Microsoft said it would take a $550 million charge before taxes against earnings in the current fiscal quarter if the court approves the pact.
So the company also counts this as a loss from earnings, despite the fact that it is softmoney, resulting in stock holders getting less earnings per share for the quarter. I suspect in response the stockholders will file a class action suit against MS for earnings shortcomings in an ironic display of legal recursion.
Micron service and support for their PCs has always been absolutely incredible. I've purchased about a dozen PCs from them over the last 6 years, mostly becuase of the support that I received early on when a couple of machines had issues. They have never been difficult to work with, contact or resolve problems through. This may be why MicronPC is having problems and is being (has been?) sold.
Honestly, I have called so many other support lines and just wanted to crawl through the phone line to throttle the person at the other side...assuming there is a person there. MicronPC: "Your blue gun is out on your monitor? 17"? That'll ship out tomorrow with a return UPS label." Seriously.
For the sake of balance: HP printer and scanner support is horrible. Sony CD-ROM support is worse than a joke (1.5 month return time). If Comtrade still exists they are all that is evil in the world. ATT@Home customer service is actually a level of hell, thinly veiled. Diamond MM is slow, and I have mixed feelings on Dell. They seem to get the job done, but it is a little more painful that Micron.
I don't believe it *is* something else. I think it is just terribly inconvient for 1 million people. There is no threshold where I consider it equivalent to my wife being blown up.
1) Your wife and son are sitting in front of a cafe having lunch. You head to an ATM to get some cash to pay for lunch. A car bomb blows up in front of the cafe killing your wife and son.
2) Your wife and son are sitting in front of a cafe having lunch. You head to an ATM to get some cash to pay for lunch. A hacker has somehow managed to steal all of the money from your checking account.
Only one of these scenarios inspires terror. Legislators and business persons need to maintain a sense of perspective here. Hacking does not by itself terrify.
It is honestly shameful that corporations are playing off the fears of the public brought on by 9/11 to promote their own political agendas. By equating hacking with terrorism, they belittle the event.
You are correct ANONYMOUS COWARD. Thank you for pointing out my minor error. It is nice to see that you have the time to hide behind anonymity, pointing out insignificant errors, even though the point of my communication was in no way jeopardized. You are a tribute to Score:0's everywhere.
This is just the latest in a *long* line of trivial, abusive patents that have been discussed on Slashdot. They all make a mockery of what intellectual property rights are intended to protect, which is innovation.
What, other than making sarcastic comments about 1-click shopping, can actually be done to effect change on how patents are granted?
Who's e-mailbox should we all slam with requests for reasonable IPR laws?
If we are not allowed to sell an MS operating system (which I would never dream of doing because Eula says it's wrong...good old Eula) maybe we would all be better off just selling the old CDs as coasters...e.g.
"For Sale: Genuine Windows 98SE DRINK COASTER. Not for use as operating system. CD only included. Rendered useless for data retrieval by placement in PROTECTIVE SLEEVE. Please do not remove coaster from protective sleeve. $10."
Basically, it's just like everyone does with their AOL CDs, only this time don't glue felt on the back.
"The initial batch of Athlon XP chips shipped out to distribution were unlocked and this was not suppose to happen. Within a week or two, these unlocked CPUs will be phased out, or recalled. I'm not sure what will happen but AMD has confirmed that the Athlon XPs will be locked very, very soon.
Some of you are lucky, to have snagged a few Athlon XPs that were unlocked."
You are right about the conspiracy bit. They're not evil...they don't really have an Uber-agenda...they are pretty much just people.
Never blame conspiracy for what simple human incompetence can explain.
That said, there are many threads above where the point isn't conspiracy, it is the stupidity of it all that foments the rants. For example assuming that somehow spending MegaBucks on GovNet will somehow be superior to implementing a PGP use policy is just stupid.
And in the spirit of pointless rants...
The phrase is "I *couldn't* care less." "I *could* care less" tends to imply that you care at least enough for it to be possible to do so to a lesser degree.
