That doesn't sound as stupid as it seems. If you take some considerations aside (like, for instance, your relatives and friends, who will likely see it as your ultimate egotistical act; or working your way to make your you do not become the unfortunate 10% from TFA), we're left with the problem of finding a reliable long-term investment.
Monetary assets are at risk, since you don't know for how long your currency will be valid. The worldwide financial system could implode due to several causes (war with China? Bird flu epidemics? The stupendous US foreign debt?) and, well, let's rule curency out, for simplicity's sake.
Now, real estate would be useless in a Mad Max scenario. This one is out, too.
Finally, Gold. Who cares about gold in the Mad Max scenario? However, if the post-apocalyptical era never comes to fruition because the world suddenly got into an era of peace and global cooperation, then you might have a problem because we'd be mining other planets and asteroids not only for gold, but any other minerals. For the good of makind, obviously. And I really do not think money will be an issue at that point, since everyone would be happy, productive, egalitarian and peaceful, without the individualistic urge to show off. Looks like a Star Trek economy. Except for the Star Fleet uniforms.
So, here's my humble suggestion: invest your money in (actually, hoard) a lot, a lot of cigarettes. Have you ever noticed that, in every prison movie (or other movies that depict people in a post-monetary society), cigs become a very important asset? Fiat currency de facto! If you have cigarettes, you've got anything, if you know what I mean....
A story is posted on Slashdot (US)
Of the Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)
Reporting a story in the New Scientist (England)
Of a bunch of scientists at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston (US)
With a comment by OzPeter
That got a reply from zanderredux
Should we suppose that the remaining 10% died a horrible, cold death?
Too bad they couldn't figure out a way to do it safely yet, we could use for manned long-duration space travel or just to stick around and get defrosted, Futurama-style.
I wonder how the world will look like in, say, 100 years, but do have the patience (or the stamina) to wait. Maybe Bin Laden will finally have been caught? Maybe Brazil becomes the next world superpower? Who knows?
So... I see people ranting about how EJB are a failure and about Java being better than.NET and how Mono is not really.NET, only a small subset of it.
But what are exactly the components of the said "tech stack" that Java does not have? I mean, is there anything below the Sun (the celestial body, not the company) that Java does not have?!
For those who are oblivious to this whole imbroglio (to the point where we finally got Taco to speak), here's one of the links Taco mentioned, about Beatles Beatles and Scuttlemonkey. It's an interesting thread because, if you filter at +2, some 3/4 of the highest-ranking comments are about the conspiracy, not the Milky Way (what?)
Also, another major contributor to this is the fact that the userbase usually does not have an appropriate place (or story, or thread, for that matter) to vent perceived weird stuff in/. That's even discouraged ("Note: grousing about rejected submissions is Offtopic and usually gets moderated that way.")
Yeah, I know this is karma-whoring, but since it is about/. itself, I'd like to have us call it "meta-karma-whoring"!
This is in and of itself a problem with electronic voting because the order of votes can be counted as well as the votes themselves.
Gosh. Why do people continue to insist that the solution for every single problem in the world is in the use of computers?
The whole "electronic voting" concept is deemed to be unworkable because there is a bias for computers as a solution for some problem, not just a tool.
To me, this seems the work of some consultancy company that saw an opportunity to make a buck expanding an existing problem.
Dude, I understand your pain. Especially today (12/20), since it was freaking hot around 1pm and I got stuck in traffic due to the arrival of the three-times FIFA Club World Champion, São Paulo FC (tricampeão!!! yay!). But you definitely have to try to go in full business attire in downtown Rio. That's the easiest way to die (or commit suicide) from a heatstroke. Maybe your product sells there, or even in Manaus, where the extreme humidity is the issue, then followed by the heat. Who knows?
Comments on the non-sensical São Paulo weather aside, I still think you'd sweat in your cooling unit (think of having to walk around for some 20 minutes -- your internal temperature increases faster than some equipment could remove heat without causing frostbite). Having "strategic places" (not the groin, I hope) padded with some sort of plastic or metal do not sound that interesting, since sweat evaporation would be blocked. The thermal gear would cause it to condense and you'll end up soaked again. Just IMHO anyway:)
And you're of course laboring under the impression that the UK legal system works just as the US one.
Gosh, weren't the Brits the ones that managed to prove that the "car vs. taxi" myth is real when Mythbusters miserably failed due to overly zealous legal contentions imposed by the insurance company?
Contrary from Americans, people in the UK (IMHO) would actually appreciate if everything turned out to be an ellaborate lie to the viewer instead of dedicating time, resources and effort to flood Channel 4 with stupid lawsuits tailored to scrape every penny from them.
That's collected from stuff I've just seen today...
See the pattern? Get something not trivial, package it as a you-can-do-it-also-without-formal-training and live happily without fear of consequences. Ignorance is bliss! Yipee!
