Some people can't sleep well in temperatures above 25 degrees C (I'm one of them). Some houses are not built well and take a while to get rid of the heat built up during the day. Building a new house is not a short-term option. Having a fan to pull in cooler air from outside is a more cost effective option than turning on the A/C.
The 27 degree C reading may have been stated to indicate that the temperature wasn't high enough to cause a run on fans that would have depleted inventories.
I almost agree with you here. However, I still fail to see how 1 9mm and a rifle trump 5 assult shotguns, 10.45's (or 9mm...standard police issue.), tear gas / flashbangs and body armor.(I probably have the #'s wrong, but I was trying to think of a SWAT entry squad, which is only on the local level... now let's talk about tanks and APCs.) I think we should have the right to defend ourselves, but I have my doubts as to the majority of this country having the responsiblity and maturity to not shoot their neighbor over something stupid.
In this case, you pitted a single person against a whole SWAT team. If only one person is fighting against the local law, I think they might want to reconsider their position.;) Try putting that same SWAT team against about thirty people carrying shotguns and pitchforks who have planned for the invasion ahead of time, and I think the odds will be better. Also, I think the ban on the right to purchase certain assault weaponry expired recently (although VT might make sure that it get put in place again). And even with the ban, guns are sold that can easily be modified to be semi or fully automatic with only minor changes. Now against tanks and APCs is another matter, and I think you would need guerrilla warfare to fight those.
BTW, just so you don't think I'm a complete gun nut -- I own two shotguns. One of them is used for hunting (occasionally) and the other is for sporting clays, but it's an antique collectors' item, so I rarely fire it. I do not believe that guns are the way to handle problems, even with the government, and if things get to the point where they are required, we've really messed up. However, I also don't believe that gun control (at least at this point) would fix anything. In almost all situations, violence with guns involves weapons that were obtained illegally. In fact, the VA Tech case is the first high profile case I've heard of in a LONG time where the weapons were obtained legally, and it's clear that a loophole in information sharing was responsible for that. My point is that if somebody wants to shoot somebody else, they'll obtain a gun regardless of what laws we have.
Don't be encouraged by the success of the Iraqis. They are only doing as well as they are because of U.S. unwillingness to be seen using excessive force - not a likelihood in the case of internal rebellion.
I disagree. It's working in Iraq. It worked for YEARS in Afghanistan against the Soviets (and I'm sure they were using excessive force). It has been working in certain South American countries. I also think that the unwillingness to be perceived as using excessive force would be multiplied domestically, but that's just my opinion with no real facts to back it up. Assuming that you are correct, and that there's no way citizens could fight federal and state governments, the possession of firearms is still a deterrent to local government corruption (where it's likely more needed anyway).
At no point, however, does the blog post mention anything about how the Visual Studio EULA could prohibit the distribution of TestDriven.NET. After all, I can redistribute copies of TestDriven.NET without even owning a copy of Visual Studio--so obviously I'm not bound by the Visual Studio EULA.
Read deeper into Jamie's BLOG. One of his entries indicates that the first of the letters sent by the lawyers identified the section of the EULA. It's rather nebulous, but it looks like it would win out in court (unless EULAs in general were invalidated). What I don't know is if the same clause is in the other versions of Visual Studio. If it is, then Jamie would have to remove his add-in altogether. The only legal solution that would hold water is for Microsoft to grant him an explicit waiver for his add-in on the products that they feel are ok. I'm not really sure how that would work.
Please remember that, living in the XVIIIth century, the Founding Fathers were obviously out of touch with what is happening (what was will happen? what would happen? I hate tenses) in the XXIst.
