Google, and other search engines for that matter, index my content (yes by downloading or scraping), keep it internally and point people towards what I've written. Spamdexers, which is what I'm actually complaining about, take my words, put them in a completely unrelated context - sort of like most news commentary shows - and replaster it somewhere else, usually out of context and incomplete in a manner that prevents the users from replying to the original post after a search if thats what they wish to do. Even worse it forces them to sign up to reply to me on the scrapers web site in a manner I'll probably never see and certainly won't respond to if they wish to ask me a question of flame me much as you have and they'll hand over personal information in the process to do it. Practices I would rather not be associated with.
I really don't see what your point in the last paragraph. Where they to attribute the original post in their repost there would be no questioning their reuse of my statements, however that is very rarely done, usually an effort is made to hide the origin, except for the use of my handle. I generally could care less about copyright on things I post on the web, I care more about how I'm viewed based on what/where I post, and those places that fail to attribute the original to make it appear as though I personally contributed to their site, THAT is an offense of a different kind. It's akin to using someone elses endorsement or logo on your product without permission or compensation.
Not really, I got that point, perhaps you missed mine?
I'm just pointing out that sometimes there isn't as much of a need to switch between OS's as some believe.
Chrome OS belongs in low end cheap netbooks - there I said it. Right now the Chromebooks are overpriced for what they are, but they are incredibly handy devices. For web browsing and doing what they do they fit a rather large nitch incredibly well, I could easily see how they're the perfect device for many people, and even in my case my netbook is overkill for a large part of what I do. Should the prices of a Chromebook fall below that of a standard netbook with otherwise identical or superior hardware they will have filled that nitch perfectly.
If you want something more powerful than a Chromebook there is little reason to have Chrome as a live switch between option considering the Chrome Browser does what a Chromebook does without actually running Chrome OS (assuming you have the hardware portion covered). Chrome runs on every modern OS that's actually considered a useful option to have on a netbook/notebook. Having it as a "quick boot OS" isn't such a bad idea. Note/netbooks that have the selectable solid state quick OS and hard disk (or bigger solid state) option to save power/boot time is great, but why would you really want to live switch? Especially from the power hog "big drive" OS to Chrome OS when the browser itself fulfills that function and utilizes on-line everything (unless it actually shuts down the power hog in the process)?
I use Virtual Box on occasion when I have to support Windows systems. The fact I've been without a Windows system of my own for around 11 years now doesn't mean I don't make a living supporting Windows. Sure the idea of a system like the one detailed has seemed nice on occasion, especially on a Mac when trying to get Mac Classic programs to not screw up things like color settings and resolutions for my daughter on OSX Tiger, but Apple saw to it I couldn't boot OS9 natively on that system if OSX was installed, even on a different HDD.
I see little reason to switch between various *NIX OS's when the programs themselves will usually run on all the above.
I think using Virtual Box in seamless mode is a much more entertaining way to confuse and baffle them.
I've also had a we bit of fun putting all of the tools from Cygwin into the normal path on windows and using primarily *NIX commands in a DOS terminal to do my normal command line stuff. This is for your baffling your more experienced Windows users.
those crappy robot sites that like to take my comments on other web sites and message boards and repost them willie-nilly all over the place in hopes of attracting ad revenue- are those affected by this ruling?
Not like I'm going to file in a Canadian court, but I do find it annoying to have comments showing up all over Google on garbage sites that only exist for a short time and that I've never heard of.
I use it on my Desktop, my Notebook, and my Netbook.
Simply having Chrome installed does nearly everything I would want out of a Chromebook, granted my netbook requires a little more overhead by loading up the full version of KDE, but really, the resume from lid being shut on my Acer Aspire One is really awesome and competes with anything a Chromebook can do. (Seriously, boot it up in the morning and it's good for days without charging with the lid shut, and an impressive number of hours lid open)
I have played with emulators for just about everything, even Android. I fail to see a purpose, my full Linux desktop does everything I need, I even run the netbook specific desktop on my net book and the full KDE desktop on my other machines, it's wonderful (and I am drooling on the concept of the the eee Transformer running it). Virtualization on the server level, or for doing client support from a desktop is a whole different thing all together of course.
I looked at Chromebooks, basically Acer is selling what more or less amounts to the same system I already have in my Aspire One only with double the RAM out of the box (I bought a 2GB stick with my Aspire One the day I bought it, so moot point to me) and a significantly smaller SSD instead of a hard drive for $200 extra.
I can install Angry Birds for offline use on my normal Chrome browser, I have both Google Docs and Libre Office for work online and off, and my EVO supplies bandwidth no matter where I am (well almost, Sprint has some crappy coverage areas). By all means continue developing this stuff, but really, I think people have solutions looking for a problem sometimes.
You've obviously never had obnoxious atheist blow up at you and attack any passing mention you make in relation to a creator based belief. I realize there are Christians who attack at every mention of evolution, etc... But don't think there aren't Atheist who don't attack at every mention of God.
You're right. I've often though of how the Ten Commandments make sense even if you don't believe, and there's only one I can dismiss outright for non-believers.
ONE: 'You shall have no other gods before Me.' Yeah, if you're not a believer you can skip this one.
TWO: 'You shall not make for yourself a carved image--any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.' Not relevant, but if you extrapolate the idolatry thing a little to include "ignore TMZ and don't get wrapped up in what celebrities do" it's not bad advice.
