The team combined carbon nanotubes with tiny carbon buckyballs (fullerenes) to form snake-like structures. Add sunlight to excite the polymers, and the buckyballs will grab the electrons.
Does it seem to anyone else like carbon nanotubes are modern snake oil? Seriously, is there anything they CAN'T do?
dude; nailing BBS chicks is nothing to brag about...
It depends. There was a BBS I used to use in the mid-80s in my area. Every once in a while, the sysop's sister would jump on while I was logged in and we'd talk for a few minutes. I was always really careful because I figured it might just be the sysop pretending to be his sister. At any rate, I figured that if it really _was_ his sister, she was probably a real dog (yes, a somewhat chauvinistic thought, but few girls back then had any interest whatsoever in computers, and those that did were almost guaranteed to be as homely as they come). Some months after I started using the BBS, I had a reason to go visit the sysop at his house (I forget why -- sharing pd software or something). While I was there, I met his sister, and I thought I was going to lose consciousness. She was drop-dead gorgeous -- one of the most attractive girls I've ever seen. Just going on a single date with her would have granted bragging rights, but there was absolutely no chance for me; I couldn't even form a complete sentence in her presence.
I agree with you on everything except the following:
People do not understand quality because they refuse to become educated enough to make a decision based on quality.
While some people do actually refuse to become educated enough, many more have neither the means nor the time to do so. If every time a person needs to replace an expensive item, they need to get halfway to being an expert, they'll have time for absolutely nothing else in their lives. That's why friends and family come to me for help when buying computers, and it's why I call my Dad when I'm getting ready to buy a car. The problem is, not everybody has a friend or a Dad to help make decisions on the big ticket items they need. What is needed is some consolidated and reliable (IE, not supported by companies trying to separate you from your money) source of information for non-experts to turn to.
You know you can set up automatic payments, right?
No way, and definitely not for anything that doesn't have a fixed cost. Automatic payments are convenient, but I want complete control of if, when and how much a utility company gets paid. It's the first line of defense in a billing dispute, and it avoids the situation where a billing error causes an unexpected amount to be withdrawn from the checking account which results in bounced checks or overdrafts from savings. Alternately, the automatic payments could go to a credit card, but I'd MUCH rather fight with the utility company than with the my creditor.
Well, memory is fallible. I've got copies of Internet emails back to 1995, and used a BBS for a year or so before then. I think my first 14k external modem cost about US$150.
Not to one-up you or anything (my memory is fallible too), but I seem to remember buying a 19,200 bps US Robotics Courier modem second hand in 1991 for less than $100 from a software company that was going out of business. It was a really weird situation. They were training me to take over support of their application because my company was in the middle of one of those "internalize to reduce external costs" cycles. They had several clients, but we were by far their biggest with installations at two of our major manufacturing facilities, and the loss of support contracts for both was forcing them to shut down their business. They were already down to a skeleton crew by the time I got there, and were willing to sell equipment in the office that they no longer needed.
How long do you think a first-world country's economy would last without oil before completely collapsing?
Not long if they are already dependent on it. How long do you think a Heroin addict would last without their fix? And yet somebody who has never had it would be fine without it. Likewise, it would be completely possible today for a country to rise to power without a dependence on oil. Also keep in mind that Saddam didn't invade Kuwait because of concern that his country wouldn't have enough oil for their own energy needs. He invaded out of alleged concern for the impact that Kuwait's perceived pumping of the oil would have on his country's ability to provide excess oil for export.
What about the third option of going further upstream than the upstream tribe and building a dam?
I considered this, and didn't feel it was really an option. It's highly unlikely that the outcome of that move would be anything but war, and the only thing you gain is the ability to claim that you didn't make the first strike. Performing an act that you know is going to get a retaliation and then trying to claim that you didn't strike the first blow is only self-deception. How could you, with first hand knowledge of the suffering that the dam will cause, turn around and do the same thing to others? If you can justify that, it's just as easy to justify going into battle to destroy the original dam. Add to that the fact that building an additional dam upstream (without relocating everybody) would only serve to further reduce the amount of water reaching your people.
