Even with a 120mm fan in its front, a 92 in back, one for the power supply, one on the cpu, one on the GPU and one on the north bridge, my desktop (actually floortop) system only generates a soothing hum. I actually like hearing a little hum from it, like starting up an engine.
The CD/DVD units produce more noise when powering up than any other part of my system.
I've been told for years that static electicity is the killer of small electronic components. Now they are proposing putting an electrostatic discharger smack dab on the motherboard? You could say the same for water cooling but at least that is a self contained system. I agree with you, it doesn't sound so appealing. One arcing event and it is all over.
Because the kid did it knowing the teacher wouldn't be able to do anything about it. He left the country the next day. Sort of thumbing his nose at them. I doubt his parents will do anything either.
Maybe the storm water drain wasn't being used anymore. I guess as long as there isn't a risk of something cutting the wires down there (rats? unclogging service?) it wouldn't be a problem. The wires are insulated and waterproof after all. At the very least they should put the wires into their own conduit to protect them.
Not all companies are monopolies due to copyright law (IBM put MS DOS on its PCs way back when as a business decision). You don't HAVE to use it. The laws are there to prevent unauthorized usage and give exclusive commercial rights not to force you to use it. If copyright laws were dropped tomorrow would people stop using Windows? I doubt it. They'd be making a lot more copies of it though.
"* Government intervention. They ruined the railroads and the phone companies, and now they're after the Internet. It works like this: Something is good, and private companies are selling it and making it work. The government decides it's a "right," and subsidizes one of those private companies to give it to people who can't afford it. The subsidized company soon runs the competition out of business and becomes a sponsored, sanctioned monopoly. The process has started with the Internet under the guise of "making the Information Superhighway available to everyone." It may sound good at first, but it's a bad idea. We may look back at 1994 as the beginning of the end of the high-quality Net."
Microsoft is a monopoly all on its very own, thank you very much. No government intervention needed there.
I'm more worried about private companies locking down the net such as with the telecomm companies trying to institute a two (or more) tiered system to squeeze more money out of you. That'll hurt the little guys more than the government.
This is a great way for parents to teach kids to be independent and learn on their own by second guessing their every move. Either that or they'll teach themselves how to wrap their phone in foil.
I doubt it. After being readied by your pleasant trip through security where you begged for your insulin back, the comfort of flying with your knees crushed into the back of the seat in front of you while a kid kicks the back of your seat will sooth your troubled soul. And if that isn't enough you can eat your bag of pretzles (only on select flights) on your tiny tray. Then you can join the 10 person long line to the toilet only to get to the front in time to be ordered by the flight attendant to get back to the your seat because they'll be landing in 1 hour.
"Except that "safe" is a totally subjective concept."
I'd say it at the very least means it won't make you worse in the long term. I don't want to take a drug for pain and end up with liver failure.
"Why the hell can't the patient and their doctors decide what is safe and what is not?"
Because doctors and patients aren't in a position to test a drug for years on hundreds of volunteers. A doctor only has what is published by the drug company to go on and barely has the time or knowledge to analyze pharm journals (I know doctors who'd back this statement). A patient is in an even worse position. Do you think you can tell if one car is safer than another better than a group that does crash tests? A doctor is required to "Do no harm" not "Experiment blindly on the patient".
"There doesn't need to be a safety dictatorship to command us all on what is the risk we should be allowed to take."
Would you toss out the Pure Food and Drug Act also? We could go back to the days of cure-alls and patent medicines. Maybe even radium drinks for health and eventual jaw cancer.
No one is stopping you from putting whatever you want into your body (except for illegal drugs, another topic). Go ahead and take mercury if you want. You just can't sell them and claim they cure something. Maybe if you want to take more risk the FDA could let you but you couldn't turn around and ask for the government to pay for your medication or the costs of a bad outcome.
"No one disagrees that it now takes orders of magnitude more capital to produce a profitable drug now, than it did 50 years ago, that is fact."
