The US military still gets primary use from it, at a level not available to civilians.
This is no longer true. The "selective availability" feature, which used to degrade the accuracy of the GPS signal unless you had a military-issued decryption device, has long been turned off. This means civilians are getting the same quality of services as the military.
The remainder of your post seems reasonable, however.
Which is why Democrats like Sen. Minority Leader Tom Daschle and his corporate lobbyist wife go ballistic when someone proposes the Flat Income Tax.
Or maybe it's because these so-called "flat-tax" proposals have the practical effect of shifting a huge amount of the tax burden from the more well-off parts of society to the less well off parts. Maybe the Dems think that the rich, having benefitted proportionally more from the national defense and other econonmic stability-enhancing benefits of federal spending, should PAY proportionally more for these benefits. Just a thought.
I'm all in favor of less complex taxes. I'm NOT in favor of "flat" taxes.
IANAL, but I don't think so. Just idly talking about doing something illegal isn't a conspiracy unless there is some intent to actually DO the illegal thing you're talking about. If you talk hypotheticaly about how to do something illegal, but without any intent to do it, that's not conspiracy, it's just talking.
I got so wound up before that I forgot the most important point. Say Greenland's icecap does melt, and the land rebounds due to isostatic adjustment. This does not compensate in any way for the additional volume of water in the ocean. This is because Greenland's crustal mass held down by the ice sheet isn't spread out underwater... it's down in the mantle. The volume of rock that displaces water won't change significantly as a result of the isostatic rebound... hence, once the sea level goes up from melting ice sheets over land, it stays up.
The issue of what will happen when land covered by ice sees a melting is curious. Most people assume that water/ice sitting on land will raise ocean levels when it runs into the ocean. This is not so. The reason has to do with the exact same reason for which the land sticks above the ocean. Frankly it is floating just as the ICE in the water. When the ice or water on land runs off into the ocean, the land it was on rises in a process called isostatic rebound. This makes more room for the water in the ocean and as such makes the net effect zero.
Geez, where to begin. First of all, IWAGP (I was a geophysicist), so I'm not purely talking out my behind here. Yes, you are correct, land DOES rebound after glaciers recede... after about 10^5 years. Formerly glaciated parts of North America and Europe are STILL rebounding from the last glacial period. If Greenland got de-glaciated tomorrow, I've got news for you... the sea level would rise, well, tomorrow, and the land under the former ice sheet wouldn't rebound for many, many years, and in the meantime, coastal areas would be inundated.
The Isostatic rebound is pretty profound. In areas where glaciers have recently melted off, land masses have risen as much as 200 or 300 feet. These have been observed in the past 100 years.
Name one place where this has happened. Provide references.
The land would rise serveral thousand feet by best estimates revealing mountains as high possibly as the Smoky Mountains or higher in places.
Yeah, over a timescale of about 10,000 years. A great comfort to our families whose houses may be flooding 50 years from now.
For those of us who live in the eastern USA our mountains have massive cliffs cut by deep rivers of ice. These glaciers had north America looking like the south polar regions do today.
And?
The warming that took out those glaciers is probably echoing back on us right now.
The warming is echoing back on us? WTF does that mean?
The Hate America First crowd is out front on this one.
Geez, what can I say. Watch out for black helicopters.
The total construction cost is about $447 billion, which, if spaced over 20 years, is a bit more than $22 billion per year... [snip]... The cost for those plants, spaced out, would be a little more than a third of what we pay for fuels as it is.
Don't get me wrong - I think nuclear power is a good thing. But you've left off some considerable costs - including ongoing maintenance and repair of the plants, other operating expenses such as the salaries of the plant operators, costs associated with storage, transport, and disposal of waste products, and costs associated with the shutdown of the plant when its life is over. You need to account for the entire life cycle of the plant when coming up with the costs, not just construction.
Also, to compare apples to apples, you'd want to think about the comparable costs for conventional/fossil fuel sources... those include expenses nuclear plants don't have (the fuel costs you mentioned, plus smokestack cleanup, etc), and similar expenses to nuclear (building and running the plants), but they avoid the costs associated with nuclear waste disposal.
While I agree that nuclear power probably turns out to be a cost-effective, environmentally friendly alternative to fossil fuel power, I think your cost analysis of it is invalid.
LILO's technical problems are LILO's technical problems. So LILO doesn't easily allow an informative error message... that doesn't make it any easier to figure out. If LILO isn't capable of displaying an informative error message, maybe LILO should be improved. That's my point.
I get it... this is like the joke where you tell the sysadmin your network connection isn't working, and he tells you to submit an online trouble ticket... right?
Because, obviously, since Linux isn't booting, I either have to 1) drop what I'm doing and find ANOTHER Linux machine to fire up the man page for LILO or 2) drop what I'm doing and try to find the printed out man page, if I even have it. Instead of LILO just fsking TELLING ME IN ($LocalLanguage) WHAT THE PROBLEM IS.