Maybe it wasn't for Saddam Hussein because he had enough of his own for self sufficiency, but tell me how long you think our country could survive without oil? Without the means to transport food people would start dying off quickly.
I think we're talking apples and oranges here. Saddam's country wasn't suffering from inadequate resources for survival. They had all the oil they needed. The issue was entirely economic -- less oil to sell. I think what they accused Kuwait of doing was horizontal drilling across the border. But the accusation seems a bit thin because rather than provide public proof that Kuwait was guilty, they just accused and invaded. Smart political handling would have had Kuwait enjoying sanctions from the UN instead of Iraq.
Now should we be so reliant on other countries for something that is so essential to our survival? NO!! But that isn't something that we could switch off to alternatives quickly.
Agreed. Personally, I think that we could get along just fine without oil here, but despite what some of the radical greens think, there's no way we could make a sudden switch. If oil were suddenly not available, the entire economy would collapse and there would be widespread starvation and general gnashing of teeth. But it would be possible to transition over time to a non-oil economy. I personally think we could do it in 10 years if it became a priority (that means giving up a lot of "nice things" that we are used to in the short term, and it almost certainly means much more widespread use of nuclear power for the immediate future). But the chances of that happening are slim.
(Personally I wish for a president that would do the JFK moon shot thing and really drive USA towards alternative energy but that isn't going to happen soon. )
I'd settle for both a president and a congress that refuse to protect "big energy". I want to see a huge windfall tax on the oil and gas companies for the boat loads of money they have made at the expense of the public. Because energy is only partly a discretionary-use product, the energy companies are in the perfect position to generate artificial shortages and manipulate the market. And frankly, I'm having a hard time believing that the record number of outages we are experiencing in the refineries this year are only a coincidence. Today's is ripe for the rise of disruptive technology that will leave the energy companies out in the cold (pun intended). My biggest fear is that new advances in alternate energy will be met with regulatory roadblocks imposed by government officials who are in bed with the incumbent players in the market.
Substitute oil for water in that story, and you have Saddam Hussein's justification for invading Kuwait. (His main complaint was that Kuwait was pumping too much oil from fields that crossed the border between the two countries.)
The major difference being, of course, that oil is not a resource that is strictly required for survival.
... and provided that the aiding power remains on that soil with the overwhelming approval of those who live there.
Agreed. If the desire of the people to have "help" changes, then the assisting forces need to leave.
Civil war is right out of the question -- there is a reason that kind of war is fought, and it's not because "the people" are thinking in unison. You can't choose sides in a situation like that and retain the moral high ground -- the only moral thing to do is stay out of it.
Totally agreed.
I have a feeling you're trying to compare a standing army -- the product of centralized power -- with situations regarding private individuals or groups.
Not exactly, but I think I know what you are getting at. In opposition to your opinion, I feel that a standing army is a good thing, as it provides an immediately accessible means of self defense in the event of an attack, and it also serves to deter would-be aggressors. I also have no problem with taxes being used to fund the army, but I think there needs to be some severe limitations:
Citizens must overwhelmingly agree with the tax.
Such taxes must go only to the funding of the army and no other special projects.
Military funding cannot be increased without overwhelming agreement from the citizens. IE, the government doesn't win the right to tax. They win the right to tax a maximum percentage and a maximum amount. If the economy does well that year and taxes proceeds exceed the maximum amount, then the extra amounts collected must be returned to the citizens at the end of the year. In the event that additional funding is needed, the government must state a clear case to the citizens and a vote must be taken.
Citizens must agree with how the military funding is spent. In the event that the speed of communication is not sufficient to take a vote from the citizens, the government would ask permission after the fact. If the citizens did not agree with the decision, a new vote would be called to replace the administration.
I think those restrictions would make for safer use of a standing army. Some of them may be untenable, though. My belief is that a government is appointed to, among other things, defend the citizens. In the course of this task, it may be necessary for the government to act immediately without consent of its subjects. I realize this presents a risk. However, there is also a risk associated with not being able to act quickly in an emergency. The risk associated with giving the power of military control to the government can be at least partially mitigated by the fact that leaders who abuse that power can be quickly replaced.