Assuming this cost has risen beyond inflation isn't it safe to say that a large part of this has to do with the intensity of research needed to make breakthoughs nowadays? A hundred or so years ago you could do groundbreaking nuclear physics research like Compton did in just a few rooms with equipment that fit on a couple of tables. Today it requires massive accelerators that cost many billions of dollars. Was it due to regulations or the ever increasing demands of research?
Don't get me wrong. I agree with you that there is room for simplification. All beaurocracies eventually become sprawling beasts after a while. I certainly don't dispute that money for political favors goes on too. I just dispute your implied claim that miracle cures are being withheld from the public and that the costs of drugs would drop dramatically without a large upsurge in risk along with it. Thalidomide was considered a wonder drug by doctors and patients but it took years before people realized it was also a powerful teratogen. Only better testing would've caught this, something I'm sure the approx 10,000 children deformed by it would support.
Could you please point out which regulations you are talking about? The ones requiring clinical trials? I prefer my drugs to be proven safe and do what they claim. They are very strict because the developer's "oops" is someone else's life.
"...most of the regulations on drug development (which don't exist to protect people, they are only there to make drug development more expensive and hence limit competition by keeping smaller companies out fo the market)."
Prove this statement. Be specific instead of just waving your arms around.
If you think they should be taxed then I hope you also push for taxing churches that provide goods and services that conflict with commercial ones and higher ed institutions that make money on licenses, etc.
Culture and knowledge should only be available to an elite few. I look forward to going back to the days before Gutenberg liberated the written word from handwritten copies and the Church lost it's intellectual monopoly on religious writings that were previously only kept in Latin.
Slashdot Mirror
Even with a 120mm fan in its front, a 92 in back, one for the power supply, one on the cpu, one on the GPU and one on the north bridge, my desktop (actually floortop) system only generates a soothing hum. I actually like hearing a little hum from it, like starting up an engine.
The CD/DVD units produce more noise when powering up than any other part of my system.
It has to be a press release.
I've been told for years that static electicity is the killer of small electronic components. Now they are proposing putting an electrostatic discharger smack dab on the motherboard? You could say the same for water cooling but at least that is a self contained system. I agree with you, it doesn't sound so appealing. One arcing event and it is all over.
The only mistake they made was not getting hold of the video earlier. Maybe they need surveillance of teacher's homes.
I hope more idiots film themselves, prosecutors LOVE evidence like that.
Because the kid did it knowing the teacher wouldn't be able to do anything about it. He left the country the next day. Sort of thumbing his nose at them. I doubt his parents will do anything either.
Maybe the storm water drain wasn't being used anymore. I guess as long as there isn't a risk of something cutting the wires down there (rats? unclogging service?) it wouldn't be a problem. The wires are insulated and waterproof after all. At the very least they should put the wires into their own conduit to protect them.
Slashdot, where you can not only learn about the gory details of OS kernels and hardware but also the nitty-gritty on plumbing!
Just build copies of Marvin and pack him full of explosives. I'm sure a chronically depressed robot can be talked into ending it all.
Could be worse. Instead of a RealDoll it could be a pissed off Pris
Not all companies are monopolies due to copyright law (IBM put MS DOS on its PCs way back when as a business decision). You don't HAVE to use it. The laws are there to prevent unauthorized usage and give exclusive commercial rights not to force you to use it. If copyright laws were dropped tomorrow would people stop using Windows? I doubt it. They'd be making a lot more copies of it though.
"* Government intervention. They ruined the railroads and the phone companies, and now they're after the Internet. It works like this: Something is good, and private companies are selling it and making it work. The government decides it's a "right," and subsidizes one of those private companies to give it to people who can't afford it. The subsidized company soon runs the competition out of business and becomes a sponsored, sanctioned monopoly. The process has started with the Internet under the guise of "making the Information Superhighway available to everyone." It may sound good at first, but it's a bad idea. We may look back at 1994 as the beginning of the end of the high-quality Net."
Microsoft is a monopoly all on its very own, thank you very much. No government intervention needed there.
I'm more worried about private companies locking down the net such as with the telecomm companies trying to institute a two (or more) tiered system to squeeze more money out of you. That'll hurt the little guys more than the government.
I was playing Nethack last night. Granted I was using the isometric graphical interface mod. Nethack hasn't been updated in a while though.
