I cannot begin to understand the necessity of this bill. The system that has been in place for several years whereby the Executive branch can use the FISA courts to retroactively give warrants for wiretapping seems more than adequate for our security. Furthermore, if this bill does not serve the purpose of strengthening our national security, what purpose does it serve? I may get categorized as a "conspiracy theorist" for saying this, but the only purpose I can see for this law is to strengthen the power of the establishment. It will allow for secret wiretaps that the FISA courts would not approve: political opponents, opposition parties and interest groups such as environmentalists or unions. If a wiretap would serve to protect the national security, the FISA courts would most certainly not deny the warrant retroactively. Additionally, this bill serves the purpose of retroactively giving legal standing to what are currently criminal actions that have been comitted by the executive office. Where is the press and the outrage? Where are the American people?
...to let things happen.
Prosecutors present a scenario to the jury when a case is tried in court. This scenario may or may not be 100% accurate, but it is usually the best explanation thta "fits the facts" of the case at hand. The charges that they present against the defendant describe the crimes comitted in the scenario they are presenting to the jury. Seldom does a conspiracy come before a jury and for good reason.
If we examine the facts surrounding the Bush Administration and it's interaction with the events of 9-11, I do not see a conspiracy -and I feel that this is probably the most corrupt administration since J. Q. Adams. The scenarion I'd be pr3esenting to a jury is "dereliction of duty" with the intent to further it's own power in the aftermath of an attack on American soil by Islamic terrorists. In my mind, the scenario plays out somewhat along the lines of a few select people within the administration looking at the evidence (before the attacks) dismissing it as inconclusive, and secretly, among themselves, thinking that "this COULD play into our hands." I suspect that, even knowing that something might be about to happen, the administration was as shocked a the rest of America on that September morning, but that the ball had been set in motion: all that they could do was to take advantage of the attack as they had already planned. They may have counted on -at most- a few hundred dead IF the attack were for real, but the reality of 9-11 was far worse than they had considered.
The evidence is there: pre-attack intelligence that was dismissed far too speedily, Bush's own reaction at the school that morning, and the way they wandered the counrty aimlessly, the contingency plans that were already in place, the seemingly deliberate lack of action on their part....
Does the fact that I consider this to be a poissibility make me a conspiracy theorist? I don't see a conspiracy, but I do see a plausible case of criminal negligence and think that it should be investigated. The current evidence that the Administration was making a power grab before 9-11 only bolsters the case that they may have comitted a crime as desribed...
Just as soon as you read someone saying that we aren't responsible for global warming, remember that you can go on over to Google and find plenty of respectable scientists that say we are. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/570 2/1686 Maybe Bob Carter disagrees with the conclusions that Al Gore has drawn, but to say that he has done the entire scientific comunity a disservice is exaggerating things a tad bit. Perhaps Mr. Carter should look around and check out some viewpoints besides his own before glibly dismissing those other viewpoints as "junk science"
Yup, the deer would be a problem. What the computer can do that a human can't, is react in milliseconds. What the human can do that the compute rcan't, is look at the deer and determine what it is going to do, and either keep on driving, or put the appropriate force to the brake pedal. what's the computer going to do? Slow or stop according to how close the animal is to the road? That is, of course, if it can even determine that there IS a deer alongside the road.... Maybe the trade off of computer control will be worth it on the highwys, but not on the country roads where I drive.
Listen.... In no way do I think I am a better driver than a computer (though my driving record is one of no accidents in 25 years of driving other than a guy clipping my rear bumper as he backed out of his driveway as if he were rocket propelled) but sometimes, I'd still like to be able to turn it off.... When I was learning to drive, one of the things we'd do in the winter was go to abandoned parking lots and put the car into wild spins and try to regain control. It taught us a lot about driveing, didn't endanger anyone, and it was FUN. Everyone wants to remove all danger from everything, and in the process, remove all the fun. don not cross the line, don't go beyond the fence, don't get too close to the edge, don't do anything to stop the computer from driving the car.... I want to be able to turn it off..... not on the hihgway, not on busy city streets, but when I'm tooling the back roads, I want to be able to kick it out on the corners. When I'm coming up the hill in 6" of snow, I wasnt to fish tail the back end and make my kids squeal at a whopping 10 mph....... I want to do it because it's FUN. Going down the straight-away on the old county road, I want to be able to suddenly decide that no one is coming and make that squealing, screaming right hand turn onto the Hog's-Back Road......... Because it's FUN. Don't take all the fun out of my life: bad enough they got me fenced in most places.
Here's the thing: scientific hypothesis and theory used to be peer reviewed and tested in ways that weeded out the wild ideas that were incorrect (usually) before the public ever caught wind of them. It ISN'T that "real scientists" don't have wild ideas and flights of fancy. Most of the large "earth shattering" ideas over the centuries were just that in their day: wild weird ideas that had large segments of the scientific community thinking "who is this crackpot" for a while. The issue now is that anyone with a flight of fancy that may or may not be right can publish his (her) idea on the internet in a way that makes it appear to be a given that "this is so."