As for burning CDs, you stick a blank CD in the drive and the Mac will ask you what you want to do with it, copy files, burn songs, copy pictures, etc. Real ease of use that neither Windows XP or Linux have.
Can't speak for Linux, but XP most certainly does have this feature, and it works very similarly to what you describe for OSX. Put in the blank CD-R, it asks you what you want to do with it. Click and you're in business.
There is nothing worse than the possibility that an ISP will filter out a real email in their spam system.
Yes there is. What's worse is when your box is so overwhelmed by spam that you miss legitimate mails that HAVEN'T been filtered. Now you've missed the potentially important mail AND wasted a lot of time.
Until Hotmail et al starts offering bayesian filtering with a separate 'spam' mailbox, consider server side filtering worthless.
You do realize that Hotmail has been doing this for over a year, right?
Right. And be sure to wear your tinfoil hat to protect yourself against mind-control rays. Remember that vampires don't have reflections, so carry a mirror with you at all times so you can tell who's who. Watch out for black helicopters.
The 5.x Notes client is still a buggy, weird mess, which is a shame because the server hiding behind is it very worthy of respect.
No one is wild about the 5.x client, including me. But the 6 client is awesome... works a lot better, looks a lot better. And like everything Notes, if you don't like the design... you can redesign it! There's also an open source replacement (see http://www.openntf.org) for the standard mail template, which looks and acts just like outlook... except for all the viruses and stuff.
I hate the fact that it often crashes and leaves phantom processes you have to use a thrid party app to kill.
Two words... Notes 6. Doesn't happen anymore.
I also hate that the only new mail notification is a pop up dialog.
NotesBuddy was available even with release 5, and Outlook-style tray notification is the default in 6
I also hate that when you delete a message, instead of going to the trash a little trash bin icon appears next to it.
Don't like the way this works? In Notes, you can redesign the mail template to work any way you want! Try that in Exchange/Outlook.
I hate that you have to run it full screen for it to be useful because the default designs are so wasteful of space.
Both of the above responses. You can redesign the interface to be whatever you want it to be, even in 5. And in 6, the default appearance is as user friendly as Outlook right out of the box. And an Open Source mail template (see http://www.openntf.org) makes it look/work exactly like Outlook, except for all the viruses and stuff.
Yes, it is difficult for someone who hasn't read the manual to use, but once you actually read the manual, you'll soon realize that the interface is pretty easy to use.
If you have to read the manual, it ain't easy to use.
There's nothing remotely close yet that works out of the box in less than an hour.
Lotus Domino. Does everything Exchange does (better), and then some. Runs on your choice of operating system, including Linux. Doesn't require a slough of other MS (or IBM) software. Installs in less than an hour. Not susceptible to the security threat of the week.
What could be worse? How about a very close, contested, election (possibly with voting fraud allegations thrown in) that was IMPOSSIBLE to recount at all, because there was no audit trail?
I'm not sure where you're posting from, but in the US, virtually every election allows you to write in the candidate of your choice. So how are you limited to the 2 major parties?
Some people will say that there's no chance for a write-in candidate to win... this is known as a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Slashdot Mirror
In other words, they're not easier, but they're easier?
I've taken a lot of English, and I've taken a lot of quantum mechanics. English IS easier.
Sean
This is no longer true. The "selective availability" feature, which used to degrade the accuracy of the GPS signal unless you had a military-issued decryption device, has long been turned off. This means civilians are getting the same quality of services as the military.
The remainder of your post seems reasonable, however.
Sean
Or maybe it's because these so-called "flat-tax" proposals have the practical effect of shifting a huge amount of the tax burden from the more well-off parts of society to the less well off parts. Maybe the Dems think that the rich, having benefitted proportionally more from the national defense and other econonmic stability-enhancing benefits of federal spending, should PAY proportionally more for these benefits. Just a thought.
I'm all in favor of less complex taxes. I'm NOT in favor of "flat" taxes.
Sean
Sean
Must... not... make... "I, for one, welcome our new masters"... joke... here
Sean
Well, there's no shortage of weasels in the administration...
Sean
IANAL, but I don't think so. Just idly talking about doing something illegal isn't a conspiracy unless there is some intent to actually DO the illegal thing you're talking about. If you talk hypotheticaly about how to do something illegal, but without any intent to do it, that's not conspiracy, it's just talking.
Any real lawyers care to comment?
Sean
I got so wound up before that I forgot the most important point. Say Greenland's icecap does melt, and the land rebounds due to isostatic adjustment. This does not compensate in any way for the additional volume of water in the ocean. This is because Greenland's crustal mass held down by the ice sheet isn't spread out underwater... it's down in the mantle. The volume of rock that displaces water won't change significantly as a result of the isostatic rebound... hence, once the sea level goes up from melting ice sheets over land, it stays up.
