Not that those sorts of guys use logic or anything, but the only way this bigger brain thing happens is because somebody in your family tree did it with something from another species.
"Not only that but the Linux community goes to outrageous efforts to make it inter operable with other OS's (reverse engineering) while Microsoft goes to extreme efforts to ensure no OS can inter operate with Windows."
"In October, a U.S. vigilante group asked Verizon to cut off Net access to Epifora, a Canadian ISP that hosts a number of (entirely legal) web sites offering support to minor-attracted adults."
"Entirely legal" where, exactly? So long as we're talking about (ahem) "minor-attracted adults," we've already seen rulings from their respective courts that things like simulated child pornography are legal in the United States but not in Canada.
So before we get up in arms about what happened here, how about some details about what was hosted and where it is and might not be "entirely legal?"
Alright, first off, remember that the summary got things wrong; no federal judge is up for either an election or a popular confirmation vote. Ever. All federal judges, trial or appellate, are appointed by the president with the advice and consent of the Senate, and their term is for good behavior (i. e. until they retire, die, or are impeached).
Federal courts can only rule on federal matters, and more specifically only those matters that Congress has empowered them to act (all federal courts other than the Supreme Court of the United States are created by Congress).
As for the state courts, your mileage will vary from state to state. Here in Florida, appellate court judges are appointed by a special executive commission and face approval in the state legislature, however after a certain number of years they are exposed to a popular retention vote, where the voting public decids whether to retain or remove the particular appellate judge. Right now, Florida has three justices from the Florida Supreme Court (among others) facing such a confirmation vote (and what will make this vote interesting is that all three were on the bench for both Bush v. Gore as well as the more recent Terry Schiavo rulings).
As for Florida trial judges, they are decided by election. There are restrictions on who can run, and there are restrictions on how they can run (e. g. they can't say how they intend to rule in future cases brought before them). There may or may not be problems with such a system, however things are mitigated by the fact that the accused in criminal cases has the right to a trial by jury (and juries are also available to civil cases where the parties involved are willing to pay for them). Conviction or acquittal is decided by the jury, not the judge, unless the accused decides to waive their right and have a "bench trial." Any appeals are brought before an unelected appellate court.
While it may not seem like such a great idea to let the public at large decide on trial judges (I myself have reservations), because we have jury trials in the US, it should be remembered that registered voters are, by statue, potential jurors.
"Look at the countries with the death penalty: other than the US and India there are hardly any democracies on the list."
Forgetting countries like Japan and South Korea, are we? Not that it matters. One way or the other, moral relativism should never enter into such a debate.
"That would tend to indicate that, without a screwed up election system, being pro-death-penalty tends to get you elected out of office very quickly."
And what if it did not? What if the majority of the voters really were in favor of capital punishment? Would that majoritarian stance magically make it OK? The majority is, by definition, at all times moral?
So long as we're not talking about a mandatory death sentence for a particular crime, the only question you should be asking is the only question that the courts should consider in such cases: does the crime merit the punishment?
Is the convicted beyond any sort of redemption? Can the convicted be trusted not to commit the same crime again? And if the answer is "no," and the convicted is to spend the rest of his life in prison, is it more fitting to the crime that the life of imprisonment is ended naturally or by the state?
Pinning your arguments against capital punishment on voter opinion is no better than pinning arguments for it. If the court of public opinion were so reliable, we wouldn't need courtrooms.
"Will killing him bring back the 148 dead Shiites?"
Killing him will dash the hopes of Sunis wishing to reinstate him and letting him do it all over again. Unless he was going to be held in some prison outside of Iraq, that would always be one of the hopes of the Suni insurgents.
Did you hear his statements upon hearing the sentence? One might interpret them as his shot at martyrdom, but really they're his attempt to convince Sunis outside the courtroom to bust him out.
If the only alternative is to be held in an Iraqi prison, this is the only way to ensure he won't do it again.
"I know people who spend 40 or 50 hours a week playing golf,"
The difference here is that state and federal legislators also play golf, which makes it harder for them to treat golfers (compulsive or otherwise) as "the other."
