The Sun has a magnetic field, and we are orbiting inside of it.
Citation provided. Huh, seems obvious in hindsight but I guess I never thought about it very much. More info (update to that link: solar maximum was 2014).
Thanks for the links! Too bad the original paper for the first link is paywalled (apparently with trial access though). I'm still trying to decide whose data to trust when it comes to gender pay gap. I've seen data linked to by a dubious source that indicates that for people with a four year degree it's a rounding error and the two-thirds number only shows up for people who only have a high school diploma. I've heard a lot of different anecdotes when it comes to transition. I'll come back to this post when I'm in a number crunching mood. Sample size (64) could be problematic, but I'm only an armchair statistician.
If I had to guess, homophobia probably plays a large part, which is why I would lol if I actually did succeed at getting some of our ACs and other users who always seem to obsessively misgender Brianna Wu and Chelsea Manning in particular to become paranoid that an attractive woman could very well "be a man." I've noticed a deep-seated conflation of sexuality, gender, gender roles, and individual identity that transcends all reason.
What's interesting is that nobody seems particularly concerned when we add a virtual layer on top and that's where the gender mismatch happens. What I mean is, lots of guys regularly report using female avatars. Nobody except complete wackos seems to have a problem with this.
I'll have to add this to the mentat computer (from 1st link):
"My transition went extremely smoothly," one female-to-male, blue-collar worker told the researchers. "I was shocked at how smooth. No one even talks about it and it had no effect on my pay. If anything, I have been better accepted at work because people don't see me as a [slur for a lesbian] like before."
The fixation as presented in the subject might suggest some kind of paranoid delusion combined with willful ignorance. I don't know. Posts like that (GP here) bother me.
Yes, as the other AC pointed out, there does seem to be a strange fixation on trans women (never men) in the media. Apparently taking one's meds and putting on a dress deserves an award. Where's mine?
Yes, occasionally the SJWs include trans women in their insanity. I remember Canonical's We Need Women Programmers! initiative couldn't just be for women, but it also had to be for trans women, and then since that might have excluded some very rare demographic somewhere, they had to throw around the term genderqueer as well. Of course, this all goes back to why we even have the term cisgendered: trans-exclusionary radical feminism (which is apparently still quite popular in flyover country).
I don't know if these are still a thing, but it used to be you could go to pages that would list successful trans women. Sysadmin, programmer, sysadmin, EE, engineer, programmer, sysadmin, engineer, you get the idea. SJWs know this. The SJWs ignore this or else view them as mentally ill people who are "really" men anyway. Instead, the SJWs make the lack of women programmers some kind of power dynamic where all us evil misogynerds are keeping women out of programming. Substitute engineering for programming if you want. Well, obviously those trans women didn't have a problem getting programming and engineering jobs! (Ah, but then the SJW would remind us that they still, somehow, have male privilege.)
Can anyone give me a single anecdote of a trans woman who is an affirmative action hire? I'm betting you can't. Now let me make myself absolutely clear. Look at Brianna Wu. Incompetent assholes come in all genders.
If whoever is posting those comments wants to get a persecution complex on (and a zero growth rate in a profession that's part of this "you pro rape misogynerd!" insanity is perhaps somewhere to be legitimately worried), I can assure you that you have nothing to worry about unless flyover country has become bizarro world. Asshole managers do not want trans employees. If an asshole manager is going to replace your job with an affirmative action hire, she won't be trans.
The reason I would suggest GGP talk to a psychologist is because somehow GGP has the delusion that there's anybody who would rather have a trans woman as an employee. GGP probably sees the media fixation (and has probably also deluded her/himself into thinking that Crocodile Dundee and Silence of the Lambs are documentaries about trans women) and combined with her/his own hatred has decided that the trans women are out to get her/him and the SJWs are on our side!
The minute SJWs actually do something helpful, for any demographic for that matter, I'll shut up. As far as I can tell, the SJWs have done nothing more than amplify the hatred of trans women. These days I hear "religious objection!" I hear "only trannies will have jobs." As if! If that were the case, why is the most talented programmer I know out of a job? (Hint: not me. I haven't maintained my skills, and firm believer in "there is always somebody better.") It's not because her co-workers didn't like her. It's not because she didn't have talent. It's not because she didn't work hard to constantly learn new technologies. It's because she's trans and some asshole manager decided that was more important than her talent. Plain and simple.
tl;dr GGP is afraid of a bogeywoman s/he's completely invented out of whole cloth and would probably have a paranoid breakdown if s/he ever met somebody like Harisoo IRL. And I'm bored enough to post this comment.
You're driving along in dense fog. As a good driver, you realize you only have 20 ft. visibility so you're going slowly. Fucking slowly (to invoke the Onyxia Wipe guy). Suddenly, a deer attempts crossing. It fails, slips on ice, and starts panicking. To add to the scenario, a big truck carrying 40,000 lbs of water (water increases the complexity of the scenario because if the big truck slams on its hydraulic brakes, which take about 1s to engage, even if it comes to a complete stop, and remember we're on black ice here, the water may still slosh around and cause the trailer to push the vehicle forward once again, even though the brakes are fully applied) is driving down the opposing lane on a 2 lane country road. Both vehicles are coming up to an intersection where cross traffic has the right of way.
