"They say, `He got it from the Internet.' They think it's the Bible."
No, they most certainly don't think it's the Bible. If they did, they would give little or no credence to it. Muslims don't use the Bible! Okay, they may concur with a lot of Christ's teachings, but to them the bible isn't scripture.;)
most likely a big scoop pf molten rock... from when the earth was in a molten state
The earth IS in a molten state as we speak! There's a little crust on the outside, but, proportionally speaking, it's many many times thinner than the shell of an egg. The earth could be hit by a large celestial object TODAY, (even a 200-mile wide blob of frozen ammonium, which is VERY cold) and tomorrow you wouldn't be able to tell that the earth had EVER had a crust. It's not that the force of the impact would melt the entire crust, it's just that it would break the shell and let all the hot insides come out and melt the crust.
From the article: Since what's being represented is often energy that's not visible to the naked eye, there's choice in the colours used in digitally processing the various exposures
Of COURSE they have to color the images! They're using the actual images from the telescope from different-color filters. It's okay that they color it, so we can see what's going on. Ultraviolet and infrared pictures (which we've all seen) are in black and white, but really that's just representation too, since we wouldn't be able to see the colors that were actually recorded. Do you really want to look at a picture that's emitting gamma-rays into your head, even if it WERE possible to set that up?
See if you enjoy the following in-line UV image of my pet cat:
Are they going to be selling the app? It's understandable that they would be hesitant to go the open-source route if they're planning on making a bundle by selling the packaged product.
If it's just an in-house application, there's not much need, as I see it, for making it open-source, (except of course to donate your code to other worthy causes). Of course, it would be nice, but open-source or not, I expect they'd want the source code for future work to be done on it.
If it's a freely-distributable client to coincide with services that the company provides, it seems like it'd be an easy sell -- a lot of the IT community will be much more excited to use their services if they can customize the client.
In short, having it be "open-source" would be most helpful (and easiest to convert them to) if it's software that they're going to be distributing free of charge. If it's just for internal use in the company, the line between it being "open-source" and just their having a copy of the source code gets fuzzy, but they would certainly need one or the other. If it's going to be a commercial product, I don't know how you'll convince them. (Better write REAL good documentation.:)
My favorite line: "This format for printed publications is widely accepted, based on a study of 30 centuries of graphic design and consumer testing." Wow! They've been testing this format since 1000 B.C.!! Where they managed to get folks that old for their surveys is beyond me.
Do you think the ancient Egyptian scribes really considered themselves "graphic designers?"
CEO's aren't there to be good human beings. They are there to increase shareholder value. A CEO who is benevolent and altruistic would not be doing the best job a CEO could do.
That's partly what my point is. I'm not just complaining that some people are rich while I'm not, I'm lamenting the permeation of capitalism (meaning money-centeredness) in our society in general. I'm not casting the ills of society at the feet of the rich -- I'm saying that self-centeredness (in whatever form -- greed, discrimination, living off the sweat of others (like the unemployed who just want to live off the government), etc) is the root and source of our society's problems.
If more of the wealthy were more altruistic, more people would have the means to live comfortably. (Note: I didn't say "happily." You can be happy even while poor. But society today seems to have forgotten that.) (Money might facilitate one's living happily, but I'll leave the debate about the role of money to one's happiness for another day.) Think about it: You could have
1 Executive who makes $10 Million / year,
20 Top-level folks who make $250,000 / year, (average) and
800 Workers who make $30,000/year.
- or -
1 Executive who makes $500,000 / year (Still plenty -- and he'll still be very wealthy),
20 Executives who make $150,000 / year (ditto), and
800 Workers who make 44,375.
I don't know about you, but I would be very pleased to have another $10,000 / year.
I know those numbers don't match up with very large corporations, but I work for a company where I make less than half what a Network admin would make anywhere else, while the owner of the company makes $1+ Million. And we only have about 60 employees. He could pay us a LOT more and not even notice the loss from his own paycheck. It's not that I think he isn't entitled to it, (after all, it's his company.) but I DO think that he could make his employees lives a little more comfortable without giving up his own comfort. It wouldn't change the world right away, but it WOULD make a difference in the employees standard of living.
