You must be a beginning freelance photographer, because you obviously never heard about editorial use. In the USA and most of the Western world (Quebec with its bizzare laws excepted) you can publish a shot of just about anyone without model release, except when promoting a procuct or service (i.e. in advertisement), or misrepresenting a person in bad light (say, publishing a snap of a random young girl captioned as 'hooker').
It's a fine example. They didn't foresee the effect of kerosine burning through several floors on the construction rigidity.
In Chernobyl they too made several levels of safeguards and automatic shutdown circuits, all with proper failover backups. All of them were purposedly disabled during the accident: some of the safeguards couldn't be turned off the control panel at all, so the bright minds at the station ordered technicians to wire around them.
I don't mean that other operators would ever match such level of idiocy, but my point was that catastrophes usually come from an unexpected side.
Using Chernobyl as an example is, frankly, insulting to Western nuclear power plant designers and operators.
The reactor mentioned in the original post is an old, east-European design. And the fact that the accident your mention did not yield casualties has depended on luck as much as on the engineering and operators. It could be worse, you know. Prior to Chernobyl the USSR had no fatal reactor crises either.
Accidents happen, but they don't happen in a vacuum - they happen in a context of preparedness, quality control, safety practices, and robust design... or lack thereof - and this is what determines the consequences of those accidents.
Tell that to WTC victims. You can't foresee everything.
Today, we have a higher safety regulation for operating of nuclear power plants, and we are not competing on who gets to restart the turbines faster (check this) without using safety measures.
The problem with accidents is that they always come unexpected.
What you want is soldiers that are more afraid of their commanding officers than the enemy; that way they'll follow orders.
It is a bit of oversimplification. Soldiers can be motivated by things other than fear: the sense of friendship, pride, the feeling of responsibility and (misguided or not) patriotism. History is full with exapmles of people knowingly and willingly sacrificing their life for good of others, ranging from Spartans to Soviet atheists (neither of those could even hope for a decent afterlife: the void of Hades ain't much better than simple non-existance). I believe that in Iraq fights of today you could find such instances at both sides involved, too.
That said, your general argument remains valid. Humans for high command are mostly numbers, and are operated from statistical point of view. They would hate to rely solely for underlings' loyalty.
"Capital eschews no profit, or very small profit, just as Nature was formerly said to abhor a vacuum. With adequate profit, capital is very bold. A certain 10 per cent. will ensure its employment anywhere; 20 per cent. certain will produce eagerness; 50 per cent., positive audacity; 100 per cent. will make it ready to trample on all human laws; 300 per cent., and there is not a crime at which it will scruple, nor a risk it will not run, even to the chance of its owner being hanged." - Thomas Dunning, 1840.
Incidentally, Richard Nixon's social security number is 567-68-0515; there are many cases where a given agency doesn't actually need your number, and it's perfectly appropriate to give them his instead. Have fun.
Thanks man!
Now the doctors will finally believe and let me out of here.
The U.S. Atlantic bottlenose dolphins have apparently been taught to shoot terrorists attacking military vessels.
Sorry, but someone attacking a military target is combatant, saboteur if you like. The point of terrorism is to spread fear among general population in order to achieve certain goal.
A military vessel is a fair target in a conflict. Making an attempt on servicemen of your country doesn't imply that the foe is a terrorist, no matter how you hate it. That's what soldiers have been doing for millenia now.
By your logic every dissent in a society is the result of enemy conspiracy, and must be punished.
Sorry I don't buy that. There are plenty of Iranians who are not associated with the USA, UK or whatever, and still voted against the current government.
In all former communist countries, you definitely couldn't get rich by doing science, not even in relative comparison to general population. Yet they had a lot of excellent scientists, and produced huge amount of research.
You could do pretty well as an established scientist in USSR; better off than majority of population. There were periods when certain branches of science clashed with state propagandists (genetics, information theory) but in general it was possible to make good living (by Soviet standards certainly - a good car was a luxury back then) off science research. Doctorate paid well, and if you made some real advances recognized worldwide the Party took care to maintain your life at a reasonably comfortable level.
Aritstic expression was far more problematic, as you were bound by official party line. Socialist Realism in visual arts and silly pop songs for musicians were pretty much all genres available if you wanted to live off it.
You factor out the death toll from destruction of infrastucture, and the possibility of "nuclear winter" due to reduced levels of solar energy reaching the surface.
As for total destruction of life, I don't really care if cockroaches will outlive most of the human race.