Acceleration is the worst thing to do in that scenario. Consider your circle of friction. On any given surface, you have a circle of friction. Trust me. I've drift-turned a tractor trailer before because I screwed up. (Yes, this is possible. It's not epic. I'm ashamed I even needed to drift turn it while hydroplaning.) Any action you take makes your center of mass tend toward the border of the circle of friction. Drift turning is at the border of the circle of friction. Road condition such as rain or ice affect the circle of friction, making it smaller. Turn left or right? You push the center of mass closer to the border. Accelerate or brake? You push the center of mass closer to the border.
So you're approaching this deer going say 20 mph (because you know your circle of friction and visible distance are both fucking small, or at least you anticipate your circle of friction is small, but you don't know that for sure; black ice, etc). And it's uphill. The rational thing to do is to not attempt steering (that would move the center of mass closer to the border and depending on your drivetrain make further recovery impossible or very difficult). So you can only slow at such a small rate of acceleration. The last thing you want to do is to collide with the big truck, which has just started accelerating from the stop.
So you're about to hit the deer and it jumps! 10 feet up! (Haven't seen this happen before, in my experience they can mostly jump to about 6 feet.)
I don't know where I'm going with this.
The point is that both drivers don't cause a collision with each other from over-reacting. Things happen. The deer collides with one vehicle or another, which is going slow because of the dense fog.
Maybe they'll just split the venison. Damn, now I'm hungry. I want a venison steak, cooked just right, medium rare.
That's a valid point. So, ok, 6th key established!
I live in flyover country so I understand this. I even live in a somewhat decently sized metro area, and deer still wind up in my backyard (literally).
6th key, expect the unexpected. Keep your eyes moving and get the big picture, but that may not be enough. Turn your brights on when possible. Always scan the roadside for signs that a large animal is about to attempt crossing and be aware that many of those animal's instincts are correct when facing a large predator (highly evolved apes who drive large metal objects not included). The best chance of survival for a large prey animal is to wait until the last possible moment when faced with a large predator before bolting. This usually works except when it's an automobile.
6.5th key, know your local butcher. Invariably, you will, despite your best intentions, wind up with a deer or moose on your hood. As long as the body is in good enough condition without too much internal hemorrhaging, prepare to secure the body, bring it to the local butcher, and make delicious sausage. And steaks. And burger. When life gives you a deer that screwed up, make venison sausage.
I realize this, which is why I don't use HTML email for personal business. Unfortunately I need to use if for my employer.
I don't understand why these barely evolved, hairless apes need fonts and colors and images to get a message across. (or even how the hell i wound up in the body of one)
If the Illuminati are that powerful, then: all I have to say is a Dr. Franklin Reuhl-style "ok, fine." Let the world burn, let the atomic bombs fall.
Some other form of intelligence will evolve in a billion years or so. There's still time. The fusion reactor known as Sol still has 3 billion good years left iirc. Hopefully it will be better than this broken species. I hope they'll unearth the ruins of our cities and meditate on our failure.
That's why we're focused on Trump and Sanders, dipshit.
I realize your intentions may be genuine. But that is why the focus is on Trump. And Sanders. Never forget the bleeding-heart libertarian candidate Sanders, no matter what the Illuminati pulls. He calls himself socialist. You are too small-minded to understand the connection between socialism and libertarianism.
Those are the only two [Trump and Sanders] that can prevent the ammo box from being necessary. I don't want the ammo box to be necessary. Even with Trump, the ammo box may turn into the full nuclear exchange box, and I don't want that. I don't want the year from hell, which I am beginning to prepare for. I have a small hope that Trump may even avert World War III.
Normally my charity is unconditional as long as I can give it. I will starve myself first, but I must be practical. The body can take starvation, but the banks will fuck you if you starve financially. Fucking demons on earth. Yet, if the bombs fall, my charity will be conditional as fucking hell, even if jdavidb disapproves the groups I will help save. Granted, our logic will probably align.
Dies irae, dies illa Solvet saeclum in favilla, Teste David cum Sibylla.
Alpine user here, too. Also Seamonkey at work. Anyone know of any news about what a Thunderbird end of life means for the Seamonkey project?
I'd use Claws-Mail if it supported HTML email properly. It can render HTML mail with a (bundled) plugin, but it can't compose it. That's a showstopper for using it at work. At home, it just looks ugly, and Alpine is sufficient for my personal needs.
This is what bothers me about anarcho-libertarianism. The government is not a thief. Taxation by itself is not theft. Taxation buys us civilization: infrastructure, law enforcement, etc. The list of congressional powers enumerated in the Constitution of the USA is a good yardstick for what the founders believed the role of government was.
Articles of Confederation failed for a number of reasons, but it demonstrated that there is some minimum size for a functional government and hence a functional society.
Are there unconstitutional things being funded you don't agree with that contribute to your perception that you're being robbed at gunpoint when you pay a tax? If you want to argue that things like welfare programs are unconstitutional, I'd probably agree. Then I'd proceed to argue that those services are necessary and that the Constitution should have been amended. If you want to argue the EPA is unconstitutional, I'd probably agree and same thing, I'd argue there should be an amendment to give congress the power to create and fund something like the EPA. Times change.
Tariffs serve an important role in protecting the economy of a developed nation from the race to the bottom we see with outsourcing. That money doesn't evaporate. It's another source of funding for that minimum-sized government. They're part of buying civilization. The civilization gains more than the owner loses.
If you believe taxation is the equivalent of armed robbery, please, move somewhere else in the world where you won't be taxed. Isn't Somalia the go-to place that gets invoked here?
(Now, mind you, I will accept the argument that in a civilization with an uneducated population and a broken political system that uses its Constitution as toilet paper, perhaps that constitutes taxation without representation, which is theft.)
