Downloading files to a shell acount
Gosh yeah - lynx or wget are so tough to use. That said, I too prefer a plain ftp client for many purposes, though I often then retype the locations of the actual files I want as ftp urls, and get them with wget (for big files, easy automatic restarts). ncftpput is handy for the other direction. http is, however, a perfectly good transfer protocol, and more reliable over some firewalls.
You're talking about "bullshit bingo". We used to play it on conference calls. Have an instant messenger session open with your friends, or be in a conference room on mute, and when you get what would be a bingo, you announce it with "bullshit".
He got too verbose, but it did require a line saying that it meant greyedtake of your partisan blinders out, rather than "agree" being the default. However, you're right... it wasn't funny.
take of your partisan blinders
I could understand that as an archaic grammar... "take of your partisan blinders a portion, and give it unto the abyss", or something like that, but in this context, it just doesn't make any sense.
Ever try to load and fire a crossbow?
Yes.
No, you have not.
Yes, I have.
It's not easy.
Yes, it is.
It's not accurate.
That depends on your measured definition of accuracy. I can place a bolt in the same 4 inch circle at 30 yards that I can put an arrow into, and my arm doesn't hurt, even if I wait a week to release.
It's not 'point and click'.
Ok, you're right on this one. It's point and "chun"... Pardon my weak ononmatopaeic skill. If you've heard the sound, you know what I really mean.
Note: I'm not talking about a poacher's leaf-spring limbed allthread-shooting behemoth here, but light pistol crossbows, midweight hunting bows (with goatsfoot), and belly bows... all a bit faster, and every bit as deadly (to maybe 50 yards) as a percussion-ignition muzzleloader (I've never used a flintlock).
In Bristol, I'd think it would be a warning about the whereabouts of the vicious chicken...
I can't help it. I see "city of Bristol", and I hear "chicken of Bristol"... I also nearly fought in the battle of Angnor.
I am so ashamed. I had a fraternity brother named Pete Wright, just at the time I discovered Pink Floyd. Ever since, I've called him "Richard", and called the musicion "Pete". Anyway, now you know what I mean.
I'll also agree somewhat with you on the song quality. I prefer what Roger used to write, but would rather listen to Dave play, even if the writing suffers.
I don't usually reply to complaints about my post, but i think it's important that you don't misunderstand its meaning. He said "My kids are watching cartoons and won't let me change the channel.". He didn't say that he was shielding them from the reality (which, in my opinion, would be a very bad idea), but that he was unable to bring himself to override the childrens preference. If he has kept them so shielded that it would be difficult to explain to them, he should send them from the room while he finds out what's going on, and start figuring out how to keep them from finding out about it from other sources.
As for my household, I explained it to my 5-year-old daughter while playing basketball with her and my 3-year-old autistic son. Later that day, I showed her what they are talking about in the loss of tiles and the erosion of the wing, with a blowtorch on sand on aluminum foil. We handled the concept of death 3 years ago when her great grandfather died, so she was just sad that their families will miss them, and was, like me, mostly just afraid that everybody would be afraid to let people go into space any more.
Now, I'll be the first to admit that Kate is a bit exceptional, but that is in large part because I answer all of her questions, as far as is appropriate. For instance, just last night, I had to explain what happenned to Marge Simpson's breasts, with the attendant issue of why anybody would want to have it done, as well as the value judgement that it is silly to take something so important and destroy its function to make some people think it looks better.
I came on a bit strong, calling him a bad parent, because he is well on the way to becoming one if he lets his kids control him. I see so many people with ill-behaved children, who just shrug and say they can't do anything about it. My daughter occasionally gets the opposite idea from poorly-raised children in her school, and I have to correct her. So far, I've never had escalate the issue beyond calm words. She knows that I'll take whatever means are necessary, and so, I never need to.
Kids don't need servants. They need parents. If you don't understand that and act accordingly, you raise bad kids, which is one definition of a bad parent. For most of us, the most notable, and for all of us, the most important, contribution we make to the future, is our children. For the love of our children, and everybody elses, we must not do a half-assed lazy job of raising them.
