Indeed drilling a hole to the center of the asteroid and blowing it from inside is inefficient and stupid.
It was a Michael Bay movie. So what else could it be?
There is hardly a scene in the film that makes sense.
They needed an excuse to use oil roughnecks IN SPACE! and a deadline, and a bomb.
"Deep Impact" was only slightly more plausible. Morgan Freeman and Robert Duvall were impressive, the rest, Spielbergian cloyingly cute kids and family values. So actually I'd much rather watch "Armageddon" again, dumb as it is.
The Party won't be overthrown or defeated. They are basically in collusion with the other power blocs to keep things balaced, as evidenced by the shifting alliances.
That doesn't demonstrate collusion, more willingness to take advantage of a perceived opportunity. If one of the blocs weakened, it would be pushed back by the others. Each ruling Party's ultimate aim is to take over the world, they would not just sit back and give the others a chance to recover
You missed the whole point of the book.
It's explicit near the end when O'Brien is interogating Winston, and asks him "How do you know you have power over other people?", and Winston answers correctly "by making them suffer"
You assert this means that they're reducing rations simply to make people suffer? They certainly inflict suffering in many ways, but to deduce that everything bad that is happening is a deliberate part of this plan is a stretch.
If everyone is suffering, you have no power. The choice to withhold or inflict suffering is power.
And strategically, if the people get weaker and Oceania poorer, eventually it will be defeated by one of the other blocs, and the Party would lose power. They must recognise that. That's why ultimately China changed course in the 70s after the Cultural Revolution brought widespread death, poverty and starvation. Even if you have a nutty leader who doesn't care, like Mao or Gaddafi or Stalin, eventually they will be replaced. I think in 1984 it's implied that Big Brother is a figurehead, if he ever was a real person. Probably Oceania is actually controlled by a committee, and while bureacrats can be just as evil as a single dictator, they aren't suicidal. They may not know how to run an economy, but they're not fucking it up a a policy.
1984 is a story about an ultra-competent government
Competent? The food ration was continually being reduced. They were constantly in a pointless war. They had an iron grip on society, but the government was as incompetent at managing everything else as North Korea is. Or late Maoist China. It's only going to get worse and eventually has to crack. Winston is screwed, but it can't last more than a few decades.
Right up until 1989 I never believed the Soviet empire would break up, then it did, almost overnight. The same kind of thing is happening now with the Arab dictators.
Of course Orwell didn't know about the collapse of these dictatorships, but he did know about how badly they manage their countries.
Amazon is thought to have approximately 20% share in total book sales in 2011, so it may still be fairly indicative of the market as a whole.
Since no one else sells Kindle books, that means 10% of all "book" sales are Kindle. Not over 50%. Ignoring other ebook formats, of course, but so did TFA.
Obviously number of ebooks has gone up, but they don't "surpass print sales in the UK" without a lot of qualifications added to that statement.
Especially since the "measure" is an invisible "eta". See TFA to discover the Greek letters and mathematical symbols that these idiots lost when they pasted it into Slashdot.
Since it also affects people in Australia, can you complain to your local MP? I only found a generic complaint page at the ABC and they haven't even acknowledged that.
Now, THAT's news. So, now, instead of malware writers using steganography to hide commands or payload data accessed by normal executable malware code, we have steganographic malware that autoexecutes just by being downloaded! I'll get started on the GIMP payload filter...
I wish I knew what the guy really meant, because that's pure bullshit.
Images that "autoexecute"??? The only thing that it might reference is some overflow in in whatever displays the image. But that is certainly not "steganography".
Or of course, there is the old trick of "install this codec to view Anna Kournikova blowjob video! Is anyone who works on missile defence really that dumb? There certainly are malware infested porn sites. But the images are just images.
But I guess knowing what they did with Stuxnet, they are being hyper cautious. In missile defence, paranoia is in the job description.
Every single online stream for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, for instace, i snow a endless loop saying "During the London 2012 Olympics, we are unable to bring you regular ABC programming in your location. This is due to the Olympic Broadcast Agreement."
Right. Well, I guess to Americans, "racism" means using the "N word" or the "J word" Prejudice against foreigners is just good sense.
The summary leaps from a statement that a vulnerability has been found to implying that a foreign power is using it for espionage. Without bothering to establish that ANY espionage has taken place at all, let alone who might have dome it. But feel free to "Kill them all and let God sort them out".
I'd guess at least 10,000 years ago. The Chinese certainly think they are a "race".
Google "ethnic Chinese" and argue with the 2 million hits.
Anyway, racism or just flamebait, it's an accusation without a shred of proof. Yes, we know that the Chinese govt isn't above a bit of techno-espionage, but still PROVE IT FIRST.
could potentially enable attackers, or the Chinese government, to snoop on users' traffic
If they exist they would allow ANYBODY to snoop on users' traffic. What is this, SlashFox? How about "could potentially enable attackers, or PRESIDENT BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA to snoop on users' traffic!." or "could potentially enable attackers, or homesexuals, to snoop on users' traffic".