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a sovereign state in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population of over 1.35 billion.
I'm sending this from Sol 3, and when it's implemented it's not perfect but it works. I believe Sol 3 is called Earth. Please see this starmap for an overview.
A single-payer system might HIDE the true price
The data in terms of cost and outcomes for single payer systems vs. the insurance company/medicare/medicaid/social security/Planned Parenthood/charity/etc middle man system are available. Single payer costs less and has better outcomes, no matter what happens in your fantasy. From whom is this data being hidden?
I'm being obtuse. You mean that the price of specific procedures, drugs, and office visits is hidden from the patient at the time of delivery of the product/service. Would you help me to understand how the middle man system doesn't do that? I gather a bill arrives some time after the delivery of the product/service, but please help to me understand how the living fuck I'm supposed to find that out when I am at the doctor's office.
This would help me immensely as I will soon begin shopping around to get a procedure done, and as far as I can tell without actually phoning hospitals and my insurance up I need somewhere from between $500 to $3,000 to have this procedure done. Once complete, I will no longer need one of my meds. That med costs me close to $100 per month and is not covered by my insurance, so this procedure will pay for itself in time. I understand getting the information I need will be a complete pain in the ass because nobody at the hospital actually knows how much anything costs, further complicated by "religious objection!"
Note on "religious objection!" This didn't happen before Obamacare. I have religious objections of my own. I religiously object to paying for these things: birth control, viagra, vasectomies, and other optional things cisgendered people want (not need) that I never will. I don't want to pay for them. I live in a Just World where those things shouldn't be necessary. Cisgendered people religiously object to paying for health care services transgendered people need but they never will since they live in a Just World as well. Since democracy is 3 wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for dinner, and there are vastly more cisgendered people than transgendered people, I will always be at a disadvantage accessing the health care services cisgendered people have decided are immoral, and I will always be stuck paying for the health care services I've deemed immoral.*
I doubt single payer will ever solve that particular problem. In fact, that inherent conflict between the needs of a transgendered person and the "religious objection!" of cisgendered people was a big part of why I was a member of the Libertarian party for many moons. Now we have Obamacare, and I'm stuck subsidizing optional things cisgendered people need so they can have more sex. So, I've changed my mind. If that's the situation and if I can't get away from it, we need single payer instead of the current shit sandwich.
My taxes will go up? I don't give a damn. The health insurance I'm required to have is already effectively a tax, and fee I have to pay if I don't have it was contorted into being a tax! My taxes have already gone up! The health services I need will still get "religious objection!" under USA single payer? I don't give a damn! I'm already paying out of pocket! Have been for over a decade now!
In particular, I religiously object to being forced to pay middle men for a system that religiously objects me!
tl;dr [citation needed]
* Disclaimer for the sarcasm-impaired: I actually do want women to have access to contraception services. The pill is dirt cheap and saves money in the long run. If you believe the pill is murder, you're beyond my help. Also, the Just World is a fantasy.
I get tired of seeing GP's "point" come up in these discussions. Any decent AI driver will follow the 5 keys of the Smith System.
#1: Aim high in steering, i.e. don't fixate on the car in front of you. Know what the car 5 and 10 cars ahead is doing. Know that the light 3 intersections down just turned green which means it'll probably be turning yellow by the time you get there.
#2: Get the big picture, i.e. what's cross-traffic look like, which vehicles are in your blind spots, how closely is the vehicle behind you following?
#3: Keep your eyes moving, i.e. feed data into #1 and #2 constantly. Keep your mental picture of road conditions and traffic constantly up to date.
#4: Leave yourself an out, i.e. travel in the middle lane if possible since that gives you the option of your out being on the left or right or even both. If you can't swerve off the road due to a ditch or concrete or other barrier, make sure you can swerve into the other lane. If you don't have an out, slow down a bit to create an out. I think stopping distance figures into this one. Always make sure you can stop in the space ahead of you if the car ahead slams on its brakes.
#5: Make sure they see you. The other keys are easy for an AI driver. This one here will be far more difficult until the vast majority of cars on the road are automated and can just use wireless to communicate with the other AI drivers. Maybe AI drivers can tell which human drivers have seen it by machine vision or don't need to based on sensor data. For human drivers, make eye contact with other drivers. If the other driver hasn't seen you, consider him a risk. Human drivers will have to simply trust that AI drivers see them, which I imagine will be quire unnerving.
I truly don't understand where these split second life or death driving decisions come from. If a driver finds himself having to make split second decisions to mash the gas pedal and swerve around to prevent collisions often and has to make choices to either slam into bus full of kids or to risk his own life, the problem is that driver.
It's difficult to say without having the telemetry from every collision.
If the one incident I've seen the data from is the typical case, then hell no. The driver rear-ended a Google car stopped at a stoplight without even slowing down.
On the other hand, if we're talking about merging, then that's possibly no. I don't drive big truck anymore, but let's face it: four wheel drivers just can't figure it out.
Merging is a bit of a difficult case because you can't merge if you haven't matched the speed of traffic. (Well, you can try....) So if the Google AI is trying to merge say onto 80 in downtown Chicago and is attempting to do it at 45 mph, which is the posted speed limit for pretty much all freeways in downtown Chicago, it will fail. I'd say this is the one case where the AI should flat out ignore the speed limit. Perhaps add some kind of heuristic to determine when it's a good idea to ignore posted speed limits.