In some respects, yes, but certainly not in the right to bear arms. It was a direct response to oppression by a government that had no respect for their individual freedoms and that tried to take away their ability to defend themselves. Case in point: because of the unrest among the colonies and the reaction to British attempts to control the situation, Lord Dunmore (governor of Virginia), ordered marines to empty the Magazine in Williamsburg of its power, with the expectation that this would leave the citizens and local militia unable to stage a rebellion against the British government. Up until this point, the vast majority of Virginians were loyal to the Crown and although unsatisfied with the situation, were determined to resolve the issues. Lord Dunmore's actions more or less sparked the Revolution (or was the straw that broke the camel's back). Founding fathers carefully considered this (and other actions) when they drafted the constitution, and it's just as relevant today. Almost all the US citizens here on Slashdot complain about erosion of freedom, and yet we hear people calling for more gun control. While I'm an advocate for peaceful resistance, giving up your ability to contain an errant government by force as a last resort is anything but wise. While probably not the best way of dealing with the federal government, it has been used successfully in the history of the US to deal with a corrupt local government.
When someone constantly makes the life of millions of people miserable, he should be at the very least as much a criminal.
And more importantly, we should ask ourselves: What is the purpose of spam? It's to separate people from their money (either by selling something, by identity theft, or by fraud). Identity theft is actually worse than a one-time robbery. Fraud would be the same as robbing someone. The only case that couldn't be consider the same as or worse than robbery is the marketing of a legitimate item. Unfortunately, if you look at the techniques used by spammers to bypass spam filters and those market their wares on people who are clearly not interested, you have to assume that the product they are marketing is not worth a dime. In my book, tricking someone into buying something that isn't worth the money is the same as robbery. And for the spammer, it's not just one robbery. It's robbing everybody who "bites" the hook.
Consider the fact that the spammer *knows* that it's a crime (otherwise there would be little attempt to hide the origin of email). The spammer *knows* that almost nobody on his list wants to receive the email (otherwise there would be no need to use a botnet to bypass spam filters). The spammer *knows* (or ought to know) that it's illegal to compromise somebody's computer and use it against their will. So you have here a person who knows that it's illegal and socially unacceptable to do what they are doing, and that there will be severe punishment if they get caught. Yet despite the fact that they could count their winnings and move on, they continue to follow the path of a criminal.
I'm sorry, but you have very very little understanding of human nature.
I can't really see how celebrating those who do things out of greed is supposed to be good for society.
The bulk of society is motivated by "what they can get" out of something. Even those who would claim that what they are doing is for spiritual reasons are motivated by the expectation that they'll get something in return in the afterlife. Hoping people will do things out of good for the society is what communism is all about. Unfortunately, the last few decades of experimentation in communism have made it clear that those who would govern society in this manner are motived entire by... you guess it... greed.
The argument is that "if it weren't for patents, people wouldn't invest so much time and energy into science, and thus the progression of science would hurt." So they're saying that no one is willing to take a risc if they're not guaranteed to get their investment back? Yeah right, doing R&D never guarantees that anyway, so that's a pretty poor argument.
R&D costs money and time. There's no way to get around that. The hope is not that each and every R&D project will return a profit. It's that if you have 10 R&D projects, maybe 9 of them will lose money and 1 of them will be a huge winner. It's a very strong argument.
What's left is people that will only put out the effort if they have a chance of getting rich in return, these are the people society is putting its money on.
Yes, that's exactly right. These are the individuals most motivated to not only come up with the ideas, but find a way to bring them to market.
I think science would progress faster if no one we're allowed to use a spesific implementation exclusively.
Ah, now here's something. This touches on part of the patent problem. If patents were by definition more narrowly focused, it would do a great job of curbing the tendency to use some obscure barely even related patent to beat your competitor into submission. Add to that severe restrictions on what is actually patentable and reasonable expiration times and you have a workable system.
This is the same argument that the RIAA is using against websites that post song lyrics -- they own the copyright and they want to make money off of the lyrics. While I disagree with the spirit of it, the letter of law says that the RIAA is right in that case.:(
Yeah, I started to include this point in another post. My personal opinion is that posting song lyrics should be a violation of copyright (as it is). However the RIAA members are complete idiots for actually litigating it and/or sending takedown notices. What they *ought* to do is explicitly allow for it in their copyright notices. Why? Because it's ludicrous to think that there is really a market for song lyrics, when anybody who *wants* the lyrics to a song can listen to it over and over until they figure them out. Aside from that argument, posting song lyrics doesn't cut into the revenue stream of *any* of the RIAA members. In fact, it's highly arguable that allowing the posting of song lyrics will foster music sales. After all, if somebody can't search and find the title and artist for that cool new song they heard somewhere, how can they be expected to buy?