Most probably he has had this flight of fancy a while, and "something herding kuiper belt objects" was all he needed to make his leap to "see, I told you so" when it's probably nothing more than a Earth-Neptune sized snowball riding herd on the edge. In another age, he'd of either been so far from acedemia that no one except his neoighbors and the cows would have ever heard his idea, or else the professors around him would have said "you're saying WHAT with the little bit of data we have?"
An aside: I enjoy reading the comments from psuedo-science articles on/. It makes us think, brings out some good wit and sarcasm, exposes me to other peoples "wild ideas." (And makes me glad I'm not the only person having stupid flights of fancy, they just aren't on my web page!) However, having a "Horoscope section" (as another poster suggested) for this sort of stuff would only generate long threads of "why is/isn't this in the horoscope section" Let them go ahead and present new ideas as science and we'll give them a thrashing. Even mainstream scientific ideas deserve a good thrashing: the entire concept of dark matter is still full of wild assed guesses, trying to fit the data to a hypothesis is like this. Thrash it good, the chaff will fall out and then we'll have a better idea of what we're supposed to be looking for.
Ahhhh, that's the crux, isn't it? The "founding fathers" of the USA used alternative means to change thigs because they lacked any peaceful means to work within the government that existed to see that change was made. The argument could be made even now that we the people (here in the USA, can't speak for Austria) are cut out from government, that democratic elections are an illusion, a sham: in which case, we have no voice nor power to effect changes. I would still argue against such thoughts, but I will admit that it sometimes feels as if the country is slipping into fascism. Who gets to define the line? Who gets to decide when it is time to give up on writing letters to our congresscritters and take the law into our own hands? In the end, it can only be a very personal decision, and history will decide if we are heros or villans, much as has happened in the past. The actions of a small few who are hacking surveillance cameras seems like a reasonable ground to be standing upon when placed in this context.
You see, you've hit on a very salient point: if the data the stores are collecting is to be used for the purpose of tailoring their marketing, why do they need PERSONAL information? Why can't they simply assign you a number, and then use that number to track purchasses? They would then have a clear picture of the people in their area and the purchasses they make without being able to attach those purchasses to any individuals name. They don't need to know who I am, all they need to know is that member #200597 routinely shops at their store twice a week and makes these typical purchasses.
It's a little known quantum effect, the two of those schools are now quantum entangled, mirroring each others results. Don't worry, it will pass when the experimen is done.
Did you ever stop to wonder if the/. editors don't post these things just to get the activity level a little higher around here? There is always a lot more posts on flamebait political subjects and quack science then for for most of the other things that appear around here... And besides, it's a lot of fun to listen to the collective intelligence of the/. community go ballistic on some crackpot, almost as much fun as it is to watch the more gullible parts of the same community defend those crackpots! In my opinion, post away at this crap: maybe/. needs a new story category for them, crackpot science and flamebait politics. They can even give it a little tin-foil hat emblem (the crack-pot scientists always think the establishment is out to get them...). Then, when I'm in the mood to be amused by this stuff, it'll be here waiting for me.
The part about all of this that is funny is that all the talk is about changing the distribution method without changing the business model. The BBC still wants to protect it's content. Every media organization out there wants to protect it's content. The world at large wants it's content/data/entertainment NOW and the distribution methods have to change to keep pace with the ever changing available technology. Well, if they change the distribution methods (and they'll have to, or else face a public that is changing the methods themselves) you will have to change your business model to take advantage of the new disrtibution methods. "Protecting your content" is simply "protecting the old business model." I have heard suggested that perhaps advertisements could be placed translucently into the corner of video: why not adopt a business model of advertising with this method and have a tag put into the ad so that it reports to a counter each time the ad is played? No longer would there be a need to "protect your content" as it would benefit the distributors to have the content shared as much as possible. Maybe you could even have a "Save and Play Full Ad" option so that if an advertiser wanted to put together an especially catchy translucent you could bring up a full screen ad and get a good chuckle: with my TiVO I find myself rewinding and playing ads all the time that catch my eye, so don't say that people wouldn't do it. I'm sure there are lots of other possible adaptations to the business model that could be made, and the first company to compell the advertisers to try one of the better methods will be able to distribute without DRM and take full advantage of modern technology (and make a killing along the way).
OK, so Google isn't locating it new venture on public property, and the article seems to indicate that it wont be using any public services It is unclear (by the article) who will be providing actual sewage services, though it does state that Google will have to construct them. Has anyone in the county bothered to do a benefit and loss comparison with what remains? How many new employees will be purchasing fuel, lunches, snack food, stopping for groceries on their way home, paying sales taxes as they do? How many people will relocate to the area and build new homes, paying property taxes and school taxes? How many new jobs will be created in the service economy of the area to support these people working and moving to the area? Here in upstate NY it would be afairly safe bet that most any town/county would welcome an arrangement where a large company movs to the area, doesn't consume services and so doesn't pay for them, but adds significantly to the local tax base in terms of jobs and consumption. Think about it, If it is such a terrible deal for the area, then why would they even want the Ames research facility there inthe first place? Why would any town, county or state want any government installation located within their borders? Most places with a military base near them shudder at the thought of a base closing, and it's because such bases contribute greatly to the local economy without adding to the service load. Furthermore, most places meter such services as water with a built in assumption of "what goes in must come out" and bills the water and sewer together based upon that assumption. Somebody needs to get their facts together as to what new jobs will be created and do a side by side benefit and loss comparison before they start screaming about the lack of tax revenue. One million square feet of development could easily employ enough new people to more than make up for the property tax loss.