Maybe if we all got together and started mailing law-makers a DS Lite and a copy of Brain Age...
"Temperature doesn't mean anything - it's heat dissipation that matters. Here's more basic math for ya:"
Pass the doobie, man!
"I have 1 gram of water at 100 degC and that is my heat sink. Let's say I then have 10 grams of egg."
How, praytell, are you going to submerge (let alone cook) a 10 g egg in 1 g of water? Realisticly, the egg will be 1 hg and the water will be around 3 hg.
"so it appears that the heat sink has the capability to dish out quite a bit more than 100W (I don't know if this is a combination of the thermal dissipation from the circuit or a release of the energy that is stored in the heatsink; it's probably a combination of both)."
What you're missing is that the (hypothetical) 100 W output is when the heat sink is submerged in air.
The heat sink is designed to dissipate heat in air, a fluid that is remarkably good at thermal insulation (fiberglass insulation works by trapping air pockets within it). This is why heat sinks look the way they do, to maximize the surface area to squeeze every last bit of heat conductivity out of the surrounding air. Forced airflow helps as well, because stagnant hot air absorbs less heat than if it is constantly replaced with cooler air.
Comparing the thermal conductivity of air to water is like comparing the electrical conductivity of air to copper. The difference is usually around a factor of 30. Submerge the same heat sink in water rather than air, and you will get a lot more heat out of it. All things being equal, that 1 hW output will jump to 3 kW.
Of course, this is all if you submerge the heat sink. The heat sink is not a pinpoint that 1 g of water can submerge (otherwise it'd be a lousy heat sink). If instead we're talking about locallized exposure to water while the rest of the heat sink must continue to work with air, you get not only the heat from the heat source, but also the heat from the dry portions of the heat sink, suddenly realizing there is now a path of lesser resistance, will move to put even more W/m^2 out of the wet portions of the heat sink than you'd see if the entire heat sink was submerged (at least until the water boils off and all those disappointed little calories have to go back to trying to work with air).
"That's the scary thing - not that it's hot, but that it *stays* hot!"
Conductor stays hot while electical current continues to move through it! Film at 11!
"You didn't show them video with text like many games would have though."
Video games is not the sole reason for purchasing a television. In fact, most televisions are not used for games.
"I'd rather have the cheaper simpler solution too, but at high res text can be smaller and still readable (like in a status box in the corner of an fps)."
Smaller == less readable. Or do you keep your dekstop setting at 1600x1200?
"You could have shown something that would have made the difference more obvious, but didn't."
Why should a sales representative focus on such a specialized, niche use for a television instead of showcasing that which normal television users are most interested in? Who cares what kind of mileage a car gets, what should really be showcased is the iPod dock!
Slashdot Mirror
"Couldn't a presidential pardon clear that away?"
You can't pardon away an impeachment.
Not that one would have or will ever happen out of this administration, mind you.
Not that those sorts of guys use logic or anything, but the only way this bigger brain thing happens is because somebody in your family tree did it with something from another species.
Yeah... unless those Chinese or Vikings you talk about managed to develop magnetic monopoles, everybody's compass points in both directions.
"Not only that but the Linux community goes to outrageous efforts to make it inter operable with other OS's (reverse engineering) while Microsoft goes to extreme efforts to ensure no OS can inter operate with Windows."
Assigning blame will not change the end result.
"You set it up and it works forever."
Windows doesn't require a text editor to set up.
It's their vote to do with as they please. Darn that republicanism, hm?
"Dont forget to pour one out for your 500,000 homies in washington DC who are disenfranchised and not represented in congress"
You could always follow Alexandria's exmaple and get yourself a piece of that Steele/Cardin fun and games.
Would you rather Network Time Protocol palmed Sue?
"In the center was a very good 50" HDTV rolling demo footage."
I don't think my living room is that big.
"Demo only, not full PS3 resolution."
That statement could go either way. You're assuming what you're seeing is less than the PS3's capabilities, not greater than.