In case there's now a shortage of willing crew, I hereby volunteer. Let's go, tonight, to evacuate ISS pending the crash completion of the x-38 project, or whatever we come up with instead.
You are a bad parent. If you can't bring yourself to override your children in a case such as this, you're going to raise a bunch of self-centered losers. Consider becoming an adult. Children need that in a parent.
I would call that external immortality. After you finish mirroring, and fork the new one away, the old one is going to experience death, even if it happens atomically with the forking. I've been thinking about this for years. What would your continuing fork think and feel about death of the terminating one? There's probably not anybody closer to you than yourself. Since we can't measure or otherwise prove the existence of the soul, maybe nobody wonders what happens there. Odd to think of, though... a society gradually filling up with repeated copies of old, long-dead people, without souls.
the recording of nevermind
We're not talking about pure geek technical excellence at slider positioning. The subject is quality of album. You ever hear "Frampton Comes Alive"?... No studio at all. While I'll be the first to admit that a good enough producer can almost single-handedly create a killer album (if he can choose his own studio musicians... Think "Tales of Mystery and Imagination"), the main thing you need to make a good album is good music played well. If you don't have that, you have........ well, you have what we seem to have now. Rap, "boy bands", Brittany Spears (I'm sure I'm spelling that wrong. I sure hope so, anyway.), or whatever overproduced, corporate-manufactured non-music they're trying to sell now. If the RIAA wants to see big sales, get Nick Mason to wake up Pete and Dave, and let's have another Pink Floyd album. Better yet, let's have somebody else start making music that good, as they need their sleep. The problem is that there was a huge rise in the importance of recorded, recognizable, repeatable music, which created a business model which brought in enormous profits. As other forms of entertainment reduced the demand for pure audio, the record companies who sprung up in that rich compost began trying harder and harder at the part of that business process that they can influence. It's a lot like the situation where your car starts to overheat, and loses power. As it happens, you can maintain speed by pushing the throttle pedal farther down. This, however, aggravates the overheating condition. We've got the same thing going on now. There are damn few new artists that command respect. Only the mindless ones want to be like "in sink" or Tiffany. It's not attracting real, intelligent, talented people any more, so all the record companies can do is crank harder on the publicity machine, and seek new income through fees on data storage media. I'm sure that prior to the wide availibility of the automobile, there were some really incredible buggy whip companies, producing superlative whips, which could touch the horse in just the right way, making it excited to run, without causing it a trace of pain. I'll also bet that they did everything they could to survive after they were no longer needed. They're still gone, and we don't need them to come back. Back when producing and distributing an accurate copy of a piece of audio took a big business, the record companies served a very important purpose. Now, they are as important to music as buggy whips are to transportation. I really don't see why this is difficult for them to understand. I'm really sorry for the people who are no longer needed in their jobs, but there are still a few really excellent telegraphers out there (really... I've met one), who had to find something else to do. Sadly enough, I'm beginning to think that that fate is already coming around for unix system administrators. Anybody need a really good one?
I assert that it would be more stylistically correct. The eye just gets lost in a long string with no whitespace, anyway. btw: I do like the sig... not as good as the binary one, but good.... I wonder what my sig is. Probably something stupid. Slashcode suggestion: insert the.sig as editable text in reply text box, to remind those of us who probably have lame ones to do something about that.
ok, yeah, it probably is illegal, but in case you haven't noticed, the NYT is actually/.ed. So many people having to make up phone creds to log in that their authentication server is dead. I'm not saying it makes it legal, but it's good that it's posted here, since NYT can't handle their own traffic. Incidentally, if copypasting is illegal, why is google's cache legal?
That would be fine, too, as such a weapon would likely be used against missiles in their boost phase... kind of like taking a knife from a mugger and shoving it up his ass.
I'd like to see some poor bastard hit an A-10 with one. The pilot, pissed at the loss of his radio, wipes out the weapon site and flies home on cable control.
