Canada provides the majority of America's imported oil.
Canada is the largest source of imported oil for the US, but nowhere near the majority. More like 17%, according to the DOE, with Mexico and Saudi Arabia providing nearly as much.
The average American household uses 5 KW across the year.
No way. That would amount to over 43 MWh per year per household. According to the DOE, it's more like 11 MWh, or about 900 KWh per month.
Meanwhile, at 4 cents per kWh for the surcharge, that's 36 dollars a month, not 6. Still not a huge amount, but enough to be significant for some folks.
Not inherently. By my calculation this screen has a dot pitch of 4.5/sqrt(800^2+600^2)*25 = 0.1125
Actually, it's (4.5 * 25.4) / sqrt(1024^2 + 600^2) = 0.096 mm. Which, BTW, is over 263 dpi. With good antialiasing, text on this thing should be almost indistinguishable from print!
> First look? I saw one of these ages ago, back when they were called the Psion 5 (web link elided). Awright, the Psion didn't network at all
Which IMO renders it practically useless by 2006 standards. I've got a 5mx at home myself, but I never use it - it's just too much of a pain to move text to and from it.
> but it had a better keyboard
Marginally. You certainly couldn't touch-type on it. The tactile feedback was terrible; I always found myself looking at the screen to see whether a given keypress was actually registered.
> and the two double-A batteries that kept it running lasted over 3 months.
You forgot to mention the display that was virtually unreadable except in really bright light.
Come to think of it, the Revo/Mako was better than the 5mx for note-taking anyway. Excellent (if somewhat low-res) display, very bright and readable. The keyboard was smaller but had better feedback. But it had no networking capabilities either, so ultimately just as useless.
You know, I remember testing "Windows NT 5.0 Beta 2", and the desktop could barely draw itself, there were loads of icons missing, you couldn't run MS Office, the admin tools would bluescreen the box, and it took about 30 seconds to open the start menu. And I was thinking "They spent 4 years building THIS?" And that turned out to be Windows 2000, widely considered to be the least crap version of Windows ever.
Maybe a dumb question but - at what point in the process does MS stop releasing test versions with debug symbols/code enabled? Could that be why it's slow?
In Germany the roads were designed with much higher speeds in mind, and are kept in much better repair than US interstates, which were designed (outside of an urban area) for maximum speeds of 65-75 mph.
65-75 mph in what year? The year they were built? Cars keep getting safer, with better brakes, better tires, better suspensions - a typical family car built today can outperform a sports car from the '60s or '70s (and get better mileage to boot).
Either there's simply more focus on MS this year, or something is up -- why would they all be leaving prior to Vista's launch? Especially all of these "no comment" departures. Gates' reduction in responsibility makes sense, but these other guys seem to be in rather important roles ("head blogger," "exec responsible for Google competition," etc) and are bailing out.
Maybe they're leaving because Gates is leaving - they were getting close to or thinking about retirement anyway, and don't want to bother learning how to deal with a new boss/organization.
No, the OP was correct. The role of government is to handle the things that are necessary but do not profit anyone particularly enough to make it worth while in a capitalist sense (national security is one example, but also diplomacy, fire depts, etc.).
That's not what the OP said. He didn't say "necessary", he said "worth the expense". I agree with you; I do not agree with the OP. Who decides what is "worth the expense"? This is a much foggier, potentially abused concept than "necessary" (which I take to mean "necessary for the continued existence of a civilized society").
I would also say that the criterion should not be profitability (anything is "profitable" if it's necessary/mandatory and you charge enough for it), but the inability to provide it on the part of the marketplace or the people themselves. Defense, statecraft, police, courts, etc. fall into this category IMO, but also certain elements of infrastructure, (a) which are tied to the land, require rights-of-way, etc., and (b) whose utility derives at least in part from the fact there is only one of it, like our highway network, or railroad network, or electric grid, etc. You wouldn't want multiple, non-connected networks of streets running through your town, would you? Or four different transit systems, each of which only covers a certain set of stops? And if there can be only one of these things, then there's no room for competition, ergo no marketplace. So this arguably provides a justification for the government to control and maintain these infrastructural elements. But not necessarily forever - someday when we've all got jetpacks and flying cars, we won't need roads or transit systems, and so the government can get out of that business...
I'm sure the free vs pay controversy has been done to death here at/., but I still resent paying for content that was formerly free.
The reason the content was "free" before, is that you were the product, for which the advertisers were paying the radio station - your ears, glued to their ads.
Wow, you pay $15 a month to get commercial-free radio but Howard Stern still has commercials? That sucks.
The man has to go to the bathroom sometimes. And that really is pretty much the only reason they break - sometimes they go two hours or longer without any break. And it's $13, not $15. And I'd gladly pay twice as much (but don't tell Sirius that!).
