What if after repeated uses you end up with a permanent change to that region of the brain? You'd spend the rest of your life doing great pictures of cats and not much else.
The more likely result would be a growing tolerance to the effect until it stopped working.
One last thing, I shouldn't have been surprised to see that the government immediately looked for a military use for it. Do our armed forces really need any more help?
I'd like to add to your points that knowing to make things (even ordinary things like cheese) is liberating in a way. Even if you don't follow through, being able to make something frees you from being a passive consumer having to buy only those products industries deem worth selling. Making something also installs in it a feeling of personal energy (no reference to the One Ring intended), something absent from just grabbing a thing off a shelf.
Just like the parent comment, I too have many years of studying the martial arts (in fact I'm nursing sore ribs right now). The countless hours spent mastering archaic weapons is similar to the study of lost craft skills. I wonder if this is another common thread?
As I read this article I looked up to one of my bookcases and spotted titles on flintknapping (how's that for old skills?), Native American medicinal plants and crafts, medieval machinery, and Tom Brown's nature skills books. I'm also a computing professional so maybe there is something to his point.
I'd be interested in recommendations by the author or anyone else on good books on metalworking and other similar "lost" craft skills.
One big flaw in his analysis is that he uses the averages of a number of purchases to determine the efficiency of various denominations. The problem with this is that prices change over time. You cannot constantly come out with new denominations to chase after price flucuations, it would cause chaos. The best coins for today may not be the best 5 years from now. The best thing to do (and we do it now) is to set a standard based on the base 10 system.
His other major error is his very definition of efficiency. The number of coins handed out is a small part of the transaction's total time, the biggest part is the time needed for the cashier to add up the change or the customer to add up their payment. Sticking to units of 5 makes addition in your head a hell of a lot easier than, say, 6, 7 or 8. I agree with the parent comment, can you imagine someone trying to add multiple 18 cent pieces during the lunchtime rush?
This whole article strikes me as nothing more than a mathematical recreation that has been used for self-promotion.
Having your munitions fail on purpose is not such a good idea unless you are extremely good about monitoring your inventories, which I doubt the DOD has mastered (based on their inability to account for millions in material every year). Imagine some poor schmuck needing to use one of these and noticing at the last second the blinking display saying "This stinger has expired, please call 1-800-RAY-THON".
Actually, most of the Stingers failed due to a much more mundane reason, the batteries wear out after a while and need to be replaced. I doubt they are batteries you can get at the Kabul Radio Shack though a determined person could put an ad-hoc solution together.
I agree. I'd rather see the possbility of at least recycling the universe than seeing it die by a slow pathetic decay.
To imply that life will go on because the universe is open instead of closed is a misconception. Eventually the remaining free gas in the galaxy will be used up and star formation will cease. All stars will eventually become cooled off white dwarfs, neutron stars or black holes. Galactic clusters will become more isolated and even black holes will fade out due to Hawking radiation. Toss in the possibility of proton decay and you are looking at a universe consisting of a "photon haze". Doesn't sound like a very life friendly future.
I see this as just another scheme for a manufacturer to pawn off an inferior product on the public with a veneer of palatability, usually this is done with marketing instead of chemicals. Instead of producing a better product they'd rather work on masking the flavor by tossing in additives. Obviously spending some money on keeping the quality high isn't a priority.
This may come as a shock to many parents and school administrators but hundreds of generations of students have gotten by using only books and personal instruction to learn. Folks such as Einstein, Mozart, Goethe, etc seemed to do pretty well without computer based learning. Maybe it is the modern culture and the lack of a learning environment at home that is the real problem but that would require parents cutting back on their precious careers and the big house to spend time with the kids.
If you can't convince some macho headed, herd mentality bike rider to wear a helmet for their own saftey what possible chance do you have of getting them to invest in a hi-tech vest that'll cover up their designer leather gear?
Just drive through a "worry later" state like NH and you'll see that about 90% of the bike riders are convinced that their skulls are invulnerable. Maybe they realize that there is nothing vital in their heads?
I agree that people screwed things up by eliminating deer's natural predators because Farmer Fred was pissed about losing a few sheep. The problem with hunters though is that they go after the biggest and strongest animals instead of the weak or sick like natural predators do. I figure after a few hundred years of this kind of hunting deer will be the size of dogs and have stubby little antlers.
They do it for food? By the time you add up the costs of gear, guns, gas and, of course, the beer the average hunter could've driven to any supermarket and bought 10 times as much meat as they get by hunting.