I have beaten no one up. I have not stolen it, but I have earned it. Along the way to earning it I have been taxed. My contribution to society has already been taken out of my earnings. Why then at this point would you want me to do MORE?
I'm not trying to tell any specific person to do more -- I'd like each person to evaluate his/her own needs and assets and determine if he/she COULD do more. I donate more than I can probably afford to a fund that helps the less-advantaged in other (poorer) countries be able to get an education. The understanding is that when they have gained enough education to be able to support themselves, they'll donate back the amount that they received -- thus letting other people receive help too. This system works -- but only if those who receive the help are not bent on taking advantage of it. I don't know that they all are good-hearted, but enough are that the system is succeeding.
I've got a few quotes I like that touch on these ideas:
In Dickens' "A Christmas Carol," Scrooge comments to Marley's ghost that he thought Marley "always [was] a good man of business."
"Business!" cried the Ghost, wringing his hands again. "Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!"
(Moral: He regretted being interested solely in monetary pursuits, instead of the other lofty ideals he just mentioned)
I paraphrase C.S. Lewis: "Some have asked me how much I think one should give to Charity. Well, I believe a good practice would be to give a little more than we can afford. There should be things that we would very much like to do, but that we cannot do, because we are too generous."
I'm not suggesting that people give all their money away. What I would really like to do is call for a revolution -- a personal revolution in each person -- a commitment and determination to leave this world a little better than we found it, and not worry so much about whether our own whims are all instantly gratified.
I am cautious about telling people what to do -- I think each person is completely fit to make his/her own moral decisions. However, I would like to open people's eyes at least a little with respect to how our being a little less selfish can make a difference in people's lives.
'Nuff said. Over and out.
Yes, and it's much cheaper to send a 10-kilo probe than a 50-kilo person. By the time we're ready to send people, we may have developed the means to get them there MUCH less expensively than we could hope for now.
Right. You don't need much equipment to test that one! Just a feather and a hammer. (And a lunar lander. And the rockets to get there. And a zillion dollars worth of other stuff.);)
You're right -- I don't think salary caps are the solution. The solution is for the CEO's to stop being so greedy! I don't think this is something that legislation can fix. I don't think that legislation can satisfactorily fix any of the ills that society has. What needs to happen is people need to start being less self-centered and more compassionate to those who don't have enough social/economic/political clout to make themselves heard.
This isn't something that I think I can go out and fix by myself, nor can anyone, really. What needs to happen is for CEOs to change THEMSELVES. It's the skewed morality of this society which causes problems like poverty, discrimination, etc.
And I don't think it's limited to the rich. As the other person who replied to you pointed out, there are a bunch of people who sit on their butts and live on the government dole. They should change too. I think that the little folk CAN make a difference, but the big folk can make a difference much more easily and quickly. A few benevolent, wise, and altruistic CEO's (and other high execs) in the really large companies could make a world of difference in the health -- socioeconomic and psychological -- of today's society.
It's a dog-eat-dog world. But it doesn't have to be.
At my work, (small company in Utah) we had Sprint Broadband for a while, and it STINKS!! It would be great once in a while (like 250kb throughput), but only sometimes. The biggest influence on its performance was the weather -- during a storm (or just a really cloudy day) it'd burn rubber at about the speed of a slow POTS modem. Also, when the weather was bad we'd get a 20%-40% packet loss rate!!! It was a nightmare! We had to colocate our servers outside because we couldn't guarantee that we'd be up.
Now we have a T1, and it's sure a lot better. Heck, my DSL at HOME is better. So if you _must_ have a dish connection, be prepared to have lossy connections. Almost any other high-speed solution would be better.
that incomprehensible 25% of revenue going into overhead... That's one central office person for every three people who actually produce the product or directly support those who do
Well, I don't think that's quite the case. I mean think about it -- you've got to include the CEO and all the other upper-level officers and board members in there. I bet there's a billion dollars annually divided between a handful of people. (I don't know how many. 25 or so.)
One thing that could REALLY help the economy today is decreasing the salary gap in large corporations. Do the CEO's really need hundreds of millions of dollars? I mean, yeah, it's nice, but I don't understand how they can justify taking that much money when they know full well that some of their employees struggle.
Personally, I don't make a lot of money, especially compared to other network admins. But I make enough to get by and pay my bills, and put a little aside for a rainy day.
