I'm not so sure "all of them" will, and they don't even have to be altruistic in their thinking. At least a few will realize that by offering quality connections to ALL sites (i.e., maintaining the status quo) for the same or less than a competitor charges, they stand to gain more customers and make up for the difference in potential gains from charging content providers.
This story reminds me of a co-worker I used to have, who used to spout off completely worthless information. One day he decided to inform everyone that the history of the letter W was not in the dictionary, much to his dismay. Nobody was ever quite sure why he cared, let alone why he felt it necessary to verbalize his observations. I suspect he submitted this story as well.
Maybe, but I learned more watching 1 season of Rome on HBO than I've learned in the past few years of watching History Channel. I think, if the commercials are any indication, that their target audience is the people who were actually in WWII, and that probably has more to do with it than any amount of footage. Especially since later wars get little (Korea/Veitnam) to no (Gulf War I) coverage. Some of their documentaries are insightful though. For example, I had no idea that Teddy Roosevelt was responsible for cleaning up so much corruption, or that our government was much more disfunctional before he took office than it is presently. People (at least me) tend to think that the country was running pretty well aside from a little hiccup in the Civil War and the Great Depression, but those events didn't form in a vacuum. Anyway, it would be nice to see European, Asian, and ancient history more often than, for example, when some guy makes a movie about a gay guy with a secondary plot that happens to involve conquering half of the world.
You think that's bad? You should see what they've done to The Learning Channel.
We have a strange blend of Austrialian, asian, and American channels where I live, and I'm never quite sure which version of a particular channel I'm watching (although I'm certain we get Austrailian Discovery and US TLC), but the History Channel seems to have filled the void somewhat. At least on whichever version we get, Modern Marvels, Extreme Machines, and other shows focus on present or near-present developments rather than just looping WWII clips. Although my biggest gripe with the History channel is its disproportionate representation of the 20th century wars over, say, everything else that's ever happened, ever.
We were once willing to go nuclear to avoid secret prisons, torture, and indefinite detention. What happened?
McCarthyism, AKA human falliability, AKA repeating the same mistakes ad infinitum. Or did you make the same mistake as the rest of the general public and assume that we are facing new problems with superior decision making skills to the people who lived before us? Because I think we've made that mistake before too.
Civilizations have gotten so good at something (fishing, farming, etc) that they essentially ruined their local egosystem and quickly wiped out anywhere from 30% to 80% of their maximum population over the course of a civilizations rise and fall.
And we got better. Now we have fish farms, catch limits, etc. A short-term setback doesn't invalidate the concept of continual improvement; if anything it reinforces it.
Right, but he wanted to sort them first so he wasn't melting down post '82 pennies which have a face value greater than that of their metal content. While melting would be a necessary step, using it for sorting would be throwing the baby out with the bath water.
Actually, copper pennies weigh more than that; roughly 3.06 grams on average.
$2.1373/lb = $0.00471193993/gram $0.00471193993/gram x 3.06 grams/penny = $0.0144185362/penny So 100 pennies is $1.44 in copper But 71-82 pennies are 5% zinc, so more like $1.37
I didn't take into account the density of zinc and copper since I'm not sure if the 5% zinc content is by mass or by volume. Also, you're calculating extremely small values, so we shouldn't round up the price of copper (although the difference in mass turned out to be much more significant in this case).
It may seem anal, and having worked in the field of calibrated measurement for several years I can say that it's absolutely mind-numbing, but such measurements are the foundations of our economy.
However, this doesn't tell the whole story. With the added cost to the Federal Reserve System of handling pennies, the General Accounting Office calculated that in 1994, there was a net cost of $8.5 million to $9.2 million to the government to produce pennies.
However that doesn't tell the whole story either.. how many pennies were produced? $2M worth? $10M worth? $1?
I believe US currency is destroyed well before the end of its useful lifespan mainly to combat counterfeiting. In the counterfeit arms race, it may be trivial to reproduce a bill from 10 years ago. Destroying old currency means that you should take notice if a lot of older bills suddenly show up (and banks, casinos, and other large cash businesses do).
I've always thought Swedish meatballs would be a great form of currency, but I never thought any country would actually have the balls to go through with it. Kudos to New Zealand!
