"Bird Flu Drug Mass Production Technique Discovered"
Er, no, it was invented. Unless you think that all knowledge is lurking out in in the magicsphere just waiting for someone to stumble over it. In which case, can we eliminate the patent office, please?
On an old WinME laptop, the only virus I ever had on it was Norton AntiVirus.
I worked on a consulting job two years ago, and they told me I could use my own PC. No problem - except that, when I got there, they wanted to check it for virii. In an XP world, I was running Windows ME. So they loaded up Norton on my machine, and ran it for about 3 hours.
Result? Nothing. No junk of any kind. Completely clean.
Why? It helped that I had the free version of Zone Alarm, and the firewall on my DSL router definitely helped, but I think the biggest reason I had no problems was
- Mozilla instead of IE - Eudora instead of Outlook.
Completely clean, that is, except for the antivirus. That monster kept interrupting my work. It took a great deal of effort to get the beast out of my system.
I don't go to the theater because the theater experience sucks.
Actually, I go to movies in the afternoon, and after it's been around a few days. I can usually avoid the noisy assholes, and I don't throw away money on sugar water and sludge. And yet, there is a part of the theater experience that sucks. That part is what comes before the movie.
Has everyone gone deaf? I can stand outside the door, and I can not only hear the commercials, I can FEEL them. How can anyone tolerate it? Yet people stroll in as though they're walking into a library.
Because of this, and the high prices even for the "matinee", a movie has to be pretty good before I'll consider going to see it. Right now, there isn't a single movie in town that interests me.
I wonder how accurate either of those percentages is. Can we really know who has gotten either disease? Or is it a SWAG both ways? Isn't it possible that people are getting the current bird flu, and recovering without ever knowing they had bird flu? Maybe an epidemiologist could explain the statistical methodology.
(BTW, those specials about pandemics were great. Scary and compelling.)
How about we stop providing public financing (tax dollars) for private organizations (political parties)? If the party organizations want to hold a "primary", fine, let 'em. Just don't let that be relevant to the voting for office. Establish reasonable rules for getting on the ballot, and use instant-runoff voting. Voila! Parties instantly don't matter, and the whole concept of "throwing away your vote" by voting for a "third" party becomes obsolete.
Syncing abysmal? You're way too kind. After years, I finally decided that I would never again try to sync up my Palm to my Mac. Screw it. Add to that the interesting little trait I've encountered whereby the Palm screen sometimes seems to think that I'm clicking away at it, when I'm not touching it at all. Kind of the hardware version of Slashdotting. You can't get in, you can't turn it off, you can only watch it go nuts.
No more Palm for me. I'll stick with a tiny little notepad that fits in my shirt pocket without dragging it down to my bellybutton. It gets the job done, and I never have to recharge it.
Wish I were that lucky. My 12-inch Powerbook, so perfect when I bought it, was dropped on a corner by brain-dead TSA drones. Now the corner is dinged up. Only good thing is, it looks like I could probably bang it back into shape.
Still, it works fine. And, after replacing the battery, my generation 1 iPod is still going strong. And the Cube. And the bluetooth mouse, which I've dropped a couple of times.
When I got a Cube, I freaked out at a scratch that looked to be the start of a complete cracking of the case. I raised hell with Apple, and they sent me a new case. It had a similar scratch. Disappointed doesn't even begin to describe the way I felt. Yet I continued using it, and have always liked the way it looks.
I still have the Cube. That scratch (?) is still there. It didn't get bigger. Every time I'd started thinking about finding a quiet PC, or installing Linux, I'd look at the Cube and think, hey I already have it.
And Apple stopped making Cubes. Yeah, they were ridiculously overpriced, but maybe Apple did too good a job - it looked so good that people wouldn't accept any flaws.
I ran into a technical detail that would definitely deter some companies from moving to Firefox. I was disappointed to discover that I can't use innerHTML the way I want for my site. It works fine in Safari, as well as in (gack!) IE, but not in Firefox. I don't see any other decent way to provide the dynamic characteristics I need, so I'm left with telling people that they'll have to use IE when on Windows. (And what do the Linux folks do?)
Not that any companies are likely to be affected by _my_ website, but I also noted the use of innerHTML in a commercial product I was just working with. I'd love to see Firefox changed, so I wouldn't have to point people to IE. Too bad I'm clueless when it comes to the programming for Firefox.
anyone trying to score poliltical points in either direction on the back of this disaster should be taken out back for summary execution.
I guess you'll be starting the shooting any time now. I think your understanding of "political" is flawed. It was politics that led to the destruction of the Mississippi. It was politics that led to the destruction of the wetlands, and the idiotic construction right in the most dangerous areas. It was politics to dig canals right through New Orleans, thus dramatically increasing the risk of broken levees. It's certainly politics to propose the killings of people for saying something with which you disagree.