Why can't the rich let the less-rich in on a little of the wealth?!? What's wrong with the world?!!?
Oh yeah. Capitalism. I distinguish between "Free-market economy" and "capitalism." Capitalism is the dark side of the free market system. A free market economy lets products / services / companies succeed by virtue of their quality and their meeting people's needs at a price that people are willing to pay. But capitalism is where people and companies are driven by Capital (i.e. money), and they'll go to any lengths and use any means to get it. Whether that's unfairly undermining the competition (I'm not a Microsoft basher, usually, but they're a good example of that) or taking the lion's share of money.
I lived in Brazil for a couple of years, and I was appalled by the disparity between the salaries of the top-level managers of a company and their lowest employees. The top-level officers lived in the lap of luxury, without any regard for their employees, who couldn't even feed their families. (I know one man and woman who didn't eat for a week so their 2 children could eat.)
Sorry to rant about this so long, but I think this is a real problem in the world today. Our economic difficulties and disparity are a result of greed, and nothing else. When are CEO's and other top officers going to learn that that which is "for the good of the company" (read "their wallets") is NOT what is good for humanity?
Well, you have a point there, but sometimes a little caution goes a long way. There's a balance between "living in the moment" and "being responsible." (Or whatever you want to call it. Taking care of yourself.)
I wouldn't, for example, ignore out of hand the harmful effects of smoking. Statistically speaking, each cigarette costs its smoker 11 minutes of his/her life. So if you REALLY WANT to throw away that much time for a cigarette, more power to ya.
But at least consider the effects. I would certainly give up potato chips if I thought they would shorten my life by several years. Hey, they're tasty, but they're not THAT tasty.
I don't mean to say that what you're saying is unfounded. I personally don't plan to change my potato-chip eating habits;), but I do think one ought to balance the risk against any benefits they may get out of something.
How does that saying go? "Don't trade what you want most for what you want now.
Actually, the chance of somebody actually getting hitby any given battery (if we were all distributed equally around the planet -- oceans and all) is 1 in 176949. (Assuming the average person displays about a square foot of target area from above.) But the chance of a battery landing within 10 feet of them (which is probably nearly as bad) is 1 in 563.
However, since most of the world's population lives in urban environments, and since 70% of the earth is covered with water, the chances decrease, uh, astronomically.
Hey, it's ambrosia!! (Or am I the only one who has spent countless hours on Anacreon?)
And we're making it on an Earth-like planet! Ain't science somethin'?
My brother-in-law recently got a box of old computer junk, and he wanted to replace his RAM with a chip he found in the box because "It's four times as big! That's WAY better."
Slashdot Mirror
No, they most certainly don't think it's the Bible. If they did, they would give little or no credence to it. Muslims don't use the Bible! Okay, they may concur with a lot of Christ's teachings, but to them the bible isn't scripture. ;)
Well, the technical chemical definition of a salt is a lattice of atoms which are ionically bound together. A bunch of atoms is still a molecule. :)
The earth IS in a molten state as we speak! There's a little crust on the outside, but, proportionally speaking, it's many many times thinner than the shell of an egg. The earth could be hit by a large celestial object TODAY, (even a 200-mile wide blob of frozen ammonium, which is VERY cold) and tomorrow you wouldn't be able to tell that the earth had EVER had a crust. It's not that the force of the impact would melt the entire crust, it's just that it would break the shell and let all the hot insides come out and melt the crust.
Since what's being represented is often energy that's not visible to the naked eye, there's choice in the colours used in digitally processing the various exposures
Of COURSE they have to color the images! They're using the actual images from the telescope from different-color filters. It's okay that they color it, so we can see what's going on. Ultraviolet and infrared pictures (which we've all seen) are in black and white, but really that's just representation too, since we wouldn't be able to see the colors that were actually recorded. Do you really want to look at a picture that's emitting gamma-rays into your head, even if it WERE possible to set that up?
See if you enjoy the following in-line UV image of my pet cat:
If it's just an in-house application, there's not much need, as I see it, for making it open-source, (except of course to donate your code to other worthy causes). Of course, it would be nice, but open-source or not, I expect they'd want the source code for future work to be done on it.
