"Cox wouldn't give me a box with working Firewire (despite angry phone calls to managers citing the FCC regulation that requires it here in the States)."
Citation, please. I'm quite surprised that FCC regulations would specify this requirement.
"Having 3 dual threaded in order processors is infinitely better than one single threaded in order processor with 7 crippled DSPs strapped on."
Why do people use words like "infinitely" into a sentence when they mean "marginally"? For that matter, why do people use "literally" when they mean "figuratively"?
As a representative of this group, perhaps you can enlighten me. I would be literally be infinitely in your debt.
"I challenge you to find cheaper food than the organic produce grown within a few miles of my home. If people would focus on buying locally produced veggies and meat, it would cut a huge chunk of transportation cost (and waste) out of the system."
You're lucky to have an organic farm within a few miles of your home that will sell you produce cheaper than the industrially-grown, mass-market product available in cities.
I live in the downtown core in a city, and every Saturday I buy produce at one of three farmer's markets. It costs me at least 30% more to shop there, compared to shopping at a Safeway/Save-On/whatever, and for some things it's over 50%.
I can afford it, so I go ahead and shop there. But I would never look down on somebody shopping cheaper - which, in these parts, means shopping non-organic.
"Look - they have a 2020 timetable to go back. It seems as if they have some technical hurdles to surpass... as if they had never gone to the moon before."
What is it you think they're planning? If they were going to stuff astronauts back into a 1960's LM-5, attach it to a Saturn V, and recreate the original shot, what would be the point?
They're going to do it again, but with vastly different technology. That means all sorts of technical issues will need to be sorted out, lest we have an Apollo 1 on our hands because we shortcircuited the process "since we did it 4 decades ago".
"Here's what I want... if I flick off my windows pc, it will automatically hit ctrl-alt-delete. That would allow me to release stress, and save me a few keyboard clicks."
There are many reasons I would (assuming "flip"?) flick off my Windows pc - and MANY reasons why I would flick off my linux PC - for reasons that have nothing to do with an O/S failure. That wouldn't be practical.
"Aren't you invading his privacy a bit too much? Even though I admit that I'd be tempted to do the same (especially because the work in itself must be pretty boring), it's not like we don't read news about privacy problems around the world every other day and should know better, right?"
Well, this WAS 15 years ago - not yesterday. I'm 15 years wiser, and I haven't worked retail support since 1997. Plus hard drives aren't 40MB anymore, porn is everywhere, and you wouldn't be copying directories with drag-and-drop or CLI these days (hopefully).
So even if I cared enough to browse people's files (which I don't), and had access to them (which I don't), I'm mature enough to avoid doing so. Unless they were famous people, in which case my internal voyeur might be unable to resist.
Reminds me of when I worked front line hardware breakfix back in 1994 or so. A guy brought his machine in for service, and we transferred his files to a new hard drive. He had a hidden directory, and in it were pictures that had been clearly spliced. There were about fifty different shots of the same woman's face on various bodies engaged in porn acts.
He called to let us know his friend, Angie, would pick up the computer. Naturally I was somewhat surprised when I recognized Angie.
When gmail was "invitation only" I opened an email account. I never used it for anything. Never gave it out, never signed up for anything with it, never sent a single email.
I've logged in to it four times, and I deleted something like 2000 spam messages.
"he didn't plead guilty, that was a different party"
That's true, I'll grant you that. My fault for skim-reading.
"In his trial...he said he didn't think it was illegal (see below). (from the article and the summary, which apparently you either didn't read or comprehend)"
I read that. Sorry, I don't buy it. He's claiming ignorance, but there's no way that's true. It specifically states in the article that he took that laptop to China "despite warnings from his University's Export Control Officer". Even if he somehow missed the boat in the "what not to share" session that was undoubtely provided for him, he knew then. He's guilty.
"When you deliver a shipment of fail so large as..."
We already have a perfectly serviceable noun - "failure". Turning "fail" into a noun is not an improvement for the language. It's just further degredation of rules that are already disintegrating. Is English not already sufficiently buggered up for you?