Next you need to think about what would happen if a derivative work in form of translation wouldn't need permission from the copyright holder: I could translated Harry Potter into swedish and sell copies as I saw fit since JK Rowlings wouldn't have anything to say about it...
Yeah, I had already considered that, and that was the path I was trying to direct thinking. Since it involves copyright issues, there was the expected Slashdot kneejerk reaction, and I was hoping to get people to actually start considering what was going on. Interestingly enough, comments posted on the link provided seem to indicate that there is really some confusion over whether what they did was actually illegal under Polish law.
If it is illegal to translate, the Polish police was right in arresting the guilty.
Here's my question: In American and European countries, would it be illegal to publish a transcript of an entire movie without permission? How about if the transcript were in a different language from the original movie? It may not be just Polish law in question.
Nonsense. If you can write a buggy HTML document, you can also write a compliant one.
Sorry, but you overestimate the ability of much of the population. Many people building web pages do not fully understand what they are doing. The copy and paste other code, and when it looks right to them in Internet Explorer, they feel they are done. They don't know their HTML code is buggy, and they wouldn't be able to fix it if they did. This type of person isn't stupid. They just do not have the interest or inclination for technology that you have. I'm sure they have other skills that would amaze you.
That's part of the problem, not a benefit of the choice we made.
I disagree -- both with you and the post you replied to. It should be classified neither as a problem nor as a benefit. It's a consequence, and with it comes both good and bad things. The bad is that we have so many horribly coded web sites. The good is that we have much greater interest in the internet today than raising the bar would have allowed. Interest in the internet was a prerequisite to development of E-Commerce. I don't think the pool of academics and technology enthusiasts would have been sufficient to entice Amazon, Ebay and the like to set up shop.
... Firms don't hire Aunt Tilley to drag and drop a brochure. Why do they insist on dragging and dropping a web site? It's absurd. Lowering the bar doesn't improve the pool. Do you drag and drop you way to a better Linux kernel?
You have cited capabilities required for business and technology. Aunt Tilley isn't interested in making brochures for a firm, nor is she interested in developing OS kernels. She wants to put together a small web site with pictures of friends and family and maybe a blog area where she and her friends can talk about her adventures with her 14 cats. In order to get that, she has to pay for an internet connection, and her friends have to pay for one too. This greatly increases the number of subscribers, which ultimately increases competition (in the ISP market) and lowers costs. Do you remember how dialin used to cost $30 - $40? Aunt Tilley and her friends are the one who created a market big enough for competition to drive the costs down. Furthermore, once online, Aunt Tilley's friends stumbled across some of the experimental online shopping sites and started the uptake of E-Commerce. If you had told Aunt Tilley that she had to use a text editor to develop her website and had to make sure each and every tag was valid and closed properly, do you think she would have been persistent enough to do it anyway? Not likely.
Now, having said all of that -- it's perfectly reasonable to expect any web authoring tool to generate compliant code (ahem, Microsoft???), and it's also reasonable to expect commercial and large social sites to at least run their code through a validator.
Actually, who else thinks this was a ploy to find out who's leaking internal information?
Why was the parent rated flamebait??? This is exactly the first thought that went through my mind. Although, on further consideration, it's possible that you couldn't tell whether it was one of the "targets" that forwarded it or someone else in the company who received a copy from one of the targets. Either way, I don't see a flame ware coming out of this.
Agreed fresh ground is best but how you store the beans makes a difference. I always used to use a sealed air tight container and a cool dry place for storage. I recently adpated to a different storage system. Co2 pressurized.
Personally, I think the best way to good coffee is to avoid anything roasted or sold in America. I lived in Germany for a while, and found on my return to the US that I couldn't stand ANY of the coffee. Since then, I've been forced to bring back a suitcase full of coffee every time I go to Germany (six times a year). Tchibo's Beste Bohne is my favorite, and it completely blows away even the Tchibo brands that are sold here in the US. Oddly enough, most of my German friends actually prefer Italian coffees. But anyway, the bean and the freshness matter much more than the brewing method. Automatic drip is the easiest method for me, and doesn't differ substantially from any other method I've tried.
