Why are so many people still running Windows XP? Yea, Vista was a disaster, but Win7 is actually decent. But people don't want to move. The reason is that they are tired of having to re-learn how to do things each time a new user interface comes out. Why do open-source GUI people copy from Apple and Windows? Because they are trying to make the user experience in their desktop OS likable for that audience. BUT, they are PISSING OFF the same people that got used to the old Linux/Unix way of doing things. One of the problems is the self-selection of 'improvements' by the GUI developers, who are people who want to make things 'better' ('Kamtrya!'). The rest of us are more concerned with getting tasks done, and don't want to be bothered with the learning curve. Customization ability is fine, but the default behavior should be that of Tradition, with an option to set things back to 'traditional' in any customization.
I don't care about rounded corners, opacity, and lots of screen candy. What I was is speed, reliability, consistency and the ability to change text size/layout within a window, and also to have windows maintain their aspect ratio as the default behavior when appropriate. I also like the idea of being able to focus on a background window. I'd like an 'unclose' option to bail me out when I accidentally close a window, but I know that's difficult to do properly. But please, just focus on the speed, reliability, and consistency.
OK, perhaps "department of ass-covering" and "How to get rich in the security business". We can sit here and think of all the ways that really bad things can be done be bad people without any threat from StatSec, but it is inadvisable to do so, because 1) someone might put your ideas into practice and 2) even if it wasn't you that gave them the idea, the StatSec might do some data-mining and come after you.
Once more to the well...in his father's coat, for sins of the earth do multiply. Make yourself one with the path, and the journey will lead you to eternity. If you immediately know the candlelight is fire, then the meal was cooked a long time ago.
It's time for quality control in humans. We have an unending supply of idiots, criminals, and other defectives. It's bad enough that they are a burden for their community, but when they are allowed to have children....actually ENCOURAGED to have children...we go into the realm of a race to the bottom. Yes, I know, not all defectives have defective children, and normal or exceptional parents can have defective children. But, we live in an age where testing for genetic diseases is accurate an inexpensive. Sterilization is also inexpensive, compared with the costs of the damage of highly defective children. But, any of these measures to reduce the slide into idiocracy are only effective when a community takes care of itself.
A community which reproduces defectives without bounds is not just a threat to itself, but those around it, and eventually the whole world. We take action to attack the worldwide problem of global warming, which seems to point to one-world-government as the ultimate answer, but yet we ignore the fundamental cause of global warming: too many humans. But it is not simply the number of humans, but the balance of resource consumption and production, which is correlated to the level of technological development and long-term planning. If we view history, we can see that many times in the past a limit to human population seems to have been reached: but it is only a limit within a given level of technology. Humans would never have achieved this seven billion population of not for the ability of technology to change our world: such inventions as the Haber process and antibiotics have made this number possible. Yet the breakthroughs of the few are not enough if the populace does not have the means and desire to adopt these technologies. We have delivered cars to people that can't or don't want to learn how to drive properly, we have delivered a low infant mortality rate to people who don't want to practice birth control. We can have either an intelligent population of great numbers, or a stupid population of small numbers.
I come from a race which has tested only middle in the heritable IQ studies. I think I am somewhat more intelligent than the average person in my race, but I realize there are many more intelligent people around me, and that a percentage of this is genetic, heritable intelligence. The future for whatever children I may have would be far better off if I have fewer children than the people who have higher heritable intelligence than me, and I have more children than those whose heritable intelligence is less than mine. It has long been the case that the natural order of the world caps a given population at its means, more or less, by starvation, plague, war, emigration, and societal collapse. But the so-called 'humane' society which feeds the starving populations in countries which can not support their population is encouraging disaster. We made similar policy mistakes when fighting forest fires: forest fires were bad, so we put them out. We did not take into account the much greater problems that interfering with the natural cycle of burns would create. Now we have firebreaks, and controlled burns. Can we have controlled plagues, and population-breaks? Please?!
