He's a troll for regurgitating the current Bush party line.
I can believe that people are willing to accept a lot of things that should be really suprising, but you have to be way beyond astronomically stupid to not realize that 1) US foreign policy created the terrorists who are angry at us (and we're making more by the thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan right now) 2) terrorists aren't going to succeed in killing all of us or even a significant fraction of us and 3) destroying the freedoms that should define "U.S. Citizen" doesn't result in a "successful" outcome, even if nobody dies.
Since his post hints or clearly indicates that he disagrees with all three statements, not only is his post a troll, but he is a troll (and apparently I already knew this, because he's one of three people in my freaks list and has been there for a long time).
o you're arguing that the freedom to hold a conversation [...] without having any portion of or information about that conversation revealed is an "essential" freedom?
Yes. On the single condition that the government hasn't already received a warrant from a judge based on sworn testimony.
And I'm not the only one who thinks so. The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the U.S talks about this. Look it up. Hell, look over the whole Constitution while you're there. It looks like you could use a refresher.
is that reasoning enough to convince top-level managers not to outsource?
Depends on how much they learn before making their decision. The "typical" experience appears to be that you can save 0-15% of your costs if you're willing to deal with a 20-50% longer schedule than using an equivalently skilled local team.
The normal question to ask management is: how much is that extra time (an additional 20-50%) worth?
This is the area where a Union - perhaps not a union in the classical, heavy-handed draconian sense but SOME KIND of employee organization [...]
I think of unions as a response to a failure of management. Like some of the other posters, I have no problem walking away from a company with bad management. I did exactly that this past December (I have a mortgage and my fiance's Ph.D to pay for). Also, like some of the other posters, the inevitable leveling of compensation that unions bring don't appeal to me. I'm far above the average developer and feel that I should get compensation commensurate with my contribution.
As you said, however, perhaps some other form of professional organization can improve the situation without the problems I would have joining a union.
In the end, however, I don't find the current situation intolerable. There are enough clueful organizations that I don't have to tolerate clueless idiots for all that long.
How long do you think it'll be before you can find another job?
I tend to change jobs frequently by industry standards, so I have several recent datapoints from which to choose. I also have a mortgage on a $400,000 condo in Santa Monica, California and am supporting my fiance as she gets her Ph.D. at UCLA.
I left my previous job on December 2, 2005. I started the job search on October 15, 2005. I accepted an offer on January 16, 2006 and started work on January 30, 2006.
Two very welcome months off during the holidays.
Before that, I was laid off on January 14, 2005. I started my job search that day and started the contract job on February 8, 2006.
Three weeks off.
Before that, I quit working for a government contractor on September 20, 2002. I started my next job on January 2, 2003.
A little over three months of visiting friends and taking road trips this time.
Before that, my employer (a startup in Austin, Texas) went out of business on November 1, 2001 (very close to 9/11, which contributed to the financial woes of this little company). I started working for the government contractor on December 26th, 2001.
Almost two months (though this was stressful, since I hadn't been able to save money on the startup salary).
I've had four job searches since 9/11. I've never had all that much trouble finding work, and when it did take some time, it was because I was being very picky, not because there weren't jobs. In the most recent job search, I interviewed with ten companies and got five verbal offers before accepting one.
I know IT folks who were laid off post 9/11 who are STILL looking for work.
There are a lot of people who want work in IT who I wouldn't hire to keep coffeepots warm. Having been a hiring manager, it doesn't suprise me in the least to hear you say something like this. There were a lot of idiots in the IT business in 1999/2000 who had ugly suprises coming in late 2000 and into 2001.
Just because people want work does not mean that they are valuable enough to hire.
it also depends to a large extent on geographic location and local economic climate.
Move. If there aren't any jobs near you, move to where the jobs are. Complaints that you want to stay near your family will be filed appropriately. If you have a choice between being next door to your parents and having a job and then you proceed to complain about not having a job, your priorities are completely our of whack and I have no time to waste on you.
I would wager that India has some pretty amazing coders there, as well as some pretty attrocious ones - exactly like in the US.
And if the customer (users) and management are located in the same place with the coders, then you're right: an Indian in India will be able to do just as good a job for less money.
But for US companies: Many of the customers are here. Decision making management is here. Moving the coders away from those stakeholders means communication hurdles. Changing from owner/employees to contract hires means a change of motivation and potential passion. With motivation and communication substantially different, the playing field is no longer even.