For people to speak out about incompetence, indifference, and horrible decisions is entirely proper. Politics is life.
brought to you by the human species. I've been saying for years now that we're murdering the world, but I didn't realize just how bad it could be. 95% of all species. Gone. Of course, it could be not that bad. Or it could be worse.
We're the idiots on the mountaintop pushing rocks down the mountain - and triggering a massive landslide.
I think it's a lost cause. Just accept that they're lying to you, and get on with your life. You'll be one of the diminishing group that know what you're actually getting when you buy a hard drive. Even with this cheap lie, the price of storage has become amazingly low.
Hey, it could be worse. I had an IT director once who said "bytes" when he was really talking about "bits". When I pointed it out, he acted like it was trivia. Hey, it's only an 8x difference, who's gonna notice, right? (promotion? LOL)
1. quality of the movie. If it sucks, I ain't goin'. Include here also unnecessary special effects, and intentionally jerky or fuzzed-out choreography. Worst example I've seen to date: The Bourne Supremacy. Let's start a line to kick director Greengrass in the ass for transforming what could have been a very good movie into unwatchable crap. 2. Noise. Listen up, movie people - I'M NOT DEAF! Although I would be if I went into the theater while you were engaging in shock troop sonic crowd control while showing commercials and previews. 3. Commercials. I pay money so you can show me a bunch of BELLOWING commercials? No. I stand outside the door until they're done, put in my earplugs (the movies themselves are still too loud), and then go in. How do I know when they're done? Easy. I can _feel_ the noise from 50 feet away. So it had better be a really good movie before I go through this hassle. 4. Crappy and intrusive soundtracks. Not meaningful music, but the shrieking just for the sake of making noise. Just shut up already so I can watch the movie. If I wanted to listen to irrelevant music all through the movie, I'd bring along my iPod. Although, to be fair, it seems like crappy music also gets added to the DVD, that wasn't in the original.
Yeah, you're right. I don't go to see many movies any more. Last one I saw was March of the Penguins - and I'd have preferred it without the narration.
But what the heck does that mean? "Only a portion"? There's nothing in the article to explain how they determined that it was "faster than light", or why an FTL event would be irrelevant if it only affected a portion of the signal. Is this just another of those perception games, or did light actually go faster than it's assumed maximum?
Also, Octavia Butler writes what seems, from my male perspective, like science fiction based on a woman's perspective. Not that teddy-bear fantasy crap, but serious speculation arising from the view of a bearer of children and nurturer of life. Could a man have imagined a situation where men CAN'T impregnate a woman without alien involvement? I certainly wouldn't have.
I've paid little attention to where a writer is from, I just revel in the superb work that's being done these days. Yes, China Mieville evokes a bizarre London, but I'm finishing up Singularity Sky from Stross, and it doesn't seem particularly "British". As for Alistair Reynolds, Dan Simmons, George RR Martin, Peter F Hamilton, and many others, as long as they keep producing brilliant works, I'll keep reading.
I've been with Speakeasy ever since Telocity bit the dust. They seem pretty high to me, but when I look into other options, I realize they really aren't. What's outrageous is that they're ALL ludicrously high, when compared to service in some Asian countries. And especially when compared to muni wifi, which the telcos are assiduously making illegal via their polihos.
The service is excellent. The techs know what they're doing, and they don't start getting weird if you're not using Windows. The biggest problem I've had is that they stop billing me when I get a new credit card to replace one that expired. That took months to work out the last time it happened.
So, in other words, I'm complaining that they wouldn't take my money. Yeah. I'm crazy.
No, I'm not talking about me complaining. I'm talking about the various sounds that many people don't even notice. I've encountered CRTs that produced a high-frequency sound that causes a headache in some people - and can't even be heard by many people. And my Mac Cube - fanless, supposedly silent, with a quiet Seagate disk drive - produces a very high-frequency sound. I can barely hear it, but I can FEEL it. And when I power down the machine, the absence of that whine is like the stopping of a dentists drill; A tension you may not have realized is there disappears immediately.
I don't even turn on my PC these days. I use my Powerbook almost exclusively. Yes, the fan comes on sometimes, but it doesn't bother me as much as the high-frequency sounds.
Slashdot Mirror
Forestry research papers? I missed that one. Care to enlighten me?
"Bird Flu Drug Mass Production Technique Discovered"
Er, no, it was invented. Unless you think that all knowledge is lurking out in in the magicsphere just waiting for someone to stumble over it. In which case, can we eliminate the patent office, please?
I see that, in the fine tradition of Slashdot, you read neither the referenced article, nor the comment that pointed out the increase in intensity.