Are you trying to find out your personal cumulative dose over a short period of time? There are dosimeters, the size of a pen, which are worn when nearby potentially dangerous ionizing radiation. When these change color, the wearer has been exposed to the maximum recommended daily amount of radiation and needs to exit the hazardous zone for a while. These are not useful in finding the source of radiation, however. But ehy are cheap, small, and easy to use. The next step up is the old-style 'geiger counter'. Many of these were produced in the 1950-1960s for radiation safety. They are useful for finding a radioactive source, but are not very sensitive. Additionally, many of them require special types of batteries which have long since worn out. They are cheap on ebay, and I am sure they are available in Japan as well. Th next step up is the current generation of Russian geiger counters. These are small and modern, but cost much more - figure $300 at the minimum. They are more sensitive as well. There is a quality difference between different models. There is at least one web site with reviews of these models, along with the much more expensive modern American models. There are also professional devices which are still more expensive but very good quality. I doubt you'll need those, or know how to use them. The most interesting ones are the home-made ones. there is a yahoo group of hobbyists who build some tools of impressive sensitivity. As far as the alpha/beta/gamma/neutron - again, what are you trying to find? Gamma and neutron radiation are the most dangerous, because they are harder to shield from. They'd be useful for finding radium, radon, uranium, plutonium, and so forth. If I receive a response to this message asking for further information, I can dig up specifics. What I have revealed here it just off the top of my head. I have a friend who is a radiation safety specialist for nuclear power plants. I'll see if I can get him to come here and improve upon my explanation.
Mandatory LFTR comment here. Yes, it would be nice if this fancy tool were to be used in the effort towards solving problems with Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors, such as cutting down on the tritium production, but ORNL doesn't seem to be interested in its child any more. But, perhaps some funding will be found in the future for creation of modeling software and purchase of CPU time on this Jaguar or the next. Is Stephen Chu the bottleneck?
Hrm, Kerguelen. The land of perpetual wind. Having spent time there, do you think it would be practical to put in wind turbines and use these for useful, exportable things such as aluminum production?
That was my thought upon reading the article. Do we have 58 year old astronauts on active duty? I also think that positions such as these come with the personal risk assumption. Sending a plane out to get her would put other lives in more danger than is posed by her waiting.
One of the airplanes mentioned in the article is a DeHavilland Canada Twin-Otter. Twin-Otters are great aircraft. I am glad that they're being built again (now by Viking Air)
I am glad to see that someone who gets noticed has spoken out against the Cult of Steve Jobs and Apple. Yes, they have made some attractive products. Yes, they have been influential. But Apple is overly lauded and overpriced, and Jobs similarly so. I haven't been so annoyed by a celebrity's continuous eulogies since the death of Michael Jackson. That being said, I am not overly fond of RMS. Like many in the free software movement, he fails to find a way for programmers to be paid. I appreciate his GPL work, but wish he'd just grow up a bit.
Not all libraries have internet, and if they do, it's often broken, slow, or there's not enough computers for everyone. Computers at libraries are often full of viruses, both the digital type and the organic type. I am not saying that libraries are useless in this regard, but they leave a lot to be desired.
We almost had something, with the various community wifi programs, in varying amounts of formality and size, happening around the country. People who couldn't afford the $40+ per month for broadband and didn't need all that speed were sharing access points, and it was mostly good (except which RIAA/MPAA came knocking). Now, in comcast land, the impetus will be crushed for those parents with no money, to get out and do something technical for their community. Oh well, I should look on the bright side, that means that they can share the connection they have without needing to press for cash (much). Too bad you have to have children to use it. It seems to me that such discount plans should be available regardless of whether one has a child. Single people need to hunt for jobs, apply for foodstamps, improve their computer skills, and find ways to fill the empty hopeless hours, just as much as parents do.