On the other hand, if the on-ramps where they're testing are anything like the on-ramps in LA, well, the merging strategy I learned was get up to speed on the ramp, make a split second decision because that's all the merge lane you get, and pray to $deity. (Maybe they need to figure out how to get an AI to pray to $deity!)
Then the next step: just wait until bears start harassing these things. Every other car's going 80 in a 45, so the bears start regularly pulling over the Google car or production model autonomous car doing 75 in the 45. That will be an interesting legal battle since big city traffic never drives at the posted speed limit.
I think what AC is trying to say here is that there's a lot of woo surrounding NoSQL, and that people who buy into that woo don't have a solid grounding or understanding about how computers work, hence security isn't even an afterthought for them.
As far as I can tell, NoSQL is basically a buzzword that means either key-value pair or document storage. (I'm certain there must be some edge case where Mongo or others are the correct answer, at least I hope so.) In the case of key-value pairs, why not just use PostgreSQL? In the case of document storage, why not just use one of these things called a filesystem?
So, you're correct: lack of security is not inherent to NoSQL; lack of critical thinking, experience, and in-depth knowledge about tech is. This pretty much gets back to why our information infrastructure just sucks in general. Computers are sufficiently advanced technology and are thus indistinguishable from magic. Put another way, pretty much everybody, even some people in tech, thinks computers are magickal palantirs powered by waldos used to project some kind of digital self into the nether realm of cyberspace, a place not Sheol, which can only be tamed by wizards.
Their idea of a cyber-security is having a wizard on hand who can shout at the evil hackers, who have equally mystical powers drawn from the foul evils of the burning hells, "You cannot pass! I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the Flame of Anor. The dark fire will not avail you, Flame of Udun! Go back to the shadow. You shall not pass!"
Ah, came here to say the same thing. 20 years learning the ins and outs of this shit. And now you're telling me that everything I've learned, starting with procedural, then object-oriented, functional, aspect-oriented, etc can be learned in an hour?!
Not only that. Has he done a Linux from Scratch? Does he know how to put an operating system together?
I don't know. "I can't even" only begins to describe it.
Get out of tech. Just leave. I've encountered these same attitudes at my current job. "Oh hay, this person said, 'I wanna be a programmer!' so just train them!" I've been accused of sexism because this shit can't be learned in a one hour session every week in under, I don't know, the heat death of the universe.
Then I have to deal with a passive-aggressive airhead Millennial who's convinced I'm sexist and racist solely because of my assigned gender at birth!
I want to bring Countess Lovelace and Rear Admiral Hopper forward through time so that they can bitch-slap these assholes. I mean, are you kidding? Lovelace would give these assholes who go Everyone Can Code, You Sexist Cis Het Male! a hell of a tongue lashing. Have you read her Notes? I'm sure Hopper would be glad to strangle them with a nanosecond or two. Yeah, get me a time machine, I don't care if it's a phone booth-type or internal combustion-type, I'll go get them, and then we can listen to what they have to say about Everyone Can Code!
Does Obama or Cameron even fucking understand what Lovelace wrote in her Notes?!
Flipping burgers sounds like a better career at this point.
Do you know what Christian Identity is? I'm familiar with Southern Christian Identity. Basically here's a rundown of their beliefs.
1.) Caucasians are the lost tribe of Israel. 2.) Racially-based slavery is mandated by the Bible because some kid saw his dad naked and passed out drunk. 3.) Jesus is a great general/warlord that will come back at the end of days and lead the Caucasians in a massive jihad/ragnarok type thing and kill all the infidels. (Gee, if this coming was actually Muhammad, that might explain some things.) 4.) The freedom of religion thing only means freedom to be a Christian.
Hmm... sounds vaguely familiar. To be fair, this is not a popular interpretation of Genesis/Leviticus/Exodus/etc since most people prefer just to be completely irrational. It's just what's written in those books brought to its logical conclusion. Hint: Islam uses those books as well.
Oh, and btw, HAPPY SOLSTICE.
I swear, if I fucking hear that being told something other than "merry Christmas" constitutes oppression one more time!
Listen, I do not need Christians getting angry and screaming "MERRY CHRISTMAS" in my face for no fucking discernible reason whatsoever. Yes, this has happened, not just to me either. Just walking out of a store, minding my own fucking business then holyfuckingshitfightorflight?! Oh, just some guy screaming MERRY CHRISTMAS at me. No, I do not appreciate being screamed at by some angry asshole twice my size on a Merry Christmas jihad. I am considering getting a concealed carry permit because of Christians. I am a little tiny person, the kind of person the great equalizer is meant for.
Think about that next time you get your oppression complex on. Even just five years ago, somebody might calmly wish me a merry Christmas, and I probably would have wished them one back as well. But now Christians have decided that getting in my face, gesticulating and screaming something that's supposed to be a cheerful holiday greeting is going to be productive somehow. What the fuck is happening to this country, and what the fuck is wrong with people these days?
Let's hope that Christians are at least smart enough to merely scream in my face about some holiday or another. Lay a hand on me, and you might just find I'm packing heat.
Slashdot Mirror
I like this idea.
The Sun has a magnetic field, and we are orbiting inside of it.
Citation provided. Huh, seems obvious in hindsight but I guess I never thought about it very much. More info (update to that link: solar maximum was 2014).
Second one. GP and GGGP here. (I think I counted that right.)