[the] quality difference will most likely, on average, be negligable.
This does not match up with my experience. Not because of a difference in skill on either side, but because communicating over email and phone calls 12 1/2 hours apart is an awful replacement for two people standing in front of a white board.
You must have meant Mike Badnarik because that poodle Kerry would have us all reading from the Quran by now.
The fact that you think Kerry would have been worse than the nightmare we've got now speaks volumes. Nice try at showing your "libertarian" side, though.
Liberals like to label themselves progressives which would be correct, progressively stupid and a progressive loss of common sense. They're more like brain dead zombies with a sense of entitlement instead of hard working folk. They want money form people who earn it to pass it on to health care for self abusers and aids patients for a totally preventable condition.
If you can manage to get one more strawman into your paragraph, you'll be in the running for the "sheeple of the week" award. I'm a libertarian and a registered Republican, but right-wingers like you and others who won't or can't think for themselves, have let this country be turned into a police state.
Wasn't being a Republican all about less government? So where's the less government already? Massively expanded police powers? Check. Continued full frontal assault on civil liberties? Check. Dissent == helping the terrorists? Check.
Your guy has done enough damage. If you've travelled anywhere around the world, you know that "Land of the free" is already a bad joke. Unless this country gets some serious repair, and quick, you won't be allowed to leave when you finally realize how much you've lost. "Papers please!"
My original source was NPR, (but keep reading for the summary of a google search). My understanding is that the THC won't disappear or be shut off like a light, but will be diluted by half in the next generation. THC is found in hemp, just in amounts that are vanishingly small. Further, THC appears to be created by the interactions of multiple genes, so you don't have a simple 4-box Punnet square to predict outcomes (more similar to eye color than blood type).
Perhaps I should rephrase my original phrasing from "destroying" to "diluting" or "eroding". In any case, the next generation of marijuana won't be as good as the grower intended, which will reduce it's street value dramatically and force the grower to find new, uncontaminated seeds for his next crop.
When I google for "hemp marijuana pollination", there are 14,700 total results from that search. On the first page are these interesting sites:
Here's been a cross pollination study done in Canada described here which basically says it's an even split in the next generation.
You may not like the heritage of the next reference, but the "North American Industrial Hemp Council" has a Myths and Realities paper which discusses this point briefly.
Here's a marijuana seed supplier which suggests (down in the fine print) keeping a reserve of seeds in case your crops accidentally get cross pollinated with ditchweed (the hemp that grows naturally all over the country) and you can't plant the next generation.
The politicians kill attempts to introduce it with fearmongering over the possibility of people growing marijuana in the fields alongside the commercial hemp, as the two plants appear identical.
Except they should be thrilled about that possibility. A hemp field destroys nearby marijuana plants. The hemp and marijuana will cross-pollinate, destroying the marijuana's ability to produce THC. Widespread hemp production will force almost all marijuana production indoors (with good filters on the air supply), which makes it much more expensive than it is now.
But then, I'm expecting rational thought out of politicians, which really is crazy...
Somehow I suspect that the real reason for advocating hemp is so that pot can be cheap, not gas.
If hemp is cheap, marijuana is more expensive, not less. When hemp is common, you have to move all marijuana production to filtered air environments as the hemp will cross-pollinate the marijuana and destroy THC yields (hemp's THC yield is 1/100 to 1/10,000 of marijuana). If the government wanted to cut domestic production of marijuana by half, they'd subsidize hemp planting and force all marijuana producers to move indoors. No more marijuana stands hiding in corn fields.
But this little dose of reality doesn't seem to have made it very far. Since hemp is the same species of plant as marijuana IT'S BAD!!!
Don't forget you're dealing with stoners when any talk of hemp for fuel or clothing comes up. Naturally in their state of being continually high they'll believe any bullshit they read.
I'll bite. Ad hominem (twice).
Hemp also cures cancer in case you haven't checked lately.
Strawman. Hemp has almost no THC or other cannabinoids and would do about as much for getting you high as smoking a ball of twine.
Smoking marijuana, however, can improve the appetite of those on chemotherapy, which does help with recovery times and outcomes. But nobody believes it cures cancer.