Humans aren't good as soldiers: not only do they have bad aim, but they often have poor judgement. They'll get drunk, freak out, rape, pillage, and kill the wrong people. By having a mechanized military, so much of the bad behavior is factored out of the system. The precise 'surgical strikes' as opposed to bulk 'carpet bombing', there will be less civilian casualties as 'collateral damage'. The economic effects are good as well, where a few well-paid engineers can design, skilled technicians can assemble, and operators operate, replacing the need for grunts to sweat in the jungle or burn in the desert.
The MFC community isn't large, however had an online discussion forum going for four years now over at Yahoo, http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/MicrobialFuelCells/ . It has many academics on it, but is not unfriendly to the hobbyist. MFCs are one of few the areas of alternative energy and biotech in which it is relatively easy and inexpensive for beginners to get a functional device. I am not saying that the area of study is trivial, because there's a difference between something functional and something notable for its efficiency. But you can "muck about" in it. If this type of thing interests you, please come join us!
yeah, I could wait for rotten.com but I'd rather people posted links to videos here. I am really annoyed that youtobe/google takes it upon themselves to decide what is fit for me to see, or not see. I am sure it was horrible. I've seen horrible. I just want the truth.
OK, LFTR (Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor) development would be useful. Can you explain what modeling needs to be done? Is this merely a provisioning problem (you haven't got the computational resources), or it is also a programming problem, and perhaps even an algorithm problem (do you know what you want to compute)?
....hardware isn't your area of expertise, Mr. Son. Japan needs nuclear power, it is even less suited to wind & solar than other places, and has practically no fossil fuels. However, nuclear energy can be cleaner, safer, and more efficient than it is, by the use of molten salts for cooling and fuel delivery. The best example of this are Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors...see http://www.EnergyFromThorium.com
Slashdot Mirror
Industrial sabotage? Turnabout is fair play. That's what Greenpeace has been doing to multiple industries for decades.
Appropriate for census workers. They have tons of paperwork, and often have to deal with unpleasant, suspicious, insane people.
Why are so many people still running Windows XP? Yea, Vista was a disaster, but Win7 is actually decent. But people don't want to move. The reason is that they are tired of having to re-learn how to do things each time a new user interface comes out. Why do open-source GUI people copy from Apple and Windows? Because they are trying to make the user experience in their desktop OS likable for that audience. BUT, they are PISSING OFF the same people that got used to the old Linux/Unix way of doing things. One of the problems is the self-selection of 'improvements' by the GUI developers, who are people who want to make things 'better' ('Kamtrya!'). The rest of us are more concerned with getting tasks done, and don't want to be bothered with the learning curve. Customization ability is fine, but the default behavior should be that of Tradition, with an option to set things back to 'traditional' in any customization.
I don't care about rounded corners, opacity, and lots of screen candy. What I was is speed, reliability, consistency and the ability to change text size/layout within a window, and also to have windows maintain their aspect ratio as the default behavior when appropriate. I also like the idea of being able to focus on a background window. I'd like an 'unclose' option to bail me out when I accidentally close a window, but I know that's difficult to do properly. But please, just focus on the speed, reliability, and consistency.
OK, perhaps "department of ass-covering" and "How to get rich in the security business". We can sit here and think of all the ways that really bad things can be done be bad people without any threat from StatSec, but it is inadvisable to do so, because 1) someone might put your ideas into practice and 2) even if it wasn't you that gave them the idea, the StatSec might do some data-mining and come after you.
I agree. To big, needs to diet. But it doesn't matter, I've switch back to Debian.
No doubt, this change is somehow man's fault, for having dong something bad like observing the universe in the first place.
Once more to the well...in his father's coat, for sins of the earth do multiply. Make yourself one with the path, and the journey will lead you to eternity. If you immediately know the candlelight is fire, then the meal was cooked a long time ago.
Ihre Probleme sind in erster Linie mit der Rechtschreibung.