Does anyone know if they have expanded the dimensions of the spreadsheet? Problem with M$O XP also... 65536 Rows is usually enough, but I have hit the 256th Column more times than I can count. There really isn't a good program out there (that I know of) for working with very large data sets. If they wanted to put themselves ahead of M$, here is an opportunity. There is no reason that the worksheet can't be re-dimensionalized by the user if s/he needs increased space. I realize this would disallow full compatibility with M$ Excel, but I'd be more than happy with less than 100% compatibility if it is due to shortcomings in M$ and I have to "opt-in" to the incompatibility.
How about a central repository where everyone can ship all of there Licenses, keys, boxes, receipts etc?
Then when MS comes knocking and says
"We will be auditing on the 20th of April,"
you place a call to the repository and say,
"Yes, I'll be needing licenses for 420 Win2k Workstations running Office 97 from April 19th until probably April 23rd..."
If M$ is going to continue to be oppressive jerks, I think we owe it to them to be uncooperative. It would be most amusing telling the auditor with a straight face that you did in fact purchase all of your copies of Windows primarily one at a time from assorted stores in 37 states, often simultaneously.
And I have a question... I've heard of people being sent a letter requiring authentication of M$ product licensing for their business/city etc. Then a big internal audit is made and a check is usually sent to M$. The associated cost of doing the audit really is wasteful. Why not just say "Yep - It looks good to me. I'm satisfied. No you are not allowed into our building and no we won't mail you squat... I told you I'm satisfied. Good day sir."
What would their recourse be? It isn't as if the US justice dept. is on their side. They can't just invite themselves in (See Blood Sucking Vampires). If they try to gain the information from offsite and without permission they will be deemed terrorists (if Ashcroft has his way).
So. The new response to software auditing... Just Say No!
It is generally accepted that it *has* been proven that you can't go faster than the speed of light. The "exceptions" that have been noted above are light travelling faster than the speed-of-light-in-a-vacuum under special conditions, but nothing else will travel faster than it under those special conditions.
The cool thing that most don't really realize is that the same equations that tell us we can't go faster than light also tell us that by going very near the speed of light we can cover incredible distances in extremely short times due to the length contraction associated with such high velocities with respect to an inertial frame. If the inertial frame is taken as the center of the galaxy for example, and your body is accelerated radially to 0.9999c (please don't ask how), it will perceive distances with respect to the galactic center inertial frame as being about 1/100th what they are perceived as being in the galactic reference frame. So you are effectively traveling at 100 times the speed of light even though light is still moving at the speed of light in your inertial frame as well as the galactic frame (frequency is shifted). From the perspective of a man at the center of the galaxy you are moving at 0.9999c and your trip to a location 100 light years away will take a little over 100 years as he sees it. To you it will take about 1.5 years.
That's special relativity, and it is the last bit that is responsible for the infamous twin paradox.
And just to be particular on this, the key to all of it is in the acceleration, not the velocity.
Your billiard ball experiment is an interesting little analogy, but shows a lack of understanding of true entanglement.
Quantum entangled states behave as unknowns from the time of entanglement and remain "unknown states" until a measurement is made. Even though you haven't looked in the bag, physically the ball *is* either black or white and has been all along. Your knowledge of it's state doesn't matter. It is definitely in one state or the other, regardless of your own knowledge of the matter.
On the other hand, the quantum entangled particles are *not* actually in a state until a measurement is made which collapses the wave packet and by various conservation reduces both particles/photons/whatever to their correct state.
If you are thinking "Well it was really just that way all along," you are fundamentally missing the coolness of Quantum Physics.
This post was not cool.
At all.
Now his university address will be chewing spam.
If this is the kind of contribution you are making to the slashdot community, please move along.
Clearly you're missing my point if you think I would advocate a terribly complex surgery instead of the mundane one that was performed.
Maybe lance a boil on someone's arm instead.
I just think the whole thing is a super fancy jewel encrusted multimegabuck machine that goes bing, with the additional side effect of having a 200 ms lag.
The surgery was performed for the same reason Evil Kenival used to jump canyons. Because when it's over, if nothing went horribly wrong, Evil looks cool. The world is not a vastly better place. New motor bike technology will not help mankind. Evil just looks cool.