That, and "demo only" sounds a lot like "cutscene, not gameplay" to me.
"Conclusion: seeing is believing."
You mean like Dragon's Lair?
Welcome to video games. Playing is believing.
"In October, a U.S. vigilante group asked Verizon to cut off Net access to Epifora, a Canadian ISP that hosts a number of (entirely legal) web sites offering support to minor-attracted adults."
"Entirely legal" where, exactly? So long as we're talking about (ahem) "minor-attracted adults," we've already seen rulings from their respective courts that things like simulated child pornography are legal in the United States but not in Canada.
So before we get up in arms about what happened here, how about some details about what was hosted and where it is and might not be "entirely legal?"
"Take a cellphone camera in with you, take a picture of the ballot"
That applies to all voting systems.
Alright, first off, remember that the summary got things wrong; no federal judge is up for either an election or a popular confirmation vote. Ever. All federal judges, trial or appellate, are appointed by the president with the advice and consent of the Senate, and their term is for good behavior (i. e. until they retire, die, or are impeached).
Federal courts can only rule on federal matters, and more specifically only those matters that Congress has empowered them to act (all federal courts other than the Supreme Court of the United States are created by Congress).
As for the state courts, your mileage will vary from state to state. Here in Florida, appellate court judges are appointed by a special executive commission and face approval in the state legislature, however after a certain number of years they are exposed to a popular retention vote, where the voting public decids whether to retain or remove the particular appellate judge. Right now, Florida has three justices from the Florida Supreme Court (among others) facing such a confirmation vote (and what will make this vote interesting is that all three were on the bench for both Bush v. Gore as well as the more recent Terry Schiavo rulings).
As for Florida trial judges, they are decided by election. There are restrictions on who can run, and there are restrictions on how they can run (e. g. they can't say how they intend to rule in future cases brought before them). There may or may not be problems with such a system, however things are mitigated by the fact that the accused in criminal cases has the right to a trial by jury (and juries are also available to civil cases where the parties involved are willing to pay for them). Conviction or acquittal is decided by the jury, not the judge, unless the accused decides to waive their right and have a "bench trial." Any appeals are brought before an unelected appellate court.
While it may not seem like such a great idea to let the public at large decide on trial judges (I myself have reservations), because we have jury trials in the US, it should be remembered that registered voters are, by statue, potential jurors.
"shafting the Puerto Rican economy."
See, this is what happens when you're not a state: nobody in Congress to ensure that pork keeps coming your way.
"But wait, the US does not recognize the court."
You're confusing the International Court of Justice with the International Criminal Court. Or perhaps you are thinking of a specialized tribunal such as the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia?
Did he ever get a girl?
"'Sunis' want him back?"
Other than my mistransliterating "Sunni," it looks like yes.
"Look at the countries with the death penalty: other than the US and India there are hardly any democracies on the list."
Forgetting countries like Japan and South Korea, are we? Not that it matters. One way or the other, moral relativism should never enter into such a debate.
"That would tend to indicate that, without a screwed up election system, being pro-death-penalty tends to get you elected out of office very quickly."
And what if it did not? What if the majority of the voters really were in favor of capital punishment? Would that majoritarian stance magically make it OK? The majority is, by definition, at all times moral?
So long as we're not talking about a mandatory death sentence for a particular crime, the only question you should be asking is the only question that the courts should consider in such cases: does the crime merit the punishment?
Is the convicted beyond any sort of redemption? Can the convicted be trusted not to commit the same crime again? And if the answer is "no," and the convicted is to spend the rest of his life in prison, is it more fitting to the crime that the life of imprisonment is ended naturally or by the state?
Pinning your arguments against capital punishment on voter opinion is no better than pinning arguments for it. If the court of public opinion were so reliable, we wouldn't need courtrooms.
"Will killing him bring back the 148 dead Shiites?"
Killing him will dash the hopes of Sunis wishing to reinstate him and letting him do it all over again. Unless he was going to be held in some prison outside of Iraq, that would always be one of the hopes of the Suni insurgents.