Thanks for the links! Too bad the original paper for the first link is paywalled (apparently with trial access though). I'm still trying to decide whose data to trust when it comes to gender pay gap. I've seen data linked to by a dubious source that indicates that for people with a four year degree it's a rounding error and the two-thirds number only shows up for people who only have a high school diploma. I've heard a lot of different anecdotes when it comes to transition. I'll come back to this post when I'm in a number crunching mood. Sample size (64) could be problematic, but I'm only an armchair statistician.
If I had to guess, homophobia probably plays a large part, which is why I would lol if I actually did succeed at getting some of our ACs and other users who always seem to obsessively misgender Brianna Wu and Chelsea Manning in particular to become paranoid that an attractive woman could very well "be a man." I've noticed a deep-seated conflation of sexuality, gender, gender roles, and individual identity that transcends all reason.
What's interesting is that nobody seems particularly concerned when we add a virtual layer on top and that's where the gender mismatch happens. What I mean is, lots of guys regularly report using female avatars. Nobody except complete wackos seems to have a problem with this.
I'll have to add this to the mentat computer (from 1st link):
"My transition went extremely smoothly," one female-to-male, blue-collar worker told the researchers. "I was shocked at how smooth. No one even talks about it and it had no effect on my pay. If anything, I have been better accepted at work because people don't see me as a [slur for a lesbian] like before."
The fixation as presented in the subject might suggest some kind of paranoid delusion combined with willful ignorance. I don't know. Posts like that (GP here) bother me.
Yes, as the other AC pointed out, there does seem to be a strange fixation on trans women (never men) in the media. Apparently taking one's meds and putting on a dress deserves an award. Where's mine?
Yes, occasionally the SJWs include trans women in their insanity. I remember Canonical's We Need Women Programmers! initiative couldn't just be for women, but it also had to be for trans women, and then since that might have excluded some very rare demographic somewhere, they had to throw around the term genderqueer as well. Of course, this all goes back to why we even have the term cisgendered: trans-exclusionary radical feminism (which is apparently still quite popular in flyover country).
I don't know if these are still a thing, but it used to be you could go to pages that would list successful trans women. Sysadmin, programmer, sysadmin, EE, engineer, programmer, sysadmin, engineer, you get the idea. SJWs know this. The SJWs ignore this or else view them as mentally ill people who are "really" men anyway. Instead, the SJWs make the lack of women programmers some kind of power dynamic where all us evil misogynerds are keeping women out of programming. Substitute engineering for programming if you want. Well, obviously those trans women didn't have a problem getting programming and engineering jobs! (Ah, but then the SJW would remind us that they still, somehow, have male privilege.)
Can anyone give me a single anecdote of a trans woman who is an affirmative action hire? I'm betting you can't. Now let me make myself absolutely clear. Look at Brianna Wu. Incompetent assholes come in all genders.
If whoever is posting those comments wants to get a persecution complex on (and a zero growth rate in a profession that's part of this "you pro rape misogynerd!" insanity is perhaps somewhere to be legitimately worried), I can assure you that you have nothing to worry about unless flyover country has become bizarro world. Asshole managers do not want trans employees. If an asshole manager is going to replace your job with an affirmative action hire, she won't be trans.
The reason I would suggest GGP talk to a psychologist is because somehow GGP has the delusion that there's anybody who would rather have a trans woman as an employee. GGP probably sees the media fixation (and has probably also deluded her/himself into thinking that Crocodile Dundee and Silence of the Lambs are documentaries about trans women) and combined with her/his own hatred has decided that the trans women are out to get her/him and the SJWs are on our side!
The minute SJWs actually do something helpful, for any demographic for that matter, I'll shut up. As far as I can tell, the SJWs have done nothing more than amplify the hatred of trans women. These days I hear "religious objection!" I hear "only trannies will have jobs." As if! If that were the case, why is the most talented programmer I know out of a job? (Hint: not me. I haven't maintained my skills, and firm believer in "there is always somebody better.") It's not because her co-workers didn't like her. It's not because she didn't have talent. It's not because she didn't work hard to constantly learn new technologies. It's because she's trans and some asshole manager decided that was more important than her talent. Plain and simple.
tl;dr GGP is afraid of a bogeywoman s/he's completely invented out of whole cloth and would probably have a paranoid breakdown if s/he ever met somebody like Harisoo IRL. And I'm bored enough to post this comment.
Not all over the world. Always keep in mind that BRICS countries aren't a part of TPP/TTIP/TISA.
hydraulic brakes
WTF, Vel?! You've got training in this shit. They're pneumatic brakes!
Ok, scenario.
You're driving along in dense fog. As a good driver, you realize you only have 20 ft. visibility so you're going slowly. Fucking slowly (to invoke the Onyxia Wipe guy). Suddenly, a deer attempts crossing. It fails, slips on ice, and starts panicking. To add to the scenario, a big truck carrying 40,000 lbs of water (water increases the complexity of the scenario because if the big truck slams on its hydraulic brakes, which take about 1s to engage, even if it comes to a complete stop, and remember we're on black ice here, the water may still slosh around and cause the trailer to push the vehicle forward once again, even though the brakes are fully applied) is driving down the opposing lane on a 2 lane country road. Both vehicles are coming up to an intersection where cross traffic has the right of way.
Acceleration is the worst thing to do in that scenario. Consider your circle of friction. On any given surface, you have a circle of friction. Trust me. I've drift-turned a tractor trailer before because I screwed up. (Yes, this is possible. It's not epic. I'm ashamed I even needed to drift turn it while hydroplaning.) Any action you take makes your center of mass tend toward the border of the circle of friction. Drift turning is at the border of the circle of friction. Road condition such as rain or ice affect the circle of friction, making it smaller. Turn left or right? You push the center of mass closer to the border. Accelerate or brake? You push the center of mass closer to the border.