If you have to rig up some elaborate lighting system, what is the point. I could be missing something, but what advantage does this technology bring to the table?
A reflective screen only needs additional lighting in conditions with low ambient light, and has superior performance in high ambient light conditions. That means that under most circumstances, no additional lighting would be necessary. If you look at a normal LCD screen, a backlight is almost always necessary, even in a well-lit office. And it's very difficult to read an LCD screen in bright sunlight. The advantage here might be an inexpensive way to manufacture reflective screens that rarely need any lighting assistance.
Because every offensive war is an unjust war, and the only morally justified war is the one fought on your own soil, in pure self defense.
Sorry, I can't agree with that. Is a war fought on another country's soil because they asked for help in fighting some horrible aggressor not to be considered morally justified? And here's another example (sorry for its length). Let's say there are two tribes living in roughly the same geographic area. Both tribes live along a river not too far from an ocean. The river provides all the resources they need for life -- fresh water, fish for food, fertile soil for farming. The two tribes are aware of each other and have previously had a good relationship. However, things go awry when the tribe upstream has a change in leadership who does not care about the welfare of the tribe downstream. He decides that his tribe will build a dam on the river so that they can have a larger area of available fresh water, and so that his tribe has an easier time finding fish. Without consulting the downstream tribe, he implements his plan. Now the folks in the downstream tribe notice a serious dropoff in water flowing down the river. They head upstream to investigate and find that the source of the problem is the dam built by the upstream tribe. Repeated delegations are sent to the leader of the upstream tribe to explain their position and ask if they can come up with a mutually beneficial solution. Each time, the response is "Talk to the hand," and the leader of the upstream tribe does not yield. During the course of "political discussion", the leader of the upstream tribe builds up a very strong following among his people because they are very happy with their now easier way of life. Few of them are interested any longer in helping the downstream tribe. Now the downstream tribe has two choices: 1. Leave the area where they are living which is, other than the recent loss of the river that they depend on, a more or less ideal spot to live. Or 2. Try to destroy the dam built by the upstream tribe, which will require killing members of the upstream tribe and will clearly be considered an act of war. Would you consider option 2 to be morally unjust?
My point is this. If you take away the resources that my people need to survive and you turn a deaf ear on the fact that you have endangered the existence of my people, I will do what is necessary to regain the resources that my people need. I will obviously choose the path that does the least damage, but I will feel morally obligated to protect my people. I will mourn the loss of members of the opposing forces, but given the same options, I would make the same decision each and every time.
The original article was in "Psychology Today", entitled "Ten Outrageous Facts about men and women", which included such gems as why men prefer blondes and women with big breasts. You can find it at "psychologytoday.com".
I think the article you are referring to is titled "Ten Politically Incorrect Truths About Human Nature."
Add SAP to the list of vendors that provides an HR module that runs on Linux. In fact, their enterprise systems work by adding a standard virtual layer to whatever operating system you choose. So, should you want to migrate to another OS in the future, it would be no problem. They provide pretty much everything you could possibly want. They only question is about cost -- in your case you should check our their small business products to see if something suits you. (Business One comes to mind) http://www.sap.com/smallbusiness/index.epx
Just yesterday my wife was referred by a friend to a particular carpet cleaner, and when she searched for it online she got several ads with that company's name but they took her to different sites.
I would think this would be trademark infringement or something like that. Shame on the Australian regulators for settling.
The dems are fighting against this admin, accuse it of being corrupt (which it obviously is), is possibly about to lose the ability to monitor the WH (if they lose the up-coming battle in SCOTUS), and YET, they want to put voting admin under the WH.
The truth of the matter is that as long as we use an electoral system for the presidential election, the STATES should be in control of each of their voting standards and not the federal government. And as long as each state will have a certain number of elected representatives, each state should have its own control over how that process works, too. If a certain state wants to use flawed voting machines to determine the outcome of the election, so be it. If a state wants to let its governor appoint senators, representatives and choose who will receive the electoral votes, so be it. That is the way the system is supposed to work in this country, and I personally want the feds to stay out of it. At best, the federal government should be allowed to publish information about perceived problems in the voting systems of certain states so that the residents of that states have an opportunity to change. If desired change doesn't happen, the residents can move to another state, and the number of representatives and electoral votes can be adjusted accordingly during the next census. If any combination of the three branches of our federal government are going to be allowed to control election standards and methods for the individual states, we might as well take all control away from the states and make the next step towards dictatorship.