Here's where I wish I had mod points... always seem to have them when I can't find anything to mod, never when I want to. You're probably closer to the truth than you know on this. It would seem that the cities in question would applaud something like this: someone else helping them to distribute a map that normally costs them money to distibute themselves. Hoever, if you "follow the money" it's probably the printer/publisher of the subway maps that is behind the complaint. Those people aren't in the least bit interested in providing a service to the people who use the subway, they just wnt to charge the city as much money as they can. A few phone calls to the right people and next thing you know we have another stupid copyright infringement issue. This isn't so much an issue with copyright law as it is an issue to take up with the city council: they need to be pressured to make this into a freely distributable service since the taxpayers ultimately pay for it anyways.
Maybe what we are looking at is two different survival strategies between the rich and poor. It is a fair assumption that in the USA at least, the poor have a greater reproductive rate than the more affluent members of society. The affluent have based their survival strategy upon insulating themselves from environmental affects (the people most likely to have escaped Katrina were those who could afford to) that threaten them, and therefore can chose to select their mates based upon more selective criteria: looks, fitness, a propensity within a family to be able to accumulate wealth. The human race will benefit from this together for as long as there is "crossovers" from one gene pool to the other, as can happen frequently in this country (the actual frequency of the poor becoming rich is debatable, but it DOES happen) so that useful adaptations are itroduced back and forth between the two classes. It is even conceivable that the human species could eventually (millions of years, forget I said this, it's pure speculation) cease to breed between the haves and have nots, and become two seperate species in some kind of scene from H.G. Wells. Th fact that the poor seem to reproduce more effectively than the rich (even assuming that there IS a corrolation between wealth and intelligence) does not mean that evolution has been undermined though, it simply means that we cannot see into the future enough to know what selective pressures the environment will favor next.
I climb myself, and I've found that a combination of fabrics works the best: silk long-underwear is a must, and synthetic outerwear is a must. For bush-whacking and slumming around camp, jeans and a cotton sweat-shirt with a gore-tex jacket -most synthetics do NOT have near the durability as jeans do, even though jeans aren't the best when wet. Nor are most synthetics nearly as comfortable to actually wear as a pair of jeans and a good cotton sweat-shirt. The trick is to know where on the mountain to cache them away until your return and layer on the other synthetics in your pack. It has the added bonus of being able to change back into something dry and comfortable when you make it back, even hollow-fill feels like crap when it's wet, no matter how much better it dries or insulates.
The "tradition" began not long after the 1872 ruling of Vice President Schuyler Colfax that "under the practice of the Senate the presiding officer could not restrain a Senator in remarks which the Senator considers pertinent to the pending issue." And the point of having a majority is that you can "usually" get your way: if the minority fillibusteres EVERYTHING they are sure to be voted out as obstructionist. What is the point of having a government at all if the majority gets it's way all the time? Let the mob rule.... The tradition of the fillibuster has become a tool to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority.
We do not have to assume that our Senators and Congressmen are "stupid" to explain what they do when they're doing stupid things. If you have paid any attention at all to history, you will see that nations do their worst when they are led by a small cadre of despicable people who have managed to position themselves in such a way as to manipulate the appearances of truth, leaving good men (and women) with the choice of following along, or falling from power entirely. Just watching the follies on the hill that surrounded the tradition of fillibustering judicial nominations should be evidence enough of the truth behind the manipulations of our government. Your post needed one more option: "Outmaneuvered on the chessboard of government (being led around by a small group of evil men)"
It seems to me that this is exactly the way that the internet was supposd to empower the people. We were supposed to be able to collectively gather the information and arrive at a conclusion and collectively have our voices heard. This isn't so much about Linux as it is about what happens when you strike a nerve with technologically savvy people -the very people who nursed the internet through it's infancy. The author misses that point, and assumes that because the first chord struck (loud enough for him to hear) was centered on a Linux related issue, that the power must belong to Linux. It doesn't. Why else do you think that DRM issues and legislation are so important right now? Why do you think that Slashdot discussions get so heated when we discuss copyright law, politics in general and digital restrictions? Because we're Linux users?? Last I saw, there we're a lot of Apple and Windows users who are just as concerned (I'd even bet that a lot of them were participating in the article's mentioned ddos attacks, etc) posting here on Slashdot... a reasonable sample of the people behind the scenes of the tech revolutions. The author missed the boat on this one: we're not just Linux geeks and hackers, we're involved people keeping up with the world's realities, and on rare occasions, we can all agree enough to act upon our convictions.
Carbon dating only works on organic material, they aren't carbon dating the stone. The method employed only works in undisturbed finds, where they carefully remove the surrounding materials and carbon date organic materials found in the same strata as the tool.
