Wow, seriously? In the first book alone, the female lead cuts off a man's testicles and force-feeds them to him, and the male lead spends a few hundred pages getting tortured and sexed up by a sexy, sexy dominatrix.
Xenocide/Children of the Mind were flipping terrible. Such an incredible letdown after Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead. Speaker is very very different from Ender's Game, but at least it's *good*. Xenocide and Children are just awful.
Were it not for the matter of the metal they contain being worth significantly more than the face value of coins (in these last few years), all the furor and "Say it's not so!" attaching to pennies' costing more to make than they can buy for you at the grocery store would be mere academic quibbling: A penny that cost 1.2 to make isn't all that big of a deal once the concept of multiple use is grasped. If pennies were used but once then thrown away, yes, of course their costing American taxpayers 1.2 apiece would be a horrible, horrible thing. But they're not — pennies pass through hundreds, thousands, and maybe even millions of hands before they somehow drop out of circulation, which more than covers the additional 0.2 that went into their manufacture. In other words, while it's a great "gosh, golly, gee" fact to fling at your friends ("Say, Joe, did you know it costs 1.2 to manufacture a coin that's worth only 1?"), all the gobsmackedness of it runs right out of that conversation stopper once you pause to ponder how many times that one penny will change hands.
I don't think that's what he was saying. I think he meant that they were arbitrarily jacking their profit margin past the point the market will bear. So according to the laws of market economics, they "shouldn't" be making that much profit.
The fact that they are, indeed, making that much profit would seem to prove him wrong, though. But we'll see how long it can continue, I guess.
First of all, "keyboard enthusiasts" exist? I can't think of a more boring thing to be enthusiastic about...
I think he just meant "people who prefer memorizing 80 different keyboard shortcuts rather than move their hand ten inches to the side and grab the mouse." Those people definitely exist, and for them, a $130 keyboard that... I dunno, makes coffee or something would be a welcome addition to their household.
...this thing does make coffee, right? I mean, I didn't see any mention of that in the review, but for ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY FRIGGIN DOLLARS I just sort of assumed it did.
I'd be curious to know what the upward mobility figures look like when you're comparing more socialist/communist governments compared to capitalist governments? Are you more likely to be upwardly mobile if you live in, say, France as compared to the US?
So let me get this straight: Individual citizens armed with handguns and rifles and shotguns are going to go up against government forces, who have artillery, cruise missiles, and attack helicopters? It's working pretty well for the Iraqis.
You shoot a soldier with a handgun, and now you have an M16. Repeat as necessary.
Geez, don't worry, nobody is trying to steal your land from you. A right to roam does not in any way limit what you can do with your own land. Actually, if it prevents me from keeping people I don't invite off my land, it's doing exactly that.
Thing is, NASCAR "stock" cars routinely smash into immovable walls at 180+ MPH and the driver walks away. That's the equivalent of two cars going 90 hitting head on. That seems pretty safe to me. Why can't we make real stock cars that light and safe?
I'm amazed (as, no doubt, were the native americans a couple of centuries ago) at the general consensus here that 'putting up a fence' somehow fixes property rights from that moment to eternity.
It doesn't. However, it does fix property rights for as long as I can keep you off my land. Which is partly what the fence is for.
Still. You're missing the point. The burden of proof is on the claimant. I don't *have* to prove you wrong. You have to prove yourself right. It's not enough to say "Well, it's possible!" It's not enough to say "There's no way to prove me wrong!" It doesn't matter. YOU have to prove yourself RIGHT.
Look, if there is no functional difference between "real, objective reality" and "we live in THE MATRIX OMG" then there is no difference, period. If it is not possible to distinguish between the two, then for all intents and purposes, they are identical. The burden of proof is on you to show me the flaw in the matrix that proves that we are in fact a simulation running on a machine--until that time, the rational, logical position is that the shared reality we all see, hear, feel, taste, and smell is in fact a real, objective reality.
Except that slumps are already accounted for--they're just normal random distribution. Slumps and "hot streaks" can only be identified after the fact, and they turn out to be just what you'd expect in a random deviation from the mean. Toss an unbiased coin 1000 times and you'll see "hot streaks" and "slumps" of heads.
Thing is, on that show he usually showed up at the end of each segment and said something along the lines of "It makes for a good story, but I don't think it's true." Only nobody remembers that part--all they remember is they saw a show with Arthur C. Clarke in it and it was all about Yetis!
He was something of an advocate for cold fusion and the existence of macroscopic life on Mars, though.