So you're approaching this deer going say 20 mph (because you know your circle of friction and visible distance are both fucking small, or at least you anticipate your circle of friction is small, but you don't know that for sure; black ice, etc). And it's uphill. The rational thing to do is to not attempt steering (that would move the center of mass closer to the border and depending on your drivetrain make further recovery impossible or very difficult). So you can only slow at such a small rate of acceleration. The last thing you want to do is to collide with the big truck, which has just started accelerating from the stop.
So you're about to hit the deer and it jumps! 10 feet up! (Haven't seen this happen before, in my experience they can mostly jump to about 6 feet.)
I don't know where I'm going with this.
The point is that both drivers don't cause a collision with each other from over-reacting. Things happen. The deer collides with one vehicle or another, which is going slow because of the dense fog.
Maybe they'll just split the venison. Damn, now I'm hungry. I want a venison steak, cooked just right, medium rare.
That's a valid point. So, ok, 6th key established!
I live in flyover country so I understand this. I even live in a somewhat decently sized metro area, and deer still wind up in my backyard (literally).
6th key, expect the unexpected. Keep your eyes moving and get the big picture, but that may not be enough. Turn your brights on when possible. Always scan the roadside for signs that a large animal is about to attempt crossing and be aware that many of those animal's instincts are correct when facing a large predator (highly evolved apes who drive large metal objects not included). The best chance of survival for a large prey animal is to wait until the last possible moment when faced with a large predator before bolting. This usually works except when it's an automobile.
6.5th key, know your local butcher. Invariably, you will, despite your best intentions, wind up with a deer or moose on your hood. As long as the body is in good enough condition without too much internal hemorrhaging, prepare to secure the body, bring it to the local butcher, and make delicious sausage. And steaks. And burger. When life gives you a deer that screwed up, make venison sausage.
I realize this, which is why I don't use HTML email for personal business. Unfortunately I need to use if for my employer.
I don't understand why these barely evolved, hairless apes need fonts and colors and images to get a message across. (or even how the hell i wound up in the body of one)
I plan to do the same for the exact same reason.
If the Illuminati are that powerful, then: all I have to say is a Dr. Franklin Reuhl-style "ok, fine." Let the world burn, let the atomic bombs fall.
Some other form of intelligence will evolve in a billion years or so. There's still time. The fusion reactor known as Sol still has 3 billion good years left iirc. Hopefully it will be better than this broken species. I hope they'll unearth the ruins of our cities and meditate on our failure.
That's why we're focused on Trump and Sanders, dipshit.
I realize your intentions may be genuine. But that is why the focus is on Trump. And Sanders. Never forget the bleeding-heart libertarian candidate Sanders, no matter what the Illuminati pulls. He calls himself socialist. You are too small-minded to understand the connection between socialism and libertarianism.
Those are the only two [Trump and Sanders] that can prevent the ammo box from being necessary. I don't want the ammo box to be necessary. Even with Trump, the ammo box may turn into the full nuclear exchange box, and I don't want that. I don't want the year from hell, which I am beginning to prepare for. I have a small hope that Trump may even avert World War III.
Normally my charity is unconditional as long as I can give it. I will starve myself first, but I must be practical. The body can take starvation, but the banks will fuck you if you starve financially. Fucking demons on earth. Yet, if the bombs fall, my charity will be conditional as fucking hell, even if jdavidb disapproves the groups I will help save. Granted, our logic will probably align.
Dies irae, dies illa
Solvet saeclum in favilla,
Teste David cum Sibylla.
Alpine user here, too. Also Seamonkey at work. Anyone know of any news about what a Thunderbird end of life means for the Seamonkey project?
I'd use Claws-Mail if it supported HTML email properly. It can render HTML mail with a (bundled) plugin, but it can't compose it. That's a showstopper for using it at work. At home, it just looks ugly, and Alpine is sufficient for my personal needs.
I seriously loled at this hard.
omg. I just realized. Do you honestly believe this?
This is what bothers me about anarcho-libertarianism. The government is not a thief. Taxation by itself is not theft. Taxation buys us civilization: infrastructure, law enforcement, etc. The list of congressional powers enumerated in the Constitution of the USA is a good yardstick for what the founders believed the role of government was.
Articles of Confederation failed for a number of reasons, but it demonstrated that there is some minimum size for a functional government and hence a functional society.
Are there unconstitutional things being funded you don't agree with that contribute to your perception that you're being robbed at gunpoint when you pay a tax? If you want to argue that things like welfare programs are unconstitutional, I'd probably agree. Then I'd proceed to argue that those services are necessary and that the Constitution should have been amended. If you want to argue the EPA is unconstitutional, I'd probably agree and same thing, I'd argue there should be an amendment to give congress the power to create and fund something like the EPA. Times change.
Tariffs serve an important role in protecting the economy of a developed nation from the race to the bottom we see with outsourcing. That money doesn't evaporate. It's another source of funding for that minimum-sized government. They're part of buying civilization. The civilization gains more than the owner loses.
If you believe taxation is the equivalent of armed robbery, please, move somewhere else in the world where you won't be taxed. Isn't Somalia the go-to place that gets invoked here?
(Now, mind you, I will accept the argument that in a civilization with an uneducated population and a broken political system that uses its Constitution as toilet paper, perhaps that constitutes taxation without representation, which is theft.)
