At any rate, this is an example of a different kind of deterioration. When was the last time any of you talked to your modem through a terminal emulator? Heck, when was the last time your modem connections didn't involve PPP?
"Why not just be a vegetarian?"
Because we are physiologically omnivores and need both animals as well as plants to stay healthy. Vegetarians in general and vegans in particular need to go through effort to find suitable replacements for the protiens they would be getting otherwise in order to maintain status quo. And even then, they usually end up eating more mass of food than a non-vegetarian in order just to keep up.
When you're on a manned space mission where a million things can go horribly wrong, why do you want to add more complexity for the crew to deal with? Let alone the extra mass needed for the food...
"This is a perfect example of why groups like PETA are not taken seriously."
And here I thought it was because PETA are a bunch of loonies who seem much more interested in garnering attention for themselves than their cause. Or maybe that's just me...
"We need to teach history accurately, and give children a solid foundation in Science and logic so they can reach their own conclusions when confronted with someone selling snake oil."
That's a double-edged sword. You need to make sure students are able to make their own valid conclusions without any hand-holding from you to what you think is right.
For example, you mention you need to teach history "accurately." By who's standard? Why is it that teaching "accurate history" in the US today always involves a eurocentric worldview? Is that somehow "more accurate" than any of the other possible viewpoints?
Keep in mind the companies we're talking about. Pay phone rates aren't the only telephone rates they have monopoly control over.
"Now we all get Smallpox vaccine, well not all of us the Government doesn't want to be blamed for the few deaths that will happened, they would rather give you the option to take it, then ask you to fill out a waiver of responsibility."
First off, you seem to think that giving out the small pox vaccinations immediately is patently the "right thing." This begs the question "What happens when (not if) thousands die in a nationwide small pox vaccination program and it turns out there never was going to be a small pox attack at all?"
Secondly, you seem to think that the small pox vaccine is just a little prick in the arm. It's not. The small pox vaccine has changed little (if at all) over the centuries. In fact, it is quite literally the first vaccine ever.
What is it? Is it some chemical anti-viral cocktail? Is it a dormant version of the virus in question? No, it's cow pox ("vaccine" comes from the Latin "vacus," which means "cow").
When you get this vaccine, you are given cow pox. The area on which you are vaccinated becomes a large, puss-filled blister, something that can spread around the body (like chicken pox), something that is quite contageous (like chicken pox). The area is kept bandaged to keep you or anybody else from touching it. Not that that stops all the other symptoms that will knock most otherwise healthy people on their asses for a week or so. This ain't no flu shot.
The small pox vaccine involves being voluntarily infected with a real disease. Cow pox is used because it's not as deadly as small pox. But there is a big gap between "not deadly" and "not as deadly as small pox."
"and I usually tell them that I am not worried about North Korea. I am much more worried about what the number one manufacturer of nuclear weapons in the world is trying to do"
First off, do you have numbers to back up this claim? That don't date from the 1950's? Last I heard, the US has been cutting back on its nuclear arsenal for the past several decades. Something to do with SALT, I imagine.
Secondly, it's not the country that manufactures nuclear weapons that scare me. I couldn't care less about India and Pakistan having nuclear weapons. What scares me is the country that would sell nuclear weapons to whoever is willing to cough up the money in order to try to feed a population that's always on the brink of starvation in a rusting relic of Soviet-style socialism. DPRK is the only nuclear or near-nuclear country I can think of that doesn't have a problem with nuclear proliferation. Even non-signatories (like India and Pakistan) don't like the idea.
"They often ask me what Japan can do to improve its economy, and I usually tell them that Japan needs to get all of its eggs out of the US Economic basket and spread them around, so if that basket falls, not all of the eggs will break."
When last I checked, their eggs are already showing some severe cracks. While the US was still high on fumes off the internet, Japan (and most of SE Asia with it) went through a bit of an economic melt-down. And while the yen isn't quite as bad as it used to be, there have been talks of a "banking crisis" in recent months.
Why do you think those Japanese students are asking about ways to improve the Japanese economy?
"They often ask me why I don't like the US and I usually respond by asking them why they aren't afraid of George W. Bush."
Political partisanship in the classrom. In a world where journalists work hard to keep their writing as centrist as possible, you are able to proudly proclaim your political views to the classroom? All I can say is that I hope those aren't children that you're teaching.
"And living in the only country in the world to ever be attacked with a nuclear weapon has helped me put a different perspective on things."
You're also probably living in the only country in the world that would wait until a second nuclear attack before considering surrendering.