THREE: 'You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.' Again, not directly relevant - but if you extrapolate that from the intended "don't use the authority of God to get your way" translation instead of the don't cuss in the name of God translation and translate that to "Don't abuse the name of authority for personal gain" it becomes relevant and I really wish people in political offices would follow it.
FOUR: 'Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.' Take a break, if you don't you'll burn yourself out and won't be good to anyone.
FIVE: 'Honor your father and your mother.' As long as your parents are descent people, don't do anything they wouldn't approve of and you'll do alright. Would your mama approve of that girl? If not she probably isn't good for you. This of course assumes your mama isn't a crack-whore.
SIX: 'You shall not murder.' Does anyone want to argue with that?
SEVEN: 'You shall not commit adultery.' Sleeping with someone else's spouse is not a good idea. I could create some really bad situations. Don't fark anyone who is attached exclusively to someone else or you'll pay the price in drama and maybe even physical attack.
EIGHT: 'You shall not steal.' Who's going to argue against this?
TEN: 'You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's.' Really, all it does is create friction among neighbors and makes it hard for everyone to get along. Do your own thing and let the other guy do his.
I grew up Southern Baptist, and I've always been ahead of my immediate rural small town peers in science. In a Sunday School class one day we were going through the first chapters of Genesis, I explained how each of the "days" could easily be described as events during/after the Big Bang.
The room divided about 1/3 on my side, 1/3 against, 1/3 confused. Most of the arguments had to do with order of operations and nit-picking wording of the Bible, not with the concepts themselves.
My personal religious beliefs, while I still technically count myself as Christian, are best described as something along the lines of Pandeism. An Ojibwe friend helped me through a lot of conflicts I had internally at one time as I had a lot of questions where my religious, spiritual (yes different) and science beliefs conflicted. He told me about the medicine wheel, he was very good in science, and told me of his own tribes (from which I am also descended) stories of the Peacemaker in the White Stone Canoe which sounded like Jesus in so many ways it's impossible to miss the connection, and Nanaboozho. He was an incredible help.
Since his death I have watched What the Bleep? Down the Rabbit Hole, this did a lot to help me reconcile the religious/science debate. The more we get into to quantum physics the harder it is to ignore a religious implication. I've also heard an interview with genetic scientist, Chuck and Mark, I forget their last names, who started out Atheist but found God through science, believing DNA could not have been random in it's complexity.
I don't know when I reconciled God and Science as the same. When I was young I was definitely the good Southern Baptist boy, my grandmother actually thought I had the potential to be a preacher, and truthfully I could see where she was coming from and haven't dismissed the idea, but now I doubt I could ever be a Southern Baptist preacher.
Few things annoy me more than the cut throat Evangelical Atheist out to attack every notion of religion, I consider them just about equal to their equivalent to Evangelical, 6,000 year old Earth never mind the Bible was intentionally mis-assembled more than 300 years after Christ death to better control the believers Christians. Neither is better than the other, their both equally closed minded and equally contribute to holding up real progress in universal understanding - the stronger you polarize opposite believers the further apart they become, if you stop thwacking the beehive it becomes easier to really converse.
Carl Sagan is one of my hero's. He presented science, and though he wasn't really a believer in a creator he stated we don't actually know enough to dismiss the possibility. He betrayed no one in saying that, and kept polarization to a minimum so that people would actually listen to what he had to say. Had he said "there is no God" how many people who enjoyed the Cosmos series would have actually taken time to watch it to begin with? Especially when the various religious communities would have rallied to ban/boycott it?
Word to both types of evangelicals - state your views but don't brow beat someone else for not accepting them, you'll only piss them off and drive them further away from what you have to say.
If even one person had their computer plugged into a TV for a monitor (and how many TV's over the past decade have had VGA, DVI, HDMI, RGB and even Firewire inputs?) then I see this as invalid. Each and every gnutella user had their own database of available files, TV shows and movies could be found on the network in those databases, and be played back on the television display.
I read a book when I was in junior high published during the 70's that took place in the 1990's or so. The ice-age was setting in and people were fleeing south. Houston was the capital of the US, Mexico didn't know what to do with their illegal immigrant problem, and the family in the book was tired of the overcrowded South so they decided to rough it and move back north. An interesting read even if I can't remember the title.
I'm glad you said that. I'm of strong Libertarian beliefs and I've been in a personal belief struggle with rationalizing how to protect freedom and the environment at the same time as pollution isn't victimless, but then again neither is regulation. I've put a lot of thought into how to do it without an acronym agency and your answer seems best.
Any research that disagrees with exactly what Al Gore dictates causes a scientist to lose their funding and to "get kicked out of the club". Good luck ever working in your field again if you dissent.
Extra planetary bodies are also heating up. Mars, Venus, some Jovian moons, they're all increasing in temperature meaning humans probably aren't the cause of all of what's happening here at home.
There's tons of profit on exploiting the hype.
I am a hard-core Libertarian, but I do believe some environmental regulation is warranted. I hate the face that the issue even has to be addressed as it is, but it does. Industrial pollution harms the environment, and by extension does harm to another, it is NOT a victimless act. My biggest personal dilemma when it comes to regulation and enforcement is exactly what is the right way to do so (who enforces) and what should the limits be. A polluted waste land is paradise to no-one.
I don't think humans are the main cause of any temperature variances here on earth, but I think "going green" is a good thing. Any capitalist (not in the energy field) should love clean energy. There's no fuel cost (wind, solar, tidal, geothermal). I wish everyone could take a reasonable perspective like you so we could get over the fight and move towards the solutions.