I knew something like this was going to happen. Bernie Sanders simply will not be allowed on the ballot by TPTB.
I'm still wondering what will happen to Trump. Then again, I would guess he's probably just a useful idiot to TPTB.
Ugh. This "argument."
#include <flamewars/taxonomy/usa_is_republic_not_democracy.h>
Wikipedia:
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a sovereign state in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population of over 1.35 billion.
China is a republic, not a communism!
What planet does that exist on?
I'm sending this from Sol 3, and when it's implemented it's not perfect but it works. I believe Sol 3 is called Earth. Please see this starmap for an overview.
A single-payer system might HIDE the true price
The data in terms of cost and outcomes for single payer systems vs. the insurance company/medicare/medicaid/social security/Planned Parenthood/charity/etc middle man system are available. Single payer costs less and has better outcomes, no matter what happens in your fantasy. From whom is this data being hidden?
I'm being obtuse. You mean that the price of specific procedures, drugs, and office visits is hidden from the patient at the time of delivery of the product/service. Would you help me to understand how the middle man system doesn't do that? I gather a bill arrives some time after the delivery of the product/service, but please help to me understand how the living fuck I'm supposed to find that out when I am at the doctor's office.
This would help me immensely as I will soon begin shopping around to get a procedure done, and as far as I can tell without actually phoning hospitals and my insurance up I need somewhere from between $500 to $3,000 to have this procedure done. Once complete, I will no longer need one of my meds. That med costs me close to $100 per month and is not covered by my insurance, so this procedure will pay for itself in time. I understand getting the information I need will be a complete pain in the ass because nobody at the hospital actually knows how much anything costs, further complicated by "religious objection!"
Note on "religious objection!" This didn't happen before Obamacare. I have religious objections of my own. I religiously object to paying for these things: birth control, viagra, vasectomies, and other optional things cisgendered people want (not need) that I never will. I don't want to pay for them. I live in a Just World where those things shouldn't be necessary. Cisgendered people religiously object to paying for health care services transgendered people need but they never will since they live in a Just World as well. Since democracy is 3 wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for dinner, and there are vastly more cisgendered people than transgendered people, I will always be at a disadvantage accessing the health care services cisgendered people have decided are immoral, and I will always be stuck paying for the health care services I've deemed immoral.*
I doubt single payer will ever solve that particular problem. In fact, that inherent conflict between the needs of a transgendered person and the "religious objection!" of cisgendered people was a big part of why I was a member of the Libertarian party for many moons. Now we have Obamacare, and I'm stuck subsidizing optional things cisgendered people need so they can have more sex. So, I've changed my mind. If that's the situation and if I can't get away from it, we need single payer instead of the current shit sandwich.
My taxes will go up? I don't give a damn. The health insurance I'm required to have is already effectively a tax, and fee I have to pay if I don't have it was contorted into being a tax! My taxes have already gone up! The health services I need will still get "religious objection!" under USA single payer? I don't give a damn! I'm already paying out of pocket! Have been for over a decade now!
In particular, I religiously object to being forced to pay middle men for a system that religiously objects me!
tl;dr [citation needed]
* Disclaimer for the sarcasm-impaired: I actually do want women to have access to contraception services. The pill is dirt cheap and saves money in the long run. If you believe the pill is murder, you're beyond my help. Also, the Just World is a fantasy.
+1
I get tired of seeing GP's "point" come up in these discussions. Any decent AI driver will follow the 5 keys of the Smith System.
#1: Aim high in steering, i.e. don't fixate on the car in front of you. Know what the car 5 and 10 cars ahead is doing. Know that the light 3 intersections down just turned green which means it'll probably be turning yellow by the time you get there.
#2: Get the big picture, i.e. what's cross-traffic look like, which vehicles are in your blind spots, how closely is the vehicle behind you following?
#3: Keep your eyes moving, i.e. feed data into #1 and #2 constantly. Keep your mental picture of road conditions and traffic constantly up to date.
#4: Leave yourself an out, i.e. travel in the middle lane if possible since that gives you the option of your out being on the left or right or even both. If you can't swerve off the road due to a ditch or concrete or other barrier, make sure you can swerve into the other lane. If you don't have an out, slow down a bit to create an out. I think stopping distance figures into this one. Always make sure you can stop in the space ahead of you if the car ahead slams on its brakes.
#5: Make sure they see you. The other keys are easy for an AI driver. This one here will be far more difficult until the vast majority of cars on the road are automated and can just use wireless to communicate with the other AI drivers. Maybe AI drivers can tell which human drivers have seen it by machine vision or don't need to based on sensor data. For human drivers, make eye contact with other drivers. If the other driver hasn't seen you, consider him a risk. Human drivers will have to simply trust that AI drivers see them, which I imagine will be quire unnerving.
I truly don't understand where these split second life or death driving decisions come from. If a driver finds himself having to make split second decisions to mash the gas pedal and swerve around to prevent collisions often and has to make choices to either slam into bus full of kids or to risk his own life, the problem is that driver.
Whoops. You're correct. I was thinking 90/94 and 55.
It's difficult to say without having the telemetry from every collision.
If the one incident I've seen the data from is the typical case, then hell no. The driver rear-ended a Google car stopped at a stoplight without even slowing down.
On the other hand, if we're talking about merging, then that's possibly no. I don't drive big truck anymore, but let's face it: four wheel drivers just can't figure it out.