What's the big deal about online gambling anyway? If you're not in Vegas, with a cigarette in one hand and a beer in the other, stinking from stripper body powder, trying to hold onto your last $25 chip at the $GAME table at the $CASINO (preferably either somewhere on Fremont St., or south of the Mirage), still awake at 9:30 am when your pals come by to collect you on their way to go shooting at The Gun Store on Tropicana, it just ain't gambling. Even Atlantic City barely cuts the mustard.
Would you care to explain the logic of that statement to me? Last time I checked a dictionary the key qualifications of a democracy were regular elections where the people chose their representatives either directly or indirectly. We have elections every two years over here (not everyone is up for election at this time though) and our representatives are all choosen directly (popular vote) except for the president (electoral college, indirect representation). So what does a two party system have to do with democracy in your view?
It makes it impossible for that "democracy" to truly represent the views and will of the people. It ends up representing 51% of the people, and screw the other 49%. That's not democracy, that's mob rule.
IMHO, the purpose of the criminal justice system is not to punish. Let that sink in. I don't want to punish criminals. It's stupid. It's vindictive. It's emotional and it isn't constructive.
What SHOULD be the purpose of the justice system? One thing, and one thing only:
To separate dangerous individuals from society, and keep them separated.
Totally with you so far. This stems from the notion the primary role of government is to defend the rights of its citizens, and also that it is not government's job to legislate morality, notions with which I totally agree.
Note, by "dangerous" I mean physicly harmful only. I don't mean, "they don't live like we think they should". I don't mean "they stole a lot of money". Yes. That's right. Thieves don't belong in jail unless they hurt people physicly. If the crime is monetary, there is an excellent argument for RESTITUTION in the form of fines and wage garnishment. There is no good argument for SEPARATION unless the guy waved a gun in somebody's face to get the money.
This, I don't buy. The three fundamental rights of a member of a civilized society, as stated by Locke and referenced numerous times in the Constitution, are "life, liberty, and property". Any action that violates any of those three rights is a threat to civilized society, and the perpetrator thereof should be separated from society in order to protect the people. Those three rights may not necessarily all be equally important, but they are all necessary and must be defended.
Where else are there 3 major airports within 50 miles of each other with a Bay between them? Where else are can you find enough land to support the millions of poorer people who live on the edges of the valley and take all the supporting jobs that the rich dont have to do, but are willing to pay someone else to do? Decent Mass-transit, Two major Colleges, a better freeway system then most places, AND better then average weather?
JFK, LaGuardia, Newark.
Long Island, northern New Jersey, Westchester/Rockland counties.
NYCTA, MTA, NJ Transit, LIRR, Amtrak.
Columbia, NYU, Polytechnic, Stevens, NJIT, NYIT, Cooper Union, Fordham, Pratt, Pace, etc.
On highways, it's probably a wash.
And OK, the weather's not as nice, but we don't get major earthquakes, mudslides, wildfires, etc.
So... how about New York? Oh, wait - then again, the NYC metro area is already a huge, rich, varied center for all kinds of technology...
ok this stereotype just really needs to fucking die. seriously. in case anyone hasn't fucking noticed, BOTH dialects of chinese(Mandarin AND Cantonese) have plenty of words comprised of the phonetic sounds of the letter L and quite in fact, Romanized Pinyin is littered with them.
take note: lai e (come on(loose translation)) lai lai(come come/(i'm) coming). this word has the same meaning in both dialects, mandarin and cantonese. another example: hao le (ok/so-so), le being a modifier and therefore quite commoly used. you fucking idiots that keep perpetuating this "Asian Stereotype" are just that. fucking idiots. This stereotype carries on from the Japanese language that was quite literaly devoid of a phonetic pronunciation for the letter L.
you're lack of understanding the differences between Aian cultures not only shows the need to revoke your "geek/nerd membership card", it also displays how undeserving you are of said title. and also exposes your willingness to make broad generalizations of other's cultures and ethnicities.
and no, i am not chinese....i am a typical American Mutt...the result of immigrant ancestors of Native American and Celtic/Germanic blood.
but alas, it takes less effort to lash out at things one is intimdated by than to take the time to learn.
Obviously at the time of writing, phone lines didn't exist, but it's reasonable to see that as an "effect" belonging to an individual.
The switches that route your call, and record the source/destination/time, do not belong to you; they belong to the phone company. The same could be said about a written letter - the letter and its verbal content are yours, but the information about where the letter came from and where it is going are necessarily shared with the Postal Service, which then possesses that information and can do with it as it pleases.
Slashdot Mirror
...the last time a bunch of doctors thought they cured Alzheimer's, Stellan Skarsgard got his arm bit off by a super-intelligent shark.
Canada provides the majority of America's imported oil.