The outcome means nothing to the jurors at the end of the day, most will want to get out of jury duty and just get back to normal life duties.
This is complete and utter hogwash, and it seems like you're all pissy because you lost (although I don't think you said one way or the other). Perhaps you got a "bad" jury. Did you know that jury selection is two-sided? Both the prosecuting and defense attorneys take part in the process. If you had a lame jury, blame your lawyer. Speaking from experience, and having participated in jury duty not too long ago, I can assure you that even though much of the case was boring, each and every one of us made our best attempt to stay alert and remember facts for deliberation. We tried very hard to put aside personal beliefs and make a decision based on the law and the evidence heard. At the beginning of deliberations, the jury was nearly equally divided between guilty and not-guilty verdicts. After hours of deliberation and going through the facts each of use remembered, and also asking for a read back of part of the transcript, we ended up with one guilty verdict and the rest not-guilty. Ultimately, we had a hung jury because the one person who wanted a guilty verdict was unable to set aside the fact that the alleged victim was a child, and refused to budge even though the prosecution had failed to even remotely prove their case. I think he was wrong. But I can say this about him: he was very passionate about his opinion, and was trying very hard (even with the rest of us in opposition) to do what he felt was right. So, if the defense attorney is worth anything, there will be a balanced jury that will give the case a fair shake.
you'll notice that some Republicans have been grilling the hell out of Gonzalez and asking him to resign.
This is precisely because distancing themselves from the Bush Administration is the only chance Republicans have of maintaining some level of power in the government. It's still politics.
A couple things...first off, which gallon is this based on? 33 mpg using UK gallons would be only 27.5 mpg when using US gallons. Second, Europe has very few SUVs, and there are a lot of SMART cars and other small vehicles (like Citroen) that are only one step above a motorcycle that help skew the average. Most people would consider these cars unsafe to drive (although that's mostly because of the skill [or lack thereof] of the average American driver). In addition, are you including diesel cars in that average? We have precious few of those in the US. What's the average fuel economy of a European car that uses regular gasoline and isn't an underpowered two-seater? Look, if there were a better selection of diesel fuel vehicles available in the US, and the cost of diesel wasn't fifteen percent higher than unleaded gasoline, many of us would be opting for them.
It is pretty much proven that he is responsible for firing several government lawyers because they pissed off Republican politicians.
There were really only two big mistakes: 1) He waited until there was something the Republicans didn't like to fire them, and 2) He wasn't straight with them about why they were being fired. As mentioned elsewhere, it's perfectly normal for an incoming president to completely repopulate these positions with folks that are friendly to their administration, particularly in the case of a shift from one party to the other. This should have been done immediately, and with the following reason: You were appointed during Clinton's administration, and Bush wants somebody more aligned with his own administration.
As far as all the hullabaloo being raised over the firings now, it's a HUGE waste of taxpayer money with absolutely no purpose other than partisan politics on the part of the Democrats. But rest assured, the Republicans will do the same thing (or something similar) when the opportunity arises. I personally think that both parties ought to be permanently banned from office (including a lifetime ban for anybody that is currently or ever was aligned with either party), and there ought to be a moratorium on unsolicited lobbying by special interest groups (including corporations). Let's get back to a government by the people and for the people, shall we?
The US automakers have been fighting to keep the current standards for decades so that they can tout the "Great Milage" that their cars have. Now that something has come along that looks even better that the standard (read fossil fuel only) autos look worse, they probably have done some back door lobbying to change over to this new formula.