Hah. Funny. I don't remember ever being indicted as having an over emotional reaction to a science article.
You, Kevin, are in the Neuroscience program, and you have cultivated a self image of being one of the future pioneering doctors who will one day implement bold and dramatic new technologies at the cutting edge of science.
When you're attempting to be the first doctor to perform a frontal lobotomy while blind folded, with your newly developed laser mounted on a monkey's head (with full consent of the well patient), please take a moment to think "Who is this helping? The patient? Mankind? or Me?"
I like technology. I don't lie awake at night fearing a gray goo scenario. I just don't particularly like technology for the sake of technology - or personal advancement for that matter.
And by the way... when you indict people for not using concrete facts... it helps you not look like a complete idiot, if you actually USE concrete facts in response.
"determined by people with more knowledge and experience in the field than YOU obviously"
Cute. Right up there with "I know you are, but what am I?" The classics are always the best.
And man, talk about over-emotional responses, you sort of freaked out there on me. I withdraw my "always" that you tweaked on. You're right - "always" was an overly strong word choice. But the spirit of the point is correct, I believe. Your ramblings about battlefields and 3rd world countries are warm and fuzzy, but pretty bloody unlikely. The U.S. military has plenty of doctors, and if you actually think through the logistics (I don't want to walk you through this one) you'll see some of the difficulties of battlefield use. Third world countries just don't have the money. The people that do have enough money in those countries just hire american doctors.
This is an absurd abuse of technology to further a doctor's career. There is no chance that this surgery was in the best interest of the 68 year old patient. Gall bladder surgery is reasonably common and could have been performed by any of a number of local doctors. This was *all* about getting a publication - which is sick. And I don't want to hear about how this technology will revolutionize anything, because the amount of logistical preparation needed on both sides will always make it easier to just fly a specialist to the scene and have her/him operate on the patient.
The best quote from the article...
"The time delay between the surgeon's movements and the return video image displayed on screen was less than 200 milliseconds. The estimated safe lag time is 330 ms."
Estimated safe lag? As determined by who? The NIST? The AMA? Probably the doctor, immediately after hearing that the time delay was 200ms.
The talk of *BIAS* is ridiculous spincasting by the media and by people that like to constantly complain about persecution. The FBI serves warrants and searches businesses all the time. That's part of their job, like it or not. They don't sit around a water cooler and say "Let's go raid some Moslem businesses this week...that'd be a hoot. We don't like Moslems."
Come on - that's just stupid. They're working an investigation and this is where it brought them. There are NO details in either article...just journalists looking for a story they can blow out of proportion. If it had been a warehouse where large quantities of twine is stored by a couple of surly old kansas natives it wouldn't have even made the news. No FUD value. That kind of thing happens every week.
I can't believe this tripe got moded up as insightful.
I read it and thought "There's no way this guy is a scientist...probably a business major."
Check his Bio.
But "Global warming" as such as is a political program not science.
In fact, it is based on science. You'd know that if you had gone further than your subscription to Newsweek and/or Businessweek. What happens is that the hard science gets dumbed down for those who can't quite grasp it (including most politicians). They make goofy statements like the parent of this thread, and then feel good about being "insightful".
WHen the New York Times famously said "Blame global warming for the blizzard" (notwithstanding the huge number of major weather events throughtout human history) it has to make you wonder.
Everyone who read this that has a legitimate background in global warming impacts thought "well obviously". Aaron is puzzled.
-Rothfuss
Against stupidity, even the gods themselves contend in vain.
Friedrich von Schiller
There is more than enough cold wind swept barren earth in Wyoming for all the Teraflops anyone needs. Additionally, there is plenty of natural gas, coal, oil and...did I mention the wind?
Also, if you buy 3 cows and graze them on your cluster farm, the state will lease you a few thousand acres for a little over a dollar - and then subsidize your water costs, which you could use for cooling purposes prior to hosing down the 3 cows (in the summer time, that is. In the winter cooling will be free, but you may need to buy a bit of hay for the cows...)
At night, the SysAdmins (probably imported from Colorado) can sneak out and Tip The Cows Over [patent pending].