Hemp, on the other hand, makes for a fantastic natural fiber that lasts 2-3x longer than cotton in the same yarn thickness and weave. It also makes stronger ropes than sisal, and the oil is an excellent starting point for biodiesel (with an energy fraction of 3.8).
Finally, and this ought to be a huge win for people who don't like marijuana, farming a field of hemp destroys any nearby marijuana plants. The pollen from the hemp field will cross-fertilize the marijuana and cut the next generation's plant's THC production in half. Do that a couple of times, and it's all hemp. But then, modern prohibition makes about as much sense as alcohol prohibition did...
Regards, Ross
P.S. Pretty good average on the argumentative fallacies per sentence (3:3). A bit wordy if you're looking for a high fallacy per word ratio, however.
P.P.S. I've smoked pot twice in my life. Both times more than 15 years ago. So, I'm not much of a "stoner". I still think that drug prohibition is idiotic and is simply here to justify the ever-growing police forces around this nation.
You're saying that one assertion is as good as any other. As it turns out, your alternative statement is especially poorly chosen.
Breathing air that you have dirtied costs me. It costs me lifespan and my health while I'm alive. All that's happening when we make you pay for that through higher taxes on fuel is to even up the accounting. You can still do it (your choice), but you'll have to pay.
My breathing air in a functioning biosphere does not cost you. The CO2 that I emit came from carbon already cycling through the biosphere, and if anything, I've filtered some fraction of smog and dust out of the air I've breathed, so you're better off.
See? you can do it to anything, which makes it a worthless argument.
As usual, when confronted with a suprising assertion, following the money gets to the underlying truth. It's one of the fundamental principles of effective critical thought. You'll have to return to your thesis as at least one of your premises doesn't stand.
Shortly after release, there will be a hack to add a secure digital card controller to the NXT. The card controllers can be wired into almost any standard flash memory circuit and cost about $5 each. Then you can throw a gig of flash on there for $30, or four gigs for $120 (don't know if it will be able to use all four gigs, though...)
Anyone who can write a post this personal and insightful on so many levels gets big props from me. I know it doesn't mean all that much, but you just got added to my friend list.
Good parents make for good kids/communities/countries/worlds. Thanks for making the world a little better place. If you're ever in the vicinity of Los Angeles, you've got a beer on me.
My name is Ross Bagley and my email address is: <firstname><at><firstname><lastname><dot><com>
I'd suggest that if someone really wanted to hijack another plane in the US, or wherever, it would still be possible, even with the extra security.
Bull. They could hand out guns to suspicious looking passengers on the jetway and you won't have another successful hijacking in the US. The people on Flight 93 already established that hijackers hold the airplane at the discretion of the passengers. People who don't feel they have anything to lose (passengers after 9/11) don't let the hijackers have the airplane.
Those planes were hijacked with pathetic little weapons because Americans had been repeatedly told that the best way out of a hijacking was to let the government deal with the hijackers. Not any more.
This could be the lasting legacy of the 9/11 bombers - they made hijacking a plane more difficult, because the passengers and crew are unlikely to give up so easily!
Exactly. So can you come up with one strategy for successfully hijacking a commercial flight in the US? You say that any smart person should be able to come up with plenty. If you can come up with one, you'll be helping the TSA to plug the hole (and not helping the terrorists in the slightest).
Regards, Ross
Hell, I regularly carried a razor sharp 3" folding knife with me on airplane trips before 9/11 and even had it swiped down for explosives residue a few times. Once, the security guard asked me about it, I shrugged and said I used it for eating (true), he handed it back, I boarded the plane.
Then why is the US dollar currently pissing itself?
Because the euro is gaining credibility as a stable currency and states around the world are diversifying their national currency reserves from the dollar to the dollar and euro. When the euro starts being the currency of choice for oil transactions, you'll see another reduction in the value of the dollar.
This hurts US consumers and travellers, but US businesses (and eventually their employees) tend do quite well. In the end, it should be a wash for you and me (though my marriage in Norway this summer is getting more and more expensive as the year progresses).
As an aside, this is the inflationary pressure that Bernake is (rightfully) worried about. Not internal, but external. He's been paying close attention just like he should. Over the rest of this year we'll get a chance to see if he can play the financial markets with the same finesse that Greenspan was able to.