Mine were about $2.50 each at Lowe's, were readily available, fit the decor of the offices (granted this was in a back room), and has the nice extra hook on the end for hanging baseball caps and the like when the permanent techs move into that room. I did consider some proper J-Hooks, but the plant hangers were actually a better fit for the client relations part of the environment and the physical limitations of where I was doing the work. (A sound studio where I wasn't free to put many holes in the wall and lacked solid backing where I could).
I personally think Perry is an ass-hat, but you can get those from anywhere, you're right about the Bush's not being native Texans. The guy I most want to win the presidential bid is not a native Texan, but a Congressman from my district in Galveston County all the same. Go Ron Paul, I don't mind you aren't native, you made your way here anyways and that what counts!
At one job where I had little ability to run cables under the floor/through the walls, but had a bunch of thick multi-microphone cables plus a few other types to run I made my own "hanging cable tray" using upside-down potted plant hangers I found at Lowes,
I was only going to run them from the punch-down panel to the first audio rack, the client liked the idea so much they bought more and ran them all the way to the wall for the cables they didn't hire me for.
I used Ghost before it was Norton. I loved the interface then, I could build a system, plug in power, Ethernet and a keyboard only, put in my Novel boot floppy, navigate to the Ghost directory (not batch files here!) load an image on the system all without bothering to plug in a monitor.
Then Norton bought it and gave it a mouse driven GUI (actually I can't remember if that pre/post Norton, I know it was close). I haven't used it in about a decade, my old copies got kind of useless since they only dealt with images up to 4GB or so. Now I usually use dd, I've increased my Linux knowledge significantly since then.
I'm going to argue it's gone down. My 95 1/2 Tacoma got about 34 MPG and my 01 Celica got 33. They went down after that in mileage and are just now catching up again. I don't know how much of that is engineering changes to the vehicle and how much is Ethanol related losses, but I do know even back in 95 the Tacoma was rated to take on more Ethanol that American vehicles of the same era (still not quite rated for E85 or anything).
I'm not a big time truck fan. I know, native Texan and all, but I will say I think Toyota made mistakes in the truck department. The Tacoma was small and popular, the T100 was less popular but it was around, they scrubbed the T100, introduced the Tundra, and made the Tacoma the size of the T100. What? Seems to me if the Tacoma was selling they should have left it small and introduced the Tundra and maybe kept the T100 or not, but seriously, the modern Tacoma should be relabeled T100 and the 34 MPG Tacoma should return! I honestly think all three would sell well enough to justify their existence in Texas and probably the rest of the South, probably the Mid West, not sure about elsewhere.
Also, I went American. My 05 Saturn Vue decided to start having one system at a time go completely out or wear out around 90,000 miles. THIS IS WHY PEOPLE ARE BUYING JAPANESE. Rumor has it the policy of 100,000 mile vehicles the big four sort of agreed to under the table in the 70's is going away now that people aren't buying American anymore, but that doesn't fix the 05 I suddenly had to start dumping large quantities of money into all of the sudden.
Sorry, as I mentioned, didn't get to finish, had things to do, back for a bit but will have to leave again. The statement you nailed me on should have read "when I work on a decidedly not government contract", but I did leave a disclaimer, I have one of those issues where the brain to finger buffer overflows and I do have to proof read, it was really bad back when I used to have to use a pen and paper in school.
In the time around 2006 local companies did massive IT layoffs, Compaq/HP dumped many many workers back into the "need a job" field, Shell implemented their "GI" project which is ultimately what cost me my job, as well as many other techs, Exxon/Mobile actually consulted with Shell on their GI project and implemented something very similar and I had a personal/legal issue which kept me from leaving the area. Houston was not the place to look for an IT job during the 2006 time frame.
The bubbles and criminal enterprises you mentioned are made possible with the FED and the market manipulation from it. Greenspan did a wonderful job making sure the bubbles were really huge before they got to the bursting point.
I was looking to jump to energy management myself, I was gearing up to jump on board with the Pickens Plan, I really wanted to do some off-shore work here in the Gulf. That sort of bombed. One of the biggest problems was the need to appeal to the federal government, which sucks for the Libertarian reasons I believe in, but since they regulate everything I don't see where it's avoidable.
The Beltway here in Houston was NOT an Interstate/Federal highway project. It's home grown, paid for by the tolls it collects. I'm not saying there weren't some federal funds in there, the feds have a way of just handing out money to everyone who ask at the expense of those who don't, but buy and large it's local. I'm 100% against tolls on any part of the Interstate Highway system since we already paid for it and continue to pay for it through fuel (and other) taxes.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Rick Perry is an ass-hat, the worst kind of politician, and I hope he doesn't get even the vice presidential nomination.
I really would like more agencies like Powerball. Powerball is NOT a federal agency, yet it's an interstate government agency in the sense it's run by various state governments. We need more things like Powerball. The Interstate Highway commission, the FDA, the Public Utilities Commission, all things I would love to see modeled after Powerball, non-participation is even an option!
I think you and I have the same goals in mind, we just see different ways to get them. I like bottom-up methods, from local reaching to less local methods instead of an across the board downward mandate. The federal government originally wasn't supposed to be seen as a top level government, but more of referee between the states and a single point of reference for dealing with non-union states. I think it actually worked better when that was the case and could work that way again.
Turn people lose with a goal in mind and it's bound to happen. Regulation prevents things from happening more than it fosters things happening, at least in our corrupt system. When things do happen with regulation they're generally broken by design.