We have directed EMP weapons? This is one? Perhaps you don't understand the concept. This is not an EMP (a single pulse... one EM wave). This is a short burst of high-power RF, in the EHF, or maybe SHF band. Among other things, to avoid injuring humans, it's probably not close to 2.4GHz, nor to any other water absorption peak.
As far as people injured by directed RF, sure. There are even urban legends about it (the night watchman at a relay tower who used to sleep in front of the dish, etc.). long exposure to high-power microwave, especially around 2.4Ghz, gives you lots of little cooked spots inside your body... dead tissue in the heart, lungs, etc.. Eventually, it all just breaks down.
Yes, a radar running CW is quite a weapon. You might, if you would RTFA, note the phrase "The short, intense burst of energy". Millions of watts. To generate that continuously takes a very large piece of equipment. To hold enough to run that level for an extremely short time, you just need a big capacitor.
Imagine trying to light paper with the light from a strobe, even using a magnifying glass. You're just not going to get it to happen. On the other hand, we all know that carbon nanofibres in regular atmosphere light right up from a camera flash. We're talking the same concept.
I have no concern if a police officer wants to shine a bright flashlight in my face (though it is annoying), but I would get rather annoyed if he insisted on shining it on the film in my camera. This doesn't mean that I'm ignoring the danger from the flashlight, so amply detected by my film (see most claims of carcinogenicity).
Anybody ever get sick or hurt from a lightning strike a kilometer away? Me either, but I have lost radio gear to it, and once got a nice little zap from the center conductor of a PL-259 as I was frantically unhooking a 2-meter rig from a little 1/4-wave groundplane (I briefly thought it was a direct strike, until the boom came in instant later, and I also realized that I wasn't dead yet). That was a very low wavelength - essentially a single wavefront. An equivalent signal at microwave would produce a very minor, probably undetected surface burn if I had been in actual contact with the center conductor. Of course, any of such a signal that didn't dissapate in the radiating element itself would have dissapated as heat in the coax a couple of inches from the radiating element, and the same for... oh, let's say a car, pocket knife, whatever piece of conductor you might be touching when the pulse hit.
And those complaining of collateral damage from destroyed infrastructure. That's just damn silly. When we destroy a supply convoy headed for the troops, where do you think the food, clothing, and other supplies come from to replace it? If we destroy a SAM base, do you think Sodom (as I pronounce it) will just do without it to avoid hardship to his people? In real countries (read - those of us not ruled by self-appointing elites and thugs - sorry, Saudi, Kuwait, Syria, Iraq, Iran, China, Vietnam, N. Korea, Myanmar, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Zimbabwe, etc..), if a war becomes not worth winning to the citizens, it ends. I've always had mixed feelings over how we walked away from Vietnam. I hate that we abandoned all those people to the cruel, power-hungry north, but I don't care about them enough to have a single American unwillingly risk his life for them. There was nothing there of importance to the U.S., and when enough people realized it, our ability to prosecute the war effectively, went away.
Contrast that with N. Korea. Nobody is trying to invade them, but their government maintains one of the largest (the largest? I'm not worried enough to bother finding out) standing armies in the world, while their people starve (not just hungry, but dying from lack of food). If a government of a real country tried that, they'd be out on their asses shortly, at least if they haven't completely supressed the second ammendment (or its equivalent outside the U.S.). For those who don't know what that ammendment is... It's the one we have in place in case the government quits honoring the other 9.
...and what do you think those eddy currents do to "blow" transistors? They heat and break down the semiconductor junction. The pulse causes heating in the living tissue it hits, too. It's just that this extremely high power is present for only an extremely short time. Thus, the amount of energy is negligible. In electronics, the pulse drives currents in the conductors, concentrating the energy, which is dissipated in the circuit in each spot proportional to the resistance of that spot. The base or gate of a transistor has relatively high impedence, compared to the leads. It is also very small, so that heating happens in a very small area. BAM! the nice arrangement of donors and acceptors freely mixes up, or perhaps even gets seperated as the area evaporates. Even at lower energies, RAMs and flash gets rewritten. I've threatened for years to take an old microwave oven, and dump the output of the klystron at the focus of a parabolic dish (would like to use a deep dish, fully enclosing the focal point, for safety), to both ruin the "boom cars", and make their drivers uncomfortable. I'm going to be watching the army surplus stores.