"I don't think of myself as a conspiracy nut, and I'm kinda on the fence with the moon landing stuff (ie. it could be an extravagent coverup I guess) but why can't someone just show me a recent freakin picture of the shit they left on the moon. The Japanese launched that orbitor about 2 years ago, and so did someone else I believe. Satellite type deals which orbit the moon quite closely with supa-dupa high res cameras aboard. Just take a fuckin picture of the moon buggy already, god dammit! What about these telescope thingo's we have on earth, diameters of like 12 football fields that can see shit in other galaxies, but we can't point that fucker at the moon at just once..."
We can see other galaxies because galaxies are really big relative to their distance.
For instance, Andromeda is 2.5 million light years away, and 220,000 light years across. That means it's about 11.36 times further away than it is in diameter.
The moon is about 384,403 km from the earth, core to core. The buggy would be what... 10 feet across? 3280.8399 feet per kilometer, take a little bit off for surface to surface... so let's say 1 billion, 250 million feet, just for fun.
That means it's 125 million times further away than it is in size.
Point being, resolving a tiny object placed there when you have a 40 year old estimate of landing location is problematic even from orbit around the moon, and completely impossible from the earth. At least today.
Sadly, it's impossible to win the war. They write long posts so that it's as chore to reply. They throw all sorts of idiotic, unrelated crap into the mix to confound the issue. They point at the web sites of other nutjobs. I don't know why they quote Tesla - not because Tesla wasn't great, but because people also quote Tesla when talking about UFO's and psychics.
But in the end there has never been so much as a single confirmed instance of a light bulb being lit for a nanosecond by zero point energy.
"Look, I admit that their claims sound unlikely, but you can't just dismiss all claims out of hand because "they break the laws of physics". The fact is that they break the current laws of physics"
If I give somebody five pieces of cedar planking, they might build a television out of them, and that would certainly break my understanding of the laws of physics. I won't, however, drive to another city to validate some guy's claim that he built a television entirely out of cedar planking. I'll just assume that he's either a fraud or a moron, and in either event I won't waste my time.
In the case of "free energy from magnetism" proclaimers, unless they've got an industrial complex with strong ties to major research entities, a collection of advanced physics and engineering degrees, and a boatload of the finest scientists hired away from the most successful companies, their claims CAN be safely dismissed out of hand. If we're wrong to do so, the practical implemention and marketing of it will prove us all fools. The fact is that I can't yet go out and buy myself a magnetic free energy generator.
Nobody is going to stumble on to a unknown hole in the laws of thermodynamics by working in their garage anymore. If such holes were that easy to find, they'd have already been found. Sure, our understanding of physics is incomplete, but we've got the basics down pretty solid.
In order for evolution to work to our benefit, there has to be "Natural Selection". We've created environments in which there is virtually no barrier to reproduction. Glasses, for instance, make it possible for individuals with crappy eyesight to live their lives and pass down their genes.
Without stressors to trim the bad mutations and promote the good ones, what use is evolution to us?
"So Canada only realizes now that such a service makes sense? No wonder it has slipped from a near the top position in terms of technology penetration to near bottom...Canadians...wake up!"
Oh yeah, let's add yet another way in which you can more easily blow your money. Now you can instantly send your buddy-on-a-beer-run $20 you didn't want to spend for a bottle of liquor you didn't intend to drink, all without leaving the poker table.
What a great idea. Canadians should totally get behind this initiative.
Were people having such a hard time spending their cash that this service is actually warranted?
Slashdot Mirror
"Cox wouldn't give me a box with working Firewire (despite angry phone calls to managers citing the FCC regulation that requires it here in the States)."
Citation, please. I'm quite surprised that FCC regulations would specify this requirement.
"Having 3 dual threaded in order processors is infinitely better than one single threaded in order processor with 7 crippled DSPs strapped on."
Why do people use words like "infinitely" into a sentence when they mean "marginally"? For that matter, why do people use "literally" when they mean "figuratively"?
As a representative of this group, perhaps you can enlighten me. I would be literally be infinitely in your debt.
"I challenge you to find cheaper food than the organic produce grown within a few miles of my home. If people would focus on buying locally produced veggies and meat, it would cut a huge chunk of transportation cost (and waste) out of the system."