I think he was just making a joke. Whether it was appropriate or not is a matter of opinion.
Ironically, this link was next to the article.
"I dare you!"
"I dog dare you!"
"I triple dog dare you!"
This is a great way for parents to teach kids to be independent and learn on their own by second guessing their every move. Either that or they'll teach themselves how to wrap their phone in foil.
All people between the ages of 12 and 20 will be automatically jailed. Damn teenagers!
I doubt it. After being readied by your pleasant trip through security where you begged for your insulin back, the comfort of flying with your knees crushed into the back of the seat in front of you while a kid kicks the back of your seat will sooth your troubled soul. And if that isn't enough you can eat your bag of pretzles (only on select flights) on your tiny tray. Then you can join the 10 person long line to the toilet only to get to the front in time to be ordered by the flight attendant to get back to the your seat because they'll be landing in 1 hour.
No, I see no passengers being bothered by this.
"Except that "safe" is a totally subjective concept."
I'd say it at the very least means it won't make you worse in the long term. I don't want to take a drug for pain and end up with liver failure.
"Why the hell can't the patient and their doctors decide what is safe and what is not?"
Because doctors and patients aren't in a position to test a drug for years on hundreds of volunteers. A doctor only has what is published by the drug company to go on and barely has the time or knowledge to analyze pharm journals (I know doctors who'd back this statement). A patient is in an even worse position. Do you think you can tell if one car is safer than another better than a group that does crash tests? A doctor is required to "Do no harm" not "Experiment blindly on the patient".
"There doesn't need to be a safety dictatorship to command us all on what is the risk we should be allowed to take."
Would you toss out the Pure Food and Drug Act also? We could go back to the days of cure-alls and patent medicines. Maybe even radium drinks for health and eventual jaw cancer.
No one is stopping you from putting whatever you want into your body (except for illegal drugs, another topic). Go ahead and take mercury if you want. You just can't sell them and claim they cure something. Maybe if you want to take more risk the FDA could let you but you couldn't turn around and ask for the government to pay for your medication or the costs of a bad outcome.
"No one disagrees that it now takes orders of magnitude more capital to produce a profitable drug now, than it did 50 years ago, that is fact."
Assuming this cost has risen beyond inflation isn't it safe to say that a large part of this has to do with the intensity of research needed to make breakthoughs nowadays? A hundred or so years ago you could do groundbreaking nuclear physics research like Compton did in just a few rooms with equipment that fit on a couple of tables. Today it requires massive accelerators that cost many billions of dollars. Was it due to regulations or the ever increasing demands of research?
Don't get me wrong. I agree with you that there is room for simplification. All beaurocracies eventually become sprawling beasts after a while. I certainly don't dispute that money for political favors goes on too. I just dispute your implied claim that miracle cures are being withheld from the public and that the costs of drugs would drop dramatically without a large upsurge in risk along with it. Thalidomide was considered a wonder drug by doctors and patients but it took years before people realized it was also a powerful teratogen. Only better testing would've caught this, something I'm sure the approx 10,000 children deformed by it would support.
Could you please point out which regulations you are talking about? The ones requiring clinical trials? I prefer my drugs to be proven safe and do what they claim. They are very strict because the developer's "oops" is someone else's life.
"...most of the regulations on drug development (which don't exist to protect people, they are only there to make drug development more expensive and hence limit competition by keeping smaller companies out fo the market)."
Prove this statement. Be specific instead of just waving your arms around.
Maybe they are just taking inspiration from the illegal designer drug industry? Just make sure you don't mix up MPPP with MPTP.
Great, my frigg'n microwave oven just demanded that I clean it or it'll never let me warm up a bowl of oatmeal ever again.
Christmas sales don't matter for WOW because most players don't know what day it is anyway.
If you think they should be taxed then I hope you also push for taxing churches that provide goods and services that conflict with commercial ones and higher ed institutions that make money on licenses, etc.
Culture and knowledge should only be available to an elite few. I look forward to going back to the days before Gutenberg liberated the written word from handwritten copies and the Church lost it's intellectual monopoly on religious writings that were previously only kept in Latin.