The cost of doing business show be part of the price of the service/item, not broken out into bogus "fees" (i.e. taxes) so they can advertise a lower price. If a fee is required then it must be advertised as part of the price, anything else is fraud.
The pricewatch shipping value isn't very useful as shipping varies by the type of shipping and the weight/size of the item.
I'm sorry but I never want people who dress up in fur suits to have sex to become accepted by society. After all, part of their fun is to be outsiders and I don't need to see a guy dressed as Barney with an erection sticking out.
Yah, let the Chinese avoid all those silly things like decent standards of living, not dumping waste everywhere, etc. By buying from a system that supports low standards you are just being a hypocrite who inflicts the problems on someone else. You'd never accept those abuses in your neighborhood but have no problem supporting it in someone else's.
"Free trade increases efficiency and, in the long run, will raise standards of living for all people." That is a cliché, prove it is always the case. The late 1800s in the US were barely regulated and there were no protections of any significance for workers. The only standards of living that got raised significantly were those of the owners of major corporations. Even those who didn't work of those businesses directly had their waste and shoddy products inflicted on them. More soldiers died from food poisoning and disease during the Spanish-American war than from combat. Teddy Roosevelt was so disgusted by the quality of food sold to the public and the army and the patent medicine trade that he pushed the Pure Food and Drug act into effect. You would've opposed it as being a burden on "free trade".
Opposing artificial protections for businesses (corporate welfare) is one thing but to oppose laws designed to protect society in general is another. The market is there to serve the public, not the other way around. However if you believe in some union conspiracy theory (in an age when unions have lost power) then you truly are out of touch.
Slashdot Mirror
What if after repeated uses you end up with a permanent change to that region of the brain? You'd spend the rest of your life doing great pictures of cats and not much else.
The more likely result would be a growing tolerance to the effect until it stopped working.
One last thing, I shouldn't have been surprised to see that the government immediately looked for a military use for it. Do our armed forces really need any more help?
It got twisted around, it actually said that we use only 10% of our COLON at a time.
I'd like to add to your points that knowing to make things (even ordinary things like cheese) is liberating in a way. Even if you don't follow through, being able to make something frees you from being a passive consumer having to buy only those products industries deem worth selling. Making something also installs in it a feeling of personal energy (no reference to the One Ring intended), something absent from just grabbing a thing off a shelf.
Just like the parent comment, I too have many years of studying the martial arts (in fact I'm nursing sore ribs right now). The countless hours spent mastering archaic weapons is similar to the study of lost craft skills. I wonder if this is another common thread?
As I read this article I looked up to one of my bookcases and spotted titles on flintknapping (how's that for old skills?), Native American medicinal plants and crafts, medieval machinery, and Tom Brown's nature skills books. I'm also a computing professional so maybe there is something to his point.
I'd be interested in recommendations by the author or anyone else on good books on metalworking and other similar "lost" craft skills.
One big flaw in his analysis is that he uses the averages of a number of purchases to determine the efficiency of various denominations. The problem with this is that prices change over time. You cannot constantly come out with new denominations to chase after price flucuations, it would cause chaos. The best coins for today may not be the best 5 years from now. The best thing to do (and we do it now) is to set a standard based on the base 10 system.
His other major error is his very definition of efficiency. The number of coins handed out is a small part of the transaction's total time, the biggest part is the time needed for the cashier to add up the change or the customer to add up their payment. Sticking to units of 5 makes addition in your head a hell of a lot easier than, say, 6, 7 or 8. I agree with the parent comment, can you imagine someone trying to add multiple 18 cent pieces during the lunchtime rush?
This whole article strikes me as nothing more than a mathematical recreation that has been used for self-promotion.
Having your munitions fail on purpose is not such a good idea unless you are extremely good about monitoring your inventories, which I doubt the DOD has mastered (based on their inability to account for millions in material every year). Imagine some poor schmuck needing to use one of these and noticing at the last second the blinking display saying "This stinger has expired, please call 1-800-RAY-THON".
Actually, most of the Stingers failed due to a much more mundane reason, the batteries wear out after a while and need to be replaced. I doubt they are batteries you can get at the Kabul Radio Shack though a determined person could put an ad-hoc solution together.
So, do I get to monitor the monitors?
I agree. I'd rather see the possbility of at least recycling the universe than seeing it die by a slow pathetic decay.
