And I am happy to know that if I am burgled or mugged the criminal will rarely have a gun and that it's even rarer that the gun will be used. Regardless of whether the cops will catch the criminal, I can cope with losing some money or property.
Health care? You have only to go to a socialist country to see how that works. They won't throw you out in the gutter, but they will make you get in line, possibly for months to remedy serious ailments such as cancer.
Well, you could say I've been to a socialist country: I was born in a one with mostly state controlled economy. I am currently living abroad in a Northern European country which has had a large socialist party in the government for the last twenty decades. And you know what? The living standards are excellent in both countries. Working public transportation, no people living under the poverty line (check out the US and UK stats in the CIA worldbook for comparison), free public schooling, public libraries and goverment subsidized university level education to allow even the low wage blue collar workers' kids to have an advanced degree if they so choose. Crime is low because the social "safety net" will provide you with basic necessities even you go completely bankcrupt.
As far as your medical care argument goes, you couldn't be more wrong when it comes to Northern Europe and Scandinavia (UK public health care is in real shambles, though). As I've pointed out in one of my recent posts, I've undergone several surgeries. The latest problem with the eye was diagnosed at a private clinic (you know, private clinics are allowed even if the public health care is run by the government!), I got a referral to the local hospital (state run university hospital) and was under the knife in a week. I spent another week in the ward and paid $200 for that - the $8000 operation itself was paid by the society. I pay the progressive 28% income tax gladly for a system like that that is accessible to all citizens regardless of their income (unlike insurances).
You should know more about practical socialism before your spout nonsense like that. That's the kind of black and white reasoning that's not realistic. There is a middle ground between dog-eat-dog capitalism and total commitment to a government run economy, you know.
This is why we should seriously consider abolishing the government and leaving everything to the market forces.
Like health care? "Sorry, sir. I know there's a gaping wound in your skull and that it hurts, but your credit is no good here. Please go away and die outside in the gutter with all the other poor people."
Like law enforcement? "I'm sorry, sir, but there's nothing we can do. You have not paid for our police services. We cannot dispatch officers even if there's a murderous psychopath banging on your door with a bloody knife in his hand."
Like rescue services? "I'm sorry to hear that your house is on fire, sir, but we are a business not a charity. You should remember to pay your bills next time."
And so on...
People like Friedman and Hayek have proved
You can't really prove anything in even hard sciences like physics. Saying that something has been proven in economics or sociology is just ridiculous. Like psychology, economics and sociology are not hard, predictive sciences (some would say that they're not science at all) in the same sense as physics or chemistry.
If capitalism were a scientific theory, it would have been dropped a long time ago because it has no real predictive power and often contradicts with the real world observations.
In the course of researching the state of liberty and security after 9/11, I've been especially struck by how restrained America's legal response appears when contrasted with that of our European allies. Although they weren't directly attacked, the countries of the European Union passed anti-terrorism measures during the past year that are far more sweeping than anything adopted in the United States. In October, France expanded the powers of the police to search private property without a warrant. Germany has engaged in religious profiling of suspected terrorists, a practice that was upheld in a court challenge. In Britain, which has become a kind of privacy dystopia, Parliament passed a sweeping anti-terrorism law in December that authorizes a central government authority to record and store all communications data generated by e-mail, Internet browsing or other electronic communications, and to make the data available to law enforcement without a court order. In May, the European Union authorized all of its members to pass similar laws requiring data retention.
At least the Americans seem to be half-aware of what's happening. As a European with an interest in the protection of privacy and human rights I am appalled at how little my fellow EU citizens seem to know about the erosion of their rights and how readily they accept it when they're told about the recent changes. European media doesn't really criticize this process because they can either be silenced (even big news broadcasters like BBC have been under heavy pressure from the UK Home Office) or they censor themselves in fear of appearing sensationalist.
"Hotmail is phenomenal if you get there within the right time frame," said Kevin Mandia, a former Air Force investigator now working as a consultant with Foundstone Inc. "You can actually see people as they travel, checking messages from different computers. You can really track people effectively."
Keep the exposure to LN2 less than a few seconds long and it is perfectly safe. The oil on your skin protects you from the cold but not from hydrochloric acid.
Just don't try dipping your tongue or splashing LN2 in your eyes, though.
test setup became more stable after the LN2 warmed up a bit
What happens when you have LN2 at -196'C in a container at a room temperature? The same thing that happens if you have water in a container that's kept at 200'C. The liquid starts to vaporize, that is, gas bubbles form in it. Also, if you have LN2 in a thermal equilibrium and you insert an object at room temperature in it, it boils bleeding away the heat from the object.
