It seems obvious that it's both a screen and a window. Otherwise Nero is very big and floating in space in at least two occasions. And if it's both, I doubt they've lost the technology to black out the window when it's beneficial, otherwise there's going to be a lot of light when they fly towards any star at habitable planet ranges. By 'a lot', I mean 'enough to cause permanent damage to most peoples' eyes'. And if you can black it out for safety reasons, you can black it out for convenience, like being able to see where you're going when you're 'backing up'.
Absolutely, I mean, so what if those guys broke into your house and killed you and raped your mom *right in your own basement bedroom*... y'know, you should have had better locks, and used them more consistently; y'know, if you'd really cared.
Sure, there are *much* better backup strategies; that having been said, somebody broke in and did a bunch of damage for shits and grins. They suck.
Yep, sometimes the slippery slope argument doesn't make sense. If I was walking with a buddy, he started checking out a girl and walked into a light pole, you bet I'd laugh. If he did the same thing and stepped in front of a bus, I might not find it so funny. Go figure. Not saying the hackers don't suck, but that doesn't mean we can't laugh at the admin, too.
Saying it isn't the hackers fault that improper mehtods were used to secure a site is like saying it isn't the muggers fault that the lady's handbag was so easy to steal.
*looks at his second-hand handbag collection* But they are so easy to steal! How could I resist?
...fears of television cameras to capture speeders is apparently the gateway to the downfall of western civilization and liberal/libertarian ideals. gee, maybe its just to catch speeders?
That's a laughably naive supposition. The first mistake you make is assuming the speed has been set for the sake of safety, and not to catch 'speeders' as a profit-generating exercise. There have been numerous stories about places where traffic lights are set up so more people will run the red and get ticketed. There's also this story. Note the 20-fold increase in tickets year-over-year. Living in the area, I can assure you it wasn't because everyone decided it was time to start speeding. As noted in the article, there were an obscene number handed out in off-hours construction zones where the speed was reduced at all times, rather than using the reduced speed while passing workers sign. Both signs can be found in this pdf link.
So 17,000mph may sound fast, but given that the satellite itself is traveling the same speed, the astronauts don't really have to think about that.
Of course, there could be debris also moving at 17,000mph... in the opposite direction. Traveling at 34,000mph (relative), even a paint chip can do some serious damage to delicate electronics or the relatively soft astronaut.
Here's hoping everyone stays safe up there.
Pfft, whatever. It's like getting hit by an invisible bus. Not much you can do to avoid it, and it will suck if it happens, but it's not like it's a distraction unless you get unlucky. The far bigger issues (so far as mission success) are the clunky outfits, the massive objects they have to handle, and the fact that there's no easy place to put something down for a second. So stop falling for the big-number hype, and realize that this is not much more dangerous than any other EVA - and none of that extra danger comes from their orbital velocity.
The point of icons and menus is so that you don't need to know cryptic keyboard commands. If the preferred solution to the updated icon system is to use the keyboard, they've failed. If the system is so changed that experienced Office users can't find the things they always did in the old version and there is no simple help for "how do I do x", they've failed. (It took me 30 minutes to just see the macro ribbon in Excel the first time. Now I just use Alt-F11 if it's not on the system I'm using.) Or to put it another way: The Ribbon system reminds me of the MacBook Wheel - everything you want to do is just a few hundred clicks away.
IE6 is a plague on the internet development world. If it gets rid of that, wonderful. Making it the default browser, that's classic Microsoft. Actually, that's the new, desperate to hang on to market share in the face of shrinking revenue Microsoft.
My first thought when IE8 came out for all Windows versions was that MS was feeling the pinch from the other browsers, and wanted a chance to recapture some market share.
So, we have Conficker infecting hospitals now. And meanwhile, after Conficker's payload goes live, there's a massive outbreak of swine flu. And conficker spreads spam... spam is a pork product... COINCIDENCE?!
I suggest you send your resume to The Colbert Report.
Sony Music has announced a lawsuit against Microsoft using the DMCA, claiming that the new software patch circumvents horribly inadequate copyright protection.
...go to health services if I start showing flu-like symptoms.