If it's a freely-distributable client to coincide with services that the company provides, it seems like it'd be an easy sell -- a lot of the IT community will be much more excited to use their services if they can customize the client.
In short, having it be "open-source" would be most helpful (and easiest to convert them to) if it's software that they're going to be distributing free of charge. If it's just for internal use in the company, the line between it being "open-source" and just their having a copy of the source code gets fuzzy, but they would certainly need one or the other. If it's going to be a commercial product, I don't know how you'll convince them. (Better write REAL good documentation. :)
(It's a joke. Laugh.)
My favorite line: "This format for printed publications is widely accepted, based on a study of 30 centuries of graphic design and consumer testing." Wow! They've been testing this format since 1000 B.C.!! Where they managed to get folks that old for their surveys is beyond me.
Do you think the ancient Egyptian scribes really considered themselves "graphic designers?"
He's not verbing nouns! He's verbing independent clauses. I don't like I-told-you-so-ing, but you're just plain wrong. ;)
Just a good example of what someone with good will can do.
That's partly what my point is. I'm not just complaining that some people are rich while I'm not, I'm lamenting the permeation of capitalism (meaning money-centeredness) in our society in general. I'm not casting the ills of society at the feet of the rich -- I'm saying that self-centeredness (in whatever form -- greed, discrimination, living off the sweat of others (like the unemployed who just want to live off the government), etc) is the root and source of our society's problems.
If more of the wealthy were more altruistic, more people would have the means to live comfortably. (Note: I didn't say "happily." You can be happy even while poor. But society today seems to have forgotten that.) (Money might facilitate one's living happily, but I'll leave the debate about the role of money to one's happiness for another day.) Think about it: You could have
1 Executive who makes $10 Million / year, /year.
20 Top-level folks who make $250,000 / year, (average) and
800 Workers who make $30,000
- or -
1 Executive who makes $500,000 / year (Still plenty -- and he'll still be very wealthy),
20 Executives who make $150,000 / year (ditto), and
800 Workers who make 44,375.
I don't know about you, but I would be very pleased to have another $10,000 / year.
I know those numbers don't match up with very large corporations, but I work for a company where I make less than half what a Network admin would make anywhere else, while the owner of the company makes $1+ Million. And we only have about 60 employees. He could pay us a LOT more and not even notice the loss from his own paycheck. It's not that I think he isn't entitled to it, (after all, it's his company.) but I DO think that he could make his employees lives a little more comfortable without giving up his own comfort. It wouldn't change the world right away, but it WOULD make a difference in the employees standard of living.
I have beaten no one up. I have not stolen it, but I have earned it. Along the way to earning it I have been taxed. My contribution to society has already been taken out of my earnings. Why then at this point would you want me to do MORE?
I'm not trying to tell any specific person to do more -- I'd like each person to evaluate his/her own needs and assets and determine if he/she COULD do more. I donate more than I can probably afford to a fund that helps the less-advantaged in other (poorer) countries be able to get an education. The understanding is that when they have gained enough education to be able to support themselves, they'll donate back the amount that they received -- thus letting other people receive help too. This system works -- but only if those who receive the help are not bent on taking advantage of it. I don't know that they all are good-hearted, but enough are that the system is succeeding.
I've got a few quotes I like that touch on these ideas:
In Dickens' "A Christmas Carol," Scrooge comments to Marley's ghost that he thought Marley "always [was] a good man of business."
"Business!" cried the Ghost, wringing his hands again. "Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!"
(Moral: He regretted being interested solely in monetary pursuits, instead of the other lofty ideals he just mentioned)
I paraphrase C.S. Lewis: "Some have asked me how much I think one should give to Charity. Well, I believe a good practice would be to give a little more than we can afford. There should be things that we would very much like to do, but that we cannot do, because we are too generous."
I'm not suggesting that people give all their money away. What I would really like to do is call for a revolution -- a personal revolution in each person -- a commitment and determination to leave this world a little better than we found it, and not worry so much about whether our own whims are all instantly gratified.
I am cautious about telling people what to do -- I think each person is completely fit to make his/her own moral decisions. However, I would like to open people's eyes at least a little with respect to how our being a little less selfish can make a difference in people's lives. 'Nuff said. Over and out.