You misunderstand the moderation meaning, which is easy to do. It might say "+5 funny", while the actual moderations are "+1 insightful, +1 interesting, +1 informative, +1 funny, -1 overrated, +1 funny, +1 funny". This can even give one that is "+1 funny, +1 funny, +1 funny, +1 troll", displaying as "+2 troll". Yes, in detail display, it would show as "+3 funny, -1 troll"... I'm just showing chronology. I haven't read the slashcode, but I think it just shows the most recent moderation reason in the score field. I browse at -1, no moderation displayed, To avoid any possible bias in my own moderation. Hey, on that topic, it sure would be nice if more metamoderators would check the context on odd-looking moderations. Remember, these comments don't happen in a vacuum.
"Capitol offenses"? Would that be graffiti in the Rotunda, perhaps? Anyway, you're wrong. All criminal offenses are covered... essentially, anything that can deprive someone of all or part of their life... "jeopardy of life or limb;". We're not primitive savages who chop off hands and such, like some *cougharabcough* "cultures" I could name, and never have been, so the "limb" part never made much sense to me, except as part of an expression "life or limb", interpreted as I do above. Of course, I feel for the poor fool who gets in some big company's crosshairs and gets sued and wins over an over until he can't afford a lawyer any more an loses.
While I agree that a wrong trial (bribery, absolute stupidity, OJ, etc.) would be better redone, we then run into the question of who decides it should be redone. If I get to force redos on every contest I have, I will until I win, just as the state will (See my rant higher up the page about "Do-overs".).
Slashdot Mirror
Downloading files to a shell acount
Gosh yeah - lynx or wget are so tough to use. That said, I too prefer a plain ftp client for many purposes, though I often then retype the locations of the actual files I want as ftp urls, and get them with wget (for big files, easy automatic restarts). ncftpput is handy for the other direction. http is, however, a perfectly good transfer protocol, and more reliable over some firewalls.
You're talking about "bullshit bingo". We used to play it on conference calls. Have an instant messenger session open with your friends, or be in a conference room on mute, and when you get what would be a bingo, you announce it with "bullshit".
followed by exclusive, you-heard-it-here-first scoop at 1230.
AAaahh... You must be a /. editor.
He got too verbose, but it did require a line saying that it meant greyedtake of your partisan blinders out, rather than "agree" being the default.
However, you're right... it wasn't funny.
take of your partisan blinders
I could understand that as an archaic grammar... "take of your partisan blinders a portion, and give it unto the abyss", or something like that, but in this context, it just doesn't make any sense.
I never thought I'd find myself wishing for more mod points. This really struck me funny. Thank you.
Ever try to load and fire a crossbow?
Yes.
No, you have not.
Yes, I have.
It's not easy.
Yes, it is.
It's not accurate.
That depends on your measured definition of accuracy. I can place a bolt in the same 4 inch circle at 30 yards that I can put an arrow into, and my arm doesn't hurt, even if I wait a week to release.
It's not 'point and click'.
Ok, you're right on this one. It's point and "chun"... Pardon my weak ononmatopaeic skill. If you've heard the sound, you know what I really mean.
Note: I'm not talking about a poacher's leaf-spring limbed allthread-shooting behemoth here, but light pistol crossbows, midweight hunting bows (with goatsfoot), and belly bows... all a bit faster, and every bit as deadly (to maybe 50 yards) as a percussion-ignition muzzleloader (I've never used a flintlock).
In Bristol, I'd think it would be a warning about the whereabouts of the vicious chicken...
I can't help it. I see "city of Bristol", and I hear "chicken of Bristol"... I also nearly fought in the battle of Angnor.