The supply of oil is not unlimited, however we have more at home than certain people want the public to know. It's enough to sustain until it doesn't matter if we get on the ball about making it not matter. In many ways trying to motivate everyone to use less oil is shooting myself in the foot through the extension of my family and those who have paid my checks in the past and often still pay my checks when I do my own side work either directly or through supporting the businesses that pay me. The cost of drilling locally far exceeds the cost of drilling somewhere else and bringing it here. That's why we do it. Guess why it costs so much to drill here?
Your statement "I'm always fascinated by the people whose entire careers are dependent on the government, who hate it - when they think private enterprise is better." fails to impress me. Yes I have been on a government contract for a little over five years, for the seven years preceding that I worked for big oil through IT contracts and less oil centric technology contracts. The year preceding that I worked for a company that produced equipment for the USPS, you can pass judgment on that being government or not. I don't really see the difference. I work on a government contract they regulate the way I do things and take taxes out of my check to pay my check and the regulators who control the way I do things. I work for a decidedly not government contract the government regulates the way I do things and takes taxes out of my check to pay the guy doing my old job and the regulators who control the way I do things. I went where the money was, and five years ago when I took this job there wasn't a lot of options in the IT field. Come to think of it my options are rather limited right now. Were my job (and many others like it) not available through federal channels there would not be a lack of jobs assuming the government weren't still charging everyone for them. There would be private industry jobs due to lack of the government redistributing everyones wealth through the channels through which I am now employed. Jobs are exported due to the cost of doing business here, and it's not supply and demand keeping that cost high.
You are correct about the human psychology aspect. "That's not the way we did it before" kills a lot of things, and the government is slower to adopt new ways of doing things than private industry (ever deal with the court system?).
You are absolutely right about the government being the people to provide certain types of infrastructure. The federal level is not the level that should be involved with most of it, due to reasons cited above. The toll road system here in Houston is self funding and producing so much money they've found ways to keep it from paying itself off so they can continue to collect money from it against the promises made to the tax payers about making it free once it's paid off so they can use those funds to build more toll roads and more poorly designed infrastructure they in turn intend to collect tolls and taxes on. See? Corrupt local governments can actually turn a profit on their corruption better than a corrupt federal government can deliver a return on investment.
I have to go, this post is unfinished and in need of editing and correction, screw it, I'll be back in a few hours.
Listen, three generations back my family was in the oil business and they passed the torch down the line. I'm the first in succession since then to not go into oil, and my dad is still in it. If he tells me there's plenty of oil here, his brother backs it up, and all the oil field workers I know personally, including the ones I've worked with through my technology jobs at various oil companies here in Houston (hint, more than three) tell me there's plenty here on U.S. soil for us we're not allowed to get I believe them.
I agree, attacking our current infrastructure is the best way to lessen our petrochemical dependence.
Stop catering to the trucker and airline unions and actually allow a good useful train system, preferably one that lets you pack your own vehicle with you on the journey, be built and that would handle a lot of automotive issues to start with. Cities like Houston, where I live, that are so horribly constructed on a civil level that riding a bike is a death wish and there's an intentionally poor public transit system to keep the local oil corporation happy could start with some retouches to the human power and public transit position. The trolley systems that popped up all over the nation at the beginning of the 20th century that GM bought out and shut down had the right idea in mind. Maybe we could build some new ones?
Stop regulating property owners with so many regulations, fees, and laws that they are afraid to upgrade their buildings and maybe we can start refitting some old infrastructure. Motivation by threat and regulation is not the best motivation. Federal Government money is rarely the answer for anything, involving federal level government guarantees poor implementation of less than the best technology provided cronies who can afford to buy the politician, not the best option. The best option is actually a huge mix of every conceivable energy reduction method we can come up with and let the developers slowly determine ways to streamline and improve the tech as we implement it. Not the government standing there forcing one of a selection of part numbers. The best way to get building owners to switch is likely something akin to a cellphone contract. Figure out what they're spending on heating, offer to heat their building for 90% of the current cost for five years if you allow them to install the upgraded infrastructure and hold them to the contract. When you leave you made more money than you would have otherwise and the owner thinks they got a sweet deal. If we attack it from every angle eventually something akin to Darwinism will favor the best combination of price and efficiency.
Capitalist who are not in the energy business love energy efficiency. "Going green" makes sense as a capitalist. If I can put out a windmill and solar panels and not have to pay for electricity I am saving money. When windmills and solar panels become affordable (hint, priced by manufacturing cost, supply/demand, not how much energy you expect to get out of them in a product life time) capitalist will snatch them up. Grey water reclamation is picking up steam, not as quickly as it should, but if you can water your lawn without having to pay for extra water it makes sense. On that note in the early 80's my grandmother let her clothes washer drain into her garden and the small town I grew up in many people had wells for their lawns. Saving energy isn't something "greedy people" are against. To the contrary greedy people love green, the money kind, and if the other kind of green can save the first one they're all over it out of principal, not principle.
On the Apollo Program note - I work at NASA, I know about the "use this part number" approach. If we have to run a blue Plenum Ethernet cable from one floor to the next we can have spools of the stuff stacked to the ceiling and not have any to run because the stupid government approach to doing things requires a part number, not a standard. We can't say "run blue plenum Ethernet" we have to say run "Acme ETH-0
Slashdot Mirror
You're an idiot and you missed the point.