Did you hear his statements upon hearing the sentence? One might interpret them as his shot at martyrdom, but really they're his attempt to convince Sunis outside the courtroom to bust him out.
If the only alternative is to be held in an Iraqi prison, this is the only way to ensure he won't do it again.
"dolphins are growing hind limbs so they can go ashore to capture a few Japanese"
So they're working for the North Koreans?
"People with money."
Oh, I'm sorry, am I not wearing the right kind of boat shoes today? My Beemer is in the shop.
"the Wii doesn't support defs above 480p like everyone was hoping."
Who, praytell, is this "everyone" you speak of?
"It's also a little disappointing (but not surprising) that the controller doesn't convert the type of motion you perform to the screen."
You were looking forward to spinning until you were too dizzy to see straight to do the spin attack?
"I know people who spend 40 or 50 hours a week playing golf,"
The difference here is that state and federal legislators also play golf, which makes it harder for them to treat golfers (compulsive or otherwise) as "the other."
Maybe if we all got together and started mailing law-makers a DS Lite and a copy of Brain Age...
"Temperature doesn't mean anything - it's heat dissipation that matters. Here's more basic math for ya:"
Pass the doobie, man!
"I have 1 gram of water at 100 degC and that is my heat sink. Let's say I then have 10 grams of egg."
How, praytell, are you going to submerge (let alone cook) a 10 g egg in 1 g of water? Realisticly, the egg will be 1 hg and the water will be around 3 hg.
"so it appears that the heat sink has the capability to dish out quite a bit more than 100W (I don't know if this is a combination of the thermal dissipation from the circuit or a release of the energy that is stored in the heatsink; it's probably a combination of both)."
What you're missing is that the (hypothetical) 100 W output is when the heat sink is submerged in air.
The heat sink is designed to dissipate heat in air, a fluid that is remarkably good at thermal insulation (fiberglass insulation works by trapping air pockets within it). This is why heat sinks look the way they do, to maximize the surface area to squeeze every last bit of heat conductivity out of the surrounding air. Forced airflow helps as well, because stagnant hot air absorbs less heat than if it is constantly replaced with cooler air.
Comparing the thermal conductivity of air to water is like comparing the electrical conductivity of air to copper. The difference is usually around a factor of 30. Submerge the same heat sink in water rather than air, and you will get a lot more heat out of it. All things being equal, that 1 hW output will jump to 3 kW.
Of course, this is all if you submerge the heat sink. The heat sink is not a pinpoint that 1 g of water can submerge (otherwise it'd be a lousy heat sink). If instead we're talking about locallized exposure to water while the rest of the heat sink must continue to work with air, you get not only the heat from the heat source, but also the heat from the dry portions of the heat sink, suddenly realizing there is now a path of lesser resistance, will move to put even more W/m^2 out of the wet portions of the heat sink than you'd see if the entire heat sink was submerged (at least until the water boils off and all those disappointed little calories have to go back to trying to work with air).
"That's the scary thing - not that it's hot, but that it *stays* hot!"
Conductor stays hot while electical current continues to move through it! Film at 11!
"You didn't show them video with text like many games would have though."
Video games is not the sole reason for purchasing a television. In fact, most televisions are not used for games.
"I'd rather have the cheaper simpler solution too, but at high res text can be smaller and still readable (like in a status box in the corner of an fps)."
Smaller == less readable. Or do you keep your dekstop setting at 1600x1200?
"You could have shown something that would have made the difference more obvious, but didn't."
Why should a sales representative focus on such a specialized, niche use for a television instead of showcasing that which normal television users are most interested in? Who cares what kind of mileage a car gets, what should really be showcased is the iPod dock!
Don't worry, it's not like Microsoft is also considering pulling out of the PRC because of their anti-democratic practices... oh, wait...
Excuse me, I need to run out and buy more canned food and ammunition, as the the apocalypse is surely upon us.
Feh, real men use Julian days! It's 2454041! And don't try none of that namby-pamby "modified" stuff, neither!