Let's make a deal:
When the lone hurricane of 2006 strikes Florida at Category 6 intensity, that you'll be surfing there where the eyewall arrives.
On an old WinME laptop, the only virus I ever had on it was Norton AntiVirus.
I worked on a consulting job two years ago, and they told me I could use my own PC. No problem - except that, when I got there, they wanted to check it for virii. In an XP world, I was running Windows ME. So they loaded up Norton on my machine, and ran it for about 3 hours.
Result? Nothing. No junk of any kind. Completely clean.
Why? It helped that I had the free version of Zone Alarm, and the firewall on my DSL router definitely helped, but I think the biggest reason I had no problems was
- Mozilla instead of IE
- Eudora instead of Outlook.
Completely clean, that is, except for the antivirus. That monster kept interrupting my work. It took a great deal of effort to get the beast out of my system.
I don't go to the theater because the theater experience sucks.
Actually, I go to movies in the afternoon, and after it's been around a few days. I can usually avoid the noisy assholes, and I don't throw away money on sugar water and sludge. And yet, there is a part of the theater experience that sucks. That part is what comes before the movie.
Has everyone gone deaf? I can stand outside the door, and I can not only hear the commercials, I can FEEL them. How can anyone tolerate it? Yet people stroll in as though they're walking into a library.
Because of this, and the high prices even for the "matinee", a movie has to be pretty good before I'll consider going to see it. Right now, there isn't a single movie in town that interests me.
Shouldn't Bush's brain slug have starved to death by now? (poor fella).
.... by the drug mob to boost .....
Ya got that right!
I wonder how accurate either of those percentages is. Can we really know who has gotten either disease? Or is it a SWAG both ways? Isn't it possible that people are getting the current bird flu, and recovering without ever knowing they had bird flu? Maybe an epidemiologist could explain the statistical methodology.
(BTW, those specials about pandemics were great. Scary and compelling.)
How about we stop providing public financing (tax dollars) for private organizations (political parties)? If the party organizations want to hold a "primary", fine, let 'em. Just don't let that be relevant to the voting for office. Establish reasonable rules for getting on the ballot, and use instant-runoff voting. Voila! Parties instantly don't matter, and the whole concept of "throwing away your vote" by voting for a "third" party becomes obsolete.
Yeah, well, drinking this stuff will mark you as a Starbuckin' weenie; hoity-toity character, and no alcohol.
Syncing abysmal? You're way too kind. After years, I finally decided that I would never again try to sync up my Palm to my Mac. Screw it. Add to that the interesting little trait I've encountered whereby the Palm screen sometimes seems to think that I'm clicking away at it, when I'm not touching it at all. Kind of the hardware version of Slashdotting. You can't get in, you can't turn it off, you can only watch it go nuts.
No more Palm for me. I'll stick with a tiny little notepad that fits in my shirt pocket without dragging it down to my bellybutton. It gets the job done, and I never have to recharge it.
Now all I need is a pocket protector.
Wish I were that lucky. My 12-inch Powerbook, so perfect when I bought it, was dropped on a corner by brain-dead TSA drones. Now the corner is dinged up. Only good thing is, it looks like I could probably bang it back into shape.
Still, it works fine. And, after replacing the battery, my generation 1 iPod is still going strong. And the Cube. And the bluetooth mouse, which I've dropped a couple of times.
Not so bad.
When I got a Cube, I freaked out at a scratch that looked to be the start of a complete cracking of the case. I raised hell with Apple, and they sent me a new case. It had a similar scratch. Disappointed doesn't even begin to describe the way I felt. Yet I continued using it, and have always liked the way it looks.
I still have the Cube. That scratch (?) is still there. It didn't get bigger. Every time I'd started thinking about finding a quiet PC, or installing Linux, I'd look at the Cube and think, hey I already have it.
And Apple stopped making Cubes. Yeah, they were ridiculously overpriced, but maybe Apple did too good a job - it looked so good that people wouldn't accept any flaws.
Maybe the Nano is just too cute.
I ran into a technical detail that would definitely deter some companies from moving to Firefox. I was disappointed to discover that I can't use innerHTML the way I want for my site. It works fine in Safari, as well as in (gack!) IE, but not in Firefox. I don't see any other decent way to provide the dynamic characteristics I need, so I'm left with telling people that they'll have to use IE when on Windows. (And what do the Linux folks do?)
Not that any companies are likely to be affected by _my_ website, but I also noted the use of innerHTML in a commercial product I was just working with. I'd love to see Firefox changed, so I wouldn't have to point people to IE. Too bad I'm clueless when it comes to the programming for Firefox.
Hard to really know, but it doesn't look like it was that bloody.
anyone trying to score poliltical points in either direction on the back of this disaster should be taken out back for summary execution.