Google, and other search engines for that matter, index my content (yes by downloading or scraping), keep it internally and point people towards what I've written. Spamdexers, which is what I'm actually complaining about, take my words, put them in a completely unrelated context - sort of like most news commentary shows - and replaster it somewhere else, usually out of context and incomplete in a manner that prevents the users from replying to the original post after a search if thats what they wish to do. Even worse it forces them to sign up to reply to me on the scrapers web site in a manner I'll probably never see and certainly won't respond to if they wish to ask me a question of flame me much as you have and they'll hand over personal information in the process to do it. Practices I would rather not be associated with.
I really don't see what your point in the last paragraph. Where they to attribute the original post in their repost there would be no questioning their reuse of my statements, however that is very rarely done, usually an effort is made to hide the origin, except for the use of my handle. I generally could care less about copyright on things I post on the web, I care more about how I'm viewed based on what/where I post, and those places that fail to attribute the original to make it appear as though I personally contributed to their site, THAT is an offense of a different kind. It's akin to using someone elses endorsement or logo on your product without permission or compensation.
Not really, I got that point, perhaps you missed mine?
I'm just pointing out that sometimes there isn't as much of a need to switch between OS's as some believe.
Chrome OS belongs in low end cheap netbooks - there I said it. Right now the Chromebooks are overpriced for what they are, but they are incredibly handy devices. For web browsing and doing what they do they fit a rather large nitch incredibly well, I could easily see how they're the perfect device for many people, and even in my case my netbook is overkill for a large part of what I do. Should the prices of a Chromebook fall below that of a standard netbook with otherwise identical or superior hardware they will have filled that nitch perfectly.
If you want something more powerful than a Chromebook there is little reason to have Chrome as a live switch between option considering the Chrome Browser does what a Chromebook does without actually running Chrome OS (assuming you have the hardware portion covered). Chrome runs on every modern OS that's actually considered a useful option to have on a netbook/notebook. Having it as a "quick boot OS" isn't such a bad idea. Note/netbooks that have the selectable solid state quick OS and hard disk (or bigger solid state) option to save power/boot time is great, but why would you really want to live switch? Especially from the power hog "big drive" OS to Chrome OS when the browser itself fulfills that function and utilizes on-line everything (unless it actually shuts down the power hog in the process)?
I use Virtual Box on occasion when I have to support Windows systems. The fact I've been without a Windows system of my own for around 11 years now doesn't mean I don't make a living supporting Windows. Sure the idea of a system like the one detailed has seemed nice on occasion, especially on a Mac when trying to get Mac Classic programs to not screw up things like color settings and resolutions for my daughter on OSX Tiger, but Apple saw to it I couldn't boot OS9 natively on that system if OSX was installed, even on a different HDD.
I see little reason to switch between various *NIX OS's when the programs themselves will usually run on all the above.
I think using Virtual Box in seamless mode is a much more entertaining way to confuse and baffle them.
I've also had a we bit of fun putting all of the tools from Cygwin into the normal path on windows and using primarily *NIX commands in a DOS terminal to do my normal command line stuff. This is for your baffling your more experienced Windows users.
those crappy robot sites that like to take my comments on other web sites and message boards and repost them willie-nilly all over the place in hopes of attracting ad revenue- are those affected by this ruling?
Not like I'm going to file in a Canadian court, but I do find it annoying to have comments showing up all over Google on garbage sites that only exist for a short time and that I've never heard of.
I use it on my Desktop, my Notebook, and my Netbook.
Simply having Chrome installed does nearly everything I would want out of a Chromebook, granted my netbook requires a little more overhead by loading up the full version of KDE, but really, the resume from lid being shut on my Acer Aspire One is really awesome and competes with anything a Chromebook can do. (Seriously, boot it up in the morning and it's good for days without charging with the lid shut, and an impressive number of hours lid open)
I have played with emulators for just about everything, even Android. I fail to see a purpose, my full Linux desktop does everything I need, I even run the netbook specific desktop on my net book and the full KDE desktop on my other machines, it's wonderful (and I am drooling on the concept of the the eee Transformer running it). Virtualization on the server level, or for doing client support from a desktop is a whole different thing all together of course.
I looked at Chromebooks, basically Acer is selling what more or less amounts to the same system I already have in my Aspire One only with double the RAM out of the box (I bought a 2GB stick with my Aspire One the day I bought it, so moot point to me) and a significantly smaller SSD instead of a hard drive for $200 extra.
I can install Angry Birds for offline use on my normal Chrome browser, I have both Google Docs and Libre Office for work online and off, and my EVO supplies bandwidth no matter where I am (well almost, Sprint has some crappy coverage areas). By all means continue developing this stuff, but really, I think people have solutions looking for a problem sometimes.
Republicrats suck.
If you vote either Democrat or Republican you are part of the problem.
You've obviously never had obnoxious atheist blow up at you and attack any passing mention you make in relation to a creator based belief. I realize there are Christians who attack at every mention of evolution, etc... But don't think there aren't Atheist who don't attack at every mention of God.
You're right. I've often though of how the Ten Commandments make sense even if you don't believe, and there's only one I can dismiss outright for non-believers.
ONE: 'You shall have no other gods before Me.'
Yeah, if you're not a believer you can skip this one.
TWO: 'You shall not make for yourself a carved image--any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.'
Not relevant, but if you extrapolate the idolatry thing a little to include "ignore TMZ and don't get wrapped up in what celebrities do" it's not bad advice.
THREE: 'You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.'
Again, not directly relevant - but if you extrapolate that from the intended "don't use the authority of God to get your way" translation instead of the don't cuss in the name of God translation and translate that to "Don't abuse the name of authority for personal gain" it becomes relevant and I really wish people in political offices would follow it.
FOUR: 'Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.'
Take a break, if you don't you'll burn yourself out and won't be good to anyone.