You might want to hold off a bit longer than that. If I feel like it's just any other flu, I might take TamiFlu (that I would buy myself), isolate myself a bit more than normal to keep from spreading the infection needlessly, and monitor myself carefully for any unusual or exaggerated symptoms. Then I'll go to the hospital or a clinic. Even with Spanish Flu, a significant number of people suffered normal symptoms, and we don't need those people clogging the health system during a pandemic. For the record, I haven't bought TamiFlu, not sure if I'm going to, and I'll continue with the rest of my plan as needed.
No, I think it's mainly just wanting some stimulation or excitement, or to be part of something historic, and not particularly happiness at others' misfortune. There is something very rousing about feeling you are part of history, or in an epic battle.
As far as I'm concerned, most of the time being a part of history means you fucked up. Yes, there are exceptions, but I'm not interested in dying on some field somewhere, or being the guy who didn't get the message through, or being the guy who stopped the message from getting through. Perhaps I subscribe a little to much to the idea behind the Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times." Or maybe I'm too paranoid. But either way, I won't be upset if no one but my descendants remember me in 100 years.
The Black Holes were created by the Large Hadron Collider during the short time that it was online, before the radioactive liquid helium leaked out and freeze-burned its way down toward the center of the earth (China Syndrome), where it was reflected back up and surfaced in a pig patch in Mexico, and irradiated sick pigs with Swine Flu, which mutated into the Mexico Flu, and hopped a ride on some poor little kid, who passed it on to Mexico city.
Seems all pretty plausible to me.
Have you ever considered piracy^H^H^H^H^H^Hpunditry? You'd make an excellent pundit.
That's why it may be important to consider using a resource you can actually renew, as in create.
Do you know how hard it is to create physical resources? That leaves solar power, which require resources of some kind to capture. The only truly renewable resource there (and not exactly 'created') is biomass. Burn a tree today?
it would make more long terms sense to direct efforts into fuel cell research
Um, you realize all our fuel cell technologies rely on rare materials, expensively produced materials, or optimal operating temperatures that many cars aren't used in, right?
If it's just a tool, the GPL makes sense, so you get contributions back.
Again, it depends on your goals. I think BSD/Apache licensing is the best option for utility-level software, drivers, etc. This provides for maximum penetration, which makes sense for utility software, since it can be used in both open and closed source projects. After all, look how well if worked for the TCP stack. Of course, this is philosophy, so I expect more positions to be stated than there are people stating them.
Critics of the Canadian system don't actually care about health care outcomes, which is why they always focus on the lousy user experience.
I care about both. I don't agree that our system is worse than the American system, but I think it could be better. I also think there are a number of ways to achieve this. Having sat with someone in the ER for 8 hours with an emergent rating for their condition because they were bumped by someone with an urgent rating in the same category because she happened to be a nurse is rather irksome, but something I acknowledge would probably happen in Canada or the US. Having to wait over 4 hours for an emergent condition is still a problem IMO. Then there's the whole issue of people being left to die of simple infection in the waiting room that we had not too long ago. How much additional spending do you think it would take to get rid of that? I'm guessing it's a simple procedure change, and will be approaching $0 both relative to the overall cost of healthcare and the absolute cost for the procedure change.
I agree with most of what you're saying, except for this:
And also for the fact that as political parties get marginalized, they get despirate, and despiration breads extremists. So long as the Republican party remains viable in the political system, the push for extremists will be limited.
The flaw there is that first, it could be argued that extremists have already taken over both parties. And second, if the party gets sufficiently marginalized, it will provide room for a new second party to evolve, which might gain enough traction to replace the marginalized party. Or just take it over from the inside. One of the good things about a true democracy is that you don't require revolution to change things, even if it is the best option on occasion.
Slashdot Mirror
It seems obvious that it's both a screen and a window. Otherwise Nero is very big and floating in space in at least two occasions. And if it's both, I doubt they've lost the technology to black out the window when it's beneficial, otherwise there's going to be a lot of light when they fly towards any star at habitable planet ranges. By 'a lot', I mean 'enough to cause permanent damage to most peoples' eyes'. And if you can black it out for safety reasons, you can black it out for convenience, like being able to see where you're going when you're 'backing up'.
Then again, if they truly know you, then maybe they'd guess you'd be this paranoid :P
Looks like I'll be skipping this one...
Absolutely, I mean, so what if those guys broke into your house and killed you and raped your mom *right in your own basement bedroom* ... y'know, you should have had better locks, and used them more consistently; y'know, if you'd really cared.