Not that that's entirely true. After two bombs and the USSR declaring war on them (complete with veterans from the Eastern European Front), the army staged a coup to try to prevent Hirohito from surrendering.
But I digress.
"Hmmm...how about the fact that gov't research is being swayed by whomever is in office?"
That's because it's... well... government research, using government money. Hell, that's like saying "The direction a car is facing is being swayed by whomever is in the driver's seat."
While I'm upset that my money is being used on relatively frivilous research subjects like the ones listed (while the ISS flounders), the fact that government action is directed by who is in office this particular term shouldn't surprise anybody. It's about as newsworthy as saying "Israelis and Palestinians killed each other today."
"As far as some evil plan by the dealers to do something devious with data, I think it is giving them too much credit to think they have the brains to go too far."
It's not their desire to sell that's the problem, it's the willingness of direct marketers to bend over backwards to buy the information. Even automotive CEOs have their eyes turn to dollar signs when they have fistfulls of $100s waved under their nose. If it's there, they will try to buy it.
"And fuck the economic cost. Or there'll be no-one left in 500 years to count your precious pennies."
Then what will they use to buy their groceries? Yes, economic costs really are tangible.
Come back in another decade when you can demonstrate your own personal experience can't be attributed to the 11-year solar cycle. Or any other long-term weather cycle (like El Nino).
The scenario, or the fact that someone thought this was "funny?"
"medical claim histories for beneficiaries"
"No mention of family"
You missed it. It falls under "beneficiaries." What, do you think the insurance is for soldiers and soldiers only, not their dependants? Whoever has the database has the medical history of the policy holder and everybody else that falls under the policy.
If they have the freaking media in their hands, no amount of software tricks can secure it. Unless forensics can catch up with them, they have all the time in the world to apply as many monkeys and typewriters as they wish. They're not going to say "Oh, gee, it's going to take days to break this encryption. We better return the computers instead."
"a bunch of local dock workers would stand up and put them where they belong."
:)
Back then, dock workers were expected to move heavy loads by hand. Modern dock workers push buttons in the air-conditioned control booth of a highly automated crane (which is why dock workers on the US Pacific coast are worried about their job becoming "too" automated).
Once again, computers are the root of all evil.
"Welcome to Reality. I hope you enjoy your stay."
No, it's not reality. In Reality (at least in a capitalistic market), the vendor is very concerned with the quality of the product they sell and their customers' satisfaction. This is because the customer is always free to take their business elsewhere.
EverQuest (along with most of the video game industry today, unfortunately) doesn't play in the capitalist system very well. Instead, most of their market is of the "captive audience" variety. While whether or not the players are captives by their own design is debatable (by people with exrtra letters after their last name), they are captives nonetheless. And so the vendors can (and will) get away with the kind of apathy towards their customers that is usually present in a monopolistic environment or even organized crime.
You mean the country with a half-American monarch? The country that recently ratified a free trade agreement with the US? One of the few countries in the Middle East that doesn't have any appreciable oil reserves (and the lopsided economy they bring)?
Oh, wait, I'm sorry, I'm not living up to my "stupid American" stereotype...
On that front, they're a heck of a lot further along than the majority of their neighbors, let alone the entire Middle East. Let's look at what the State Department says:
- There were no reports of political or other extrajudicial killings by government officials.
- There were no reports of politically motivated disappearance.
- Prisoners detained on national security grounds often are kept in separate prisons maintained by the GID. Conditions in GID facilities are significantly better than general police detention facilities.
- The Constitution provides for the independence of the judiciary
- The Constitution requires that security forces obtain a warrant from the Prosecutor General or a judge before conducting searches or otherwise interfering with these rights, and the security services generally respect these constitutional restrictions
- The Constitution provides for freedom of speech and of the press
And so forth. Yes, I left out the "however" comments from the website, but these statements are in no way true in most Arab countries. Try finding mention of a Saudi consitution anywhere." Ever since he lost his presidential bid McCain's been the Democrats Democrat (yes, I know - He's a Republican in name only). His Stances and choices usually support what the Democrats want, and often exceeds their wildest dreams."
t ml ?func=front&ID=S0061103&dtype=B&state=AZ&style=&ac tivecheck=1
http://www.vote-smart.org/vote-smart/profile.ph
Yeah, he's only voted with the Republicans every two out of three times, and has only voted for President Bush's proposals nine out of ten times. The horror!
Get your facts straight before you get all preachy about what so-and-so has done for the Beloved Party (either one).
It means we can refer to their business model as Fractured Fairy Tale.