Canada is the largest source of imported oil for the US, but nowhere near the majority. More like 17%, according to the DOE, with Mexico and Saudi Arabia providing nearly as much.
The average American household uses 5 KW across the year.
No way. That would amount to over 43 MWh per year per household. According to the DOE, it's more like 11 MWh, or about 900 KWh per month.
Meanwhile, at 4 cents per kWh for the surcharge, that's 36 dollars a month, not 6. Still not a huge amount, but enough to be significant for some folks.
If you keep it in your front pocket, do you still call it your Linux box?
Well, is that a Linux box in your pocket, or...
Not inherently. By my calculation this screen has a dot pitch of 4.5/sqrt(800^2+600^2)*25 = 0.1125
Actually, it's (4.5 * 25.4) / sqrt(1024^2 + 600^2) = 0.096 mm. Which, BTW, is over 263 dpi. With good antialiasing, text on this thing should be almost indistinguishable from print!
> First look? I saw one of these ages ago, back when they were called the Psion 5 (web link elided). Awright, the Psion didn't network at all
Which IMO renders it practically useless by 2006 standards. I've got a 5mx at home myself, but I never use it - it's just too much of a pain to move text to and from it.
> but it had a better keyboard
Marginally. You certainly couldn't touch-type on it. The tactile feedback was terrible; I always found myself looking at the screen to see whether a given keypress was actually registered.
> and the two double-A batteries that kept it running lasted over 3 months.
You forgot to mention the display that was virtually unreadable except in really bright light.
Come to think of it, the Revo/Mako was better than the 5mx for note-taking anyway. Excellent (if somewhat low-res) display, very bright and readable. The keyboard was smaller but had better feedback. But it had no networking capabilities either, so ultimately just as useless.
What other applications could this have besides boot time?
How 'bout really rugged environments, embedded systems, etc. Flash is useful here but is sometimes hampered by the limited number of write cycles.
You know, I remember testing "Windows NT 5.0 Beta 2", and the desktop could barely draw itself, there were loads of icons missing, you couldn't run MS Office, the admin tools would bluescreen the box, and it took about 30 seconds to open the start menu. And I was thinking "They spent 4 years building THIS?" And that turned out to be Windows 2000, widely considered to be the least crap version of Windows ever.
Maybe a dumb question but - at what point in the process does MS stop releasing test versions with debug symbols/code enabled? Could that be why it's slow?
Then why do I always feel slightly dumber after talking on one of the damn things?
Maybe you should get some smarter friends. (Or some dumber ones.)
In Germany the roads were designed with much higher speeds in mind, and are kept in much better repair than US interstates, which were designed (outside of an urban area) for maximum speeds of 65-75 mph.
65-75 mph in what year? The year they were built? Cars keep getting safer, with better brakes, better tires, better suspensions - a typical family car built today can outperform a sports car from the '60s or '70s (and get better mileage to boot).
Gone is the deafening WHEEEEE-WHEEEEEE-WHEEEEEE of the dot matrix printer.
Enh. It paled in comparison to the CLACK-CLACK-CLACK of teletypes and daisy-wheel printers (yes, I had one).
Either there's simply more focus on MS this year, or something is up -- why would they all be leaving prior to Vista's launch? Especially all of these "no comment" departures. Gates' reduction in responsibility makes sense, but these other guys seem to be in rather important roles ("head blogger," "exec responsible for Google competition," etc) and are bailing out.
Maybe they're leaving because Gates is leaving - they were getting close to or thinking about retirement anyway, and don't want to bother learning how to deal with a new boss/organization.
No, the OP was correct. The role of government is to handle the things that are necessary but do not profit anyone particularly enough to make it worth while in a capitalist sense (national security is one example, but also diplomacy, fire depts, etc.).
That's not what the OP said. He didn't say "necessary", he said "worth the expense". I agree with you; I do not agree with the OP. Who decides what is "worth the expense"? This is a much foggier, potentially abused concept than "necessary" (which I take to mean "necessary for the continued existence of a civilized society").
I would also say that the criterion should not be profitability (anything is "profitable" if it's necessary/mandatory and you charge enough for it), but the inability to provide it on the part of the marketplace or the people themselves. Defense, statecraft, police, courts, etc. fall into this category IMO, but also certain elements of infrastructure, (a) which are tied to the land, require rights-of-way, etc., and (b) whose utility derives at least in part from the fact there is only one of it, like our highway network, or railroad network, or electric grid, etc. You wouldn't want multiple, non-connected networks of streets running through your town, would you? Or four different transit systems, each of which only covers a certain set of stops? And if there can be only one of these things, then there's no room for competition, ergo no marketplace. So this arguably provides a justification for the government to control and maintain these infrastructural elements. But not necessarily forever - someday when we've all got jetpacks and flying cars, we won't need roads or transit systems, and so the government can get out of that business...