Sure, there are *much* better backup strategies; that having been said, somebody broke in and did a bunch of damage for shits and grins. They suck.
Yep, sometimes the slippery slope argument doesn't make sense. If I was walking with a buddy, he started checking out a girl and walked into a light pole, you bet I'd laugh. If he did the same thing and stepped in front of a bus, I might not find it so funny. Go figure.
Not saying the hackers don't suck, but that doesn't mean we can't laugh at the admin, too.
Saying it isn't the hackers fault that improper mehtods were used to secure a site is like saying it isn't the muggers fault that the lady's handbag was so easy to steal.
*looks at his second-hand handbag collection*
But they are so easy to steal! How could I resist?
15% of MBA's will get you the correct statistics though.
So all I need 7 MBAs to achieve 100% accurate knowledge of everything. Great!
Have you considered a career in accounting? No? Good.
I think Redundant Array of Prohibitively Expensive Satellites has a better ring to it.
...fears of television cameras to capture speeders is apparently the gateway to the downfall of western civilization and liberal/libertarian ideals. gee, maybe its just to catch speeders?
That's a laughably naive supposition. The first mistake you make is assuming the speed has been set for the sake of safety, and not to catch 'speeders' as a profit-generating exercise. There have been numerous stories about places where traffic lights are set up so more people will run the red and get ticketed. There's also this story. Note the 20-fold increase in tickets year-over-year. Living in the area, I can assure you it wasn't because everyone decided it was time to start speeding. As noted in the article, there were an obscene number handed out in off-hours construction zones where the speed was reduced at all times, rather than using the reduced speed while passing workers sign. Both signs can be found in this pdf link.
So 17,000mph may sound fast, but given that the satellite itself is traveling the same speed, the astronauts don't really have to think about that.
Of course, there could be debris also moving at 17,000mph... in the opposite direction. Traveling at 34,000mph (relative), even a paint chip can do some serious damage to delicate electronics or the relatively soft astronaut.
Here's hoping everyone stays safe up there.
Pfft, whatever. It's like getting hit by an invisible bus. Not much you can do to avoid it, and it will suck if it happens, but it's not like it's a distraction unless you get unlucky. The far bigger issues (so far as mission success) are the clunky outfits, the massive objects they have to handle, and the fact that there's no easy place to put something down for a second. So stop falling for the big-number hype, and realize that this is not much more dangerous than any other EVA - and none of that extra danger comes from their orbital velocity.
The point of icons and menus is so that you don't need to know cryptic keyboard commands. If the preferred solution to the updated icon system is to use the keyboard, they've failed. If the system is so changed that experienced Office users can't find the things they always did in the old version and there is no simple help for "how do I do x", they've failed. (It took me 30 minutes to just see the macro ribbon in Excel the first time. Now I just use Alt-F11 if it's not on the system I'm using.)
Or to put it another way: The Ribbon system reminds me of the MacBook Wheel - everything you want to do is just a few hundred clicks away.
I prefer soylent toner.
FInally, a way to make clueless users productive!
IE6 is a plague on the internet development world. If it gets rid of that, wonderful. Making it the default browser, that's classic Microsoft. Actually, that's the new, desperate to hang on to market share in the face of shrinking revenue Microsoft.
My first thought when IE8 came out for all Windows versions was that MS was feeling the pinch from the other browsers, and wanted a chance to recapture some market share.
So, we have Conficker infecting hospitals now. And meanwhile, after Conficker's payload goes live, there's a massive outbreak of swine flu. And conficker spreads spam... spam is a pork product... COINCIDENCE?!
I suggest you send your resume to The Colbert Report.
Sony Music has announced a lawsuit against Microsoft using the DMCA, claiming that the new software patch circumvents horribly inadequate copyright protection.
Is there another kind?
...go to health services if I start showing flu-like symptoms.
You might want to hold off a bit longer than that. If I feel like it's just any other flu, I might take TamiFlu (that I would buy myself), isolate myself a bit more than normal to keep from spreading the infection needlessly, and monitor myself carefully for any unusual or exaggerated symptoms. Then I'll go to the hospital or a clinic. Even with Spanish Flu, a significant number of people suffered normal symptoms, and we don't need those people clogging the health system during a pandemic.