There is no conspiracy. They are simply reacting to competitive pressures. They probably determined that Linux laptop sales would not be dramatically higher with the extra RAM promotion since they don't really have any competition for Linux laptops; they are the only game in town among the big vendors.
It's probably that, and possibly that somebody didn't think to update the pricing for the Linux packages. As someone else mentioned, their prices are highly dynamic, and configuring the exact same system from two different entry points can give you different pricing. Personally, I wish people would stop giving them a hard time. It's like a bunch of little kids calling "no fair! I'm gonna tell my momma!" all the time. If there's going to be a public outlash (on blogs and in the news) every time Dell treats the Linux buyers differently from the Windows buyers, they are going to get disgusted and stop even bothering to provide Linux. At this point, if I were another large vendor watching, I would have already decided not to offer Linux to non-business users on my systems because it just wouldn't be worth the hassle. The right thing to do? Stop posting on blogs and notify Dell directly. Give them a chance to fix it.
because reality doesn't apply there. Money can be created, destroyed with little ramification,...
If only that statement were true. Unfortunately, Second Life is linked with the real world economy. First off, people spend REAL money to purchase Linden dollars and rent property. Second off, and possibly worse, there's an equities exchange system that allows people to trade real currency with virtual currency. Because of this, creation and destruction of money can have significant ramification.
If some ignorant fool decides to pronounce 'carpal tunnel' as 'capral tunnel', that doesn't mean he's correct simply because there's a word for it.
Yes, but clearly a large enough number of ignorant fools were mispronouncing nuclear to get the pronunciation mentioned in at least some dictionaries. BTW, one of the guys I went to school with, who was a Political Science major, mispronounced the word the same way Bush does. He was a really bright guy -- at the top of the class -- so I don't think you can call somebody who has grown up mispronouncing a word an ignorant fool. It's really hard to unlearn something like that. However, I find it sort of ironic in his case. He would have absolutely HATED Bush and everything he stands for. I'll bet that he cringes every time he hears himself say the word now.
...and given a choice between taking that old NiCd phone battery or fluorescent light tube to the recycling center...
Perhaps if it didn't require going on a veritable outback walkabout to find a place that recycles those things, people would stop dumping them in the garbage. If it were really important to the government, they would make it easy enough to do -- at least by clearly communicating where the recycling centers are so you don't have to call six agencies to find the nearest one. Personally, I think that if you sell the stuff, you should be required to accept the spent items for recycling.
Maybe it's just because I live in Canada an we are used to people who are speaking English as a second or third language, but I've never seen that kind of attitude from any english speaking person.
I often wonder if that's because English is today's global vernacular, and thus native speakers feel no need to protect it so fiercely. Does anybody know if the French efforts to protect their language were in place when it was the vernacular?
If so many people had departed as suggested in the Bible, then many critical tasks would have gone undone or would have been performed poorly due to low staffing or unskilled workers performing the tasks in the place of the slaves.
There are no records to indicate any such crisis to the KMT economy.
A couple thoughts here -- note that I'm only speculating with almost no knowledge to back it up -- perhaps some Egyptian History scholar can provide more information. First, you assume that the tasks performed by the slaves really had much of an impact on the economy. It might be more helpful to know what jobs they actually performed. If all they were doing was building pyramids and monuments for the pharaohs, cessation of such activity wouldn't have much of an impact on anyone but the pharaoh. On the other hand, if they were responsible for the food supply or something, that would have a larger impact. Second, keep in mind that subsequent pharaohs habitually wiped out nearly all mention of certain previous rulers seemingly on a whim. I would imagine that even the most meticulous records could and would suddenly disappear if so ordered by the pharaoh at the time.
Slashdot Mirror
Does it seem to anyone else like carbon nanotubes are modern snake oil? Seriously, is there anything they CAN'T do?