FIVE: 'Honor your father and your mother.'
As long as your parents are descent people, don't do anything they wouldn't approve of and you'll do alright. Would your mama approve of that girl? If not she probably isn't good for you. This of course assumes your mama isn't a crack-whore.
SIX: 'You shall not murder.'
Does anyone want to argue with that?
SEVEN: 'You shall not commit adultery.'
Sleeping with someone else's spouse is not a good idea. I could create some really bad situations. Don't fark anyone who is attached exclusively to someone else or you'll pay the price in drama and maybe even physical attack.
EIGHT: 'You shall not steal.'
Who's going to argue against this?
NINE: 'You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.'
Yeah, good idea, lest you be this guy who's mama called him a liar.
TEN: 'You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's.'
Really, all it does is create friction among neighbors and makes it hard for everyone to get along. Do your own thing and let the other guy do his.
I grew up Southern Baptist, and I've always been ahead of my immediate rural small town peers in science. In a Sunday School class one day we were going through the first chapters of Genesis, I explained how each of the "days" could easily be described as events during/after the Big Bang.
The room divided about 1/3 on my side, 1/3 against, 1/3 confused. Most of the arguments had to do with order of operations and nit-picking wording of the Bible, not with the concepts themselves.
My personal religious beliefs, while I still technically count myself as Christian, are best described as something along the lines of Pandeism. An Ojibwe friend helped me through a lot of conflicts I had internally at one time as I had a lot of questions where my religious, spiritual (yes different) and science beliefs conflicted. He told me about the medicine wheel, he was very good in science, and told me of his own tribes (from which I am also descended) stories of the Peacemaker in the White Stone Canoe which sounded like Jesus in so many ways it's impossible to miss the connection, and Nanaboozho. He was an incredible help.
Since his death I have watched What the Bleep? Down the Rabbit Hole, this did a lot to help me reconcile the religious/science debate. The more we get into to quantum physics the harder it is to ignore a religious implication. I've also heard an interview with genetic scientist, Chuck and Mark, I forget their last names, who started out Atheist but found God through science, believing DNA could not have been random in it's complexity.
I don't know when I reconciled God and Science as the same. When I was young I was definitely the good Southern Baptist boy, my grandmother actually thought I had the potential to be a preacher, and truthfully I could see where she was coming from and haven't dismissed the idea, but now I doubt I could ever be a Southern Baptist preacher.
Few things annoy me more than the cut throat Evangelical Atheist out to attack every notion of religion, I consider them just about equal to their equivalent to Evangelical, 6,000 year old Earth never mind the Bible was intentionally mis-assembled more than 300 years after Christ death to better control the believers Christians. Neither is better than the other, their both equally closed minded and equally contribute to holding up real progress in universal understanding - the stronger you polarize opposite believers the further apart they become, if you stop thwacking the beehive it becomes easier to really converse.
Carl Sagan is one of my hero's. He presented science, and though he wasn't really a believer in a creator he stated we don't actually know enough to dismiss the possibility. He betrayed no one in saying that, and kept polarization to a minimum so that people would actually listen to what he had to say. Had he said "there is no God" how many people who enjoyed the Cosmos series would have actually taken time to watch it to begin with? Especially when the various religious communities would have rallied to ban/boycott it?
Word to both types of evangelicals - state your views but don't brow beat someone else for not accepting them, you'll only piss them off and drive them further away from what you have to say.
If even one person had their computer plugged into a TV for a monitor (and how many TV's over the past decade have had VGA, DVI, HDMI, RGB and even Firewire inputs?) then I see this as invalid. Each and every gnutella user had their own database of available files, TV shows and movies could be found on the network in those databases, and be played back on the television display.
Case dismissed!
You mean last night? (after I typed the above)
At least Google+ lets me write half a book as my status update if I want to. Facebook makes me Tweet or write a note that no one looks at.
"One of them is even reputable"
Did the others lose their reputation for agreeing with the token "ok to disagree" guy?
I read a book when I was in junior high published during the 70's that took place in the 1990's or so. The ice-age was setting in and people were fleeing south. Houston was the capital of the US, Mexico didn't know what to do with their illegal immigrant problem, and the family in the book was tired of the overcrowded South so they decided to rough it and move back north. An interesting read even if I can't remember the title.
I'm glad you said that. I'm of strong Libertarian beliefs and I've been in a personal belief struggle with rationalizing how to protect freedom and the environment at the same time as pollution isn't victimless, but then again neither is regulation. I've put a lot of thought into how to do it without an acronym agency and your answer seems best.
You make many valid points, bravo!
Any research that disagrees with exactly what Al Gore dictates causes a scientist to lose their funding and to "get kicked out of the club". Good luck ever working in your field again if you dissent.
Extra planetary bodies are also heating up. Mars, Venus, some Jovian moons, they're all increasing in temperature meaning humans probably aren't the cause of all of what's happening here at home.
There's tons of profit on exploiting the hype.
I am a hard-core Libertarian, but I do believe some environmental regulation is warranted. I hate the face that the issue even has to be addressed as it is, but it does. Industrial pollution harms the environment, and by extension does harm to another, it is NOT a victimless act. My biggest personal dilemma when it comes to regulation and enforcement is exactly what is the right way to do so (who enforces) and what should the limits be. A polluted waste land is paradise to no-one.
I don't think humans are the main cause of any temperature variances here on earth, but I think "going green" is a good thing. Any capitalist (not in the energy field) should love clean energy. There's no fuel cost (wind, solar, tidal, geothermal). I wish everyone could take a reasonable perspective like you so we could get over the fight and move towards the solutions.