It's usually because of the "work for hire" provision and the inability of people under 18 to enter into binding agreements by themselves. Including implied agreements (though details of this are as much in debate as EULA's in general). If it becomes really valuable, their parents could revoke the submission and claim damages for using the submission commercially.
I've got my own Best Buy Worst Salesman experience. I was trying to decide between digital SLR's and the three candidates were the Nikon D70, the Canon 350D and the Canon 20D. What I really wanted to do was pick each one up in my hand, look through it, adjust some settings, take a few photos, make a decision.
So, none of the power supplies they've got the cameras attached to are working. Further, the security leashes prevent me from putting batteries in any of them (I brought some Canon batteries from another camera). Zero for three on actually seeing a camera in action. The salesguy can't seem to remember if he's ever seen any of them working. So I'm limited to feeling up the grip and looking through the viewfinder. As I'm doing this, I'm talking about how many people are criticizing the newer viewfinders of all three cameras as dim and difficult to focus with. His response is that most people don't use viewfinders any more and they just use the screen on the back to compose.
Except that current digital SLR's don't ever have live preview (the 20Da has a very special mode for low light (astronomical) photos only). The mirror is blocking the sensor and nobody has a second sensor or a pellicle mirror or has figured out a way to use the main sensor without burning it up. I tried gently to explain all of these facts. I even removed the lens from the camera to show the mirror that prevented live preview. To no avail. Apparently, I was not informed enough on how digital cameras worked as all of them are "that way" now.
I thanked him for his time and left the store. What a nimrod. I ended up buying the 20D from the nearest Sammy's Camera on one of their sale days. Took a lot longer than I expected, but then, they were packed. Darn good price for a brick and mortar store.
True, but how long has XFS been a choice when compiling the kernel? Not as long. XFS is very sweet and has been around for a while, but only recently has it been commonly available to linux users.
You've got a bunch of points (many of which are valid to one degree or another) but I'm only going to respond to one.
It [NT4] had full support for ACLs in the filesystem. Linux got that in, what, 2000? Does it even work with the standard filesystems?
ACL's are a filesystem feature, not an OS feature. NTFS has them, FAT and FAT32 do not. Ext2 does not have ACL's, though hooks were left for ACL's from the beginning and support can be patched into 2.4 and 2.6 kernels for Ext2 and Ext3. AFS (Andrew File System), which is the original king of ACL's, could be used on Linux in 1998. ReiserFS has them (don't know for how long). SGI's XFS is the same (I think this was pretty recent).
I've been using ACLs with UFS2 (the default FS) on FreeBSD for a couple of years, but I've not seen them in common use on Linux.
Evidently, people don't miss them, because the option has been available to Linux users about as long as NTFS has been on the scene. I would hazard a guess that ACL's aren't the "make or break" feature for most people's filesystem choice.
Now, I'm not going to seriously rain on your parade as the point of this argument seems to boil down to: NTFS is a great filesystem. I agree. NTFS is some sweet technology that works real nice in the here and now. But it isn't the only game in town for high performance journaling file systems (with ACL's no less). The fact that people don't really seek out ACL's on linux is simply that ogw permissions are so well understood by so many unix admins, and most of the time, ogw permissions are good enough.
You'd also have to have the same finger prints and iris geometry...and that isn't on the card.
You didn't RTFA. The whole point of this card is so that people don't have to open their car windows or slow down at border crossings because the current border crossings interfere with commerce.
When cars are moving past the checkpoint at 30-60mph, which of the machines there are going to check finger prints and iris geometry again?
Slashdot Mirror
Exactly his point. Re-read his post as if he's saying it with a sarcastic tone.
Ross
He's a troll for regurgitating the current Bush party line.
I can believe that people are willing to accept a lot of things that should be really suprising, but you have to be way beyond astronomically stupid to not realize that 1) US foreign policy created the terrorists who are angry at us (and we're making more by the thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan right now) 2) terrorists aren't going to succeed in killing all of us or even a significant fraction of us and 3) destroying the freedoms that should define "U.S. Citizen" doesn't result in a "successful" outcome, even if nobody dies.
Since his post hints or clearly indicates that he disagrees with all three statements, not only is his post a troll, but he is a troll (and apparently I already knew this, because he's one of three people in my freaks list and has been there for a long time).
Regards,
Ross
o you're arguing that the freedom to hold a conversation [...] without having any portion of or information about that conversation revealed is an "essential" freedom?