I'm not sure this is completely true. For normal gas automobiles, I have encountered fuel economy very close to the EPA estimates, so I don't think there was any reason for the US automakers to "fight" the current standards; they seemed to be adequate. Now, the US manufacturers were "late" to market with Hybrid vehicles, and I can think that for the last several years, they would have been fighting hard to CHANGE the standard rather than keep them the same. Perhaps that's what you meant (IE, fighting the last few years and finally getting success) But as we all know from actual performance of Hybrid vehicles, there has been significant reason to change the ratings process. I can tell you from my experience buying cars (and looking at both Toyotas and Hondas) that, at least from the perspective of the dealerships I visited, they have been hoping and praying for change. They were very well aware that Hybrid cars were not achieving the stated EPA ratings. And they were also aware that even though the short term effect was a boost in sales, the long term effect was a dissatisfied customer. Any good dealership is highly interested in repeat customers, and they know they have to balance that with selling the car for the highest price they can. They don't want something like false fuel economy ratings to interfere with the customer relationship. I know that in the case of two dealerships that I visited, when I expressed some interest in a Hybrid vehicle, one of the first things that the sales people told me was that although the fuel economy was significantly better, in most cases it would not be nearly as good as the EPA rating indicated. In fact, one of the sales people told me that he would like to remove the EPA ratings from the car sticker, but that they weren't allowed to do so.
So actually, I think that ever since Hybrid vehicles hit the market, it has been in EVERYBODY'S best interest to adjust the rating standards, but the EPA has been slow to respond with improvements. But don't go blaming the EPA either. Keep in mind that they had to come up with one standard that applies to both conventional and Hybrid vehicles. The basics of that might be simple, but the effort to come up with something that all the manufacturers will agree with was probably a lot more involved.
But you may be interested in some new research [sciencedaily.com] that looks to be able to remove the antigens from regular blood, thus converting all blood types to type O.
Darn it! Just when I was beginning to feel important! If they can convert any blood type to O, then what do they need me for?
i think the "new" method is still more difficult to read.
I found the new method easier to read, but your example proves to me that it wasn't (at least not entirely) from the lack of the block formatting. I actually had more difficulty reading your example "prose" than I did your block writing.
Somebody mod the parent comment up. I was going to say exactly the same thing. Folks, when you're going to announce a "breakthrough", you need to let it stand on its own without any "helpers". Maybe this wasn't done on purpose, but then it ought to be a lesson that one needs to be EXTREMELY careful how they inform the world of their discoveries. This particular group of researchers has lost my trust.
Slashdot Mirror
Doesn't evil ultimately destroy itself?
Two possibilities here....
In this case, you pitted a single person against a whole SWAT team. If only one person is fighting against the local law, I think they might want to reconsider their position.
BTW, just so you don't think I'm a complete gun nut -- I own two shotguns. One of them is used for hunting (occasionally) and the other is for sporting clays, but it's an antique collectors' item, so I rarely fire it. I do not believe that guns are the way to handle problems, even with the government, and if things get to the point where they are required, we've really messed up. However, I also don't believe that gun control (at least at this point) would fix anything. In almost all situations, violence with guns involves weapons that were obtained illegally. In fact, the VA Tech case is the first high profile case I've heard of in a LONG time where the weapons were obtained legally, and it's clear that a loophole in information sharing was responsible for that. My point is that if somebody wants to shoot somebody else, they'll obtain a gun regardless of what laws we have.
I disagree. It's working in Iraq. It worked for YEARS in Afghanistan against the Soviets (and I'm sure they were using excessive force). It has been working in certain South American countries. I also think that the unwillingness to be perceived as using excessive force would be multiplied domestically, but that's just my opinion with no real facts to back it up. Assuming that you are correct, and that there's no way citizens could fight federal and state governments, the possession of firearms is still a deterrent to local government corruption (where it's likely more needed anyway).
Read deeper into Jamie's BLOG. One of his entries indicates that the first of the letters sent by the lawyers identified the section of the EULA. It's rather nebulous, but it looks like it would win out in court (unless EULAs in general were invalidated). What I don't know is if the same clause is in the other versions of Visual Studio. If it is, then Jamie would have to remove his add-in altogether. The only legal solution that would hold water is for Microsoft to grant him an explicit waiver for his add-in on the products that they feel are ok. I'm not really sure how that would work.