Right. As anyone who was around just over a decade ago, who browsed with NCSA Mosaic, and remembers www being just-another-prefix can attest, the Web Crawler was essential in making the web usable. The problem hasn't changed much since those days -- finding relevant content on independant servers -- although the task has certainly become more complex. A site which cannot be found will have little more effect than if it did not exist at all.
The author might have a valid point if, for example, there was a search-engine monopoly which extorted sites into paying for rank, however this is simply not the case. And since there is active competition, such a scenario seems unlikely. However, if I'm not mistaken, overcoming paid placement was one of the reasons Google was founded. If Google and Yahoo started to engage in that behavior, doubtless another startup would turn up to take their place. It could be argued that the exponential growth of the web would make it difficult for newcomers to enter the market, but that's no different than any other established industry. However, since no one company currently has a monopoly on the search engine business, it's hard to argue that search engines are benefitting disproportionately to their benefit, let alone that they are doing so at the expense of the sites they index.
Are you (incorrectly) implying that most visitors don't use Windows (they do), or that the Linux, FreeBSD, and OS X users are so fragile and delicate that we must avoid discussing anything that runs outside of these environments?
There is another trick that nuclear lobbyists often use to create fear. They create the unpleasant vision of turning off all the convential powerplants and then going after the alternatives which could not replace them at once and therefore would deprive us from our precious electricity.
You misunderstood my point, which is not that we'd be thrown back into the stone age, but that new technologies are better than old, and future technologies will be better than what we have now. In that respect, nuclear is safer than fire, and X will likely be safer than nuclear and coal, etc.
And, let's face it, the result looks like an industrial park.
I dunno, when I think industrial park, I think smokestacks, not something you'd expect to see in the middle of a tulip field. I bet the freaky-deaky Dutch complained about the "view pollution" from their windmills too. Or maybe they just enjoyed the benefits and realized that not every man made structure is inherently an abomination against nature.
Warning: Pregnant women, the elderly, and children should avoid prolonged exposure to windmills.
Caution: Windmills may suddenly accelerate to dangerous speeds.
Windmills contain a liquid core, which if exposed due to rupture should not be touched, inhaled, or looked at.
Do not use windmills on concrete.
Discontinue use of windmills if any of the following occurs:
* Itching
* Vertigo
* Dizziness
* Tingling in extremities
* Loss of balance or coordination
* Slurred speech
* Temporary blindness
* Profuse Sweating
or
* Heart palpitations
If windmills begin to smoke, get away immediately. Seek shelter and cover head.
Windills may stick to certain types of skin.
When not in use, windmills should be returned to their special containers and kept under refrigeration.
Failure to do so relieves the makers of windmills, Wacky Products Incorporated, and its parent company, Global Chemical Unlimited, of any and all liability.
Components of windmills include an unknown glowing substance which fell to Earth, presumably from outer space.
Windmills have been shipped to our troops in Saudi Arabia and are also being dropped by our warplanes on Iraq.
Do not taunt windmills.
Note: Posting references to jokes only ruins them.
Having lived in both environments (grown up in the suburbs of DC, and then moving to a rural area for school), I fully agree with you. When I first left the urban environment, I thought rural living was about hicks (it is) living in ignorance with their sibling-spouses (it's not). There's abosulutely something to be said for living in an environment free from the chaos and complexity (aka sophistication) that accompanies urban life. That said, I believe both are necessary for a strong country, and each tends to discredit and belittle the value of the other.
I believe (although I could be wrong) that his point was that radioactive pollution from coal isn't a much of a problem despite the fact that it's discharged into the atmosphere, therefore we have even less to worry about with nuclear pollution that's contained and safely stored. There's certainly validity to this argument, although the localized danger is likely much higher, but at least it's localized.
There was actually an excess of power during the California "crisis" as well, if you believe the reports about Enron. Supposedly they throttled production to create an artificial shortage, thereby increasing the value of energy futures. The documentary Enron: The Smartest Men in the Room was particularly revealing if it's true in any small portion, let alone in entirety.
Slashdot Mirror
Barring things that obviously hurt or abuse others, such as child porn or snuff films.
Or Gigli.
Don't you know all our politicians still swing in the direction of the highest dollar?
There. Fixed that for you.
10)...
9)...
8)...
7)...
6)...
5)...
4)...
3)...
2)...
1) (Anton, drum roll please):
You've never heard of Altavista.