It depends. There was a BBS I used to use in the mid-80s in my area. Every once in a while, the sysop's sister would jump on while I was logged in and we'd talk for a few minutes. I was always really careful because I figured it might just be the sysop pretending to be his sister. At any rate, I figured that if it really _was_ his sister, she was probably a real dog (yes, a somewhat chauvinistic thought, but few girls back then had any interest whatsoever in computers, and those that did were almost guaranteed to be as homely as they come). Some months after I started using the BBS, I had a reason to go visit the sysop at his house (I forget why -- sharing pd software or something). While I was there, I met his sister, and I thought I was going to lose consciousness. She was drop-dead gorgeous -- one of the most attractive girls I've ever seen. Just going on a single date with her would have granted bragging rights, but there was absolutely no chance for me; I couldn't even form a complete sentence in her presence.
Consumer Reports is a good start, and the right idea, but it doesn't cover items frequently enough. For car buying, though, it's great.
While some people do actually refuse to become educated enough, many more have neither the means nor the time to do so. If every time a person needs to replace an expensive item, they need to get halfway to being an expert, they'll have time for absolutely nothing else in their lives. That's why friends and family come to me for help when buying computers, and it's why I call my Dad when I'm getting ready to buy a car. The problem is, not everybody has a friend or a Dad to help make decisions on the big ticket items they need. What is needed is some consolidated and reliable (IE, not supported by companies trying to separate you from your money) source of information for non-experts to turn to.
No way, and definitely not for anything that doesn't have a fixed cost. Automatic payments are convenient, but I want complete control of if, when and how much a utility company gets paid. It's the first line of defense in a billing dispute, and it avoids the situation where a billing error causes an unexpected amount to be withdrawn from the checking account which results in bounced checks or overdrafts from savings. Alternately, the automatic payments could go to a credit card, but I'd MUCH rather fight with the utility company than with the my creditor.
Not to one-up you or anything (my memory is fallible too), but I seem to remember buying a 19,200 bps US Robotics Courier modem second hand in 1991 for less than $100 from a software company that was going out of business. It was a really weird situation. They were training me to take over support of their application because my company was in the middle of one of those "internalize to reduce external costs" cycles. They had several clients, but we were by far their biggest with installations at two of our major manufacturing facilities, and the loss of support contracts for both was forcing them to shut down their business. They were already down to a skeleton crew by the time I got there, and were willing to sell equipment in the office that they no longer needed.
Not long if they are already dependent on it. How long do you think a Heroin addict would last without their fix? And yet somebody who has never had it would be fine without it. Likewise, it would be completely possible today for a country to rise to power without a dependence on oil. Also keep in mind that Saddam didn't invade Kuwait because of concern that his country wouldn't have enough oil for their own energy needs. He invaded out of alleged concern for the impact that Kuwait's perceived pumping of the oil would have on his country's ability to provide excess oil for export.
I considered this, and didn't feel it was really an option. It's highly unlikely that the outcome of that move would be anything but war, and the only thing you gain is the ability to claim that you didn't make the first strike. Performing an act that you know is going to get a retaliation and then trying to claim that you didn't strike the first blow is only self-deception. How could you, with first hand knowledge of the suffering that the dam will cause, turn around and do the same thing to others? If you can justify that, it's just as easy to justify going into battle to destroy the original dam. Add to that the fact that building an additional dam upstream (without relocating everybody) would only serve to further reduce the amount of water reaching your people.
I think we're talking apples and oranges here. Saddam's country wasn't suffering from inadequate resources for survival. They had all the oil they needed. The issue was entirely economic -- less oil to sell. I think what they accused Kuwait of doing was horizontal drilling across the border. But the accusation seems a bit thin because rather than provide public proof that Kuwait was guilty, they just accused and invaded. Smart political handling would have had Kuwait enjoying sanctions from the UN instead of Iraq.