It's time for quality control in humans. We have an unending supply of idiots, criminals, and other defectives. It's bad enough that they are a burden for their community, but when they are allowed to have children....actually ENCOURAGED to have children...we go into the realm of a race to the bottom. Yes, I know, not all defectives have defective children, and normal or exceptional parents can have defective children. But, we live in an age where testing for genetic diseases is accurate an inexpensive. Sterilization is also inexpensive, compared with the costs of the damage of highly defective children. But, any of these measures to reduce the slide into idiocracy are only effective when a community takes care of itself.
A community which reproduces defectives without bounds is not just a threat to itself, but those around it, and eventually the whole world. We take action to attack the worldwide problem of global warming, which seems to point to one-world-government as the ultimate answer, but yet we ignore the fundamental cause of global warming: too many humans. But it is not simply the number of humans, but the balance of resource consumption and production, which is correlated to the level of technological development and long-term planning. If we view history, we can see that many times in the past a limit to human population seems to have been reached: but it is only a limit within a given level of technology. Humans would never have achieved this seven billion population of not for the ability of technology to change our world: such inventions as the Haber process and antibiotics have made this number possible. Yet the breakthroughs of the few are not enough if the populace does not have the means and desire to adopt these technologies. We have delivered cars to people that can't or don't want to learn how to drive properly, we have delivered a low infant mortality rate to people who don't want to practice birth control. We can have either an intelligent population of great numbers, or a stupid population of small numbers.
I come from a race which has tested only middle in the heritable IQ studies. I think I am somewhat more intelligent than the average person in my race, but I realize there are many more intelligent people around me, and that a percentage of this is genetic, heritable intelligence. The future for whatever children I may have would be far better off if I have fewer children than the people who have higher heritable intelligence than me, and I have more children than those whose heritable intelligence is less than mine. It has long been the case that the natural order of the world caps a given population at its means, more or less, by starvation, plague, war, emigration, and societal collapse. But the so-called 'humane' society which feeds the starving populations in countries which can not support their population is encouraging disaster. We made similar policy mistakes when fighting forest fires: forest fires were bad, so we put them out. We did not take into account the much greater problems that interfering with the natural cycle of burns would create. Now we have firebreaks, and controlled burns. Can we have controlled plagues, and population-breaks? Please?!
1.5 children per person, maximum. Thank you. The doctor will see you now.
Are you trying to find out your personal cumulative dose over a short period of time? There are dosimeters, the size of a pen, which are worn when nearby potentially dangerous ionizing radiation. When these change color, the wearer has been exposed to the maximum recommended daily amount of radiation and needs to exit the hazardous zone for a while. These are not useful in finding the source of radiation, however. But ehy are cheap, small, and easy to use. The next step up is the old-style 'geiger counter'. Many of these were produced in the 1950-1960s for radiation safety. They are useful for finding a radioactive source, but are not very sensitive. Additionally, many of them require special types of batteries which have long since worn out. They are cheap on ebay, and I am sure they are available in Japan as well. Th next step up is the current generation of Russian geiger counters. These are small and modern, but cost much more - figure $300 at the minimum. They are more sensitive as well. There is a quality difference between different models. There is at least one web site with reviews of these models, along with the much more expensive modern American models. There are also professional devices which are still more expensive but very good quality. I doubt you'll need those, or know how to use them. The most interesting ones are the home-made ones. there is a yahoo group of hobbyists who build some tools of impressive sensitivity. As far as the alpha/beta/gamma/neutron - again, what are you trying to find? Gamma and neutron radiation are the most dangerous, because they are harder to shield from. They'd be useful for finding radium, radon, uranium, plutonium, and so forth. If I receive a response to this message asking for further information, I can dig up specifics. What I have revealed here it just off the top of my head. I have a friend who is a radiation safety specialist for nuclear power plants. I'll see if I can get him to come here and improve upon my explanation.
I'm sorry Steve, I can't allow you to do that [HAL voice].
Can we send all of the DBAs to space?
Is this mandatory, as all Apple things generally are? Is there a new built-in App of the Steve Jobs altar?