In some respects, yes, but certainly not in the right to bear arms. It was a direct response to oppression by a government that had no respect for their individual freedoms and that tried to take away their ability to defend themselves. Case in point: because of the unrest among the colonies and the reaction to British attempts to control the situation, Lord Dunmore (governor of Virginia), ordered marines to empty the Magazine in Williamsburg of its power, with the expectation that this would leave the citizens and local militia unable to stage a rebellion against the British government. Up until this point, the vast majority of Virginians were loyal to the Crown and although unsatisfied with the situation, were determined to resolve the issues. Lord Dunmore's actions more or less sparked the Revolution (or was the straw that broke the camel's back). Founding fathers carefully considered this (and other actions) when they drafted the constitution, and it's just as relevant today. Almost all the US citizens here on Slashdot complain about erosion of freedom, and yet we hear people calling for more gun control. While I'm an advocate for peaceful resistance, giving up your ability to contain an errant government by force as a last resort is anything but wise. While probably not the best way of dealing with the federal government, it has been used successfully in the history of the US to deal with a corrupt local government.
That's what my wife and I do -- we do a marathon run to watch the whole season. It's available both on DVD and on iTunes.
And more importantly, we should ask ourselves: What is the purpose of spam? It's to separate people from their money (either by selling something, by identity theft, or by fraud). Identity theft is actually worse than a one-time robbery. Fraud would be the same as robbing someone. The only case that couldn't be consider the same as or worse than robbery is the marketing of a legitimate item. Unfortunately, if you look at the techniques used by spammers to bypass spam filters and those market their wares on people who are clearly not interested, you have to assume that the product they are marketing is not worth a dime. In my book, tricking someone into buying something that isn't worth the money is the same as robbery. And for the spammer, it's not just one robbery. It's robbing everybody who "bites" the hook.
Consider the fact that the spammer *knows* that it's a crime (otherwise there would be little attempt to hide the origin of email). The spammer *knows* that almost nobody on his list wants to receive the email (otherwise there would be no need to use a botnet to bypass spam filters). The spammer *knows* (or ought to know) that it's illegal to compromise somebody's computer and use it against their will. So you have here a person who knows that it's illegal and socially unacceptable to do what they are doing, and that there will be severe punishment if they get caught. Yet despite the fact that they could count their winnings and move on, they continue to follow the path of a criminal.
The bulk of society is motivated by "what they can get" out of something. Even those who would claim that what they are doing is for spiritual reasons are motivated by the expectation that they'll get something in return in the afterlife. Hoping people will do things out of good for the society is what communism is all about. Unfortunately, the last few decades of experimentation in communism have made it clear that those who would govern society in this manner are motived entire by... you guess it... greed.
R&D costs money and time. There's no way to get around that. The hope is not that each and every R&D project will return a profit. It's that if you have 10 R&D projects, maybe 9 of them will lose money and 1 of them will be a huge winner. It's a very strong argument.
Yes, that's exactly right. These are the individuals most motivated to not only come up with the ideas, but find a way to bring them to market.
Ah, now here's something. This touches on part of the patent problem. If patents were by definition more narrowly focused, it would do a great job of curbing the tendency to use some obscure barely even related patent to beat your competitor into submission. Add to that severe restrictions on what is actually patentable and reasonable expiration times and you have a workable system.
Yeah, I started to include this point in another post. My personal opinion is that posting song lyrics should be a violation of copyright (as it is). However the RIAA members are complete idiots for actually litigating it and/or sending takedown notices. What they *ought* to do is explicitly allow for it in their copyright notices. Why? Because it's ludicrous to think that there is really a market for song lyrics, when anybody who *wants* the lyrics to a song can listen to it over and over until they figure them out. Aside from that argument, posting song lyrics doesn't cut into the revenue stream of *any* of the RIAA members. In fact, it's highly arguable that allowing the posting of song lyrics will foster music sales. After all, if somebody can't search and find the title and artist for that cool new song they heard somewhere, how can they be expected to buy?
Yeah, I had already considered that, and that was the path I was trying to direct thinking. Since it involves copyright issues, there was the expected Slashdot kneejerk reaction, and I was hoping to get people to actually start considering what was going on. Interestingly enough, comments posted on the link provided seem to indicate that there is really some confusion over whether what they did was actually illegal under Polish law.