Even though someone already answered that it wouldn't happen, if the scenario you described did actually happen it wouldn't be a terrible problem for the recipient, since they're (supposedly) using the technique on people who got severe facial disfiguration. The patient would be accepted back into society and everybody wins!
(Except if you're really paranoid. In that case, I'd say that Bin Laden probably turned blond with blue eyes, much like Zao in that crappy James Bond movie).
Toward the end of season two, Scottie Chapman left the show so that she could both pursue her true passion: metal working and, in her words, "Have a life." She was replaced by Grant Imahara, friend and sometimes coworker of Jamie and Adam. Imahara is most famous as the certified operator of movie icon R2-D2 for Industrial Light and Magic.
On the "jet vs. taxi" thing
on
Ask The Mythbusters
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Since we're getting back to the "jet vs. taxi" thing, one thing they didn't reproduce was the circumstance of the, say, "taxi ejection".
The taxi was crossing the runway at the point planes approach for landing. This might have been a key part left out since there is an enormous air pressure under the plane during landing, which, in turn, associates with the vortices created both by jet exhaust and wind passing through the wings.
The myth is plausible, as they later admitted (evidence from TV footage, right?), but incredingbly if not impossibly hard to reproduce.
Question: what they can do to improve mythbusting on these kinds of myths? Are there any methodologies in sight?
If you could get the phone number and favorite restaurant for Scottie as well, I'd appreciate. Thanks!
Re:smartest-kids-read-slashdot
on
The Prodigy Puzzle
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Heh. Maybe, that's the true measure of smartness: being able to know what you really like, get a job that fulfill those requirements and be able to extract joy and happiness from it, despite what other people think.
What good is an astronomical IQ if you have to drag yourself around everyday doing what you hate and getting underpaid for it?
It combines a camera, buzzer, RFID locks and various other systems inside the door, making keys obsolete.
It still misses, IMHO:
Blood pressure monitor, simple and straightforward implementation, gives an aural feedback on your blood pressure.
Body fat measurement, through electric conductivity measurements through the skin.
Diet advising system, based on fecal coliforms detected on the skin, or through direct, insertive anal probing.
Storm warning system, giving a light electrical shock to the user in case of severe climatic conditions, updated via radio.
Self-powering add-on, allows quick recharges from bio-energy taken from the user.
Stock ticker, updated via WIFI/Bluetooth connection.
Self-expression impact-absortion technology(TM), detects the mood of the user and adjusts the door so it will absorb (or not) impacts when the user feels angry (maximum impact absorbtion) or just blue (maximum sound-reducing).
Sniper detection and reporter, a must in the modern battlefield. Equipped with lasers, detects the closest sniper. Can shoot back, if the "peacemaker bolt add-on" is installed.
Carbon-based life detection gear, useful in extra-terrestrial environments, so non-carbon lifeforms do not get into your living quarters.
Of course, one feature must be left out, for space and cost reasons, as reported by the R&D dept.:
So, if nobody reaches an agreement, are we going to get back to the BBS era when there were a number of different networks instead of the giant, monolithic Internet?
Precisely, claims to preserve "National Security" are exactly what take people with authoritarian biases into office.
Suppose some major $SHIT happens in $COUNTRY, which was not caused by some natural factors. The public will be understandably angry and will demand some $ACTION to be taken to appease their own fears.
I mean, what else can some $GOVERNMENT do? It is only natural that they will take some actions to improve "National Security". Once whoever is in command get to that point, it becomes a slippery slope when they realise how easy it is to mobilise public opinion, congresses/parliaments around it to get whatever they want done.
I'm not blaming governments per se, but that's only human nature in full motion. It takes a very enlightened constituency and congress/parliament to avoid getting caught in that trap -- and we know that is just not the case, since congresses/parliaments (who should check over government's actions) also have their own short-term issues (staying in office, getting reelected, becoming future president/prime minister)
Slashdot Mirror
Monetary assets are at risk, since you don't know for how long your currency will be valid. The worldwide financial system could implode due to several causes (war with China? Bird flu epidemics? The stupendous US foreign debt?) and, well, let's rule curency out, for simplicity's sake.
Now, real estate would be useless in a Mad Max scenario. This one is out, too.
Finally, Gold. Who cares about gold in the Mad Max scenario? However, if the post-apocalyptical era never comes to fruition because the world suddenly got into an era of peace and global cooperation, then you might have a problem because we'd be mining other planets and asteroids not only for gold, but any other minerals. For the good of makind, obviously. And I really do not think money will be an issue at that point, since everyone would be happy, productive, egalitarian and peaceful, without the individualistic urge to show off. Looks like a Star Trek economy. Except for the Star Fleet uniforms.
So, here's my humble suggestion: invest your money in (actually, hoard) a lot, a lot of cigarettes. Have you ever noticed that, in every prison movie (or other movies that depict people in a post-monetary society), cigs become a very important asset? Fiat currency de facto! If you have cigarettes, you've got anything, if you know what I mean....