I've been to the North Slope, I've been to Wyoming, and I think the choice is clear.
"possibility of microorganisms that could aid in the breakdown of waste quicker"
The deinos don't help to degrade radioactive waste faster, they only help immobilize it somewhat or potentially concentrate it. This is only useful in the case of environmental spills and dilute radioactive solutions that need to be concentrated. The thing is, spills that need to be sequestered and large volumes of dilute radioactive solutions should not be a normal part of the operation of a nuclear power plant.
Avoiding spills and leaking tanks that need to be cleaned out (=dilute radioactive solutions)will go a lot further towards making nuclear waste a viable option than even the most wonderful of superbugs.
If Deinos couls live in your gas tank, then so could the rest of the bacteria... If you happen to get a nasty deino problem in your gas tank, or anywhere else for that matter, use clorox, freeze them, or heat them past about 70 degrees C. They're interesting because they don't mutate, for this reason they're safer to use as genetically engineered organisms. However, they are not at all unkillable. They just don't die or mutate because of high doses of radiation or because of dessication.
You're so right. Also, the doses of radiation that our little deinos will experience are really low in comparison to what they can take. When exposed to 0.1Mrad of ionizing radiation (roughly 100 times the dose that would kill most humans through excessive DNA damage) Deinococcus shows and undetectable level of mutation, and is not even stressed enough to have slowed growth.
Deino can survive single hits of around 5 Mrad without mutation. This is about 5000 - 1000 times the amount that would kill most people. This is MUCH higher that what they could contact in the soil definitely, and most of the tanks with radioactivity this high are so concentrated, acidic, saline, or just plain hot (temperature) from the continual reaction induced by said free radicals, that Deino could not survive to do its job anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
Egregious?
Do you have any idea how much tar and nicotine are in the average MS OS?
I don't know, and you don't want to know.
-Rothfuss
I agree with Mr. Ample.
In addition:
Microsoft said it would take a $550 million charge before taxes against earnings in the current fiscal quarter if the court approves the pact.
So the company also counts this as a loss from earnings, despite the fact that it is softmoney, resulting in stock holders getting less earnings per share for the quarter. I suspect in response the stockholders will file a class action suit against MS for earnings shortcomings in an ironic display of legal recursion.
-Rothfuss
Micron service and support for their PCs has always been absolutely incredible. I've purchased about a dozen PCs from them over the last 6 years, mostly becuase of the support that I received early on when a couple of machines had issues. They have never been difficult to work with, contact or resolve problems through. This may be why MicronPC is having problems and is being (has been?) sold.
Honestly, I have called so many other support lines and just wanted to crawl through the phone line to throttle the person at the other side...assuming there is a person there. MicronPC: "Your blue gun is out on your monitor? 17"? That'll ship out tomorrow with a return UPS label." Seriously.
For the sake of balance: HP printer and scanner support is horrible. Sony CD-ROM support is worse than a joke (1.5 month return time). If Comtrade still exists they are all that is evil in the world. ATT@Home customer service is actually a level of hell, thinly veiled. Diamond MM is slow, and I have mixed feelings on Dell. They seem to get the job done, but it is a little more painful that Micron.
-Rothfuss
I don't believe it *is* something else. I think it is just terribly inconvient for 1 million people. There is no threshold where I consider it equivalent to my wife being blown up.
-Rothfuss
Consider these two scenarios:
1) Your wife and son are sitting in front of a cafe having lunch. You head to an ATM to get some cash to pay for lunch. A car bomb blows up in front of the cafe killing your wife and son.
2) Your wife and son are sitting in front of a cafe having lunch. You head to an ATM to get some cash to pay for lunch. A hacker has somehow managed to steal all of the money from your checking account.
Only one of these scenarios inspires terror. Legislators and business persons need to maintain a sense of perspective here. Hacking does not by itself terrify.
It is honestly shameful that corporations are playing off the fears of the public brought on by 9/11 to promote their own political agendas. By equating hacking with terrorism, they belittle the event.
You are correct ANONYMOUS COWARD. Thank you for pointing out my minor error. It is nice to see that you have the time to hide behind anonymity, pointing out insignificant errors, even though the point of my communication was in no way jeopardized. You are a tribute to Score:0's everywhere.
