Yeah, because, you know, no one ever discovered anything truly revolutionary to the scientific world while working on "mundane" things.
What sets us apart from the apes is our drive to seek knowledge purely for the sake of knowing it. What sets the US apart from many other nations is our willingness to fund science in all its forms, whether or not a given research projects produces something whose value can be measured in dollars and cents.
The government buys guns. Therefore, this supports my assertion that the U.S. goverment is pursuing firearm technology for exactly the reasons of killing people. Killing people will be more convenient, less expensive, and faster than trials. Therefore it's only logical that the military will begin immediately shooting anyone who questions the government. Given that it's much easier to just shoot detractors than hold an electio, can you come up with a plausible reason why they wouldn't pursue martial law?
The scary thing is, I can honestly see you believing an argument like the ridiculous fake one I just gave.
Most shelters actually chip the pets before they adopt them out, but I see your point. That's still not a big government conspiracy, though - individual rescue groups and local county animal control for the most part have some flexibility in determining their own policies. And the key word here is "many". It's not some universal requirement - there are plenty of ways to obtain a pet without a microchip if you are so inclined. Big Brother is not watching.
Have you ever actually BEEN to an animal control facility? They do the exact same thing today that they did 15 years ago. They hold the animal for a prescribed amount of time. It is the owner's responsibility to claim the animal. It's always been this way. If the animal happens to have ID tags (the old fashioned kind) on its collar, they will call the phone number on the tags. Nothing has changed since they added chipping - it's just made the process a lot easier, because chips can't be removed by a person trying to claim your dog as their own, and a stray branch in the woods is unlikely to rip the chip off.
Oh come the fuck on - no one is forcing you to get a microchip placed in your dog. I have my cats and my dogs chipped - it's the only surefire way to ensure that your pet can be connected to you. It's not like the big bad government is coming to my house with a gun to my head saying "PUT A CHIP IN YOUR DOG'S NECK NOW!"
And the other two? Oh wait, haven't actually happened. Typical slashdot kneejerk paranoia.
Before you go all "1984" on our asses, take a moment to stop and realize that this is the company that SELLS THE CHIPS making the proposal, NOT the government. What next, a company that makes bombs approving of a war? Or, shock and horror, a cigarette company talking about how harmless their product is? News flash: Guy who sells product proposes people use product. Film at 11.
The summary.... is so confusing but i only read it once and it gave me a headache.... so i wonder if the people at zdnet passed grade school grammar... in the interweb world, all the article writers are making run-on sentences with no punctuation as are the submitters on digg, youtube, myspace, and slashdot. My migraine is on top of this one.
Regarding the free mac minis - your sig claims "it works". Have you LOOKED at the freepay website recently? There's now a 3 month time period in which you need to obtain all of your referrals, have them approved, and mail in a paper form. For the 10 referrals needed for a mac mini this is nearly impossible. Just a week ago I finally got my ipod from freepay - my referrals were completed LAST YEAR, and my account was approved in late january. That's almost five months for them to fufill THEIR end of the bargain, yet you only have three months to complete yours.
Freepay is now a scam. I suggest checking out the anything4free.com forums to see which companies are still legit.
Which one? I found the second D&D movie to be pretty good, with a lot of subtle (and not-so-subtle) references to bits of game mechanics that only a D&D player would get.
Wow, a blogger has grainy pictures with a chip circled and "TPM?" written next to it. I'm convinced. He couldn't even find the numbers from the chip anywhere online to confirm that this is, in fact, a TPM. Unless you can find some real evidence, it's probably reasonable to assume we don't know if intel macs have TPM or not.
It's only the intel kernel and drovers that are closed source. Everything PPC is still completely open.
Honestly, the only people who have any need to ever recompile the kernel are using serious hardware. People running render farms on xserve or powermacs might want to tweak performance, but your macbook and imac users most likely won't.
Hey look, big shocker, the "pro" level systems where kernel tweaking will matter are still using PPC. Hey, even bigger shocker, the PPC source is still open. Let's wait until the entire product line is transitioned over to Intel systems before we jump to too many conclusions about what all of this means and what the future holds.
It has been known for a year now roughly what capabilities the wii-mote would have. According to the articles I've read, Sony only notified developers about their controller a few weeks before E3. Given the simple nature of the controller, it's safe to say they didn't develop it over a year ago and just now decide to let developers see it. No, they knew what nintendo's controller was capable of, and knew that their version would be nowhere near as functional. They did it so they could say "motion sensing" at their press conference the day before Nintendo's.
Of course sony didn't rip off Nintendo. Nintendo's controller features true position detection, as well as relative motion. Nintendo's controller is something that has never been done before in a consumer video game system.
Sony threw some components from a generic gyroscopic mouse in an old controller. That's not ripping off nintendo's genuinely innovative design. Comparing the MS, logitech, atari, or sony controllers to the nintendo one is pure idiocy - they have nowhere near the functionality of the Wii.