I'm not so sure "all of them" will, and they don't even have to be altruistic in their thinking. At least a few will realize that by offering quality connections to ALL sites (i.e., maintaining the status quo) for the same or less than a competitor charges, they stand to gain more customers and make up for the difference in potential gains from charging content providers.
This story reminds me of a co-worker I used to have, who used to spout off completely worthless information. One day he decided to inform everyone that the history of the letter W was not in the dictionary, much to his dismay. Nobody was ever quite sure why he cared, let alone why he felt it necessary to verbalize his observations. I suspect he submitted this story as well.
Maybe, but I learned more watching 1 season of Rome on HBO than I've learned in the past few years of watching History Channel. I think, if the commercials are any indication, that their target audience is the people who were actually in WWII, and that probably has more to do with it than any amount of footage. Especially since later wars get little (Korea/Veitnam) to no (Gulf War I) coverage. Some of their documentaries are insightful though. For example, I had no idea that Teddy Roosevelt was responsible for cleaning up so much corruption, or that our government was much more disfunctional before he took office than it is presently. People (at least me) tend to think that the country was running pretty well aside from a little hiccup in the Civil War and the Great Depression, but those events didn't form in a vacuum. Anyway, it would be nice to see European, Asian, and ancient history more often than, for example, when some guy makes a movie about a gay guy with a secondary plot that happens to involve conquering half of the world.
You think that's bad? You should see what they've done to The Learning Channel.
We have a strange blend of Austrialian, asian, and American channels where I live, and I'm never quite sure which version of a particular channel I'm watching (although I'm certain we get Austrailian Discovery and US TLC), but the History Channel seems to have filled the void somewhat. At least on whichever version we get, Modern Marvels, Extreme Machines, and other shows focus on present or near-present developments rather than just looping WWII clips. Although my biggest gripe with the History channel is its disproportionate representation of the 20th century wars over, say, everything else that's ever happened, ever.
We were once willing to go nuclear to avoid secret prisons, torture, and indefinite detention. What happened?
McCarthyism, AKA human falliability, AKA repeating the same mistakes ad infinitum. Or did you make the same mistake as the rest of the general public and assume that we are facing new problems with superior decision making skills to the people who lived before us? Because I think we've made that mistake before too.
See also: History
Civilizations have gotten so good at something (fishing, farming, etc) that they essentially ruined their local egosystem and quickly wiped out anywhere from 30% to 80% of their maximum population over the course of a civilizations rise and fall.
And we got better. Now we have fish farms, catch limits, etc. A short-term setback doesn't invalidate the concept of continual improvement; if anything it reinforces it.
Right, but he wanted to sort them first so he wasn't melting down post '82 pennies which have a face value greater than that of their metal content. While melting would be a necessary step, using it for sorting would be throwing the baby out with the bath water.
Actually, copper pennies weigh more than that; roughly 3.06 grams on average.
$2.1373/lb = $0.00471193993/gram
$0.00471193993/gram x 3.06 grams/penny = $0.0144185362/penny
So 100 pennies is $1.44 in copper
But 71-82 pennies are 5% zinc, so more like $1.37
I didn't take into account the density of zinc and copper since I'm not sure if the 5% zinc content is by mass or by volume. Also, you're calculating extremely small values, so we shouldn't round up the price of copper (although the difference in mass turned out to be much more significant in this case).
It may seem anal, and having worked in the field of calibrated measurement for several years I can say that it's absolutely mind-numbing, but such measurements are the foundations of our economy.
However, this doesn't tell the whole story. With the added cost to the Federal Reserve System of handling pennies, the General Accounting Office calculated that in 1994, there was a net cost of $8.5 million to $9.2 million to the government to produce pennies.
However that doesn't tell the whole story either.. how many pennies were produced? $2M worth? $10M worth? $1?
I believe US currency is destroyed well before the end of its useful lifespan mainly to combat counterfeiting. In the counterfeit arms race, it may be trivial to reproduce a bill from 10 years ago. Destroying old currency means that you should take notice if a lot of older bills suddenly show up (and banks, casinos, and other large cash businesses do).
I've always thought Swedish meatballs would be a great form of currency, but I never thought any country would actually have the balls to go through with it. Kudos to New Zealand!