Kudos!
-Rothfuss
This is just the latest in a *long* line of trivial, abusive patents that have been discussed on Slashdot. They all make a mockery of what intellectual property rights are intended to protect, which is innovation.
What, other than making sarcastic comments about 1-click shopping, can actually be done to effect change on how patents are granted?
Who's e-mailbox should we all slam with requests for reasonable IPR laws?
Anyone?
-Rothfuss
If we are not allowed to sell an MS operating system (which I would never dream of doing because Eula says it's wrong...good old Eula) maybe we would all be better off just selling the old CDs as coasters...e.g.
"For Sale: Genuine Windows 98SE DRINK COASTER. Not for use as operating system. CD only included. Rendered useless for data retrieval by placement in PROTECTIVE SLEEVE. Please do not remove coaster from protective sleeve. $10."
Basically, it's just like everyone does with their AOL CDs, only this time don't glue felt on the back.
-Rothfuss
From over at Firing Squad...
"The initial batch of Athlon XP chips shipped out to distribution were unlocked and this was not suppose to happen. Within a week or two, these unlocked CPUs will be phased out, or recalled. I'm not sure what will happen but AMD has confirmed that the Athlon XPs will be locked very, very soon.
Some of you are lucky, to have snagged a few Athlon XPs that were unlocked."
-Rothfuss
You are right about the conspiracy bit. They're not evil...they don't really have an Uber-agenda...they are pretty much just people.
Never blame conspiracy for what simple human incompetence can explain.
That said, there are many threads above where the point isn't conspiracy, it is the stupidity of it all that foments the rants. For example assuming that somehow spending MegaBucks on GovNet will somehow be superior to implementing a PGP use policy is just stupid.
And in the spirit of pointless rants...
The phrase is "I *couldn't* care less." "I *could* care less" tends to imply that you care at least enough for it to be possible to do so to a lesser degree.
-Rothfuss
Does anyone know if they have expanded the dimensions of the spreadsheet? Problem with M$O XP also... 65536 Rows is usually enough, but I have hit the 256th Column more times than I can count. There really isn't a good program out there (that I know of) for working with very large data sets. If they wanted to put themselves ahead of M$, here is an opportunity. There is no reason that the worksheet can't be re-dimensionalized by the user if s/he needs increased space. I realize this would disallow full compatibility with M$ Excel, but I'd be more than happy with less than 100% compatibility if it is due to shortcomings in M$ and I have to "opt-in" to the incompatibility.
-Rothfuss
How about a central repository where everyone can ship all of there Licenses, keys, boxes, receipts etc?
Then when MS comes knocking and says
"We will be auditing on the 20th of April,"
you place a call to the repository and say,
"Yes, I'll be needing licenses for 420 Win2k Workstations running Office 97 from April 19th until probably April 23rd..."
If M$ is going to continue to be oppressive jerks, I think we owe it to them to be uncooperative. It would be most amusing telling the auditor with a straight face that you did in fact purchase all of your copies of Windows primarily one at a time from assorted stores in 37 states, often simultaneously.
And I have a question... I've heard of people being sent a letter requiring authentication of M$ product licensing for their business/city etc. Then a big internal audit is made and a check is usually sent to M$. The associated cost of doing the audit really is wasteful. Why not just say "Yep - It looks good to me. I'm satisfied. No you are not allowed into our building and no we won't mail you squat... I told you I'm satisfied. Good day sir."
What would their recourse be? It isn't as if the US justice dept. is on their side. They can't just invite themselves in (See Blood Sucking Vampires). If they try to gain the information from offsite and without permission they will be deemed terrorists (if Ashcroft has his way).
So. The new response to software auditing... Just Say No!
-Rothfuss
It is generally accepted that it *has* been proven that you can't go faster than the speed of light. The "exceptions" that have been noted above are light travelling faster than the speed-of-light-in-a-vacuum under special conditions, but nothing else will travel faster than it under those special conditions.