OK, a phone with a hard drive, phones that are cameras, media players that play movies, CD's, DVD's and mp3's... How much longer until we have a PDA that you can set to "camera" and point at a target (using the screen as a viewfinder), click, get the picture, all the while listening to your favorite tunes that will automatically pause when you get an incoming call, received directly on your headphones? And to all of you who mutter something about power consumption, a bare bones operating system should be able to manage power adequately as the most likely use of such a gadget will have you never using more than a couple of functions at once. I'm not going to be buying a phone with a hard-drive, I'm waiting for my all-in-one.
Ummmmmmmm, if you are building a bridge according to plans for some very innovative design, and the engineers certify that if you follow their plans exactly the bridge will work correctly and then the bridge fails because of an "unknown" in the behavior of the concrete, whose falt would it be that the bridge failed? You certainly can't rail against the guys "on the floor" and sometimes, no matter how much we think we know, there are things that slip through our comprehension until catastrophic failure occurs. This is why most bridges are built according to accepted norms with changes to design occuring incementally. They couldn't do this when they were designing the shuttles, the very specifications called for a radical new approach. This isn't anyones fault, it's just the price we as a species must pay if we are going to continue to push out the envelope.
Re:Iron rations and other strange items
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D&D Is 30
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As a DM, I really made my players suffer at the lower levels by keeping track of all their items in inventory, knowing the weight of all items carried, and where it was in a pack, pocket, etc. I say "made them suffer" but it amounted to some very creative thinking as to how things could be carried handily, and it caused some interesting character development (such as a wizard who stongly resembled a scarecrow from all the spell-components poking out of various pockets). I usually started to put rings with a permanant "tensor's floating disc" into treasures by the time charactes hit 5th or 6th level, but make their use risky for use with really valuable items by positing that as it was an extradimensional space, creatures that could shift planes could access and loot it if chance allowed. The first time a 7th level fighter gets locked into 1 on 1 combat with a mind flayer over a prized pair of gauntlets the players will think twice about keeping things that they aren't willing to part with on a tensor's. And the most amazing part? Most of the players decided that they preferred to only carry what they could within their normal weight allowances.
You can see all kinds of examples of how, over the years, our lawmakers have tried to govern all kinds of things that they didn't understand. If you want a good example of how the laws governing the internet will look in fifty years, go wander around among the laws governing the environment for a while, or the regulations under which the FDA operates, or anywhere else that the government tries to regulate a scientific or technical issue. These people are lawmakers, not scientists or engineers, and aside from the fact that they simply do not understand what it is they are trying to regulate, they are not really listening to anyone who does understand either. The primary focus of a lawmakers attentions are on their own wallets, followed by those people who see a profit to be made or lost, and lastly by those blocks of voters who might be able to march together under some doomsday banner of dire predictions. I don't want to sound like I'm advocating anarchy, because some degree of regulation is needed on the internet (think child porn or DDoS attacks) but the more we allow the government to regulate, the more confusing and contradictory the regulations will become. Thinking just in this cae, they might tax VoIP now, with half a dozen exceptions to exempt games for instance, only to have to pass new laws later to close loopholes and make new exemptions, until such a time as when a game-maker may need to pay a lawer a weeks worth of wages just so he can safely publish his work. I can only see internet taxes working as an all or nothing deal if we're going to avoid a tax code that would be 10 times as confusing as the most complicated codes we have now. Think some flat (2% maybe?) tax on all goods and services that would be collected by a federal department and redistributed to the states by percentage of what was actually sold in a state. If we just let the lawmakers go according to whim the resulting tax code will choke anyone who wants to do business with or on the internet. Not that I'm fond of the idea of another tax or another governmentl department to administer it.....
OK.. I grew up along the Susquehanna and have lived near it all my life. The stupidest things you can think of can be illegal for reasons you never thought of before, so it isn't as easy as saying "of course its legal." It sounds to me from his description that he's located somewhere below Rock Bottom Dam, after the Chenango River joins it. The river can have some wild fluctuations in level, has a tremendous high volume of water (second only to the Hudson) for NY, and anything you build is going to have to deal with the hazards that come along with that: ie your "power station" being flooded over or completely washed away, entire trees washing down river and turning wooden structures to floatsam, etc. You want to anchor a dock in the river, better be prepared to lose your water wheel. You want to make a dock/mill wheel that floats and is on firm footings in the river so it doesn't get lost? Better talk to the DEC and the Fish and Wildlife comission: they have a LOT to say about anything more than a few wooden pilings put into the river. The posters best bet would be a simple water wheel put on a wooden dock that was floated on plastic drums. Two concrete dead-men on the bank to anchor it into place and skip the batteries just in case he lost the whole contraption to the river. A better suggestion still would be to get out of this god-awful high tax, high energy cost, high pain in the gluteus maximus place (I worked rebuilding a bridge over that river once where the project was delayed two months just in case we might have disturbed the walleye from spawning) and get somewhere that he doesn't mind paying his electric bill. 10.55 a kilowatt here baby, we all love NYSEG.