I've seen plenty of mediocre developers with quite inflated egos, and enough of great programmers doing their job without much fuss.
The article has focused on the aspect of technical skills. Personal qualities and motivation are important, but they don't correlate that much with technical excellence, or lack thereof.
It isn't in the declaration of human rights, but Internet is a natural part of what we consider free speech rights. Places that censor the Internet usually do the same with newspapers, TV broadcasts, books, they imprison and execute dissidents.
I live in Belarus, a place gradually moving from moderate dictatorship to totalitarism. We have all the censorship in traditional media, and now there are moves to control the net access as well: forums impose self-censorship in fear of being shut down, gay sites get blocked, and opposition resources abroad suppressed during large political events.
So I beg to disagree. Unless you don't give a damn about Human Rights in general, Internet censorhip is ammoral and harmful.
1. Businesses and citizens who create software will be forced to move to these 'enlightened' contries if they aren't there already. Basically the US will find itself locking itself out of the software market because producing software in the US will become too expensive or in some instances maybe even impossible.
2. Because of pressure from 1. the US will be forced to adopt better laws.
OR,
2a. Because of pressure from 1. the US will push software patents through WTO.
I live in an ex-USSR state neighbouring Russia, so I have an idea of the situation. Russia has budget proficit for several years in row now, and the surplus is large enough to pay off its ~~$100 billion foreign debt in full (with some cash still left for bureaucrats to steal).
Russia commits its own finances to the ISS as well: of the two Russian-built modules one is built for their money. Besides, *at this moment* due to high oil prices (and the resulting budget proficit) Russia could maintain a simple space station alone. It's just that it doesn't makes any sense to do so.
Slashdot Mirror
You must be a beginning freelance photographer, because you obviously never heard about editorial use. In the USA and most of the Western world (Quebec with its bizzare laws excepted) you can publish a shot of just about anyone without model release, except when promoting a procuct or service (i.e. in advertisement), or misrepresenting a person in bad light (say, publishing a snap of a random young girl captioned as 'hooker').
It's a fine example. They didn't foresee the effect of kerosine burning through several floors on the construction rigidity.
In Chernobyl they too made several levels of safeguards and automatic shutdown circuits, all with proper failover backups. All of them were purposedly disabled during the accident: some of the safeguards couldn't be turned off the control panel at all, so the bright minds at the station ordered technicians to wire around them.
I don't mean that other operators would ever match such level of idiocy, but my point was that catastrophes usually come from an unexpected side.
Using Chernobyl as an example is, frankly, insulting to Western nuclear power plant designers and operators.
The reactor mentioned in the original post is an old, east-European design. And the fact that the accident your mention did not yield casualties has depended on luck as much as on the engineering and operators. It could be worse, you know. Prior to Chernobyl the USSR had no fatal reactor crises either.
Accidents happen, but they don't happen in a vacuum - they happen in a context of preparedness, quality control, safety practices, and robust design... or lack thereof - and this is what determines the consequences of those accidents.
Tell that to WTC victims. You can't foresee everything.
Today, we have a higher safety regulation for operating of nuclear power plants, and we are not competing on who gets to restart the turbines faster (check this) without using safety measures.
The problem with accidents is that they always come unexpected.
Cheers, from Chernobyl fallout zone.
What you want is soldiers that are more afraid of their commanding officers than the enemy; that way they'll follow orders.
It is a bit of oversimplification. Soldiers can be motivated by things other than fear: the sense of friendship, pride, the feeling of responsibility and (misguided or not) patriotism. History is full with exapmles of people knowingly and willingly sacrificing their life for good of others, ranging from Spartans to Soviet atheists (neither of those could even hope for a decent afterlife: the void of Hades ain't much better than simple non-existance). I believe that in Iraq fights of today you could find such instances at both sides involved, too.
That said, your general argument remains valid. Humans for high command are mostly numbers, and are operated from statistical point of view. They would hate to rely solely for underlings' loyalty.
..is that the former don't issue press releases.
"Capital eschews no profit, or very small profit, just as Nature was formerly said to abhor a vacuum. With adequate profit, capital is very bold. A certain 10 per cent. will ensure its employment anywhere; 20 per cent. certain will produce eagerness; 50 per cent., positive audacity; 100 per cent. will make it ready to trample on all human laws; 300 per cent., and there is not a crime at which it will scruple, nor a risk it will not run, even to the chance of its owner being hanged." - Thomas Dunning, 1840.