I am so ashamed. I had a fraternity brother named Pete Wright, just at the time I discovered Pink Floyd. Ever since, I've called him "Richard", and called the musicion "Pete". Anyway, now you know what I mean.
I'll also agree somewhat with you on the song quality. I prefer what Roger used to write, but would rather listen to Dave play, even if the writing suffers.
I don't usually reply to complaints about my post, but i think it's important that you don't misunderstand its meaning. He said "My kids are watching cartoons and won't let me change the channel.". He didn't say that he was shielding them from the reality (which, in my opinion, would be a very bad idea), but that he was unable to bring himself to override the childrens preference. If he has kept them so shielded that it would be difficult to explain to them, he should send them from the room while he finds out what's going on, and start figuring out how to keep them from finding out about it from other sources.
As for my household, I explained it to my 5-year-old daughter while playing basketball with her and my 3-year-old autistic son. Later that day, I showed her what they are talking about in the loss of tiles and the erosion of the wing, with a blowtorch on sand on aluminum foil. We handled the concept of death 3 years ago when her great grandfather died, so she was just sad that their families will miss them, and was, like me, mostly just afraid that everybody would be afraid to let people go into space any more.
Now, I'll be the first to admit that Kate is a bit exceptional, but that is in large part because I answer all of her questions, as far as is appropriate. For instance, just last night, I had to explain what happenned to Marge Simpson's breasts, with the attendant issue of why anybody would want to have it done, as well as the value judgement that it is silly to take something so important and destroy its function to make some people think it looks better.
I came on a bit strong, calling him a bad parent, because he is well on the way to becoming one if he lets his kids control him. I see so many people with ill-behaved children, who just shrug and say they can't do anything about it. My daughter occasionally gets the opposite idea from poorly-raised children in her school, and I have to correct her. So far, I've never had escalate the issue beyond calm words. She knows that I'll take whatever means are necessary, and so, I never need to.
Kids don't need servants. They need parents. If you don't understand that and act accordingly, you raise bad kids, which is one definition of a bad parent. For most of us, the most notable, and for all of us, the most important, contribution we make to the future, is our children. For the love of our children, and everybody elses, we must not do a half-assed lazy job of raising them.
In case there's now a shortage of willing crew, I hereby volunteer. Let's go, tonight, to evacuate ISS pending the crash completion of the x-38 project, or whatever we come up with instead.
You are a bad parent. If you can't bring yourself to override your children in a case such as this, you're going to raise a bunch of self-centered losers. Consider becoming an adult. Children need that in a parent.
I would call that external immortality. After you finish mirroring, and fork the new one away, the old one is going to experience death, even if it happens atomically with the forking. I've been thinking about this for years. What would your continuing fork think and feel about death of the terminating one? There's probably not anybody closer to you than yourself. Since we can't measure or otherwise prove the existence of the soul, maybe nobody wonders what happens there. Odd to think of, though... a society gradually filling up with repeated copies of old, long-dead people, without souls.
the recording of nevermind
We're not talking about pure geek technical excellence at slider positioning. The subject is quality of album.
You ever hear "Frampton Comes Alive"?... No studio at all. While I'll be the first to admit that a good enough producer can almost single-handedly create a killer album (if he can choose his own studio musicians... Think "Tales of Mystery and Imagination"), the main thing you need to make a good album is good music played well. If you don't have that, you have........ well, you have what we seem to have now. Rap, "boy bands", Brittany Spears (I'm sure I'm spelling that wrong. I sure hope so, anyway.), or whatever overproduced, corporate-manufactured non-music they're trying to sell now. If the RIAA wants to see big sales, get Nick Mason to wake up Pete and Dave, and let's have another Pink Floyd album. Better yet, let's have somebody else start making music that good, as they need their sleep. The problem is that there was a huge rise in the importance of recorded, recognizable, repeatable music, which created a business model which brought in enormous profits. As other forms of entertainment reduced the demand for pure audio, the record companies who sprung up in that rich compost began trying harder and harder at the part of that business process that they can influence. It's a lot like the situation where your car starts to overheat, and loses power. As it happens, you can maintain speed by pushing the throttle pedal farther down. This, however, aggravates the overheating condition. We've got the same thing going on now. There are damn few new artists that command respect. Only the mindless ones want to be like "in sink" or Tiffany. It's not attracting real, intelligent, talented people any more, so all the record companies can do is crank harder on the publicity machine, and seek new income through fees on data storage media.