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I cannot begin to understand the necessity of this bill. The system that has been in place for several years whereby the Executive branch can use the FISA courts to retroactively give warrants for wiretapping seems more than adequate for our security. Furthermore, if this bill does not serve the purpose of strengthening our national security, what purpose does it serve? I may get categorized as a "conspiracy theorist" for saying this, but the only purpose I can see for this law is to strengthen the power of the establishment. It will allow for secret wiretaps that the FISA courts would not approve: political opponents, opposition parties and interest groups such as environmentalists or unions. If a wiretap would serve to protect the national security, the FISA courts would most certainly not deny the warrant retroactively. Additionally, this bill serves the purpose of retroactively giving legal standing to what are currently criminal actions that have been comitted by the executive office. Where is the press and the outrage? Where are the American people?
...to let things happen. Prosecutors present a scenario to the jury when a case is tried in court. This scenario may or may not be 100% accurate, but it is usually the best explanation thta "fits the facts" of the case at hand. The charges that they present against the defendant describe the crimes comitted in the scenario they are presenting to the jury. Seldom does a conspiracy come before a jury and for good reason. If we examine the facts surrounding the Bush Administration and it's interaction with the events of 9-11, I do not see a conspiracy -and I feel that this is probably the most corrupt administration since J. Q. Adams. The scenarion I'd be pr3esenting to a jury is "dereliction of duty" with the intent to further it's own power in the aftermath of an attack on American soil by Islamic terrorists. In my mind, the scenario plays out somewhat along the lines of a few select people within the administration looking at the evidence (before the attacks) dismissing it as inconclusive, and secretly, among themselves, thinking that "this COULD play into our hands." I suspect that, even knowing that something might be about to happen, the administration was as shocked a the rest of America on that September morning, but that the ball had been set in motion: all that they could do was to take advantage of the attack as they had already planned. They may have counted on -at most- a few hundred dead IF the attack were for real, but the reality of 9-11 was far worse than they had considered. The evidence is there: pre-attack intelligence that was dismissed far too speedily, Bush's own reaction at the school that morning, and the way they wandered the counrty aimlessly, the contingency plans that were already in place, the seemingly deliberate lack of action on their part.... Does the fact that I consider this to be a poissibility make me a conspiracy theorist? I don't see a conspiracy, but I do see a plausible case of criminal negligence and think that it should be investigated. The current evidence that the Administration was making a power grab before 9-11 only bolsters the case that they may have comitted a crime as desribed...
Just as soon as you read someone saying that we aren't responsible for global warming, remember that you can go on over to Google and find plenty of respectable scientists that say we are. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/570 2/1686 Maybe Bob Carter disagrees with the conclusions that Al Gore has drawn, but to say that he has done the entire scientific comunity a disservice is exaggerating things a tad bit. Perhaps Mr. Carter should look around and check out some viewpoints besides his own before glibly dismissing those other viewpoints as "junk science"
Yup, the deer would be a problem. What the computer can do that a human can't, is react in milliseconds. What the human can do that the compute rcan't, is look at the deer and determine what it is going to do, and either keep on driving, or put the appropriate force to the brake pedal. what's the computer going to do? Slow or stop according to how close the animal is to the road? That is, of course, if it can even determine that there IS a deer alongside the road.... Maybe the trade off of computer control will be worth it on the highwys, but not on the country roads where I drive.
Listen.... In no way do I think I am a better driver than a computer (though my driving record is one of no accidents in 25 years of driving other than a guy clipping my rear bumper as he backed out of his driveway as if he were rocket propelled) but sometimes, I'd still like to be able to turn it off.... When I was learning to drive, one of the things we'd do in the winter was go to abandoned parking lots and put the car into wild spins and try to regain control. It taught us a lot about driveing, didn't endanger anyone, and it was FUN. Everyone wants to remove all danger from everything, and in the process, remove all the fun. don not cross the line, don't go beyond the fence, don't get too close to the edge, don't do anything to stop the computer from driving the car.... I want to be able to turn it off..... not on the hihgway, not on busy city streets, but when I'm tooling the back roads, I want to be able to kick it out on the corners. When I'm coming up the hill in 6" of snow, I wasnt to fish tail the back end and make my kids squeal at a whopping 10 mph....... I want to do it because it's FUN. Going down the straight-away on the old county road, I want to be able to suddenly decide that no one is coming and make that squealing, screaming right hand turn onto the Hog's-Back Road......... Because it's FUN. Don't take all the fun out of my life: bad enough they got me fenced in most places.
Here's the thing: scientific hypothesis and theory used to be peer reviewed and tested in ways that weeded out the wild ideas that were incorrect (usually) before the public ever caught wind of them. It ISN'T that "real scientists" don't have wild ideas and flights of fancy. Most of the large "earth shattering" ideas over the centuries were just that in their day: wild weird ideas that had large segments of the scientific community thinking "who is this crackpot" for a while. The issue now is that anyone with a flight of fancy that may or may not be right can publish his (her) idea on the internet in a way that makes it appear to be a given that "this is so."