The opposite of "conservative" isn't "statist". I wonder for your own intelligence if you actually think that. That's basically McCarthyism.
And while some very smart people are libertarians, they are usually smart in things like engineering and physical sciences, and are hopelessly unrealistic about how society functions in the real world outside an Ayn Rand novel or a video game. Just as unrealistic, actually, as committed communists.
In theory this gives Craigslist the ability to enforce a copyright claim
Well, it gives them an excuse to go to court. But if it ever went to trial, the whole idea of copyright on a simple advertisement (not including a photo) would stand up.
if the report had shown that there was no global warming, would you have been as open-minded?
If one gets the result one wanted, then maybe you are open minded, maybe you're not. It was never tested. If you get a result different from what you hoped for, and report it, that pretty much demonstrates that you are open minded. The latter is what happened with the researcher. No idea if the Kochs tried to inifluence the study results, but as I said, it seems they tried to load the dice by choosing a declared "sceptic" to run it. They didn't try to bribe him or arrange for him have a tragic accident when he came back with his result, so kudos to them for that, I suppose.
He still (rightly) called out the establishment for AGW scare-mongering, like claiming Katrina was the result of global warming. (See for example, Al Gore in An Inconvenient Truth.)
"the establishment"? The establishment has always been and still is 100% denialist.
The continual citing of Al Gore, his waistline, electricity bill etc, etc is completely irrelevant to the science and is very tiresome. Just forget it, or we'll be forced to start citing Sarah Palin.
It seems quite likely that the Koch brothers actually don't / didn't think anthropogenic global warming was real, and thus funded the study with that assumption thinking it would support their position.
Yeah, since they put a "skeptic" in charge of it. Bad luck for them he actually looked at the facts and changed his mind.
Slashdot Mirror
Indeed drilling a hole to the center of the asteroid and blowing it from inside is inefficient and stupid.
It was a Michael Bay movie. So what else could it be?
There is hardly a scene in the film that makes sense.
They needed an excuse to use oil roughnecks IN SPACE! and a deadline, and a bomb.
"Deep Impact" was only slightly more plausible. Morgan Freeman and Robert Duvall were impressive, the rest, Spielbergian cloyingly cute kids and family values. So actually I'd much rather watch "Armageddon" again, dumb as it is.
The Party won't be overthrown or defeated. They are basically in collusion with the other power blocs to keep things balaced, as evidenced by the shifting alliances.
That doesn't demonstrate collusion, more willingness to take advantage of a perceived opportunity. If one of the blocs weakened, it would be pushed back by the others. Each ruling Party's ultimate aim is to take over the world, they would not just sit back and give the others a chance to recover
You missed the whole point of the book. It's explicit near the end when O'Brien is interogating Winston, and asks him "How do you know you have power over other people?", and Winston answers correctly "by making them suffer"
You assert this means that they're reducing rations simply to make people suffer? They certainly inflict suffering in many ways, but to deduce that everything bad that is happening is a deliberate part of this plan is a stretch.
If everyone is suffering, you have no power. The choice to withhold or inflict suffering is power.
And strategically, if the people get weaker and Oceania poorer, eventually it will be defeated by one of the other blocs, and the Party would lose power. They must recognise that. That's why ultimately China changed course in the 70s after the Cultural Revolution brought widespread death, poverty and starvation. Even if you have a nutty leader who doesn't care, like Mao or Gaddafi or Stalin, eventually they will be replaced. I think in 1984 it's implied that Big Brother is a figurehead, if he ever was a real person. Probably Oceania is actually controlled by a committee, and while bureacrats can be just as evil as a single dictator, they aren't suicidal. They may not know how to run an economy, but they're not fucking it up a a policy.
1984 is a story about an ultra-competent government
Competent? The food ration was continually being reduced. They were constantly in a pointless war. They had an iron grip on society, but the government was as incompetent at managing everything else as North Korea is. Or late Maoist China. It's only going to get worse and eventually has to crack. Winston is screwed, but it can't last more than a few decades.
Right up until 1989 I never believed the Soviet empire would break up, then it did, almost overnight. The same kind of thing is happening now with the Arab dictators.
Of course Orwell didn't know about the collapse of these dictatorships, but he did know about how badly they manage their countries.
Amazon is thought to have approximately 20% share in total book sales in 2011, so it may still be fairly indicative of the market as a whole.
Since no one else sells Kindle books, that means 10% of all "book" sales are Kindle. Not over 50%. Ignoring other ebook formats, of course, but so did TFA.
Obviously number of ebooks has gone up, but they don't "surpass print sales in the UK" without a lot of qualifications added to that statement.