Yes, and it's much cheaper to send a 10-kilo probe than a 50-kilo person. By the time we're ready to send people, we may have developed the means to get them there MUCH less expensively than we could hope for now.
Right. You don't need much equipment to test that one! Just a feather and a hammer. (And a lunar lander. And the rockets to get there. And a zillion dollars worth of other stuff.) ;)
This isn't something that I think I can go out and fix by myself, nor can anyone, really. What needs to happen is for CEOs to change THEMSELVES. It's the skewed morality of this society which causes problems like poverty, discrimination, etc.
And I don't think it's limited to the rich. As the other person who replied to you pointed out, there are a bunch of people who sit on their butts and live on the government dole. They should change too. I think that the little folk CAN make a difference, but the big folk can make a difference much more easily and quickly. A few benevolent, wise, and altruistic CEO's (and other high execs) in the really large companies could make a world of difference in the health -- socioeconomic and psychological -- of today's society.
It's a dog-eat-dog world. But it doesn't have to be.
Now we have a T1, and it's sure a lot better. Heck, my DSL at HOME is better. So if you _must_ have a dish connection, be prepared to have lossy connections. Almost any other high-speed solution would be better.
d) People who browse CNN.com are more science-savvy than your average American e) Not just Americans browse CNN.com f) CowboyNeal
These are absolutely beautiful. I was floored just looking at them.
Well, I don't think that's quite the case. I mean think about it -- you've got to include the CEO and all the other upper-level officers and board members in there. I bet there's a billion dollars annually divided between a handful of people. (I don't know how many. 25 or so.)
One thing that could REALLY help the economy today is decreasing the salary gap in large corporations. Do the CEO's really need hundreds of millions of dollars? I mean, yeah, it's nice, but I don't understand how they can justify taking that much money when they know full well that some of their employees struggle.
Personally, I don't make a lot of money, especially compared to other network admins. But I make enough to get by and pay my bills, and put a little aside for a rainy day.
Why can't the rich let the less-rich in on a little of the wealth?!? What's wrong with the world?!!?
Oh yeah. Capitalism. I distinguish between "Free-market economy" and "capitalism." Capitalism is the dark side of the free market system. A free market economy lets products / services / companies succeed by virtue of their quality and their meeting people's needs at a price that people are willing to pay. But capitalism is where people and companies are driven by Capital (i.e. money), and they'll go to any lengths and use any means to get it. Whether that's unfairly undermining the competition (I'm not a Microsoft basher, usually, but they're a good example of that) or taking the lion's share of money.
I lived in Brazil for a couple of years, and I was appalled by the disparity between the salaries of the top-level managers of a company and their lowest employees. The top-level officers lived in the lap of luxury, without any regard for their employees, who couldn't even feed their families. (I know one man and woman who didn't eat for a week so their 2 children could eat.)
Sorry to rant about this so long, but I think this is a real problem in the world today. Our economic difficulties and disparity are a result of greed, and nothing else. When are CEO's and other top officers going to learn that that which is "for the good of the company" (read "their wallets") is NOT what is good for humanity?
I wouldn't, for example, ignore out of hand the harmful effects of smoking. Statistically speaking, each cigarette costs its smoker 11 minutes of his/her life. So if you REALLY WANT to throw away that much time for a cigarette, more power to ya.
But at least consider the effects. I would certainly give up potato chips if I thought they would shorten my life by several years. Hey, they're tasty, but they're not THAT tasty.
I don't mean to say that what you're saying is unfounded. I personally don't plan to change my potato-chip eating habits ;), but I do think one ought to balance the risk against any benefits they may get out of something.
How does that saying go? "Don't trade what you want most for what you want now.
It sounds neat, and I'm sure my dad would get a kick out of it too. But how do we get a copy?
Yeah, and what about Emmett Brown, who got his idea for the Flux Capacitor after falling down in the bathroom?
However, since most of the world's population lives in urban environments, and since 70% of the earth is covered with water, the chances decrease, uh, astronomically.
Hey, it's ambrosia!! (Or am I the only one who has spent countless hours on Anacreon?) And we're making it on an Earth-like planet! Ain't science somethin'?
Why spend 2 1/2 times as much for such a teensy little performance gain -- and only that in certain situations?
Can you say 2 megabytes?