Yes. On the single condition that the government hasn't already received a warrant from a judge based on sworn testimony.
And I'm not the only one who thinks so. The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the U.S talks about this. Look it up. Hell, look over the whole Constitution while you're there. It looks like you could use a refresher.
Regards,
Ross
is that reasoning enough to convince top-level managers not to outsource?
Depends on how much they learn before making their decision. The "typical" experience appears to be that you can save 0-15% of your costs if you're willing to deal with a 20-50% longer schedule than using an equivalently skilled local team.
The normal question to ask management is: how much is that extra time (an additional 20-50%) worth?
This is the area where a Union - perhaps not a union in the classical, heavy-handed draconian sense but SOME KIND of employee organization [...]
I think of unions as a response to a failure of management. Like some of the other posters, I have no problem walking away from a company with bad management. I did exactly that this past December (I have a mortgage and my fiance's Ph.D to pay for). Also, like some of the other posters, the inevitable leveling of compensation that unions bring don't appeal to me. I'm far above the average developer and feel that I should get compensation commensurate with my contribution.
As you said, however, perhaps some other form of professional organization can improve the situation without the problems I would have joining a union.
In the end, however, I don't find the current situation intolerable. There are enough clueful organizations that I don't have to tolerate clueless idiots for all that long.
Regards,
Ross
How long do you think it'll be before you can find another job?
I tend to change jobs frequently by industry standards, so I have several recent datapoints from which to choose. I also have a mortgage on a $400,000 condo in Santa Monica, California and am supporting my fiance as she gets her Ph.D. at UCLA.
I left my previous job on December 2, 2005. I started the job search on October 15, 2005. I accepted an offer on January 16, 2006 and started work on January 30, 2006.
Two very welcome months off during the holidays.
Before that, I was laid off on January 14, 2005. I started my job search that day and started the contract job on February 8, 2006.
Three weeks off.
Before that, I quit working for a government contractor on September 20, 2002. I started my next job on January 2, 2003.
A little over three months of visiting friends and taking road trips this time.
Before that, my employer (a startup in Austin, Texas) went out of business on November 1, 2001 (very close to 9/11, which contributed to the financial woes of this little company). I started working for the government contractor on December 26th, 2001.
Almost two months (though this was stressful, since I hadn't been able to save money on the startup salary).
I've had four job searches since 9/11. I've never had all that much trouble finding work, and when it did take some time, it was because I was being very picky, not because there weren't jobs. In the most recent job search, I interviewed with ten companies and got five verbal offers before accepting one.
I know IT folks who were laid off post 9/11 who are STILL looking for work.
There are a lot of people who want work in IT who I wouldn't hire to keep coffeepots warm. Having been a hiring manager, it doesn't suprise me in the least to hear you say something like this. There were a lot of idiots in the IT business in 1999/2000 who had ugly suprises coming in late 2000 and into 2001.
Just because people want work does not mean that they are valuable enough to hire.
it also depends to a large extent on geographic location and local economic climate.
Move. If there aren't any jobs near you, move to where the jobs are. Complaints that you want to stay near your family will be filed appropriately. If you have a choice between being next door to your parents and having a job and then you proceed to complain about not having a job, your priorities are completely our of whack and I have no time to waste on you.
Regards,
Ross
I would wager that India has some pretty amazing coders there, as well as some pretty attrocious ones - exactly like in the US.
And if the customer (users) and management are located in the same place with the coders, then you're right: an Indian in India will be able to do just as good a job for less money.
But for US companies: Many of the customers are here. Decision making management is here. Moving the coders away from those stakeholders means communication hurdles. Changing from owner/employees to contract hires means a change of motivation and potential passion. With motivation and communication substantially different, the playing field is no longer even.
[the] quality difference will most likely, on average, be negligable.
This does not match up with my experience. Not because of a difference in skill on either side, but because communicating over email and phone calls 12 1/2 hours apart is an awful replacement for two people standing in front of a white board.
Your mileage may vary, of course.
Regards,
Ross
You must have meant Mike Badnarik because that poodle Kerry would have us all reading from the Quran by now.
The fact that you think Kerry would have been worse than the nightmare we've got now speaks volumes. Nice try at showing your "libertarian" side, though.