Right. As anyone who was around just over a decade ago, who browsed with NCSA Mosaic, and remembers www being just-another-prefix can attest, the Web Crawler was essential in making the web usable. The problem hasn't changed much since those days -- finding relevant content on independant servers -- although the task has certainly become more complex. A site which cannot be found will have little more effect than if it did not exist at all.
The author might have a valid point if, for example, there was a search-engine monopoly which extorted sites into paying for rank, however this is simply not the case. And since there is active competition, such a scenario seems unlikely. However, if I'm not mistaken, overcoming paid placement was one of the reasons Google was founded. If Google and Yahoo started to engage in that behavior, doubtless another startup would turn up to take their place. It could be argued that the exponential growth of the web would make it difficult for newcomers to enter the market, but that's no different than any other established industry. However, since no one company currently has a monopoly on the search engine business, it's hard to argue that search engines are benefitting disproportionately to their benefit, let alone that they are doing so at the expense of the sites they index.
Don't laugh at jokes, eh? 2006... Slashdot will add joke explanations soon, and any reader who tries not to get it will be banned from the system.
Now my bad skin can be quantified. Praise $diety.
a site of Linux, FreeBSD, and OS X users?
Are you (incorrectly) implying that most visitors don't use Windows (they do), or that the Linux, FreeBSD, and OS X users are so fragile and delicate that we must avoid discussing anything that runs outside of these environments?
Or are you just trolling?
DAMN IT!
-ATI
There is another trick that nuclear lobbyists often use to create fear. They create the unpleasant vision of turning off all the convential powerplants and then going after the alternatives which could not replace them at once and therefore would deprive us from our precious electricity.
You misunderstood my point, which is not that we'd be thrown back into the stone age, but that new technologies are better than old, and future technologies will be better than what we have now. In that respect, nuclear is safer than fire, and X will likely be safer than nuclear and coal, etc.
And, let's face it, the result looks like an industrial park.
I dunno, when I think industrial park, I think smokestacks, not something you'd expect to see in the middle of a tulip field. I bet the freaky-deaky Dutch complained about the "view pollution" from their windmills too. Or maybe they just enjoyed the benefits and realized that not every man made structure is inherently an abomination against nature.
Warning: Pregnant women, the elderly, and children should avoid prolonged exposure to windmills.
Caution: Windmills may suddenly accelerate to dangerous speeds.
Windmills contain a liquid core, which if exposed due to rupture should not be touched, inhaled, or looked at.
Do not use windmills on concrete.
Discontinue use of windmills if any of the following occurs:
* Itching
* Vertigo
* Dizziness
* Tingling in extremities
* Loss of balance or coordination
* Slurred speech
* Temporary blindness
* Profuse Sweating
or
* Heart palpitations
If windmills begin to smoke, get away immediately. Seek shelter and cover head.
Windills may stick to certain types of skin.
When not in use, windmills should be returned to their special containers and kept under refrigeration.
Failure to do so relieves the makers of windmills, Wacky Products Incorporated, and its parent company, Global Chemical Unlimited, of any and all liability.
Components of windmills include an unknown glowing substance which fell to Earth, presumably from outer space.
Windmills have been shipped to our troops in Saudi Arabia and are also being dropped by our warplanes on Iraq.
Do not taunt windmills.
Note: Posting references to jokes only ruins them.
Having lived in both environments (grown up in the suburbs of DC, and then moving to a rural area for school), I fully agree with you. When I first left the urban environment, I thought rural living was about hicks (it is) living in ignorance with their sibling-spouses (it's not). There's abosulutely something to be said for living in an environment free from the chaos and complexity (aka sophistication) that accompanies urban life. That said, I believe both are necessary for a strong country, and each tends to discredit and belittle the value of the other.
I believe (although I could be wrong) that his point was that radioactive pollution from coal isn't a much of a problem despite the fact that it's discharged into the atmosphere, therefore we have even less to worry about with nuclear pollution that's contained and safely stored. There's certainly validity to this argument, although the localized danger is likely much higher, but at least it's localized.
There was actually an excess of power during the California "crisis" as well, if you believe the reports about Enron. Supposedly they throttled production to create an artificial shortage, thereby increasing the value of energy futures. The documentary Enron: The Smartest Men in the Room was particularly revealing if it's true in any small portion, let alone in entirety.