To imply that life will go on because the universe is open instead of closed is a misconception. Eventually the remaining free gas in the galaxy will be used up and star formation will cease. All stars will eventually become cooled off white dwarfs, neutron stars or black holes. Galactic clusters will become more isolated and even black holes will fade out due to Hawking radiation. Toss in the possibility of proton decay and you are looking at a universe consisting of a "photon haze". Doesn't sound like a very life friendly future.
I see this as just another scheme for a manufacturer to pawn off an inferior product on the public with a veneer of palatability, usually this is done with marketing instead of chemicals. Instead of producing a better product they'd rather work on masking the flavor by tossing in additives. Obviously spending some money on keeping the quality high isn't a priority.
I guess the priorities in that part of Nepal are:
1. Internet access
2. Medical Care
3. Sewage treatment
4. Environmental Degredation
5. Education, Etc...
You may live in squalor but at least you'll be able to trade mp3's and download porn!
"Here is your T1 line courtesy of your friends in the US!"
"Thanks, but did you bring any cooking oil?"
Out of a voting population of 323:
253 voted for the incumbant
70 voted for the runner-up
and 87,445 voted for Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf
This may come as a shock to many parents and school administrators but hundreds of generations of students have gotten by using only books and personal instruction to learn. Folks such as Einstein, Mozart, Goethe, etc seemed to do pretty well without computer based learning. Maybe it is the modern culture and the lack of a learning environment at home that is the real problem but that would require parents cutting back on their precious careers and the big house to spend time with the kids.
If you can't convince some macho headed, herd mentality bike rider to wear a helmet for their own saftey what possible chance do you have of getting them to invest in a hi-tech vest that'll cover up their designer leather gear?
Just drive through a "worry later" state like NH and you'll see that about 90% of the bike riders are convinced that their skulls are invulnerable. Maybe they realize that there is nothing vital in their heads?
I agree that people screwed things up by eliminating deer's natural predators because Farmer Fred was pissed about losing a few sheep. The problem with hunters though is that they go after the biggest and strongest animals instead of the weak or sick like natural predators do. I figure after a few hundred years of this kind of hunting deer will be the size of dogs and have stubby little antlers.
They do it for food? By the time you add up the costs of gear, guns, gas and, of course, the beer the average hunter could've driven to any supermarket and bought 10 times as much meat as they get by hunting.
A good sized asteroid impact is my only hope!
The cost of doing business show be part of the price of the service/item, not broken out into bogus "fees" (i.e. taxes) so they can advertise a lower price. If a fee is required then it must be advertised as part of the price, anything else is fraud.
The pricewatch shipping value isn't very useful as shipping varies by the type of shipping and the weight/size of the item.
Perl, cosmology and astrophysics? This has got to be the nerdiest joke ever written on /.
Actually he'd be charged with WASTING our time.
A robot who does anything you want just by phoning? It is called a husband.
And if you buy the limited edition of their cd you can get a power drill from one of their shows!
"All that has happened is the "lazy man" has found a way to send his opinions and read other people's without getting out of his house."
Sort of like posting to Slashdot?
I'm sorry but I never want people who dress up in fur suits to have sex to become accepted by society. After all, part of their fun is to be outsiders and I don't need to see a guy dressed as Barney with an erection sticking out.
Seems like they mixed up their images, that was actually from the Manchester United finals.
Yah, let the Chinese avoid all those silly things like decent standards of living, not dumping waste everywhere, etc. By buying from a system that supports low standards you are just being a hypocrite who inflicts the problems on someone else. You'd never accept those abuses in your neighborhood but have no problem supporting it in someone else's.
"Free trade increases efficiency and, in the long run, will raise standards of living for all people." That is a cliché, prove it is always the case. The late 1800s in the US were barely regulated and there were no protections of any significance for workers. The only standards of living that got raised significantly were those of the owners of major corporations. Even those who didn't work of those businesses directly had their waste and shoddy products inflicted on them. More soldiers died from food poisoning and disease during the Spanish-American war than from combat. Teddy Roosevelt was so disgusted by the quality of food sold to the public and the army and the patent medicine trade that he pushed the Pure Food and Drug act into effect. You would've opposed it as being a burden on "free trade".
Opposing artificial protections for businesses (corporate welfare) is one thing but to oppose laws designed to protect society in general is another. The market is there to serve the public, not the other way around. However if you believe in some union conspiracy theory (in an age when unions have lost power) then you truly are out of touch.