You're lucky to have an organic farm within a few miles of your home that will sell you produce cheaper than the industrially-grown, mass-market product available in cities.
I live in the downtown core in a city, and every Saturday I buy produce at one of three farmer's markets. It costs me at least 30% more to shop there, compared to shopping at a Safeway/Save-On/whatever, and for some things it's over 50%.
I can afford it, so I go ahead and shop there. But I would never look down on somebody shopping cheaper - which, in these parts, means shopping non-organic.
"C++0x... Yes, well, that just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?"
Well, it does if you just pronounce it "Cocks".
'The tapes are "lost" to us, but not to some rich fucker. Like some famous painting that gets "lost."'
In retrospect that makes complete sense. Thank you.
"Look - they have a 2020 timetable to go back. It seems as if they have some technical hurdles to surpass ... as if they had never gone to the moon before."
What is it you think they're planning? If they were going to stuff astronauts back into a 1960's LM-5, attach it to a Saturn V, and recreate the original shot, what would be the point?
They're going to do it again, but with vastly different technology. That means all sorts of technical issues will need to be sorted out, lest we have an Apollo 1 on our hands because we shortcircuited the process "since we did it 4 decades ago".
"I want to see recent telescope pictures of the moon showing the rovers and the flag."
And I want to see gnat's testicles at 200 yards using only official "Austin Powers" glasses.
Both of us are likely to be disappointed.
"Here's what I want ... if I flick off my windows pc, it will automatically hit ctrl-alt-delete. That would allow me to release stress, and save me a few keyboard clicks."
There are many reasons I would (assuming "flip"?) flick off my Windows pc - and MANY reasons why I would flick off my linux PC - for reasons that have nothing to do with an O/S failure. That wouldn't be practical.
"Just for that reason alone, I wouldn't touch that game even if *they* paid me $1000 per month"
Are you really that wealthy? If not, what the hell's wrong with you?
I make a pretty good living, and not only would I touch it for $1000 per month, I'd play it for an hour even if I disliked it.
I know, I know. Figure of speech (sort of). It's just a particularly asinine one.
"Aren't you invading his privacy a bit too much? Even though I admit that I'd be tempted to do the same (especially because the work in itself must be pretty boring), it's not like we don't read news about privacy problems around the world every other day and should know better, right?"
Well, this WAS 15 years ago - not yesterday. I'm 15 years wiser, and I haven't worked retail support since 1997. Plus hard drives aren't 40MB anymore, porn is everywhere, and you wouldn't be copying directories with drag-and-drop or CLI these days (hopefully).
So even if I cared enough to browse people's files (which I don't), and had access to them (which I don't), I'm mature enough to avoid doing so. Unless they were famous people, in which case my internal voyeur might be unable to resist.
"And why exactly did you look at the pictures in the first place?"
Because it was probably pornography, and because I knew I wouldn't get caught.
Reminds me of when I worked front line hardware breakfix back in 1994 or so. A guy brought his machine in for service, and we transferred his files to a new hard drive. He had a hidden directory, and in it were pictures that had been clearly spliced. There were about fifty different shots of the same woman's face on various bodies engaged in porn acts.
He called to let us know his friend, Angie, would pick up the computer. Naturally I was somewhat surprised when I recognized Angie.
When gmail was "invitation only" I opened an email account. I never used it for anything. Never gave it out, never signed up for anything with it, never sent a single email.
I've logged in to it four times, and I deleted something like 2000 spam messages.
I'll continue to not use it, thanks.
"he didn't plead guilty, that was a different party"
That's true, I'll grant you that. My fault for skim-reading.
"In his trial...he said he didn't think it was illegal (see below). (from the article and the summary, which apparently you either didn't read or comprehend)"
I read that. Sorry, I don't buy it. He's claiming ignorance, but there's no way that's true. It specifically states in the article that he took that laptop to China "despite warnings from his University's Export Control Officer". Even if he somehow missed the boat in the "what not to share" session that was undoubtely provided for him, he knew then. He's guilty.
He knew he wasn't supposed to do it, he was warned not to do it, he did it anyway. He pled guilty.
If he didn't read his contract that's his problem. I also find it very unlikely.
Why is this on slashdot?