Agreed. Personally, I think that we could get along just fine without oil here, but despite what some of the radical greens think, there's no way we could make a sudden switch. If oil were suddenly not available, the entire economy would collapse and there would be widespread starvation and general gnashing of teeth. But it would be possible to transition over time to a non-oil economy. I personally think we could do it in 10 years if it became a priority (that means giving up a lot of "nice things" that we are used to in the short term, and it almost certainly means much more widespread use of nuclear power for the immediate future). But the chances of that happening are slim.
I'd settle for both a president and a congress that refuse to protect "big energy". I want to see a huge windfall tax on the oil and gas companies for the boat loads of money they have made at the expense of the public. Because energy is only partly a discretionary-use product, the energy companies are in the perfect position to generate artificial shortages and manipulate the market. And frankly, I'm having a hard time believing that the record number of outages we are experiencing in the refineries this year are only a coincidence. Today's is ripe for the rise of disruptive technology that will leave the energy companies out in the cold (pun intended). My biggest fear is that new advances in alternate energy will be met with regulatory roadblocks imposed by government officials who are in bed with the incumbent players in the market.
The major difference being, of course, that oil is not a resource that is strictly required for survival.
Agreed. If the desire of the people to have "help" changes, then the assisting forces need to leave.
Totally agreed.
Not exactly, but I think I know what you are getting at. In opposition to your opinion, I feel that a standing army is a good thing, as it provides an immediately accessible means of self defense in the event of an attack, and it also serves to deter would-be aggressors. I also have no problem with taxes being used to fund the army, but I think there needs to be some severe limitations:
I think those restrictions would make for safer use of a standing army. Some of them may be untenable, though. My belief is that a government is appointed to, among other things, defend the citizens. In the course of this task, it may be necessary for the government to act immediately without consent of its subjects. I realize this presents a risk. However, there is also a risk associated with not being able to act quickly in an emergency. The risk associated with giving the power of military control to the government can be at least partially mitigated by the fact that leaders who abuse that power can be quickly replaced.
A reflective screen only needs additional lighting in conditions with low ambient light, and has superior performance in high ambient light conditions. That means that under most circumstances, no additional lighting would be necessary. If you look at a normal LCD screen, a backlight is almost always necessary, even in a well-lit office. And it's very difficult to read an LCD screen in bright sunlight. The advantage here might be an inexpensive way to manufacture reflective screens that rarely need any lighting assistance.
Sorry, I can't agree with that. Is a war fought on another country's soil because they asked for help in fighting some horrible aggressor not to be considered morally justified? And here's another example (sorry for its length). Let's say there are two tribes living in roughly the same geographic area. Both tribes live along a river not too far from an ocean. The river provides all the resources they need for life -- fresh water, fish for food, fertile soil for farming. The two tribes are aware of each other and have previously had a good relationship. However, things go awry when the tribe upstream has a change in leadership who does not care about the welfare of the tribe downstream. He decides that his tribe will build a dam on the river so that they can have a larger area of available fresh water, and so that his tribe has an easier time finding fish. Without consulting the downstream tribe, he implements his plan. Now the folks in the downstream tribe notice a serious dropoff in water flowing down the river. They head upstream to investigate and find that the source of the problem is the dam built by the upstream tribe. Repeated delegations are sent to the leader of the upstream tribe to explain their position and ask if they can come up with a mutually beneficial solution. Each time, the response is "Talk to the hand," and the leader of the upstream tribe does not yield. During the course of "political discussion", the leader of the upstream tribe builds up a very strong following among his people because they are very happy with their now easier way of life. Few of them are interested any longer in helping the downstream tribe. Now the downstream tribe has two choices: 1. Leave the area where they are living which is, other than the recent loss of the river that they depend on, a more or less ideal spot to live. Or 2. Try to destroy the dam built by the upstream tribe, which will require killing members of the upstream tribe and will clearly be considered an act of war. Would you consider option 2 to be morally unjust?
My point is this. If you take away the resources that my people need to survive and you turn a deaf ear on the fact that you have endangered the existence of my people, I will do what is necessary to regain the resources that my people need. I will obviously choose the path that does the least damage, but I will feel morally obligated to protect my people. I will mourn the loss of members of the opposing forces, but given the same options, I would make the same decision each and every time.