The cool thing that most don't really realize is that the same equations that tell us we can't go faster than light also tell us that by going very near the speed of light we can cover incredible distances in extremely short times due to the length contraction associated with such high velocities with respect to an inertial frame. If the inertial frame is taken as the center of the galaxy for example, and your body is accelerated radially to 0.9999c (please don't ask how), it will perceive distances with respect to the galactic center inertial frame as being about 1/100th what they are perceived as being in the galactic reference frame. So you are effectively traveling at 100 times the speed of light even though light is still moving at the speed of light in your inertial frame as well as the galactic frame (frequency is shifted). From the perspective of a man at the center of the galaxy you are moving at 0.9999c and your trip to a location 100 light years away will take a little over 100 years as he sees it. To you it will take about 1.5 years.
That's special relativity, and it is the last bit that is responsible for the infamous twin paradox.
And just to be particular on this, the key to all of it is in the acceleration, not the velocity.
-Rothfuss
Your billiard ball experiment is an interesting little analogy, but shows a lack of understanding of true entanglement.
Quantum entangled states behave as unknowns from the time of entanglement and remain "unknown states" until a measurement is made. Even though you haven't looked in the bag, physically the ball *is* either black or white and has been all along. Your knowledge of it's state doesn't matter. It is definitely in one state or the other, regardless of your own knowledge of the matter.
On the other hand, the quantum entangled particles are *not* actually in a state until a measurement is made which collapses the wave packet and by various conservation reduces both particles/photons/whatever to their correct state.
If you are thinking "Well it was really just that way all along," you are fundamentally missing the coolness of Quantum Physics.
-Rothfuss
No...
If you are hacking for the Gubment, I assure you, you will be called a Freedom Fighter.
Anonymous Coward-
This post was not cool.
At all.
Now his university address will be chewing spam.
If this is the kind of contribution you are making to the slashdot community, please move along.
-Rothfuss
Clearly you're missing my point if you think I would advocate a terribly complex surgery instead of the mundane one that was performed.
Maybe lance a boil on someone's arm instead.
I just think the whole thing is a super fancy jewel encrusted multimegabuck machine that goes bing, with the additional side effect of having a 200 ms lag.
The surgery was performed for the same reason Evil Kenival used to jump canyons. Because when it's over, if nothing went horribly wrong, Evil looks cool. The world is not a vastly better place. New motor bike technology will not help mankind. Evil just looks cool.
-Rothfuss
Hah. Funny. I don't remember ever being indicted as having an over emotional reaction to a science article.
You, Kevin, are in the Neuroscience program, and you have cultivated a self image of being one of the future pioneering doctors who will one day implement bold and dramatic new technologies at the cutting edge of science.
When you're attempting to be the first doctor to perform a frontal lobotomy while blind folded, with your newly developed laser mounted on a monkey's head (with full consent of the well patient), please take a moment to think "Who is this helping? The patient? Mankind? or Me?"
I like technology. I don't lie awake at night fearing a gray goo scenario. I just don't particularly like technology for the sake of technology - or personal advancement for that matter.
And by the way... when you indict people for not using concrete facts... it helps you not look like a complete idiot, if you actually USE concrete facts in response.
"determined by people with more knowledge and experience in the field than YOU obviously"
Cute. Right up there with "I know you are, but what am I?" The classics are always the best.
And man, talk about over-emotional responses, you sort of freaked out there on me. I withdraw my "always" that you tweaked on. You're right - "always" was an overly strong word choice. But the spirit of the point is correct, I believe. Your ramblings about battlefields and 3rd world countries are warm and fuzzy, but pretty bloody unlikely. The U.S. military has plenty of doctors, and if you actually think through the logistics (I don't want to walk you through this one) you'll see some of the difficulties of battlefield use. Third world countries just don't have the money. The people that do have enough money in those countries just hire american doctors.
Really, this is all fairly obvious.
-Rothfuss
This is an absurd abuse of technology to further a doctor's career. There is no chance that this surgery was in the best interest of the 68 year old patient. Gall bladder surgery is reasonably common and could have been performed by any of a number of local doctors. This was *all* about getting a publication - which is sick. And I don't want to hear about how this technology will revolutionize anything, because the amount of logistical preparation needed on both sides will always make it easier to just fly a specialist to the scene and have her/him operate on the patient.