/. It makes us think, brings out some good wit and sarcasm, exposes me to other peoples "wild ideas." (And makes me glad I'm not the only person having stupid flights of fancy, they just aren't on my web page!) However, having a "Horoscope section" (as another poster suggested) for this sort of stuff would only generate long threads of "why is/isn't this in the horoscope section" Let them go ahead and present new ideas as science and we'll give them a thrashing. Even mainstream scientific ideas deserve a good thrashing: the entire concept of dark matter is still full of wild assed guesses, trying to fit the data to a hypothesis is like this. Thrash it good, the chaff will fall out and then we'll have a better idea of what we're supposed to be looking for.
Most probably he has had this flight of fancy a while, and "something herding kuiper belt objects" was all he needed to make his leap to "see, I told you so" when it's probably nothing more than a Earth-Neptune sized snowball riding herd on the edge. In another age, he'd of either been so far from acedemia that no one except his neoighbors and the cows would have ever heard his idea, or else the professors around him would have said "you're saying WHAT with the little bit of data we have?"
An aside: I enjoy reading the comments from psuedo-science articles on
Ahhhh, that's the crux, isn't it? The "founding fathers" of the USA used alternative means to change thigs because they lacked any peaceful means to work within the government that existed to see that change was made. The argument could be made even now that we the people (here in the USA, can't speak for Austria) are cut out from government, that democratic elections are an illusion, a sham: in which case, we have no voice nor power to effect changes. I would still argue against such thoughts, but I will admit that it sometimes feels as if the country is slipping into fascism. Who gets to define the line? Who gets to decide when it is time to give up on writing letters to our congresscritters and take the law into our own hands? In the end, it can only be a very personal decision, and history will decide if we are heros or villans, much as has happened in the past. The actions of a small few who are hacking surveillance cameras seems like a reasonable ground to be standing upon when placed in this context.
You see, you've hit on a very salient point: if the data the stores are collecting is to be used for the purpose of tailoring their marketing, why do they need PERSONAL information? Why can't they simply assign you a number, and then use that number to track purchasses? They would then have a clear picture of the people in their area and the purchasses they make without being able to attach those purchasses to any individuals name. They don't need to know who I am, all they need to know is that member #200597 routinely shops at their store twice a week and makes these typical purchasses.
It's a little known quantum effect, the two of those schools are now quantum entangled, mirroring each others results. Don't worry, it will pass when the experimen is done.
Damn, the Copenhagen interpretation was right!!!! Nothing can exist unless YHWH is observinbg it!!
Did you ever stop to wonder if the /. editors don't post these things just to get the activity level a little higher around here? There is always a lot more posts on flamebait political subjects and quack science then for for most of the other things that appear around here... And besides, it's a lot of fun to listen to the collective intelligence of the /. community go ballistic on some crackpot, almost as much fun as it is to watch the more gullible parts of the same community defend those crackpots! In my opinion, post away at this crap: maybe /. needs a new story category for them, crackpot science and flamebait politics. They can even give it a little tin-foil hat emblem (the crack-pot scientists always think the establishment is out to get them...). Then, when I'm in the mood to be amused by this stuff, it'll be here waiting for me.
The part about all of this that is funny is that all the talk is about changing the distribution method without changing the business model. The BBC still wants to protect it's content. Every media organization out there wants to protect it's content. The world at large wants it's content/data/entertainment NOW and the distribution methods have to change to keep pace with the ever changing available technology. Well, if they change the distribution methods (and they'll have to, or else face a public that is changing the methods themselves) you will have to change your business model to take advantage of the new disrtibution methods. "Protecting your content" is simply "protecting the old business model." I have heard suggested that perhaps advertisements could be placed translucently into the corner of video: why not adopt a business model of advertising with this method and have a tag put into the ad so that it reports to a counter each time the ad is played? No longer would there be a need to "protect your content" as it would benefit the distributors to have the content shared as much as possible. Maybe you could even have a "Save and Play Full Ad" option so that if an advertiser wanted to put together an especially catchy translucent you could bring up a full screen ad and get a good chuckle: with my TiVO I find myself rewinding and playing ads all the time that catch my eye, so don't say that people wouldn't do it. I'm sure there are lots of other possible adaptations to the business model that could be made, and the first company to compell the advertisers to try one of the better methods will be able to distribute without DRM and take full advantage of modern technology (and make a killing along the way).
OK, so Google isn't locating it new venture on public property, and the article seems to indicate that it wont be using any public services It is unclear (by the article) who will be providing actual sewage services, though it does state that Google will have to construct them. Has anyone in the county bothered to do a benefit and loss comparison with what remains? How many new employees will be purchasing fuel, lunches, snack food, stopping for groceries on their way home, paying sales taxes as they do? How many people will relocate to the area and build new homes, paying property taxes and school taxes? How many new jobs will be created in the service economy of the area to support these people working and moving to the area? Here in upstate NY it would be afairly safe bet that most any town/county would welcome an arrangement where a large company movs to the area, doesn't consume services and so doesn't pay for them, but adds significantly to the local tax base in terms of jobs and consumption. Think about it, If it is such a terrible deal for the area, then why would they even want the Ames research facility there inthe first place? Why would any town, county or state want any government installation located within their borders? Most places with a military base near them shudder at the thought of a base closing, and it's because such bases contribute greatly to the local economy without adding to the service load. Furthermore, most places meter such services as water with a built in assumption of "what goes in must come out" and bills the water and sewer together based upon that assumption. Somebody needs to get their facts together as to what new jobs will be created and do a side by side benefit and loss comparison before they start screaming about the lack of tax revenue. One million square feet of development could easily employ enough new people to more than make up for the property tax loss.