When left alone, the container (or the object) cools down and a thermal equilibrium develops between it, the gas phase and LN2. The liquid still boils, but less ferociously so. With less and smaller bubbles the thermal conductivity is improved and that's the reason for the improved system stability.
Actually you can dip your fingers/hand in LN2 without hurting yourself. I used to do it every time to amuse/bemuse visitors who came to our laboratory. Just make sure you're not wearing a ring or other jewellery.
how dishonestly this Court can be used as a Political tool for interests who want to kill and jail Americans for simply being Americans.
Well, if the Court is so susceptible to being used as a political tool, why do the other countries fail to see that it could be used against them as well? Why don't we hear the French complaining how the Court could be used by the USA to "kill and jail" Frenchmen?
Do you really believe in a great conspiracy by the rest of the world that aims bringing the USA down and that other countries are incapable of setting up fair trials?
Re:Something interesting about Moz on Windows XP
on
Mozilla RC3 Released
·
· Score: 1
Quite on the contrary!
I've got a dual boot Linux/WinXP computer at home. The Linux version of the Mozilla RC2 seems and feels sluggish whereas the WinXP version is really fast.
If you think that freedom is not a good reason to use free software, then you still don't believe in software freedom *at all*.
Now that's a false dichotomy if I ever saw one.
You are simply an opportunist who is happy to take whatever someone has given you without thinking about why they gave you or what they were hoping to accomplish.
No, I would say he's a guy who, unlike RMS and his most fanatical free software disciples, can balance idealism and practicality.
If you're not just toying around but really have to get something done you use whatever tool you need to achieve your goals. I use free software at home, because I can afford to waste my time tinkering with my machine. However, I have absolutely no qualms of using non-free-proprietary bloody-Microsoft-certified software at work whenever the job requires it. I will not waste my and my employer's time by trying to find some half-working free software hack and figuring out how to fix it (or waiting for someone else to do it for me). I will get whatever working solution is already available. If it is free software, fine, if it not, that's fine too.
This is not opportunism, it is realism.
Let's take the BitKeeper as an example. Linus points out that there are no free software version control systems that he deems suitable for his job. What should he do then? Give up using version control and go back to e-mail patching? Abandon his kernel work and concentrate on writing a version control system that would satisfy the purity requirements of even the most rabid free software fanatic? Ask someone else to write such a system and wait until it is finished? Something else? What?
That's not idealism anymore, that's unproductive fanaticism.
magic equation sheds no insite without knowing what it is
I think we already have such a situation in quantum chemistry.
Assuming you know the analytical wavefunction (or even the approximate series solution obtained by a Configuration Interaction method) of a modestly complex physical system; let's say a large organic molecule. The wave function contains all the information that can possibly be known about the molecule. Yet, it is so insanely-complex-and-beyond-mortal-comprehension that it is hard to get anything useful insight into the system from it. You can't see the forest from the trees.
The moment developers that build the components felt that you should use it because it was Free ( not just Free(Gratis/Libre) but GNUFree (TM) ) and not because it was better, than Microsoft has won.
Well said, indeed.
We just got a summer intern whose main job is to participate in the upkeeping of our computer systems. Well, on the first day he found, to his considerable surprise, that we are mostly a Microsoft shop. He probable went into a GNU-shock or something because it was only on the second day when I heard him complaining to our system administrator, his mentor, about our use of non-free software. The little fuck thinks he already knows better than us what kind of software best suits our purposes and that it is free software. I know the system admin quite well and he's a Linux guy who wouldn't install Windows on his home computer. Yet, he's smart enough to realize that most people who work here know only Windows and making them learn another system would just waste the precious time the people get paid for. The right tool for the right job.
Bitkeeper sends the wrong message to aspiring free software authors.
"We must maintain the purity and coherrence of our collective thought! In order to achieve this, we need political officers on the LKML who will hunt down and ban the dissenters thus protecting the precious little minds of the aspiring free software authors."
I sinecerely hope you were simply trolling, in which case I am happy to admit that IHBT.
Everyone who works in the real world knows that you must choose the right tool for the job.
If you want to run a serious database and need scalability you take Sun and Solaris.
If you run a low-to-mid level servers or if you're a computer enthusiast you probably should use Linux/*BSD instead of Windows.
If you administer an office, you've better install the Windows and MS Office for the desktop. Most of your clients will be sending you Office documents and expecting you to reply in kind.
The point is just to get things done and in this sense Linus is absolutely correct.
Re:Best Jon Katz ever!
on
Disconnecting
·
· Score: 1
Now that you mention it, I once received a call from a charity organization collecting money for the victims of school bullying.