I'm sure that prior to the wide availibility of the automobile, there were some really incredible buggy whip companies, producing superlative whips, which could touch the horse in just the right way, making it excited to run, without causing it a trace of pain. I'll also bet that they did everything they could to survive after they were no longer needed. They're still gone, and we don't need them to come back. Back when producing and distributing an accurate copy of a piece of audio took a big business, the record companies served a very important purpose. Now, they are as important to music as buggy whips are to transportation. I really don't see why this is difficult for them to understand. I'm really sorry for the people who are no longer needed in their jobs, but there are still a few really excellent telegraphers out there (really... I've met one), who had to find something else to do. Sadly enough, I'm beginning to think that that fate is already coming around for unix system administrators. Anybody need a really good one?
I assert that it would be more stylistically correct. The eye just gets lost in a long string with no whitespace, anyway. .sig as editable text in reply text box, to remind those of us who probably have lame ones to do something about that.
btw: I do like the sig... not as good as the binary one, but good.... I wonder what my sig is. Probably something stupid. Slashcode suggestion: insert the
ok, yeah, it probably is illegal, but in case you haven't noticed, the NYT is actually /.ed. So many people having to make up phone creds to log in that their authentication server is dead.
I'm not saying it makes it legal, but it's good that it's posted here, since NYT can't handle their own traffic. Incidentally, if copypasting is illegal, why is google's cache legal?
That would be fine, too, as such a weapon would likely be used against missiles in their boost phase... kind of like taking a knife from a mugger and shoving it up his ass.
I'd like to see some poor bastard hit an A-10 with one. The pilot, pissed at the loss of his radio, wipes out the weapon site and flies home on cable control.
We have directed EMP weapons? This is one? Perhaps you don't understand the concept. This is not an EMP (a single pulse... one EM wave). This is a short burst of high-power RF, in the EHF, or maybe SHF band. Among other things, to avoid injuring humans, it's probably not close to 2.4GHz, nor to any other water absorption peak.
As far as people injured by directed RF, sure. There are even urban legends about it (the night watchman at a relay tower who used to sleep in front of the dish, etc.). long exposure to high-power microwave, especially around 2.4Ghz, gives you lots of little cooked spots inside your body... dead tissue in the heart, lungs, etc.. Eventually, it all just breaks down.
Yes, a radar running CW is quite a weapon. You might, if you would RTFA, note the phrase "The short, intense burst of energy". Millions of watts. To generate that continuously takes a very large piece of equipment. To hold enough to run that level for an extremely short time, you just need a big capacitor.
Imagine trying to light paper with the light from a strobe, even using a magnifying glass. You're just not going to get it to happen. On the other hand, we all know that carbon nanofibres in regular atmosphere light right up from a camera flash. We're talking the same concept.
I have no concern if a police officer wants to shine a bright flashlight in my face (though it is annoying), but I would get rather annoyed if he insisted on shining it on the film in my camera. This doesn't mean that I'm ignoring the danger from the flashlight, so amply detected by my film (see most claims of carcinogenicity).
Anybody ever get sick or hurt from a lightning strike a kilometer away? Me either, but I have lost radio gear to it, and once got a nice little zap from the center conductor of a PL-259 as I was frantically unhooking a 2-meter rig from a little 1/4-wave groundplane (I briefly thought it was a direct strike, until the boom came in instant later, and I also realized that I wasn't dead yet). That was a very low wavelength - essentially a single wavefront. An equivalent signal at microwave would produce a very minor, probably undetected surface burn if I had been in actual contact with the center conductor. Of course, any of such a signal that didn't dissapate in the radiating element itself would have dissapated as heat in the coax a couple of inches from the radiating element, and the same for... oh, let's say a car, pocket knife, whatever piece of conductor you might be touching when the pulse hit.