Merging is a bit of a difficult case because you can't merge if you haven't matched the speed of traffic. (Well, you can try....) So if the Google AI is trying to merge say onto 80 in downtown Chicago and is attempting to do it at 45 mph, which is the posted speed limit for pretty much all freeways in downtown Chicago, it will fail. I'd say this is the one case where the AI should flat out ignore the speed limit. Perhaps add some kind of heuristic to determine when it's a good idea to ignore posted speed limits.
On the other hand, if the on-ramps where they're testing are anything like the on-ramps in LA, well, the merging strategy I learned was get up to speed on the ramp, make a split second decision because that's all the merge lane you get, and pray to $deity. (Maybe they need to figure out how to get an AI to pray to $deity!)
Then the next step: just wait until bears start harassing these things. Every other car's going 80 in a 45, so the bears start regularly pulling over the Google car or production model autonomous car doing 75 in the 45. That will be an interesting legal battle since big city traffic never drives at the posted speed limit.
I think what AC is trying to say here is that there's a lot of woo surrounding NoSQL, and that people who buy into that woo don't have a solid grounding or understanding about how computers work, hence security isn't even an afterthought for them.
As far as I can tell, NoSQL is basically a buzzword that means either key-value pair or document storage. (I'm certain there must be some edge case where Mongo or others are the correct answer, at least I hope so.) In the case of key-value pairs, why not just use PostgreSQL? In the case of document storage, why not just use one of these things called a filesystem?
So, you're correct: lack of security is not inherent to NoSQL; lack of critical thinking, experience, and in-depth knowledge about tech is. This pretty much gets back to why our information infrastructure just sucks in general. Computers are sufficiently advanced technology and are thus indistinguishable from magic. Put another way, pretty much everybody, even some people in tech, thinks computers are magickal palantirs powered by waldos used to project some kind of digital self into the nether realm of cyberspace, a place not Sheol, which can only be tamed by wizards.
Their idea of a cyber-security is having a wizard on hand who can shout at the evil hackers, who have equally mystical powers drawn from the foul evils of the burning hells, "You cannot pass! I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the Flame of Anor. The dark fire will not avail you, Flame of Udun! Go back to the shadow. You shall not pass!"
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
(Nicely done, btw, AC.)
Ah, came here to say the same thing. 20 years learning the ins and outs of this shit. And now you're telling me that everything I've learned, starting with procedural, then object-oriented, functional, aspect-oriented, etc can be learned in an hour?!
Not only that. Has he done a Linux from Scratch? Does he know how to put an operating system together?
I don't know. "I can't even" only begins to describe it.
Get out of tech. Just leave. I've encountered these same attitudes at my current job. "Oh hay, this person said, 'I wanna be a programmer!' so just train them!" I've been accused of sexism because this shit can't be learned in a one hour session every week in under, I don't know, the heat death of the universe.
Then I have to deal with a passive-aggressive airhead Millennial who's convinced I'm sexist and racist solely because of my assigned gender at birth!
I want to bring Countess Lovelace and Rear Admiral Hopper forward through time so that they can bitch-slap these assholes. I mean, are you kidding? Lovelace would give these assholes who go Everyone Can Code, You Sexist Cis Het Male! a hell of a tongue lashing. Have you read her Notes? I'm sure Hopper would be glad to strangle them with a nanosecond or two. Yeah, get me a time machine, I don't care if it's a phone booth-type or internal combustion-type, I'll go get them, and then we can listen to what they have to say about Everyone Can Code!
Does Obama or Cameron even fucking understand what Lovelace wrote in her Notes?!
Flipping burgers sounds like a better career at this point.
Do you know what Christian Identity is? I'm familiar with Southern Christian Identity. Basically here's a rundown of their beliefs.
1.) Caucasians are the lost tribe of Israel.
2.) Racially-based slavery is mandated by the Bible because some kid saw his dad naked and passed out drunk.
3.) Jesus is a great general/warlord that will come back at the end of days and lead the Caucasians in a massive jihad/ragnarok type thing and kill all the infidels. (Gee, if this coming was actually Muhammad, that might explain some things.)
4.) The freedom of religion thing only means freedom to be a Christian.
Hmm... sounds vaguely familiar. To be fair, this is not a popular interpretation of Genesis/Leviticus/Exodus/etc since most people prefer just to be completely irrational. It's just what's written in those books brought to its logical conclusion. Hint: Islam uses those books as well.
Oh, and btw, HAPPY SOLSTICE.
I swear, if I fucking hear that being told something other than "merry Christmas" constitutes oppression one more time!
Listen, I do not need Christians getting angry and screaming "MERRY CHRISTMAS" in my face for no fucking discernible reason whatsoever. Yes, this has happened, not just to me either. Just walking out of a store, minding my own fucking business then holyfuckingshitfightorflight?! Oh, just some guy screaming MERRY CHRISTMAS at me. No, I do not appreciate being screamed at by some angry asshole twice my size on a Merry Christmas jihad. I am considering getting a concealed carry permit because of Christians. I am a little tiny person, the kind of person the great equalizer is meant for.
Think about that next time you get your oppression complex on. Even just five years ago, somebody might calmly wish me a merry Christmas, and I probably would have wished them one back as well. But now Christians have decided that getting in my face, gesticulating and screaming something that's supposed to be a cheerful holiday greeting is going to be productive somehow. What the fuck is happening to this country, and what the fuck is wrong with people these days?
Let's hope that Christians are at least smart enough to merely scream in my face about some holiday or another. Lay a hand on me, and you might just find I'm packing heat.