The designs, the quality controls, and the production processes all come from Japan
...thanks to William Edwards Deming, an American (who, unfortunately, was largely ignored in his home country).
In other news, man quenches thirst by filling cup with water, then pouring water into mouth.
I'm sure the free vs pay controversy has been done to death here at
The reason the content was "free" before, is that you were the product, for which the advertisers were paying the radio station - your ears, glued to their ads.
Wow, you pay $15 a month to get commercial-free radio but Howard Stern still has commercials? That sucks.
The man has to go to the bathroom sometimes. And that really is pretty much the only reason they break - sometimes they go two hours or longer without any break. And it's $13, not $15. And I'd gladly pay twice as much (but don't tell Sirius that!).
What's the big deal about online gambling anyway? If you're not in Vegas, with a cigarette in one hand and a beer in the other, stinking from stripper body powder, trying to hold onto your last $25 chip at the $GAME table at the $CASINO (preferably either somewhere on Fremont St., or south of the Mirage), still awake at 9:30 am when your pals come by to collect you on their way to go shooting at The Gun Store on Tropicana, it just ain't gambling. Even Atlantic City barely cuts the mustard.
Would you care to explain the logic of that statement to me? Last time I checked a dictionary the key qualifications of a democracy were regular elections where the people chose their representatives either directly or indirectly. We have elections every two years over here (not everyone is up for election at this time though) and our representatives are all choosen directly (popular vote) except for the president (electoral college, indirect representation). So what does a two party system have to do with democracy in your view?
It makes it impossible for that "democracy" to truly represent the views and will of the people. It ends up representing 51% of the people, and screw the other 49%. That's not democracy, that's mob rule.
Totally with you so far. This stems from the notion the primary role of government is to defend the rights of its citizens, and also that it is not government's job to legislate morality, notions with which I totally agree.
This, I don't buy. The three fundamental rights of a member of a civilized society, as stated by Locke and referenced numerous times in the Constitution, are "life, liberty, and property". Any action that violates any of those three rights is a threat to civilized society, and the perpetrator thereof should be separated from society in order to protect the people. Those three rights may not necessarily all be equally important, but they are all necessary and must be defended.
You don't happen to fly out of McCarran, on a plane with call sign "JANET", do ya?
Where else are there 3 major airports within 50 miles of each other with a Bay between them? Where else are can you find enough land to support the millions of poorer people who live on the edges of the valley and take all the supporting jobs that the rich dont have to do, but are willing to pay someone else to do? Decent Mass-transit, Two major Colleges, a better freeway system then most places, AND better then average weather?
JFK, LaGuardia, Newark.
Long Island, northern New Jersey, Westchester/Rockland counties.
NYCTA, MTA, NJ Transit, LIRR, Amtrak.
Columbia, NYU, Polytechnic, Stevens, NJIT, NYIT, Cooper Union, Fordham, Pratt, Pace, etc.
On highways, it's probably a wash.
And OK, the weather's not as nice, but we don't get major earthquakes, mudslides, wildfires, etc.
So... how about New York? Oh, wait - then again, the NYC metro area is already a huge, rich, varied center for all kinds of technology...
[blockquote]Gah-damn Mongorians![/blockquote]
ok this stereotype just really needs to fucking die. seriously. in case anyone hasn't fucking noticed, BOTH dialects of chinese(Mandarin AND Cantonese) have plenty of words comprised of the phonetic sounds of the letter L and quite in fact, Romanized Pinyin is littered with them.
take note: lai e (come on(loose translation)) lai lai(come come/(i'm) coming). this word has the same meaning in both dialects, mandarin and cantonese. another example: hao le (ok/so-so), le being a modifier and therefore quite commoly used.
you fucking idiots that keep perpetuating this "Asian Stereotype" are just that. fucking idiots. This stereotype carries on from the Japanese language that was quite literaly devoid of a phonetic pronunciation for the letter L.
you're lack of understanding the differences between Aian cultures not only shows the need to revoke your "geek/nerd membership card", it also displays how undeserving you are of said title. and also exposes your willingness to make broad generalizations of other's cultures and ethnicities.
and no, i am not chinese....i am a typical American Mutt...the result of immigrant ancestors of Native American and Celtic/Germanic blood.
but alas, it takes less effort to lash out at things one is intimdated by than to take the time to learn.
It's a South Park reference. Lighten the fuck up.
Gah-damn Mongorians!
Obviously at the time of writing, phone lines didn't exist, but it's reasonable to see that as an "effect" belonging to an individual.
The switches that route your call, and record the source/destination/time, do not belong to you; they belong to the phone company. The same could be said about a written letter - the letter and its verbal content are yours, but the information about where the letter came from and where it is going are necessarily shared with the Postal Service, which then possesses that information and can do with it as it pleases.