And those complaining of collateral damage from destroyed infrastructure. That's just damn silly. When we destroy a supply convoy headed for the troops, where do you think the food, clothing, and other supplies come from to replace it? If we destroy a SAM base, do you think Sodom (as I pronounce it) will just do without it to avoid hardship to his people? In real countries (read - those of us not ruled by self-appointing elites and thugs - sorry, Saudi, Kuwait, Syria, Iraq, Iran, China, Vietnam, N. Korea, Myanmar, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Zimbabwe, etc..), if a war becomes not worth winning to the citizens, it ends. I've always had mixed feelings over how we walked away from Vietnam. I hate that we abandoned all those people to the cruel, power-hungry north, but I don't care about them enough to have a single American unwillingly risk his life for them. There was nothing there of importance to the U.S., and when enough people realized it, our ability to prosecute the war effectively, went away.
Contrast that with N. Korea. Nobody is trying to invade them, but their government maintains one of the largest (the largest? I'm not worried enough to bother finding out) standing armies in the world, while their people starve (not just hungry, but dying from lack of food). If a government of a real country tried that, they'd be out on their asses shortly, at least if they haven't completely supressed the second ammendment (or its equivalent outside the U.S.). For those who don't know what that ammendment is... It's the one we have in place in case the government quits honoring the other 9.
...and what do you think those eddy currents do to "blow" transistors? They heat and break down the semiconductor junction. The pulse causes heating in the living tissue it hits, too. It's just that this extremely high power is present for only an extremely short time. Thus, the amount of energy is negligible. In electronics, the pulse drives currents in the conductors, concentrating the energy, which is dissipated in the circuit in each spot proportional to the resistance of that spot. The base or gate of a transistor has relatively high impedence, compared to the leads. It is also very small, so that heating happens in a very small area. BAM! the nice arrangement of donors and acceptors freely mixes up, or perhaps even gets seperated as the area evaporates. Even at lower energies, RAMs and flash gets rewritten.
I've threatened for years to take an old microwave oven, and dump the output of the klystron at the focus of a parabolic dish (would like to use a deep dish, fully enclosing the focal point, for safety), to both ruin the "boom cars", and make their drivers uncomfortable. I'm going to be watching the army surplus stores.
You misunderstand the moderation meaning, which is easy to do. It might say "+5 funny", while the actual moderations are "+1 insightful, +1 interesting, +1 informative, +1 funny, -1 overrated, +1 funny, +1 funny". This can even give one that is "+1 funny, +1 funny, +1 funny, +1 troll", displaying as "+2 troll". Yes, in detail display, it would show as "+3 funny, -1 troll"... I'm just showing chronology. I haven't read the slashcode, but I think it just shows the most recent moderation reason in the score field. I browse at -1, no moderation displayed, To avoid any possible bias in my own moderation. Hey, on that topic, it sure would be nice if more metamoderators would check the context on odd-looking moderations. Remember, these comments don't happen in a vacuum.
"Capitol offenses"? Would that be graffiti in the Rotunda, perhaps?
Anyway, you're wrong. All criminal offenses are covered... essentially, anything that can deprive someone of all or part of their life... "jeopardy of life or limb;". We're not primitive savages who chop off hands and such, like some *cougharabcough* "cultures" I could name, and never have been, so the "limb" part never made much sense to me, except as part of an expression "life or limb", interpreted as I do above.
Of course, I feel for the poor fool who gets in some big company's crosshairs and gets sued and wins over an over until he can't afford a lawyer any more an loses.
While I agree that a wrong trial (bribery, absolute stupidity, OJ, etc.) would be better redone, we then run into the question of who decides it should be redone. If I get to force redos on every contest I have, I will until I win, just as the state will (See my rant higher up the page about "Do-overs".).