I think the article you are referring to is titled "Ten Politically Incorrect Truths About Human Nature."
off topic, but wouldn't WsMD be OK too?
Add SAP to the list of vendors that provides an HR module that runs on Linux. In fact, their enterprise systems work by adding a standard virtual layer to whatever operating system you choose. So, should you want to migrate to another OS in the future, it would be no problem. They provide pretty much everything you could possibly want. They only question is about cost -- in your case you should check our their small business products to see if something suits you. (Business One comes to mind) http://www.sap.com/smallbusiness/index.epx
I think Slashdot is rapidly working towards another corollary to Godwin's Law....
I would think this would be trademark infringement or something like that. Shame on the Australian regulators for settling.
The truth of the matter is that as long as we use an electoral system for the presidential election, the STATES should be in control of each of their voting standards and not the federal government. And as long as each state will have a certain number of elected representatives, each state should have its own control over how that process works, too. If a certain state wants to use flawed voting machines to determine the outcome of the election, so be it. If a state wants to let its governor appoint senators, representatives and choose who will receive the electoral votes, so be it. That is the way the system is supposed to work in this country, and I personally want the feds to stay out of it. At best, the federal government should be allowed to publish information about perceived problems in the voting systems of certain states so that the residents of that states have an opportunity to change. If desired change doesn't happen, the residents can move to another state, and the number of representatives and electoral votes can be adjusted accordingly during the next census. If any combination of the three branches of our federal government are going to be allowed to control election standards and methods for the individual states, we might as well take all control away from the states and make the next step towards dictatorship.
It's probably that, and possibly that somebody didn't think to update the pricing for the Linux packages. As someone else mentioned, their prices are highly dynamic, and configuring the exact same system from two different entry points can give you different pricing. Personally, I wish people would stop giving them a hard time. It's like a bunch of little kids calling "no fair! I'm gonna tell my momma!" all the time. If there's going to be a public outlash (on blogs and in the news) every time Dell treats the Linux buyers differently from the Windows buyers, they are going to get disgusted and stop even bothering to provide Linux. At this point, if I were another large vendor watching, I would have already decided not to offer Linux to non-business users on my systems because it just wouldn't be worth the hassle. The right thing to do? Stop posting on blogs and notify Dell directly. Give them a chance to fix it.
If only that statement were true. Unfortunately, Second Life is linked with the real world economy. First off, people spend REAL money to purchase Linden dollars and rent property. Second off, and possibly worse, there's an equities exchange system that allows people to trade real currency with virtual currency. Because of this, creation and destruction of money can have significant ramification.
Yes, but clearly a large enough number of ignorant fools were mispronouncing nuclear to get the pronunciation mentioned in at least some dictionaries. BTW, one of the guys I went to school with, who was a Political Science major, mispronounced the word the same way Bush does. He was a really bright guy -- at the top of the class -- so I don't think you can call somebody who has grown up mispronouncing a word an ignorant fool. It's really hard to unlearn something like that. However, I find it sort of ironic in his case. He would have absolutely HATED Bush and everything he stands for. I'll bet that he cringes every time he hears himself say the word now.
Perhaps if it didn't require going on a veritable outback walkabout to find a place that recycles those things, people would stop dumping them in the garbage. If it were really important to the government, they would make it easy enough to do -- at least by clearly communicating where the recycling centers are so you don't have to call six agencies to find the nearest one. Personally, I think that if you sell the stuff, you should be required to accept the spent items for recycling.
A couple thoughts here -- note that I'm only speculating with almost no knowledge to back it up -- perhaps some Egyptian History scholar can provide more information. First, you assume that the tasks performed by the slaves really had much of an impact on the economy. It might be more helpful to know what jobs they actually performed. If all they were doing was building pyramids and monuments for the pharaohs, cessation of such activity wouldn't have much of an impact on anyone but the pharaoh. On the other hand, if they were responsible for the food supply or something, that would have a larger impact. Second, keep in mind that subsequent pharaohs habitually wiped out nearly all mention of certain previous rulers seemingly on a whim. I would imagine that even the most meticulous records could and would suddenly disappear if so ordered by the pharaoh at the time.