"When you deliver a shipment of fail so large as..."
We already have a perfectly serviceable noun - "failure". Turning "fail" into a noun is not an improvement for the language. It's just further degredation of rules that are already disintegrating. Is English not already sufficiently buggered up for you?
"I don't think of myself as a conspiracy nut, and I'm kinda on the fence with the moon landing stuff (ie. it could be an extravagent coverup I guess) but why can't someone just show me a recent freakin picture of the shit they left on the moon. The Japanese launched that orbitor about 2 years ago, and so did someone else I believe. Satellite type deals which orbit the moon quite closely with supa-dupa high res cameras aboard. Just take a fuckin picture of the moon buggy already, god dammit! What about these telescope thingo's we have on earth, diameters of like 12 football fields that can see shit in other galaxies, but we can't point that fucker at the moon at just once..."
We can see other galaxies because galaxies are really big relative to their distance.
For instance, Andromeda is 2.5 million light years away, and 220,000 light years across. That means it's about 11.36 times further away than it is in diameter.
The moon is about 384,403 km from the earth, core to core. The buggy would be what... 10 feet across? 3280.8399 feet per kilometer, take a little bit off for surface to surface... so let's say 1 billion, 250 million feet, just for fun.
That means it's 125 million times further away than it is in size. Point being, resolving a tiny object placed there when you have a 40 year old estimate of landing location is problematic even from orbit around the moon, and completely impossible from the earth. At least today.
"The government doesn't want you to have the truth because the truth is we've never been to the moon"
The fact that we have, indeed, been to the moon can be verified.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Laser_Ranging_Experiment
Should have been attached to a thread above. My apologies.
"I had to convert miles to km to know if I was going at reasonable, nevermind legal, speeds."
If you need your speedometer to tell you if you're driving at a safe speed, perhaps you shouldn't be driving.
Sadly, it's impossible to win the war. They write long posts so that it's as chore to reply. They throw all sorts of idiotic, unrelated crap into the mix to confound the issue. They point at the web sites of other nutjobs. I don't know why they quote Tesla - not because Tesla wasn't great, but because people also quote Tesla when talking about UFO's and psychics.
But in the end there has never been so much as a single confirmed instance of a light bulb being lit for a nanosecond by zero point energy.
Talk about backing a dead horse.
"Look, I admit that their claims sound unlikely, but you can't just dismiss all claims out of hand because "they break the laws of physics". The fact is that they break the current laws of physics"
If I give somebody five pieces of cedar planking, they might build a television out of them, and that would certainly break my understanding of the laws of physics. I won't, however, drive to another city to validate some guy's claim that he built a television entirely out of cedar planking. I'll just assume that he's either a fraud or a moron, and in either event I won't waste my time.
In the case of "free energy from magnetism" proclaimers, unless they've got an industrial complex with strong ties to major research entities, a collection of advanced physics and engineering degrees, and a boatload of the finest scientists hired away from the most successful companies, their claims CAN be safely dismissed out of hand. If we're wrong to do so, the practical implemention and marketing of it will prove us all fools. The fact is that I can't yet go out and buy myself a magnetic free energy generator.
Nobody is going to stumble on to a unknown hole in the laws of thermodynamics by working in their garage anymore. If such holes were that easy to find, they'd have already been found. Sure, our understanding of physics is incomplete, but we've got the basics down pretty solid.
...or so I recall.
In order for evolution to work to our benefit, there has to be "Natural Selection". We've created environments in which there is virtually no barrier to reproduction. Glasses, for instance, make it possible for individuals with crappy eyesight to live their lives and pass down their genes.
Without stressors to trim the bad mutations and promote the good ones, what use is evolution to us?
"So Canada only realizes now that such a service makes sense? No wonder it has slipped from a near the top position in terms of technology penetration to near bottom...Canadians...wake up!"
Oh yeah, let's add yet another way in which you can more easily blow your money. Now you can instantly send your buddy-on-a-beer-run $20 you didn't want to spend for a bottle of liquor you didn't intend to drink, all without leaving the poker table.
What a great idea. Canadians should totally get behind this initiative.
Were people having such a hard time spending their cash that this service is actually warranted?