Of the Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)
Reporting a story in the New Scientist (England)
Of a bunch of scientists at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston (US)
With a comment by OzPeter
That got a reply from zanderredux
More?
Too bad they couldn't figure out a way to do it safely yet, we could use for manned long-duration space travel or just to stick around and get defrosted, Futurama-style.
I wonder how the world will look like in, say, 100 years, but do have the patience (or the stamina) to wait. Maybe Bin Laden will finally have been caught? Maybe Brazil becomes the next world superpower? Who knows?
But what are exactly the components of the said "tech stack" that Java does not have? I mean, is there anything below the Sun (the celestial body, not the company) that Java does not have?!
Also, another major contributor to this is the fact that the userbase usually does not have an appropriate place (or story, or thread, for that matter) to vent perceived weird stuff in /. That's even discouraged ("Note: grousing about rejected submissions is Offtopic and usually gets moderated that way.")
Yeah, I know this is karma-whoring, but since it is about /. itself, I'd like to have us call it "meta-karma-whoring"!
We should rephrase that as "we accept the null hypothesis that the head was cut off, with x% of confidence".
Proper determination of confidence limits are left as an exercise to the reader....
The whole "electronic voting" concept is deemed to be unworkable because there is a bias for computers as a solution for some problem, not just a tool.
To me, this seems the work of some consultancy company that saw an opportunity to make a buck expanding an existing problem.
Comments on the non-sensical São Paulo weather aside, I still think you'd sweat in your cooling unit (think of having to walk around for some 20 minutes -- your internal temperature increases faster than some equipment could remove heat without causing frostbite). Having "strategic places" (not the groin, I hope) padded with some sort of plastic or metal do not sound that interesting, since sweat evaporation would be blocked. The thermal gear would cause it to condense and you'll end up soaked again. Just IMHO anyway :)
Gosh, weren't the Brits the ones that managed to prove that the "car vs. taxi" myth is real when Mythbusters miserably failed due to overly zealous legal contentions imposed by the insurance company?
Contrary from Americans, people in the UK (IMHO) would actually appreciate if everything turned out to be an ellaborate lie to the viewer instead of dedicating time, resources and effort to flood Channel 4 with stupid lawsuits tailored to scrape every penny from them.
- Build a Cyclotron Now!
- Build a Nuclear Reactor Now!
- Build a Cruise Missile Now!
That's collected from stuff I've just seen today...See the pattern? Get something not trivial, package it as a you-can-do-it-also-without-formal-training and live happily without fear of consequences. Ignorance is bliss! Yipee!
For instance, would Microsoft or the FBI trust Google to hold its corporate e-mail system?
Webmail here doesn't sound realistic.
Really curious.
Even though someone already answered that it wouldn't happen, if the scenario you described did actually happen it wouldn't be a terrible problem for the recipient, since they're (supposedly) using the technique on people who got severe facial disfiguration. The patient would be accepted back into society and everybody wins!
(Except if you're really paranoid. In that case, I'd say that Bin Laden probably turned blond with blue eyes, much like Zao in that crappy James Bond movie).
Now Amazon will try to patent the Wiki concept. And we complain about Microsoft?!
Gotta love the brits! No regulatory bullshit and a big corporation (Virgin) to back it up!
The taxi was crossing the runway at the point planes approach for landing. This might have been a key part left out since there is an enormous air pressure under the plane during landing, which, in turn, associates with the vortices created both by jet exhaust and wind passing through the wings.
The myth is plausible, as they later admitted (evidence from TV footage, right?), but incredingbly if not impossibly hard to reproduce.
Question: what they can do to improve mythbusting on these kinds of myths? Are there any methodologies in sight?
If you could get the phone number and favorite restaurant for Scottie as well, I'd appreciate. Thanks!
What good is an astronomical IQ if you have to drag yourself around everyday doing what you hate and getting underpaid for it?
prove that a^n=b^n+c^n for any n.
What's the open source community going to do with a bunch of makefiles and white papers? :^)
It still misses, IMHO:
Of course, one feature must be left out, for space and cost reasons, as reported by the R&D dept.:
So, if nobody reaches an agreement, are we going to get back to the BBS era when there were a number of different networks instead of the giant, monolithic Internet?
Suppose some major $SHIT happens in $COUNTRY, which was not caused by some natural factors. The public will be understandably angry and will demand some $ACTION to be taken to appease their own fears.
I mean, what else can some $GOVERNMENT do? It is only natural that they will take some actions to improve "National Security". Once whoever is in command get to that point, it becomes a slippery slope when they realise how easy it is to mobilise public opinion, congresses/parliaments around it to get whatever they want done.
I'm not blaming governments per se, but that's only human nature in full motion. It takes a very enlightened constituency and congress/parliament to avoid getting caught in that trap -- and we know that is just not the case, since congresses/parliaments (who should check over government's actions) also have their own short-term issues (staying in office, getting reelected, becoming future president/prime minister)
I, for one, welcome our new dolphin overlords!