I guess you'll be starting the shooting any time now. I think your understanding of "political" is flawed. It was politics that led to the destruction of the Mississippi. It was politics that led to the destruction of the wetlands, and the idiotic construction right in the most dangerous areas. It was politics to dig canals right through New Orleans, thus dramatically increasing the risk of broken levees. It's certainly politics to propose the killings of people for saying something with which you disagree.
For people to speak out about incompetence, indifference, and horrible decisions is entirely proper. Politics is life.
brought to you by the human species. I've been saying for years now that we're murdering the world, but I didn't realize just how bad it could be. 95% of all species. Gone. Of course, it could be not that bad. Or it could be worse.
We're the idiots on the mountaintop pushing rocks down the mountain - and triggering a massive landslide.
I think it's a lost cause. Just accept that they're lying to you, and get on with your life. You'll be one of the diminishing group that know what you're actually getting when you buy a hard drive. Even with this cheap lie, the price of storage has become amazingly low.
Hey, it could be worse. I had an IT director once who said "bytes" when he was really talking about "bits". When I pointed it out, he acted like it was trivia. Hey, it's only an 8x difference, who's gonna notice, right? (promotion? LOL)
1. quality of the movie. If it sucks, I ain't goin'. Include here also unnecessary special effects, and intentionally jerky or fuzzed-out choreography. Worst example I've seen to date: The Bourne Supremacy. Let's start a line to kick director Greengrass in the ass for transforming what could have been a very good movie into unwatchable crap.
2. Noise. Listen up, movie people - I'M NOT DEAF! Although I would be if I went into the theater while you were engaging in shock troop sonic crowd control while showing commercials and previews.
3. Commercials. I pay money so you can show me a bunch of BELLOWING commercials? No. I stand outside the door until they're done, put in my earplugs (the movies themselves are still too loud), and then go in. How do I know when they're done? Easy. I can _feel_ the noise from 50 feet away. So it had better be a really good movie before I go through this hassle.
4. Crappy and intrusive soundtracks. Not meaningful music, but the shrieking just for the sake of making noise. Just shut up already so I can watch the movie. If I wanted to listen to irrelevant music all through the movie, I'd bring along my iPod. Although, to be fair, it seems like crappy music also gets added to the DVD, that wasn't in the original.
Yeah, you're right. I don't go to see many movies any more. Last one I saw was March of the Penguins - and I'd have preferred it without the narration.
But what the heck does that mean? "Only a portion"? There's nothing in the article to explain how they determined that it was "faster than light", or why an FTL event would be irrelevant if it only affected a portion of the signal. Is this just another of those perception games, or did light actually go faster than it's assumed maximum?
signal:noise? So does this dominance by the British constitute A Signal Shattered (Eric Nylund)?
Also, Octavia Butler writes what seems, from my male perspective, like science fiction based on a woman's perspective. Not that teddy-bear fantasy crap, but serious speculation arising from the view of a bearer of children and nurturer of life. Could a man have imagined a situation where men CAN'T impregnate a woman without alien involvement? I certainly wouldn't have.
This white male respects her highly.
I've paid little attention to where a writer is from, I just revel in the superb work that's being done these days. Yes, China Mieville evokes a bizarre London, but I'm finishing up Singularity Sky from Stross, and it doesn't seem particularly "British". As for Alistair Reynolds, Dan Simmons, George RR Martin, Peter F Hamilton, and many others, as long as they keep producing brilliant works, I'll keep reading.
I've been with Speakeasy ever since Telocity bit the dust. They seem pretty high to me, but when I look into other options, I realize they really aren't. What's outrageous is that they're ALL ludicrously high, when compared to service in some Asian countries. And especially when compared to muni wifi, which the telcos are assiduously making illegal via their polihos.
The service is excellent. The techs know what they're doing, and they don't start getting weird if you're not using Windows. The biggest problem I've had is that they stop billing me when I get a new credit card to replace one that expired. That took months to work out the last time it happened.
So, in other words, I'm complaining that they wouldn't take my money. Yeah. I'm crazy.
No, I'm not talking about me complaining. I'm talking about the various sounds that many people don't even notice. I've encountered CRTs that produced a high-frequency sound that causes a headache in some people - and can't even be heard by many people. And my Mac Cube - fanless, supposedly silent, with a quiet Seagate disk drive - produces a very high-frequency sound. I can barely hear it, but I can FEEL it. And when I power down the machine, the absence of that whine is like the stopping of a dentists drill; A tension you may not have realized is there disappears immediately.
I don't even turn on my PC these days. I use my Powerbook almost exclusively. Yes, the fan comes on sometimes, but it doesn't bother me as much as the high-frequency sounds.