I made the mistake of saying: "Umm... not this time. Call me again in a year." The fucker started accusing me of having been and still being a bully and when I asked to speak to his supervisor he hung up.
Re:Best Jon Katz ever!
on
Disconnecting
·
· Score: 1
"You're sending out mixed signals here," Brian insisted, none too warmly. "This isn't really a good reason for cancelling.
I can't believe this happened for real. It's far too Monty Pythonesque to be real...
So now that an abominatoin like COPA is practically enforced by the highest legal authority in the land, what hope is there that DMCA and following draconian legislation will be ruled unconstitutional?
Slashdot Mirror
Doh... that's two decades, of course.
And I am happy to know that if I am burgled or mugged the criminal will rarely have a gun and that it's even rarer that the gun will be used. Regardless of whether the cops will catch the criminal, I can cope with losing some money or property.
Health care? You have only to go to a socialist country to see how that works. They won't throw you out in the gutter, but they will make you get in line, possibly for months to remedy serious ailments such as cancer.
Well, you could say I've been to a socialist country: I was born in a one with mostly state controlled economy. I am currently living abroad in a Northern European country which has had a large socialist party in the government for the last twenty decades. And you know what? The living standards are excellent in both countries. Working public transportation, no people living under the poverty line (check out the US and UK stats in the CIA worldbook for comparison), free public schooling, public libraries and goverment subsidized university level education to allow even the low wage blue collar workers' kids to have an advanced degree if they so choose. Crime is low because the social "safety net" will provide you with basic necessities even you go completely bankcrupt.
As far as your medical care argument goes, you couldn't be more wrong when it comes to Northern Europe and Scandinavia (UK public health care is in real shambles, though). As I've pointed out in one of my recent posts, I've undergone several surgeries. The latest problem with the eye was diagnosed at a private clinic (you know, private clinics are allowed even if the public health care is run by the government!), I got a referral to the local hospital (state run university hospital) and was under the knife in a week. I spent another week in the ward and paid $200 for that - the $8000 operation itself was paid by the society. I pay the progressive 28% income tax gladly for a system like that that is accessible to all citizens regardless of their income (unlike insurances).
You should know more about practical socialism before your spout nonsense like that. That's the kind of black and white reasoning that's not realistic. There is a middle ground between dog-eat-dog capitalism and total commitment to a government run economy, you know.
Like health care? "Sorry, sir. I know there's a gaping wound in your skull and that it hurts, but your credit is no good here. Please go away and die outside in the gutter with all the other poor people."
Like law enforcement? "I'm sorry, sir, but there's nothing we can do. You have not paid for our police services. We cannot dispatch officers even if there's a murderous psychopath banging on your door with a bloody knife in his hand."
Like rescue services? "I'm sorry to hear that your house is on fire, sir, but we are a business not a charity. You should remember to pay your bills next time."
And so on...
People like Friedman and Hayek have proved
You can't really prove anything in even hard sciences like physics. Saying that something has been proven in economics or sociology is just ridiculous. Like psychology, economics and sociology are not hard, predictive sciences (some would say that they're not science at all) in the same sense as physics or chemistry.
If capitalism were a scientific theory, it would have been dropped a long time ago because it has no real predictive power and often contradicts with the real world observations.
In contrast, the rightwingers like to go out and make people think their way.
Swinging a punch to a policeman or a politician is a common form of political debate in the UK. You see, the politicians will punch you back.
Quoting Washington Post:
At least the Americans seem to be half-aware of what's happening. As a European with an interest in the protection of privacy and human rights I am appalled at how little my fellow EU citizens seem to know about the erosion of their rights and how readily they accept it when they're told about the recent changes. European media doesn't really criticize this process because they can either be silenced (even big news broadcasters like BBC have been under heavy pressure from the UK Home Office) or they censor themselves in fear of appearing sensationalist.
Because it doesn't bash Microsoft?
It would have been nice of the submitter to make his case instead of just linking to the article and whining how "wrong" it is.
"Hotmail is phenomenal if you get there within the right time frame," said Kevin Mandia, a former Air Force investigator now working as a consultant with Foundstone Inc. "You can actually see people as they travel, checking messages from different computers. You can really track people effectively."
Just don't try dipping your tongue or splashing LN2 in your eyes, though.
What happens when you have LN2 at -196'C in a container at a room temperature? The same thing that happens if you have water in a container that's kept at 200'C. The liquid starts to vaporize, that is, gas bubbles form in it. Also, if you have LN2 in a thermal equilibrium and you insert an object at room temperature in it, it boils bleeding away the heat from the object.