Here's where I wish I had mod points... always seem to have them when I can't find anything to mod, never when I want to. You're probably closer to the truth than you know on this. It would seem that the cities in question would applaud something like this: someone else helping them to distribute a map that normally costs them money to distibute themselves. Hoever, if you "follow the money" it's probably the printer/publisher of the subway maps that is behind the complaint. Those people aren't in the least bit interested in providing a service to the people who use the subway, they just wnt to charge the city as much money as they can. A few phone calls to the right people and next thing you know we have another stupid copyright infringement issue. This isn't so much an issue with copyright law as it is an issue to take up with the city council: they need to be pressured to make this into a freely distributable service since the taxpayers ultimately pay for it anyways.
Maybe what we are looking at is two different survival strategies between the rich and poor. It is a fair assumption that in the USA at least, the poor have a greater reproductive rate than the more affluent members of society. The affluent have based their survival strategy upon insulating themselves from environmental affects (the people most likely to have escaped Katrina were those who could afford to) that threaten them, and therefore can chose to select their mates based upon more selective criteria: looks, fitness, a propensity within a family to be able to accumulate wealth. The human race will benefit from this together for as long as there is "crossovers" from one gene pool to the other, as can happen frequently in this country (the actual frequency of the poor becoming rich is debatable, but it DOES happen) so that useful adaptations are itroduced back and forth between the two classes. It is even conceivable that the human species could eventually (millions of years, forget I said this, it's pure speculation) cease to breed between the haves and have nots, and become two seperate species in some kind of scene from H.G. Wells. Th fact that the poor seem to reproduce more effectively than the rich (even assuming that there IS a corrolation between wealth and intelligence) does not mean that evolution has been undermined though, it simply means that we cannot see into the future enough to know what selective pressures the environment will favor next.
I climb myself, and I've found that a combination of fabrics works the best: silk long-underwear is a must, and synthetic outerwear is a must. For bush-whacking and slumming around camp, jeans and a cotton sweat-shirt with a gore-tex jacket -most synthetics do NOT have near the durability as jeans do, even though jeans aren't the best when wet. Nor are most synthetics nearly as comfortable to actually wear as a pair of jeans and a good cotton sweat-shirt. The trick is to know where on the mountain to cache them away until your return and layer on the other synthetics in your pack. It has the added bonus of being able to change back into something dry and comfortable when you make it back, even hollow-fill feels like crap when it's wet, no matter how much better it dries or insulates.
The "tradition" began not long after the 1872 ruling of Vice President Schuyler Colfax that "under the practice of the Senate the presiding officer could not restrain a Senator in remarks which the Senator considers pertinent to the pending issue." And the point of having a majority is that you can "usually" get your way: if the minority fillibusteres EVERYTHING they are sure to be voted out as obstructionist. What is the point of having a government at all if the majority gets it's way all the time? Let the mob rule.... The tradition of the fillibuster has become a tool to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority.
We do not have to assume that our Senators and Congressmen are "stupid" to explain what they do when they're doing stupid things. If you have paid any attention at all to history, you will see that nations do their worst when they are led by a small cadre of despicable people who have managed to position themselves in such a way as to manipulate the appearances of truth, leaving good men (and women) with the choice of following along, or falling from power entirely. Just watching the follies on the hill that surrounded the tradition of fillibustering judicial nominations should be evidence enough of the truth behind the manipulations of our government. Your post needed one more option: "Outmaneuvered on the chessboard of government (being led around by a small group of evil men)"
It seems to me that this is exactly the way that the internet was supposd to empower the people. We were supposed to be able to collectively gather the information and arrive at a conclusion and collectively have our voices heard. This isn't so much about Linux as it is about what happens when you strike a nerve with technologically savvy people -the very people who nursed the internet through it's infancy. The author misses that point, and assumes that because the first chord struck (loud enough for him to hear) was centered on a Linux related issue, that the power must belong to Linux. It doesn't. Why else do you think that DRM issues and legislation are so important right now? Why do you think that Slashdot discussions get so heated when we discuss copyright law, politics in general and digital restrictions? Because we're Linux users?? Last I saw, there we're a lot of Apple and Windows users who are just as concerned (I'd even bet that a lot of them were participating in the article's mentioned ddos attacks, etc) posting here on Slashdot... a reasonable sample of the people behind the scenes of the tech revolutions. The author missed the boat on this one: we're not just Linux geeks and hackers, we're involved people keeping up with the world's realities, and on rare occasions, we can all agree enough to act upon our convictions.