Bullshit. The actual story is Kindle E-Book Sales Surpass Print Sales ON AMAZON In UK.
Huge difference.
Especially since the "measure" is an invisible "eta". See TFA to discover the Greek letters and mathematical symbols that these idiots lost when they pasted it into Slashdot.
They're still blocking Hong Kong.
Since it also affects people in Australia, can you complain to your local MP? I only found a generic complaint page at the ABC and they haven't even acknowledged that.
Now, THAT's news. So, now, instead of malware writers using steganography to hide commands or payload data accessed by normal executable malware code, we have steganographic malware that autoexecutes just by being downloaded! I'll get started on the GIMP payload filter...
I wish I knew what the guy really meant, because that's pure bullshit.
Images that "autoexecute"??? The only thing that it might reference is some overflow in in whatever displays the image. But that is certainly not "steganography".
Or of course, there is the old trick of "install this codec to view Anna Kournikova blowjob video! Is anyone who works on missile defence really that dumb? There certainly are malware infested porn sites. But the images are just images.
But I guess knowing what they did with Stuxnet, they are being hyper cautious. In missile defence, paranoia is in the job description.
ABC is far from the main broadcaster in Oz.
Really? The context of "broadcasting" I was talking about was Internet radio streams. Not local over-the-air TV.
Every single online stream for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, for instace, i snow a endless loop saying "During the London 2012 Olympics, we are unable to bring you regular ABC programming in your location. This is due to the Olympic Broadcast Agreement."
Try any of the streams at http://www.abc.net.au/radio/listenlive.htm#directlinks All blocked if you're outside Australia.
Assholes. Not just sport. EVERYTHING from Australia's main broadcaster is off the air for weeks because of the fucking Olympics.
Well, fuck, I only got +3. I should have been more over the top.
not a race issue"
Right. Well, I guess to Americans, "racism" means using the "N word" or the "J word" Prejudice against foreigners is just good sense.
The summary leaps from a statement that a vulnerability has been found to implying that a foreign power is using it for espionage. Without bothering to establish that ANY espionage has taken place at all, let alone who might have dome it. But feel free to "Kill them all and let God sort them out".
When did Chinese become a race?
I'd guess at least 10,000 years ago. The Chinese certainly think they are a "race". Google "ethnic Chinese" and argue with the 2 million hits.
Anyway, racism or just flamebait, it's an accusation without a shred of proof. Yes, we know that the Chinese govt isn't above a bit of techno-espionage, but still PROVE IT FIRST.
When something is being sold for a much lower price then competing products, there is a reason for it.
Yeah, they cloned the designs. Which is naughty, but doesn't mean they don't work exactly the same as the original version.
could potentially enable attackers, or the Chinese government, to snoop on users' traffic
If they exist they would allow ANYBODY to snoop on users' traffic. What is this, SlashFox? How about "could potentially enable attackers, or PRESIDENT BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA to snoop on users' traffic!." or "could potentially enable attackers, or homesexuals, to snoop on users' traffic".
And while some very smart people are libertarians, they are usually smart in things like engineering and physical sciences, and are hopelessly unrealistic about how society functions in the real world outside an Ayn Rand novel or a video game. Just as unrealistic, actually, as committed communists.
copied on some Malaysian or Russian site, and hopefully this will give Craigslist ammo to get these sites taken down
You think anyone in Russia would give a fuck if CL sent them a C&D?
In theory this gives Craigslist the ability to enforce a copyright claim Well, it gives them an excuse to go to court. But if it ever went to trial, the whole idea of copyright on a simple advertisement (not including a photo) would stand up.
So, another abuse of copyright in the offing.
The Nazis have been there since 1945.
if the report had shown that there was no global warming, would you have been as open-minded?
If one gets the result one wanted, then maybe you are open minded, maybe you're not. It was never tested. If you get a result different from what you hoped for, and report it, that pretty much demonstrates that you are open minded. The latter is what happened with the researcher. No idea if the Kochs tried to inifluence the study results, but as I said, it seems they tried to load the dice by choosing a declared "sceptic" to run it. They didn't try to bribe him or arrange for him have a tragic accident when he came back with his result, so kudos to them for that, I suppose.
the media is very much alarmist,
Who was talking about "the media"?
"the establishment"? The establishment has always been and still is 100% denialist.
The continual citing of Al Gore, his waistline, electricity bill etc, etc is completely irrelevant to the science and is very tiresome. Just forget it, or we'll be forced to start citing Sarah Palin.
It seems quite likely that the Koch brothers actually don't / didn't think anthropogenic global warming was real, and thus funded the study with that assumption thinking it would support their position.
Yeah, since they put a "skeptic" in charge of it. Bad luck for them he actually looked at the facts and changed his mind.