The real issue, of course, is Sony attempting to steal Nintendo's thunder, not their idea. So far all it's done is make them look like jackasses.
That "something big enough" is already here. It's called tides. The difference in the force of gravity on the near and far side of the moon have locked it into a 1:1 rotation:orbit configuration with the earth. The same will eventually happen with the earth and the sun. Of course, it will take a much longer time, but barring external influences, it will happen.
Be careful with your wording, here - the moon is tidally locked to the Earth. Earth is NOT tidally locked to the moon. In fact, if Earth WERE tidally locked to the moon, we would have no tides, as the bulge would always be at the same geographical location.
Also realize that tidal forces go down as 1/r^3, so even though the gravitational force due to the moon is much weaker than that of the sun, the tidal force is greater. Therefore, if anything is going to influence the rotation of Earth, it will be the moon.
Tidal locking could eventually cause the Earth-moon system to line up on axis to the sun, but it's far more likely that the slow energy loss from tidal motion will cause the moon to careen into Earth before that ever happens.
All of this is a moot point, though, because the sun will supernova long before this could happen. The only way you're likely to stop the Earth spinning is to hit it with an object big enough to smash it to bits.
They don't RELY on it, but they must COMPENSATE for it. Moving electrons are affected by magnetic fields - monitors calibrated to correct for the field in the northern hemisphere will have the colors slightly skewed if you move them south of the equator.
The main difference being, of course, that Maddox is intentionally over the top in an effor to be FUNNY (I tend to think he succeeds). This guy is just a tool. No, he's not even good enough to be a tool - he's a tool belt, the dirty piece of leather that keeps other tools haging next to the plumber's asscrack.
The earth rotates because angular momentum is conserved - its orbit has nothing to do with it. It was spinning when it formed so it'sa gonna keep spinnin 'till something big enough comes along to stop it.
One of the most frightening things I learn having conversations with people is their willingness to believe complete and utter bullshit. I couldn't agree more that we should be teaching scepticism in schools - people are clearly out of touch with reality and willing to believe the most ridiculous things with no evidence whatsoever.
Slashdot Mirror
I stand corrected.
Yeah, because, you know, no one ever discovered anything truly revolutionary to the scientific world while working on "mundane" things.
What sets us apart from the apes is our drive to seek knowledge purely for the sake of knowing it. What sets the US apart from many other nations is our willingness to fund science in all its forms, whether or not a given research projects produces something whose value can be measured in dollars and cents.
I'll take straw man flamebait over groupthink karma whore any day :)
The government buys guns. Therefore, this supports my assertion that the U.S. goverment is pursuing firearm technology for exactly the reasons of killing people. Killing people will be more convenient, less expensive, and faster than trials. Therefore it's only logical that the military will begin immediately shooting anyone who questions the government. Given that it's much easier to just shoot detractors than hold an electio, can you come up with a plausible reason why they wouldn't pursue martial law?
The scary thing is, I can honestly see you believing an argument like the ridiculous fake one I just gave.
Most shelters actually chip the pets before they adopt them out, but I see your point. That's still not a big government conspiracy, though - individual rescue groups and local county animal control for the most part have some flexibility in determining their own policies. And the key word here is "many". It's not some universal requirement - there are plenty of ways to obtain a pet without a microchip if you are so inclined. Big Brother is not watching.
Have you ever actually BEEN to an animal control facility? They do the exact same thing today that they did 15 years ago. They hold the animal for a prescribed amount of time. It is the owner's responsibility to claim the animal. It's always been this way. If the animal happens to have ID tags (the old fashioned kind) on its collar, they will call the phone number on the tags. Nothing has changed since they added chipping - it's just made the process a lot easier, because chips can't be removed by a person trying to claim your dog as their own, and a stray branch in the woods is unlikely to rip the chip off.
Right. Because handing someone an ID card with a chip in it is EXACTLY the same as sticking the chip in their neck.
Oh come the fuck on - no one is forcing you to get a microchip placed in your dog. I have my cats and my dogs chipped - it's the only surefire way to ensure that your pet can be connected to you. It's not like the big bad government is coming to my house with a gun to my head saying "PUT A CHIP IN YOUR DOG'S NECK NOW!"
And the other two? Oh wait, haven't actually happened. Typical slashdot kneejerk paranoia.
Before you go all "1984" on our asses, take a moment to stop and realize that this is the company that SELLS THE CHIPS making the proposal, NOT the government. What next, a company that makes bombs approving of a war? Or, shock and horror, a cigarette company talking about how harmless their product is? News flash: Guy who sells product proposes people use product. Film at 11.
That is supreme coolness. I think I have a new favorite beer. Bye bye Rochefort, hello guys-who-made-the-beer-robot!