Slashdot Mirror
Should we start letting off rapists then, too, because women wear such tempting short skirts and are so easy to overpower?
Wow, seriously? In the first book alone, the female lead cuts off a man's testicles and force-feeds them to him, and the male lead spends a few hundred pages getting tortured and sexed up by a sexy, sexy dominatrix.
Xenocide/Children of the Mind were flipping terrible. Such an incredible letdown after Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead. Speaker is very very different from Ender's Game, but at least it's *good*. Xenocide and Children are just awful.
Isn't "blitz" just German for "lightning"?
I would imagine this is aimed firmly at corporate customers.
No, because MS already has something similar in place for corporate customers. It's called Software Assurance
This is clearly aimed at personal and small business users.
If you're seriously throwing them in the trash, you're the one making this a big problem. From http://www.snopes.com/business/money/pennycost.asp
I don't think that's what he was saying. I think he meant that they were arbitrarily jacking their profit margin past the point the market will bear. So according to the laws of market economics, they "shouldn't" be making that much profit.
The fact that they are, indeed, making that much profit would seem to prove him wrong, though. But we'll see how long it can continue, I guess.
First of all, "keyboard enthusiasts" exist? I can't think of a more boring thing to be enthusiastic about...
I think he just meant "people who prefer memorizing 80 different keyboard shortcuts rather than move their hand ten inches to the side and grab the mouse." Those people definitely exist, and for them, a $130 keyboard that... I dunno, makes coffee or something would be a welcome addition to their household.
A better resonpse is, "What the hell are you doing hitting something other than the space bar with your thumbs?"
I'd be curious to know what the upward mobility figures look like when you're comparing more socialist/communist governments compared to capitalist governments? Are you more likely to be upwardly mobile if you live in, say, France as compared to the US?
What are you, 12?
Actually, I figure a 12 year old understands economics better than you do, so calling you 12 is an insult to all intelligent 12 year olds.
You shoot a soldier with a handgun, and now you have an M16. Repeat as necessary.
Come on, didn't you see Red Dawn?
Citation Needed.
More like "I just called 1787 asking for MY government back"
Thing is, NASCAR "stock" cars routinely smash into immovable walls at 180+ MPH and the driver walks away. That's the equivalent of two cars going 90 hitting head on. That seems pretty safe to me. Why can't we make real stock cars that light and safe?
There isn't a huge amount of incentive for businesses to fund basic science research as it infrequently leads to a positive ROI in the nearterm.
How easily we forget the very foundations of our geek society, UNIX and the C programming language, were created at Bell Labs.
I'm amazed (as, no doubt, were the native americans a couple of centuries ago) at the general consensus here that 'putting up a fence' somehow fixes property rights from that moment to eternity.
It doesn't. However, it does fix property rights for as long as I can keep you off my land. Which is partly what the fence is for.
Come on, man. You're harshing his mellow! Charles Berlitz says the Bermuda Triangle exists, and I totally believe him. Chuck wouldn't lie.
Yes, yes, that's all very nice.
Still. You're missing the point. The burden of proof is on the claimant. I don't *have* to prove you wrong. You have to prove yourself right. It's not enough to say "Well, it's possible!" It's not enough to say "There's no way to prove me wrong!" It doesn't matter. YOU have to prove yourself RIGHT.
Look, if there is no functional difference between "real, objective reality" and "we live in THE MATRIX OMG" then there is no difference, period. If it is not possible to distinguish between the two, then for all intents and purposes, they are identical. The burden of proof is on you to show me the flaw in the matrix that proves that we are in fact a simulation running on a machine--until that time, the rational, logical position is that the shared reality we all see, hear, feel, taste, and smell is in fact a real, objective reality.
The burden of proof is on the claimant.
It was either a joke, or another data point.
Except that slumps are already accounted for--they're just normal random distribution. Slumps and "hot streaks" can only be identified after the fact, and they turn out to be just what you'd expect in a random deviation from the mean. Toss an unbiased coin 1000 times and you'll see "hot streaks" and "slumps" of heads.
I think you're thinking of Eon by Greg Bear. Honestly, I wasn't that excited about the original. Can't imagine what a lesser author would make of it.
Thing is, on that show he usually showed up at the end of each segment and said something along the lines of "It makes for a good story, but I don't think it's true." Only nobody remembers that part--all they remember is they saw a show with Arthur C. Clarke in it and it was all about Yetis!
He was something of an advocate for cold fusion and the existence of macroscopic life on Mars, though.