When left alone, the container (or the object) cools down and a thermal equilibrium develops between it, the gas phase and LN2. The liquid still boils, but less ferociously so. With less and smaller bubbles the thermal conductivity is improved and that's the reason for the improved system stability.
Actually you can dip your fingers/hand in LN2 without hurting yourself. I used to do it every time to amuse/bemuse visitors who came to our laboratory. Just make sure you're not wearing a ring or other jewellery.
Well, if the Court is so susceptible to being used as a political tool, why do the other countries fail to see that it could be used against them as well? Why don't we hear the French complaining how the Court could be used by the USA to "kill and jail" Frenchmen?
Do you really believe in a great conspiracy by the rest of the world that aims bringing the USA down and that other countries are incapable of setting up fair trials?
I've got a dual boot Linux/WinXP computer at home. The Linux version of the Mozilla RC2 seems and feels sluggish whereas the WinXP version is really fast.
Now that's a false dichotomy if I ever saw one.
You are simply an opportunist who is happy to take whatever someone has given you without thinking about why they gave you or what they were hoping to accomplish.
No, I would say he's a guy who, unlike RMS and his most fanatical free software disciples, can balance idealism and practicality.
If you're not just toying around but really have to get something done you use whatever tool you need to achieve your goals. I use free software at home, because I can afford to waste my time tinkering with my machine. However, I have absolutely no qualms of using non-free-proprietary bloody-Microsoft-certified software at work whenever the job requires it. I will not waste my and my employer's time by trying to find some half-working free software hack and figuring out how to fix it (or waiting for someone else to do it for me). I will get whatever working solution is already available. If it is free software, fine, if it not, that's fine too.
This is not opportunism, it is realism.
Let's take the BitKeeper as an example. Linus points out that there are no free software version control systems that he deems suitable for his job. What should he do then? Give up using version control and go back to e-mail patching? Abandon his kernel work and concentrate on writing a version control system that would satisfy the purity requirements of even the most rabid free software fanatic? Ask someone else to write such a system and wait until it is finished? Something else? What?
That's not idealism anymore, that's unproductive fanaticism.
I think we already have such a situation in quantum chemistry.
Assuming you know the analytical wavefunction (or even the approximate series solution obtained by a Configuration Interaction method) of a modestly complex physical system; let's say a large organic molecule. The wave function contains all the information that can possibly be known about the molecule. Yet, it is so insanely-complex-and-beyond-mortal-comprehension that it is hard to get anything useful insight into the system from it. You can't see the forest from the trees.
Well said, indeed.
We just got a summer intern whose main job is to participate in the upkeeping of our computer systems. Well, on the first day he found, to his considerable surprise, that we are mostly a Microsoft shop. He probable went into a GNU-shock or something because it was only on the second day when I heard him complaining to our system administrator, his mentor, about our use of non-free software. The little fuck thinks he already knows better than us what kind of software best suits our purposes and that it is free software. I know the system admin quite well and he's a Linux guy who wouldn't install Windows on his home computer. Yet, he's smart enough to realize that most people who work here know only Windows and making them learn another system would just waste the precious time the people get paid for. The right tool for the right job.
"We must maintain the purity and coherrence of our collective thought! In order to achieve this, we need political officers on the LKML who will hunt down and ban the dissenters thus protecting the precious little minds of the aspiring free software authors."
I sinecerely hope you were simply trolling, in which case I am happy to admit that IHBT.
If you want to run a serious database and need scalability you take Sun and Solaris.
If you run a low-to-mid level servers or if you're a computer enthusiast you probably should use Linux/*BSD instead of Windows.
If you administer an office, you've better install the Windows and MS Office for the desktop. Most of your clients will be sending you Office documents and expecting you to reply in kind.
The point is just to get things done and in this sense Linus is absolutely correct.
I made the mistake of saying: "Umm... not this time. Call me again in a year." The fucker started accusing me of having been and still being a bully and when I asked to speak to his supervisor he hung up.
I can't believe this happened for real. It's far too Monty Pythonesque to be real...
Nevertheless, it is the best Jon Katz story ever.
Do I dare to come in for my postdoctorate in the US if I have been threatened by the MPAA lawyers for mirroring the DeCSS?
This spring I decided: I don't.
Why should I? Hardly anyone else does.
So now that an abominatoin like COPA is practically enforced by the highest legal authority in the land, what hope is there that DMCA and following draconian legislation will be ruled unconstitutional?
Christ! What kind of a mass spec is that? Time-of-flight 1500 amu range with differential pumping?
Our mass spec only weights approx. 150 kg with all the controllers and cables included (I had to ship it once for electronics upgrade).
Prototyping and clustering, mainly.