Liberals like to label themselves progressives which would be correct, progressively stupid and a progressive loss of common sense. They're more like brain dead zombies with a sense of entitlement instead of hard working folk. They want money form people who earn it to pass it on to health care for self abusers and aids patients for a totally preventable condition.
If you can manage to get one more strawman into your paragraph, you'll be in the running for the "sheeple of the week" award. I'm a libertarian and a registered Republican, but right-wingers like you and others who won't or can't think for themselves, have let this country be turned into a police state.
Wasn't being a Republican all about less government? So where's the less government already? Massively expanded police powers? Check. Continued full frontal assault on civil liberties? Check. Dissent == helping the terrorists? Check.
Your guy has done enough damage. If you've travelled anywhere around the world, you know that "Land of the free" is already a bad joke. Unless this country gets some serious repair, and quick, you won't be allowed to leave when you finally realize how much you've lost. "Papers please!"
Ross
My original source was NPR, (but keep reading for the summary of a google search). My understanding is that the THC won't disappear or be shut off like a light, but will be diluted by half in the next generation. THC is found in hemp, just in amounts that are vanishingly small. Further, THC appears to be created by the interactions of multiple genes, so you don't have a simple 4-box Punnet square to predict outcomes (more similar to eye color than blood type).
Perhaps I should rephrase my original phrasing from "destroying" to "diluting" or "eroding". In any case, the next generation of marijuana won't be as good as the grower intended, which will reduce it's street value dramatically and force the grower to find new, uncontaminated seeds for his next crop.
When I google for "hemp marijuana pollination", there are 14,700 total results from that search. On the first page are these interesting sites:
Here's been a cross pollination study done in Canada described here which basically says it's an even split in the next generation.
You may not like the heritage of the next reference, but the "North American Industrial Hemp Council" has a Myths and Realities paper which discusses this point briefly.
Here's a marijuana seed supplier which suggests (down in the fine print) keeping a reserve of seeds in case your crops accidentally get cross pollinated with ditchweed (the hemp that grows naturally all over the country) and you can't plant the next generation.
Hope that helps.
Regards,
Ross
The politicians kill attempts to introduce it with fearmongering over the possibility of people growing marijuana in the fields alongside the commercial hemp, as the two plants appear identical.
Except they should be thrilled about that possibility. A hemp field destroys nearby marijuana plants. The hemp and marijuana will cross-pollinate, destroying the marijuana's ability to produce THC. Widespread hemp production will force almost all marijuana production indoors (with good filters on the air supply), which makes it much more expensive than it is now.
But then, I'm expecting rational thought out of politicians, which really is crazy...
Regards,
Ross
Somehow I suspect that the real reason for advocating hemp is so that pot can be cheap, not gas.
If hemp is cheap, marijuana is more expensive, not less. When hemp is common, you have to move all marijuana production to filtered air environments as the hemp will cross-pollinate the marijuana and destroy THC yields (hemp's THC yield is 1/100 to 1/10,000 of marijuana). If the government wanted to cut domestic production of marijuana by half, they'd subsidize hemp planting and force all marijuana producers to move indoors. No more marijuana stands hiding in corn fields.
But this little dose of reality doesn't seem to have made it very far. Since hemp is the same species of plant as marijuana IT'S BAD!!!
Regards,
Ross
Don't forget you're dealing with stoners when any talk of hemp for fuel or clothing comes up. Naturally in their state of being continually high they'll believe any bullshit they read.
I'll bite. Ad hominem (twice).
Hemp also cures cancer in case you haven't checked lately.
Strawman. Hemp has almost no THC or other cannabinoids and would do about as much for getting you high as smoking a ball of twine.
Smoking marijuana, however, can improve the appetite of those on chemotherapy, which does help with recovery times and outcomes. But nobody believes it cures cancer.
Hemp, on the other hand, makes for a fantastic natural fiber that lasts 2-3x longer than cotton in the same yarn thickness and weave. It also makes stronger ropes than sisal, and the oil is an excellent starting point for biodiesel (with an energy fraction of 3.8).
Finally, and this ought to be a huge win for people who don't like marijuana, farming a field of hemp destroys any nearby marijuana plants. The pollen from the hemp field will cross-fertilize the marijuana and cut the next generation's plant's THC production in half. Do that a couple of times, and it's all hemp. But then, modern prohibition makes about as much sense as alcohol prohibition did...