Carbon dating only works on organic material, they aren't carbon dating the stone. The method employed only works in undisturbed finds, where they carefully remove the surrounding materials and carbon date organic materials found in the same strata as the tool.
OK, a phone with a hard drive, phones that are cameras, media players that play movies, CD's, DVD's and mp3's... How much longer until we have a PDA that you can set to "camera" and point at a target (using the screen as a viewfinder), click, get the picture, all the while listening to your favorite tunes that will automatically pause when you get an incoming call, received directly on your headphones? And to all of you who mutter something about power consumption, a bare bones operating system should be able to manage power adequately as the most likely use of such a gadget will have you never using more than a couple of functions at once. I'm not going to be buying a phone with a hard-drive, I'm waiting for my all-in-one.
Ummmmmmmm, if you are building a bridge according to plans for some very innovative design, and the engineers certify that if you follow their plans exactly the bridge will work correctly and then the bridge fails because of an "unknown" in the behavior of the concrete, whose falt would it be that the bridge failed? You certainly can't rail against the guys "on the floor" and sometimes, no matter how much we think we know, there are things that slip through our comprehension until catastrophic failure occurs. This is why most bridges are built according to accepted norms with changes to design occuring incementally. They couldn't do this when they were designing the shuttles, the very specifications called for a radical new approach. This isn't anyones fault, it's just the price we as a species must pay if we are going to continue to push out the envelope.
As a DM, I really made my players suffer at the lower levels by keeping track of all their items in inventory, knowing the weight of all items carried, and where it was in a pack, pocket, etc. I say "made them suffer" but it amounted to some very creative thinking as to how things could be carried handily, and it caused some interesting character development (such as a wizard who stongly resembled a scarecrow from all the spell-components poking out of various pockets). I usually started to put rings with a permanant "tensor's floating disc" into treasures by the time charactes hit 5th or 6th level, but make their use risky for use with really valuable items by positing that as it was an extradimensional space, creatures that could shift planes could access and loot it if chance allowed. The first time a 7th level fighter gets locked into 1 on 1 combat with a mind flayer over a prized pair of gauntlets the players will think twice about keeping things that they aren't willing to part with on a tensor's. And the most amazing part? Most of the players decided that they preferred to only carry what they could within their normal weight allowances.
You can see all kinds of examples of how, over the years, our lawmakers have tried to govern all kinds of things that they didn't understand. If you want a good example of how the laws governing the internet will look in fifty years, go wander around among the laws governing the environment for a while, or the regulations under which the FDA operates, or anywhere else that the government tries to regulate a scientific or technical issue. These people are lawmakers, not scientists or engineers, and aside from the fact that they simply do not understand what it is they are trying to regulate, they are not really listening to anyone who does understand either. The primary focus of a lawmakers attentions are on their own wallets, followed by those people who see a profit to be made or lost, and lastly by those blocks of voters who might be able to march together under some doomsday banner of dire predictions. I don't want to sound like I'm advocating anarchy, because some degree of regulation is needed on the internet (think child porn or DDoS attacks) but the more we allow the government to regulate, the more confusing and contradictory the regulations will become. Thinking just in this cae, they might tax VoIP now, with half a dozen exceptions to exempt games for instance, only to have to pass new laws later to close loopholes and make new exemptions, until such a time as when a game-maker may need to pay a lawer a weeks worth of wages just so he can safely publish his work. I can only see internet taxes working as an all or nothing deal if we're going to avoid a tax code that would be 10 times as confusing as the most complicated codes we have now. Think some flat (2% maybe?) tax on all goods and services that would be collected by a federal department and redistributed to the states by percentage of what was actually sold in a state. If we just let the lawmakers go according to whim the resulting tax code will choke anyone who wants to do business with or on the internet. Not that I'm fond of the idea of another tax or another governmentl department to administer it.....
OK.. I grew up along the Susquehanna and have lived near it all my life. The stupidest things you can think of can be illegal for reasons you never thought of before, so it isn't as easy as saying "of course its legal." It sounds to me from his description that he's located somewhere below Rock Bottom Dam, after the Chenango River joins it. The river can have some wild fluctuations in level, has a tremendous high volume of water (second only to the Hudson) for NY, and anything you build is going to have to deal with the hazards that come along with that: ie your "power station" being flooded over or completely washed away, entire trees washing down river and turning wooden structures to floatsam, etc. You want to anchor a dock in the river, better be prepared to lose your water wheel. You want to make a dock/mill wheel that floats and is on firm footings in the river so it doesn't get lost? Better talk to the DEC and the Fish and Wildlife comission: they have a LOT to say about anything more than a few wooden pilings put into the river. The posters best bet would be a simple water wheel put on a wooden dock that was floated on plastic drums. Two concrete dead-men on the bank to anchor it into place and skip the batteries just in case he lost the whole contraption to the river. A better suggestion still would be to get out of this god-awful high tax, high energy cost, high pain in the gluteus maximus place (I worked rebuilding a bridge over that river once where the project was delayed two months just in case we might have disturbed the walleye from spawning) and get somewhere that he doesn't mind paying his electric bill. 10.55 a kilowatt here baby, we all love NYSEG.