The summary.... is so confusing but i only read it once and it gave me a headache.... so i wonder if the people at zdnet passed grade school grammar... in the interweb world, all the article writers are making run-on sentences with no punctuation as are the submitters on digg, youtube, myspace, and slashdot. My migraine is on top of this one.
Regarding the free mac minis - your sig claims "it works". Have you LOOKED at the freepay website recently? There's now a 3 month time period in which you need to obtain all of your referrals, have them approved, and mail in a paper form. For the 10 referrals needed for a mac mini this is nearly impossible. Just a week ago I finally got my ipod from freepay - my referrals were completed LAST YEAR, and my account was approved in late january. That's almost five months for them to fufill THEIR end of the bargain, yet you only have three months to complete yours.
Freepay is now a scam. I suggest checking out the anything4free.com forums to see which companies are still legit.
Which one? I found the second D&D movie to be pretty good, with a lot of subtle (and not-so-subtle) references to bits of game mechanics that only a D&D player would get.
Wow, a blogger has grainy pictures with a chip circled and "TPM?" written next to it. I'm convinced. He couldn't even find the numbers from the chip anywhere online to confirm that this is, in fact, a TPM. Unless you can find some real evidence, it's probably reasonable to assume we don't know if intel macs have TPM or not.
It's only the intel kernel and drovers that are closed source. Everything PPC is still completely open.
Honestly, the only people who have any need to ever recompile the kernel are using serious hardware. People running render farms on xserve or powermacs might want to tweak performance, but your macbook and imac users most likely won't.
Hey look, big shocker, the "pro" level systems where kernel tweaking will matter are still using PPC. Hey, even bigger shocker, the PPC source is still open. Let's wait until the entire product line is transitioned over to Intel systems before we jump to too many conclusions about what all of this means and what the future holds.
It has been known for a year now roughly what capabilities the wii-mote would have. According to the articles I've read, Sony only notified developers about their controller a few weeks before E3. Given the simple nature of the controller, it's safe to say they didn't develop it over a year ago and just now decide to let developers see it. No, they knew what nintendo's controller was capable of, and knew that their version would be nowhere near as functional. They did it so they could say "motion sensing" at their press conference the day before Nintendo's.
No, it was made by MS, not the firefox team...
you misspelled Safari.
Of course sony didn't rip off Nintendo. Nintendo's controller features true position detection, as well as relative motion. Nintendo's controller is something that has never been done before in a consumer video game system.
Sony threw some components from a generic gyroscopic mouse in an old controller. That's not ripping off nintendo's genuinely innovative design. Comparing the MS, logitech, atari, or sony controllers to the nintendo one is pure idiocy - they have nowhere near the functionality of the Wii.
The real issue, of course, is Sony attempting to steal Nintendo's thunder, not their idea. So far all it's done is make them look like jackasses.
That "something big enough" is already here. It's called tides. The difference in the force of gravity on the near and far side of the moon have locked it into a 1:1 rotation:orbit configuration with the earth. The same will eventually happen with the earth and the sun. Of course, it will take a much longer time, but barring external influences, it will happen.
Be careful with your wording, here - the moon is tidally locked to the Earth. Earth is NOT tidally locked to the moon. In fact, if Earth WERE tidally locked to the moon, we would have no tides, as the bulge would always be at the same geographical location.
Also realize that tidal forces go down as 1/r^3, so even though the gravitational force due to the moon is much weaker than that of the sun, the tidal force is greater. Therefore, if anything is going to influence the rotation of Earth, it will be the moon.
Tidal locking could eventually cause the Earth-moon system to line up on axis to the sun, but it's far more likely that the slow energy loss from tidal motion will cause the moon to careen into Earth before that ever happens.
All of this is a moot point, though, because the sun will supernova long before this could happen. The only way you're likely to stop the Earth spinning is to hit it with an object big enough to smash it to bits.
As others have pointed out, degauss isn't always enough.
I read that as "Wii it give a galactic booooing sound"
I was thinking WTF does Mario Galaxy have to do with the earth's magnetic field?
They don't RELY on it, but they must COMPENSATE for it. Moving electrons are affected by magnetic fields - monitors calibrated to correct for the field in the northern hemisphere will have the colors slightly skewed if you move them south of the equator.
The main difference being, of course, that Maddox is intentionally over the top in an effor to be FUNNY (I tend to think he succeeds). This guy is just a tool. No, he's not even good enough to be a tool - he's a tool belt, the dirty piece of leather that keeps other tools haging next to the plumber's asscrack.
The earth rotates because angular momentum is conserved - its orbit has nothing to do with it. It was spinning when it formed so it'sa gonna keep spinnin 'till something big enough comes along to stop it.
One of the most frightening things I learn having conversations with people is their willingness to believe complete and utter bullshit. I couldn't agree more that we should be teaching scepticism in schools - people are clearly out of touch with reality and willing to believe the most ridiculous things with no evidence whatsoever.