The best quote from the article...
"The time delay between the surgeon's movements and the return video image displayed on screen was less than 200 milliseconds. The estimated safe lag time is 330 ms."
Estimated safe lag? As determined by who? The NIST? The AMA? Probably the doctor, immediately after hearing that the time delay was 200ms.
-Rothfuss
The talk of *BIAS* is ridiculous spincasting by the media and by people that like to constantly complain about persecution. The FBI serves warrants and searches businesses all the time. That's part of their job, like it or not. They don't sit around a water cooler and say "Let's go raid some Moslem businesses this week...that'd be a hoot. We don't like Moslems."
Come on - that's just stupid. They're working an investigation and this is where it brought them. There are NO details in either article...just journalists looking for a story they can blow out of proportion. If it had been a warehouse where large quantities of twine is stored by a couple of surly old kansas natives it wouldn't have even made the news. No FUD value. That kind of thing happens every week.
-Rothfuss
I can't believe this tripe got moded up as insightful.
I read it and thought "There's no way this guy is a scientist...probably a business major."
Check his Bio.
But "Global warming" as such as is a political program not science.
In fact, it is based on science. You'd know that if you had gone further than your subscription to Newsweek and/or Businessweek. What happens is that the hard science gets dumbed down for those who can't quite grasp it (including most politicians). They make goofy statements like the parent of this thread, and then feel good about being "insightful".
WHen the New York Times famously said "Blame global warming for the blizzard" (notwithstanding the huge number of major weather events throughtout human history) it has to make you wonder.
Everyone who read this that has a legitimate background in global warming impacts thought "well obviously". Aaron is puzzled.
-Rothfuss
Against stupidity, even the gods themselves contend in vain.
Friedrich von Schiller
There is more than enough cold wind swept barren earth in Wyoming for all the Teraflops anyone needs. Additionally, there is plenty of natural gas, coal, oil and...did I mention the wind?
Also, if you buy 3 cows and graze them on your cluster farm, the state will lease you a few thousand acres for a little over a dollar - and then subsidize your water costs, which you could use for cooling purposes prior to hosing down the 3 cows (in the summer time, that is. In the winter cooling will be free, but you may need to buy a bit of hay for the cows...)
At night, the SysAdmins (probably imported from Colorado) can sneak out and Tip The Cows Over [patent pending].
I've been to the North Slope, I've been to Wyoming, and I think the choice is clear.
"possibility of microorganisms that could aid in the breakdown of waste quicker"
The deinos don't help to degrade radioactive waste faster, they only help immobilize it somewhat or potentially concentrate it. This is only useful in the case of environmental spills and dilute radioactive solutions that need to be concentrated. The thing is, spills that need to be sequestered and large volumes of dilute radioactive solutions should not be a normal part of the operation of a nuclear power plant.
Avoiding spills and leaking tanks that need to be cleaned out (=dilute radioactive solutions)will go a lot further towards making nuclear waste a viable option than even the most wonderful of superbugs.
If Deinos couls live in your gas tank, then so could the rest of the bacteria... If you happen to get a nasty deino problem in your gas tank, or anywhere else for that matter, use clorox, freeze them, or heat them past about 70 degrees C. They're interesting because they don't mutate, for this reason they're safer to use as genetically engineered organisms. However, they are not at all unkillable. They just don't die or mutate because of high doses of radiation or because of dessication.
You're so right. Also, the doses of radiation that our little deinos will experience are really low in comparison to what they can take. When exposed to 0.1Mrad of ionizing radiation (roughly 100 times the dose that would kill most humans through excessive DNA damage) Deinococcus shows and undetectable level of mutation, and is not even stressed enough to have slowed growth. Deino can survive single hits of around 5 Mrad without mutation. This is about 5000 - 1000 times the amount that would kill most people. This is MUCH higher that what they could contact in the soil definitely, and most of the tanks with radioactivity this high are so concentrated, acidic, saline, or just plain hot (temperature) from the continual reaction induced by said free radicals, that Deino could not survive to do its job anyway.