Sean
Geez, where to begin. First of all, IWAGP (I was a geophysicist), so I'm not purely talking out my behind here. Yes, you are correct, land DOES rebound after glaciers recede... after about 10^5 years. Formerly glaciated parts of North America and Europe are STILL rebounding from the last glacial period. If Greenland got de-glaciated tomorrow, I've got news for you... the sea level would rise, well, tomorrow, and the land under the former ice sheet wouldn't rebound for many, many years, and in the meantime, coastal areas would be inundated.
Name one place where this has happened. Provide references.
Yeah, over a timescale of about 10,000 years. A great comfort to our families whose houses may be flooding 50 years from now.
And?
The warming is echoing back on us? WTF does that mean?
Geez, what can I say. Watch out for black helicopters.
Sean
Don't get me wrong - I think nuclear power is a good thing. But you've left off some considerable costs - including ongoing maintenance and repair of the plants, other operating expenses such as the salaries of the plant operators, costs associated with storage, transport, and disposal of waste products, and costs associated with the shutdown of the plant when its life is over. You need to account for the entire life cycle of the plant when coming up with the costs, not just construction.
Also, to compare apples to apples, you'd want to think about the comparable costs for conventional/fossil fuel sources... those include expenses nuclear plants don't have (the fuel costs you mentioned, plus smokestack cleanup, etc), and similar expenses to nuclear (building and running the plants), but they avoid the costs associated with nuclear waste disposal.
While I agree that nuclear power probably turns out to be a cost-effective, environmentally friendly alternative to fossil fuel power, I think your cost analysis of it is invalid.
Sean
LILO's technical problems are LILO's technical problems. So LILO doesn't easily allow an informative error message... that doesn't make it any easier to figure out. If LILO isn't capable of displaying an informative error message, maybe LILO should be improved. That's my point.
And no, I'm not volunteering!
Sean
I get it... this is like the joke where you tell the sysadmin your network connection isn't working, and he tells you to submit an online trouble ticket... right?
Because, obviously, since Linux isn't booting, I either have to 1) drop what I'm doing and find ANOTHER Linux machine to fire up the man page for LILO or 2) drop what I'm doing and try to find the printed out man page, if I even have it. Instead of LILO just fsking TELLING ME IN ($LocalLanguage) WHAT THE PROBLEM IS.
Gotta stop now, my sides are hurting.
Sean
Can't speak for Linux, but XP most certainly does have this feature, and it works very similarly to what you describe for OSX. Put in the blank CD-R, it asks you what you want to do with it. Click and you're in business.
Sean
What! No CowboyNeal option?
Sean
No. They are uninterested in public life and politics. Everyone has an interest in politics, whether they realize it or not.
Sean
Yes there is. What's worse is when your box is so overwhelmed by spam that you miss legitimate mails that HAVEN'T been filtered. Now you've missed the potentially important mail AND wasted a lot of time.
You do realize that Hotmail has been doing this for over a year, right?
Sean
Right. And be sure to wear your tinfoil hat to protect yourself against mind-control rays. Remember that vampires don't have reflections, so carry a mirror with you at all times so you can tell who's who. Watch out for black helicopters.
Sean
No one is wild about the 5.x client, including me. But the 6 client is awesome... works a lot better, looks a lot better. And like everything Notes, if you don't like the design... you can redesign it! There's also an open source replacement (see http://www.openntf.org) for the standard mail template, which looks and acts just like outlook... except for all the viruses and stuff.
Sean
Two words... Notes 6. Doesn't happen anymore.
NotesBuddy was available even with release 5, and Outlook-style tray notification is the default in 6
Don't like the way this works? In Notes, you can redesign the mail template to work any way you want! Try that in Exchange/Outlook.
Both of the above responses. You can redesign the interface to be whatever you want it to be, even in 5. And in 6, the default appearance is as user friendly as Outlook right out of the box. And an Open Source mail template (see http://www.openntf.org) makes it look/work exactly like Outlook, except for all the viruses and stuff.
Notes 6. Not your father's Lotus Notes.
Sean
If you have to read the manual, it ain't easy to use.
Sean
Lotus Domino. Does everything Exchange does (better), and then some. Runs on your choice of operating system, including Linux. Doesn't require a slough of other MS (or IBM) software. Installs in less than an hour. Not susceptible to the security threat of the week.
Sean
What could be worse? How about a very close, contested, election (possibly with voting fraud allegations thrown in) that was IMPOSSIBLE to recount at all, because there was no audit trail?
Sean
1) Republican
2) Democrat
3) CowboyNeal
4) I'm a libertarian, you insensitive clod!
Sean
I'm not sure where you're posting from, but in the US, virtually every election allows you to write in the candidate of your choice. So how are you limited to the 2 major parties?
Some people will say that there's no chance for a write-in candidate to win... this is known as a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Sean
Geez, you blew it... you didn't even MENTION SCO!
Sean