Mandatory LFTR comment here. Yes, it would be nice if this fancy tool were to be used in the effort towards solving problems with Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors, such as cutting down on the tritium production, but ORNL doesn't seem to be interested in its child any more. But, perhaps some funding will be found in the future for creation of modeling software and purchase of CPU time on this Jaguar or the next. Is Stephen Chu the bottleneck?
Hrm, Kerguelen. The land of perpetual wind. Having spent time there, do you think it would be practical to put in wind turbines and use these for useful, exportable things such as aluminum production?
That was my thought upon reading the article. Do we have 58 year old astronauts on active duty? I also think that positions such as these come with the personal risk assumption. Sending a plane out to get her would put other lives in more danger than is posed by her waiting.
One of the airplanes mentioned in the article is a DeHavilland Canada Twin-Otter. Twin-Otters are great aircraft. I am glad that they're being built again (now by Viking Air)
I am glad to see that someone who gets noticed has spoken out against the Cult of Steve Jobs and Apple. Yes, they have made some attractive products. Yes, they have been influential. But Apple is overly lauded and overpriced, and Jobs similarly so. I haven't been so annoyed by a celebrity's continuous eulogies since the death of Michael Jackson. That being said, I am not overly fond of RMS. Like many in the free software movement, he fails to find a way for programmers to be paid. I appreciate his GPL work, but wish he'd just grow up a bit.
Not all libraries have internet, and if they do, it's often broken, slow, or there's not enough computers for everyone. Computers at libraries are often full of viruses, both the digital type and the organic type. I am not saying that libraries are useless in this regard, but they leave a lot to be desired.
We almost had something, with the various community wifi programs, in varying amounts of formality and size, happening around the country. People who couldn't afford the $40+ per month for broadband and didn't need all that speed were sharing access points, and it was mostly good (except which RIAA/MPAA came knocking). Now, in comcast land, the impetus will be crushed for those parents with no money, to get out and do something technical for their community. Oh well, I should look on the bright side, that means that they can share the connection they have without needing to press for cash (much). Too bad you have to have children to use it. It seems to me that such discount plans should be available regardless of whether one has a child. Single people need to hunt for jobs, apply for foodstamps, improve their computer skills, and find ways to fill the empty hopeless hours, just as much as parents do.
Humans aren't good as soldiers: not only do they have bad aim, but they often have poor judgement. They'll get drunk, freak out, rape, pillage, and kill the wrong people. By having a mechanized military, so much of the bad behavior is factored out of the system. The precise 'surgical strikes' as opposed to bulk 'carpet bombing', there will be less civilian casualties as 'collateral damage'. The economic effects are good as well, where a few well-paid engineers can design, skilled technicians can assemble, and operators operate, replacing the need for grunts to sweat in the jungle or burn in the desert.
The MFC community isn't large, however had an online discussion forum going for four years now over at Yahoo, http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/MicrobialFuelCells/ . It has many academics on it, but is not unfriendly to the hobbyist. MFCs are one of few the areas of alternative energy and biotech in which it is relatively easy and inexpensive for beginners to get a functional device. I am not saying that the area of study is trivial, because there's a difference between something functional and something notable for its efficiency. But you can "muck about" in it. If this type of thing interests you, please come join us!
yeah, I could wait for rotten.com but I'd rather people posted links to videos here. I am really annoyed that youtobe/google takes it upon themselves to decide what is fit for me to see, or not see. I am sure it was horrible. I've seen horrible. I just want the truth.
OK, LFTR (Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor) development would be useful. Can you explain what modeling needs to be done? Is this merely a provisioning problem (you haven't got the computational resources), or it is also a programming problem, and perhaps even an algorithm problem (do you know what you want to compute)?
Another question is, who would own the results?
....hardware isn't your area of expertise, Mr. Son. Japan needs nuclear power, it is even less suited to wind & solar than other places, and has practically no fossil fuels. However, nuclear energy can be cleaner, safer, and more efficient than it is, by the use of molten salts for cooling and fuel delivery. The best example of this are Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors...see http://www.EnergyFromThorium.com