For the record, I haven't bought TamiFlu, not sure if I'm going to, and I'll continue with the rest of my plan as needed.
It's worth noting that pandemic isn't really defined by the virulence, just how well it spreads (and relatively suddenly). If a particular strain spreads well enough to affect 90% of the world (or continent, or country), it's a pandemic. If all it causes in 99% of those infected is a the sniffles and a bit of fever, well it's still a pandemic.
No, I think it's mainly just wanting some stimulation or excitement, or to be part of something historic, and not particularly happiness at others' misfortune. There is something very rousing about feeling you are part of history, or in an epic battle.
As far as I'm concerned, most of the time being a part of history means you fucked up. Yes, there are exceptions, but I'm not interested in dying on some field somewhere, or being the guy who didn't get the message through, or being the guy who stopped the message from getting through.
Perhaps I subscribe a little to much to the idea behind the Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times." Or maybe I'm too paranoid. But either way, I won't be upset if no one but my descendants remember me in 100 years.
The Black Holes were created by the Large Hadron Collider during the short time that it was online, before the radioactive liquid helium leaked out and freeze-burned its way down toward the center of the earth (China Syndrome), where it was reflected back up and surfaced in a pig patch in Mexico, and irradiated sick pigs with Swine Flu, which mutated into the Mexico Flu, and hopped a ride on some poor little kid, who passed it on to Mexico city.
Seems all pretty plausible to me.
Have you ever considered piracy^H^H^H^H^H^Hpunditry? You'd make an excellent pundit.
That's why it may be important to consider using a resource you can actually renew, as in create.
Do you know how hard it is to create physical resources? That leaves solar power, which require resources of some kind to capture. The only truly renewable resource there (and not exactly 'created') is biomass. Burn a tree today?
it would make more long terms sense to direct efforts into fuel cell research
Um, you realize all our fuel cell technologies rely on rare materials, expensively produced materials, or optimal operating temperatures that many cars aren't used in, right?
Practicing sound economics does not mean giving into to corporate imperialism.
But why not follow the rest of the developed world and fail on both counts?
And unfortunately, the judge in this case has already declined to allow other companies to 'join the defendant' so they can get in on the settlement.
You know you have a broken legal system when someone wants to join the defendant. I thought they suffered penalties, not received rewards.
If it's just a tool, the GPL makes sense, so you get contributions back.
Again, it depends on your goals. I think BSD/Apache licensing is the best option for utility-level software, drivers, etc. This provides for maximum penetration, which makes sense for utility software, since it can be used in both open and closed source projects. After all, look how well if worked for the TCP stack.
Of course, this is philosophy, so I expect more positions to be stated than there are people stating them.
cosmonauts will become cosmo-nots
I prefer cosmo-blots.
Critics of the Canadian system don't actually care about health care outcomes, which is why they always focus on the lousy user experience.
I care about both. I don't agree that our system is worse than the American system, but I think it could be better. I also think there are a number of ways to achieve this. Having sat with someone in the ER for 8 hours with an emergent rating for their condition because they were bumped by someone with an urgent rating in the same category because she happened to be a nurse is rather irksome, but something I acknowledge would probably happen in Canada or the US. Having to wait over 4 hours for an emergent condition is still a problem IMO. Then there's the whole issue of people being left to die of simple infection in the waiting room that we had not too long ago. How much additional spending do you think it would take to get rid of that? I'm guessing it's a simple procedure change, and will be approaching $0 both relative to the overall cost of healthcare and the absolute cost for the procedure change.
I agree with most of what you're saying, except for this:
And also for the fact that as political parties get marginalized, they get despirate, and despiration breads extremists. So long as the Republican party remains viable in the political system, the push for extremists will be limited.
The flaw there is that first, it could be argued that extremists have already taken over both parties. And second, if the party gets sufficiently marginalized, it will provide room for a new second party to evolve, which might gain enough traction to replace the marginalized party. Or just take it over from the inside.
One of the good things about a true democracy is that you don't require revolution to change things, even if it is the best option on occasion.
How does a place with thirteen people in it qualify as a town, again?
Yeah, I thought it was called a 'crossroad'. Oh look, 4 houses within shouting distance! Whatever shall we call this place? And who would care.