The idea of doing science at a tourist resort is ridiculous anyway.
Incidentally, Richard Nixon's social security number is 567-68-0515; there are many cases where a given agency doesn't actually need your number, and it's perfectly appropriate to give them his instead. Have fun.
Thanks man!
Now the doctors will finally believe and let me out of here.
Owe you a beer at next rep convention,
Richard N.
The U.S. Atlantic bottlenose dolphins have apparently been taught to shoot terrorists attacking military vessels.
Sorry, but someone attacking a military target is combatant, saboteur if you like. The point of terrorism is to spread fear among general population in order to achieve certain goal.
A military vessel is a fair target in a conflict. Making an attempt on servicemen of your country doesn't imply that the foe is a terrorist, no matter how you hate it. That's what soldiers have been doing for millenia now.
By your logic every dissent in a society is the result of enemy conspiracy, and must be punished.
Sorry I don't buy that. There are plenty of Iranians who are not associated with the USA, UK or whatever, and still voted against the current government.
In all former communist countries, you definitely couldn't get rich by doing science, not even in relative comparison to general population. Yet they had a lot of excellent scientists, and produced huge amount of research.
You could do pretty well as an established scientist in USSR; better off than majority of population. There were periods when certain branches of science clashed with state propagandists (genetics, information theory) but in general it was possible to make good living (by Soviet standards certainly - a good car was a luxury back then) off science research. Doctorate paid well, and if you made some real advances recognized worldwide the Party took care to maintain your life at a reasonably comfortable level.
Aritstic expression was far more problematic, as you were bound by official party line. Socialist Realism in visual arts and silly pop songs for musicians were pretty much all genres available if you wanted to live off it.
You factor out the death toll from destruction of infrastucture, and the possibility of "nuclear winter" due to reduced levels of solar energy reaching the surface.
As for total destruction of life, I don't really care if cockroaches will outlive most of the human race.
The climate on planet Earth has gotten less than a degree warmer in the last 150 years.
And the average body temperature of the patients in a hospital is pretty stable, too.
250ms lag may sound awful if you plan to join a multiplayer game, but is acceptable for many uses, like surfing the web from your mobile.
Maintaining a fleet of LEO satellites is far more expensive and really makes not much sense when all you want to cover is the territory of Japan.
I've seen plenty of mediocre developers with quite inflated egos, and enough of great programmers doing their job without much fuss.
The article has focused on the aspect of technical skills. Personal qualities and motivation are important, but they don't correlate that much with technical excellence, or lack thereof.
..lose $178 billion a year to web surfing in the workplace..
That's what keeping Bush from yet another invasion!
Zero is rarely encountered in nature, unless you think of it hard.
It isn't in the declaration of human rights, but Internet is a natural part of what we consider free speech rights. Places that censor the Internet usually do the same with newspapers, TV broadcasts, books, they imprison and execute dissidents.
I live in Belarus, a place gradually moving from moderate dictatorship to totalitarism. We have all the censorship in traditional media, and now there are moves to control the net access as well: forums impose self-censorship in fear of being shut down, gay sites get blocked, and opposition resources abroad suppressed during large political events.
So I beg to disagree. Unless you don't give a damn about Human Rights in general, Internet censorhip is ammoral and harmful.
Just find a way to promote it among the audiophiles.
Now, try that with a street shot, or a sports shot, or a safari shot..
1. Collect the donations.
2. Hire numerous lawyers.
3. ???
4. Profit!
SMS delivery is not guarenteed service, albeit it can get pretty reliable in practice.
1. Businesses and citizens who create software will be forced to move to these 'enlightened' contries if they aren't there already. Basically the US will find itself locking itself out of the software market because producing software in the US will become too expensive or in some instances maybe even impossible.
2. Because of pressure from 1. the US will be forced to adopt better laws.
OR,
2a. Because of pressure from 1. the US will push software patents through WTO.
Now, which one looks more likely?
I live in an ex-USSR state neighbouring Russia, so I have an idea of the situation. Russia has budget proficit for several years in row now, and the surplus is large enough to pay off its ~~$100 billion foreign debt in full (with some cash still left for bureaucrats to steal).
Russia commits its own finances to the ISS as well: of the two Russian-built modules one is built for their money. Besides, *at this moment* due to high oil prices (and the resulting budget proficit) Russia could maintain a simple space station alone. It's just that it doesn't makes any sense to do so.