Mine were about $2.50 each at Lowe's, were readily available, fit the decor of the offices (granted this was in a back room), and has the nice extra hook on the end for hanging baseball caps and the like when the permanent techs move into that room. I did consider some proper J-Hooks, but the plant hangers were actually a better fit for the client relations part of the environment and the physical limitations of where I was doing the work. (A sound studio where I wasn't free to put many holes in the wall and lacked solid backing where I could).
I wish I could mod this one up.
I personally think Perry is an ass-hat, but you can get those from anywhere, you're right about the Bush's not being native Texans. The guy I most want to win the presidential bid is not a native Texan, but a Congressman from my district in Galveston County all the same. Go Ron Paul, I don't mind you aren't native, you made your way here anyways and that what counts!
At one job where I had little ability to run cables under the floor/through the walls, but had a bunch of thick multi-microphone cables plus a few other types to run I made my own "hanging cable tray" using upside-down potted plant hangers I found at Lowes,
I was only going to run them from the punch-down panel to the first audio rack, the client liked the idea so much they bought more and ran them all the way to the wall for the cables they didn't hire me for.
Yes, it came from the same concept drawings, but we scratched out the name dangit! Aries was canceled so it is NOT the Aries 5!
I used Ghost before it was Norton. I loved the interface then, I could build a system, plug in power, Ethernet and a keyboard only, put in my Novel boot floppy, navigate to the Ghost directory (not batch files here!) load an image on the system all without bothering to plug in a monitor.
Then Norton bought it and gave it a mouse driven GUI (actually I can't remember if that pre/post Norton, I know it was close). I haven't used it in about a decade, my old copies got kind of useless since they only dealt with images up to 4GB or so. Now I usually use dd, I've increased my Linux knowledge significantly since then.
I'm going to argue it's gone down. My 95 1/2 Tacoma got about 34 MPG and my 01 Celica got 33. They went down after that in mileage and are just now catching up again. I don't know how much of that is engineering changes to the vehicle and how much is Ethanol related losses, but I do know even back in 95 the Tacoma was rated to take on more Ethanol that American vehicles of the same era (still not quite rated for E85 or anything).
I'm not a big time truck fan. I know, native Texan and all, but I will say I think Toyota made mistakes in the truck department. The Tacoma was small and popular, the T100 was less popular but it was around, they scrubbed the T100, introduced the Tundra, and made the Tacoma the size of the T100. What? Seems to me if the Tacoma was selling they should have left it small and introduced the Tundra and maybe kept the T100 or not, but seriously, the modern Tacoma should be relabeled T100 and the 34 MPG Tacoma should return! I honestly think all three would sell well enough to justify their existence in Texas and probably the rest of the South, probably the Mid West, not sure about elsewhere.
Also, I went American. My 05 Saturn Vue decided to start having one system at a time go completely out or wear out around 90,000 miles. THIS IS WHY PEOPLE ARE BUYING JAPANESE. Rumor has it the policy of 100,000 mile vehicles the big four sort of agreed to under the table in the 70's is going away now that people aren't buying American anymore, but that doesn't fix the 05 I suddenly had to start dumping large quantities of money into all of the sudden.
Sorry, as I mentioned, didn't get to finish, had things to do, back for a bit but will have to leave again. The statement you nailed me on should have read "when I work on a decidedly not government contract", but I did leave a disclaimer, I have one of those issues where the brain to finger buffer overflows and I do have to proof read, it was really bad back when I used to have to use a pen and paper in school.
In the time around 2006 local companies did massive IT layoffs, Compaq/HP dumped many many workers back into the "need a job" field, Shell implemented their "GI" project which is ultimately what cost me my job, as well as many other techs, Exxon/Mobile actually consulted with Shell on their GI project and implemented something very similar and I had a personal/legal issue which kept me from leaving the area. Houston was not the place to look for an IT job during the 2006 time frame.
The bubbles and criminal enterprises you mentioned are made possible with the FED and the market manipulation from it. Greenspan did a wonderful job making sure the bubbles were really huge before they got to the bursting point.
I was looking to jump to energy management myself, I was gearing up to jump on board with the Pickens Plan, I really wanted to do some off-shore work here in the Gulf. That sort of bombed. One of the biggest problems was the need to appeal to the federal government, which sucks for the Libertarian reasons I believe in, but since they regulate everything I don't see where it's avoidable.
The Beltway here in Houston was NOT an Interstate/Federal highway project. It's home grown, paid for by the tolls it collects. I'm not saying there weren't some federal funds in there, the feds have a way of just handing out money to everyone who ask at the expense of those who don't, but buy and large it's local. I'm 100% against tolls on any part of the Interstate Highway system since we already paid for it and continue to pay for it through fuel (and other) taxes.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Rick Perry is an ass-hat, the worst kind of politician, and I hope he doesn't get even the vice presidential nomination.
I really would like more agencies like Powerball. Powerball is NOT a federal agency, yet it's an interstate government agency in the sense it's run by various state governments. We need more things like Powerball. The Interstate Highway commission, the FDA, the Public Utilities Commission, all things I would love to see modeled after Powerball, non-participation is even an option!
I think you and I have the same goals in mind, we just see different ways to get them. I like bottom-up methods, from local reaching to less local methods instead of an across the board downward mandate. The federal government originally wasn't supposed to be seen as a top level government, but more of referee between the states and a single point of reference for dealing with non-union states. I think it actually worked better when that was the case and could work that way again.