Here's my question: In American and European countries, would it be illegal to publish a transcript of an entire movie without permission? How about if the transcript were in a different language from the original movie? It may not be just Polish law in question.
Sorry, but you overestimate the ability of much of the population. Many people building web pages do not fully understand what they are doing. The copy and paste other code, and when it looks right to them in Internet Explorer, they feel they are done. They don't know their HTML code is buggy, and they wouldn't be able to fix it if they did. This type of person isn't stupid. They just do not have the interest or inclination for technology that you have. I'm sure they have other skills that would amaze you.
I disagree -- both with you and the post you replied to. It should be classified neither as a problem nor as a benefit. It's a consequence, and with it comes both good and bad things. The bad is that we have so many horribly coded web sites. The good is that we have much greater interest in the internet today than raising the bar would have allowed. Interest in the internet was a prerequisite to development of E-Commerce. I don't think the pool of academics and technology enthusiasts would have been sufficient to entice Amazon, Ebay and the like to set up shop.
You have cited capabilities required for business and technology. Aunt Tilley isn't interested in making brochures for a firm, nor is she interested in developing OS kernels. She wants to put together a small web site with pictures of friends and family and maybe a blog area where she and her friends can talk about her adventures with her 14 cats. In order to get that, she has to pay for an internet connection, and her friends have to pay for one too. This greatly increases the number of subscribers, which ultimately increases competition (in the ISP market) and lowers costs. Do you remember how dialin used to cost $30 - $40? Aunt Tilley and her friends are the one who created a market big enough for competition to drive the costs down. Furthermore, once online, Aunt Tilley's friends stumbled across some of the experimental online shopping sites and started the uptake of E-Commerce. If you had told Aunt Tilley that she had to use a text editor to develop her website and had to make sure each and every tag was valid and closed properly, do you think she would have been persistent enough to do it anyway? Not likely.
Now, having said all of that -- it's perfectly reasonable to expect any web authoring tool to generate compliant code (ahem, Microsoft???), and it's also reasonable to expect commercial and large social sites to at least run their code through a validator.
Why was the parent rated flamebait??? This is exactly the first thought that went through my mind. Although, on further consideration, it's possible that you couldn't tell whether it was one of the "targets" that forwarded it or someone else in the company who received a copy from one of the targets. Either way, I don't see a flame ware coming out of this.
Personally, I think the best way to good coffee is to avoid anything roasted or sold in America. I lived in Germany for a while, and found on my return to the US that I couldn't stand ANY of the coffee. Since then, I've been forced to bring back a suitcase full of coffee every time I go to Germany (six times a year). Tchibo's Beste Bohne is my favorite, and it completely blows away even the Tchibo brands that are sold here in the US. Oddly enough, most of my German friends actually prefer Italian coffees. But anyway, the bean and the freshness matter much more than the brewing method. Automatic drip is the easiest method for me, and doesn't differ substantially from any other method I've tried.
Well, if you want to end the conversation, at least do it right: mumble mumble mumble Nazi mumble mumble....
This is complete and utter hogwash, and it seems like you're all pissy because you lost (although I don't think you said one way or the other). Perhaps you got a "bad" jury. Did you know that jury selection is two-sided? Both the prosecuting and defense attorneys take part in the process. If you had a lame jury, blame your lawyer. Speaking from experience, and having participated in jury duty not too long ago, I can assure you that even though much of the case was boring, each and every one of us made our best attempt to stay alert and remember facts for deliberation. We tried very hard to put aside personal beliefs and make a decision based on the law and the evidence heard. At the beginning of deliberations, the jury was nearly equally divided between guilty and not-guilty verdicts. After hours of deliberation and going through the facts each of use remembered, and also asking for a read back of part of the transcript, we ended up with one guilty verdict and the rest not-guilty. Ultimately, we had a hung jury because the one person who wanted a guilty verdict was unable to set aside the fact that the alleged victim was a child, and refused to budge even though the prosecution had failed to even remotely prove their case. I think he was wrong. But I can say this about him: he was very passionate about his opinion, and was trying very hard (even with the rest of us in opposition) to do what he felt was right. So, if the defense attorney is worth anything, there will be a balanced jury that will give the case a fair shake.