Turn people lose with a goal in mind and it's bound to happen. Regulation prevents things from happening more than it fosters things happening, at least in our corrupt system. When things do happen with regulation they're generally broken by design.
The supply of oil is not unlimited, however we have more at home than certain people want the public to know. It's enough to sustain until it doesn't matter if we get on the ball about making it not matter. In many ways trying to motivate everyone to use less oil is shooting myself in the foot through the extension of my family and those who have paid my checks in the past and often still pay my checks when I do my own side work either directly or through supporting the businesses that pay me. The cost of drilling locally far exceeds the cost of drilling somewhere else and bringing it here. That's why we do it. Guess why it costs so much to drill here?
Your statement "I'm always fascinated by the people whose entire careers are dependent on the government, who hate it - when they think private enterprise is better." fails to impress me. Yes I have been on a government contract for a little over five years, for the seven years preceding that I worked for big oil through IT contracts and less oil centric technology contracts. The year preceding that I worked for a company that produced equipment for the USPS, you can pass judgment on that being government or not. I don't really see the difference. I work on a government contract they regulate the way I do things and take taxes out of my check to pay my check and the regulators who control the way I do things. I work for a decidedly not government contract the government regulates the way I do things and takes taxes out of my check to pay the guy doing my old job and the regulators who control the way I do things. I went where the money was, and five years ago when I took this job there wasn't a lot of options in the IT field. Come to think of it my options are rather limited right now. Were my job (and many others like it) not available through federal channels there would not be a lack of jobs assuming the government weren't still charging everyone for them. There would be private industry jobs due to lack of the government redistributing everyones wealth through the channels through which I am now employed. Jobs are exported due to the cost of doing business here, and it's not supply and demand keeping that cost high.
You are correct about the human psychology aspect. "That's not the way we did it before" kills a lot of things, and the government is slower to adopt new ways of doing things than private industry (ever deal with the court system?).
You are absolutely right about the government being the people to provide certain types of infrastructure. The federal level is not the level that should be involved with most of it, due to reasons cited above. The toll road system here in Houston is self funding and producing so much money they've found ways to keep it from paying itself off so they can continue to collect money from it against the promises made to the tax payers about making it free once it's paid off so they can use those funds to build more toll roads and more poorly designed infrastructure they in turn intend to collect tolls and taxes on. See? Corrupt local governments can actually turn a profit on their corruption better than a corrupt federal government can deliver a return on investment.
I have to go, this post is unfinished and in need of editing and correction, screw it, I'll be back in a few hours.
Listen, three generations back my family was in the oil business and they passed the torch down the line. I'm the first in succession since then to not go into oil, and my dad is still in it. If he tells me there's plenty of oil here, his brother backs it up, and all the oil field workers I know personally, including the ones I've worked with through my technology jobs at various oil companies here in Houston (hint, more than three) tell me there's plenty here on U.S. soil for us we're not allowed to get I believe them.
I agree, attacking our current infrastructure is the best way to lessen our petrochemical dependence.
Stop catering to the trucker and airline unions and actually allow a good useful train system, preferably one that lets you pack your own vehicle with you on the journey, be built and that would handle a lot of automotive issues to start with. Cities like Houston, where I live, that are so horribly constructed on a civil level that riding a bike is a death wish and there's an intentionally poor public transit system to keep the local oil corporation happy could start with some retouches to the human power and public transit position. The trolley systems that popped up all over the nation at the beginning of the 20th century that GM bought out and shut down had the right idea in mind. Maybe we could build some new ones?
Stop regulating property owners with so many regulations, fees, and laws that they are afraid to upgrade their buildings and maybe we can start refitting some old infrastructure. Motivation by threat and regulation is not the best motivation. Federal Government money is rarely the answer for anything, involving federal level government guarantees poor implementation of less than the best technology provided cronies who can afford to buy the politician, not the best option. The best option is actually a huge mix of every conceivable energy reduction method we can come up with and let the developers slowly determine ways to streamline and improve the tech as we implement it. Not the government standing there forcing one of a selection of part numbers. The best way to get building owners to switch is likely something akin to a cellphone contract. Figure out what they're spending on heating, offer to heat their building for 90% of the current cost for five years if you allow them to install the upgraded infrastructure and hold them to the contract. When you leave you made more money than you would have otherwise and the owner thinks they got a sweet deal. If we attack it from every angle eventually something akin to Darwinism will favor the best combination of price and efficiency.
Capitalist who are not in the energy business love energy efficiency. "Going green" makes sense as a capitalist. If I can put out a windmill and solar panels and not have to pay for electricity I am saving money. When windmills and solar panels become affordable (hint, priced by manufacturing cost, supply/demand, not how much energy you expect to get out of them in a product life time) capitalist will snatch them up. Grey water reclamation is picking up steam, not as quickly as it should, but if you can water your lawn without having to pay for extra water it makes sense. On that note in the early 80's my grandmother let her clothes washer drain into her garden and the small town I grew up in many people had wells for their lawns. Saving energy isn't something "greedy people" are against. To the contrary greedy people love green, the money kind, and if the other kind of green can save the first one they're all over it out of principal, not principle.
On the Apollo Program note - I work at NASA, I know about the "use this part number" approach. If we have to run a blue Plenum Ethernet cable from one floor to the next we can have spools of the stuff stacked to the ceiling and not have any to run because the stupid government approach to doing things requires a part number, not a standard. We can't say "run blue plenum Ethernet" we have to say run "Acme ETH-0