This is precisely because distancing themselves from the Bush Administration is the only chance Republicans have of maintaining some level of power in the government. It's still politics.
A couple things...first off, which gallon is this based on? 33 mpg using UK gallons would be only 27.5 mpg when using US gallons. Second, Europe has very few SUVs, and there are a lot of SMART cars and other small vehicles (like Citroen) that are only one step above a motorcycle that help skew the average. Most people would consider these cars unsafe to drive (although that's mostly because of the skill [or lack thereof] of the average American driver). In addition, are you including diesel cars in that average? We have precious few of those in the US. What's the average fuel economy of a European car that uses regular gasoline and isn't an underpowered two-seater? Look, if there were a better selection of diesel fuel vehicles available in the US, and the cost of diesel wasn't fifteen percent higher than unleaded gasoline, many of us would be opting for them.
There were really only two big mistakes: 1) He waited until there was something the Republicans didn't like to fire them, and 2) He wasn't straight with them about why they were being fired. As mentioned elsewhere, it's perfectly normal for an incoming president to completely repopulate these positions with folks that are friendly to their administration, particularly in the case of a shift from one party to the other. This should have been done immediately, and with the following reason: You were appointed during Clinton's administration, and Bush wants somebody more aligned with his own administration.
As far as all the hullabaloo being raised over the firings now, it's a HUGE waste of taxpayer money with absolutely no purpose other than partisan politics on the part of the Democrats. But rest assured, the Republicans will do the same thing (or something similar) when the opportunity arises. I personally think that both parties ought to be permanently banned from office (including a lifetime ban for anybody that is currently or ever was aligned with either party), and there ought to be a moratorium on unsolicited lobbying by special interest groups (including corporations). Let's get back to a government by the people and for the people, shall we?
I'm not sure this is completely true. For normal gas automobiles, I have encountered fuel economy very close to the EPA estimates, so I don't think there was any reason for the US automakers to "fight" the current standards; they seemed to be adequate. Now, the US manufacturers were "late" to market with Hybrid vehicles, and I can think that for the last several years, they would have been fighting hard to CHANGE the standard rather than keep them the same. Perhaps that's what you meant (IE, fighting the last few years and finally getting success) But as we all know from actual performance of Hybrid vehicles, there has been significant reason to change the ratings process. I can tell you from my experience buying cars (and looking at both Toyotas and Hondas) that, at least from the perspective of the dealerships I visited, they have been hoping and praying for change. They were very well aware that Hybrid cars were not achieving the stated EPA ratings. And they were also aware that even though the short term effect was a boost in sales, the long term effect was a dissatisfied customer. Any good dealership is highly interested in repeat customers, and they know they have to balance that with selling the car for the highest price they can. They don't want something like false fuel economy ratings to interfere with the customer relationship. I know that in the case of two dealerships that I visited, when I expressed some interest in a Hybrid vehicle, one of the first things that the sales people told me was that although the fuel economy was significantly better, in most cases it would not be nearly as good as the EPA rating indicated. In fact, one of the sales people told me that he would like to remove the EPA ratings from the car sticker, but that they weren't allowed to do so.
So actually, I think that ever since Hybrid vehicles hit the market, it has been in EVERYBODY'S best interest to adjust the rating standards, but the EPA has been slow to respond with improvements. But don't go blaming the EPA either. Keep in mind that they had to come up with one standard that applies to both conventional and Hybrid vehicles. The basics of that might be simple, but the effort to come up with something that all the manufacturers will agree with was probably a lot more involved.
Darn it! Just when I was beginning to feel important! If they can convert any blood type to O, then what do they need me for?
I found the new method easier to read, but your example proves to me that it wasn't (at least not entirely) from the lack of the block formatting. I actually had more difficulty reading your example "prose" than I did your block writing.
Somebody mod the parent comment up. I was going to say exactly the same thing. Folks, when you're going to announce a "breakthrough", you need to let it stand on its own without any "helpers". Maybe this wasn't done on purpose, but then it ought to be a lesson that one needs to be EXTREMELY careful how they inform the world of their discoveries. This particular group of researchers has lost my trust.