Regards,
Ross
P.S. Pretty good average on the argumentative fallacies per sentence (3:3). A bit wordy if you're looking for a high fallacy per word ratio, however.
P.P.S. I've smoked pot twice in my life. Both times more than 15 years ago. So, I'm not much of a "stoner". I still think that drug prohibition is idiotic and is simply here to justify the ever-growing police forces around this nation.
Breathing clean air is a lifestyle choice
You're saying that one assertion is as good as any other. As it turns out, your alternative statement is especially poorly chosen.
Breathing air that you have dirtied costs me. It costs me lifespan and my health while I'm alive. All that's happening when we make you pay for that through higher taxes on fuel is to even up the accounting. You can still do it (your choice), but you'll have to pay.
My breathing air in a functioning biosphere does not cost you. The CO2 that I emit came from carbon already cycling through the biosphere, and if anything, I've filtered some fraction of smog and dust out of the air I've breathed, so you're better off.
See? you can do it to anything, which makes it a worthless argument.
As usual, when confronted with a suprising assertion, following the money gets to the underlying truth. It's one of the fundamental principles of effective critical thought. You'll have to return to your thesis as at least one of your premises doesn't stand.
Regards,
Ross
Shortly after release, there will be a hack to add a secure digital card controller to the NXT. The card controllers can be wired into almost any standard flash memory circuit and cost about $5 each. Then you can throw a gig of flash on there for $30, or four gigs for $120 (don't know if it will be able to use all four gigs, though...)
Regards,
Ross
Anyone who can write a post this personal and insightful on so many levels gets big props from me. I know it doesn't mean all that much, but you just got added to my friend list.
Good parents make for good kids/communities/countries/worlds. Thanks for making the world a little better place. If you're ever in the vicinity of Los Angeles, you've got a beer on me.
My name is Ross Bagley and my email address is: <firstname><at><firstname><lastname><dot><com>
Regards,
Ross
I'd suggest that if someone really wanted to hijack another plane in the US, or wherever, it would still be possible, even with the extra security.
Bull. They could hand out guns to suspicious looking passengers on the jetway and you won't have another successful hijacking in the US. The people on Flight 93 already established that hijackers hold the airplane at the discretion of the passengers. People who don't feel they have anything to lose (passengers after 9/11) don't let the hijackers have the airplane.
Those planes were hijacked with pathetic little weapons because Americans had been repeatedly told that the best way out of a hijacking was to let the government deal with the hijackers. Not any more.
This could be the lasting legacy of the 9/11 bombers - they made hijacking a plane more difficult, because the passengers and crew are unlikely to give up so easily!
Exactly. So can you come up with one strategy for successfully hijacking a commercial flight in the US? You say that any smart person should be able to come up with plenty. If you can come up with one, you'll be helping the TSA to plug the hole (and not helping the terrorists in the slightest).
Regards,
Ross
Hell, I regularly carried a razor sharp 3" folding knife with me on airplane trips before 9/11 and even had it swiped down for explosives residue a few times. Once, the security guard asked me about it, I shrugged and said I used it for eating (true), he handed it back, I boarded the plane.
In my quick scan I saw one IBM and a bunch of Dells. Does Dell know they make labtops? Is there a certain demographic being targeted here? Hmmm...
Ross
Then why is the US dollar currently pissing itself?
Because the euro is gaining credibility as a stable currency and states around the world are diversifying their national currency reserves from the dollar to the dollar and euro. When the euro starts being the currency of choice for oil transactions, you'll see another reduction in the value of the dollar.
This hurts US consumers and travellers, but US businesses (and eventually their employees) tend do quite well. In the end, it should be a wash for you and me (though my marriage in Norway this summer is getting more and more expensive as the year progresses).
As an aside, this is the inflationary pressure that Bernake is (rightfully) worried about. Not internal, but external. He's been paying close attention just like he should. Over the rest of this year we'll get a chance to see if he can play the financial markets with the same finesse that Greenspan was able to.
Regards,
Ross
It's usually because of the "work for hire" provision and the inability of people under 18 to enter into binding agreements by themselves. Including implied agreements (though details of this are as much in debate as EULA's in general). If it becomes really valuable, their parents could revoke the submission and claim damages for using the submission commercially.
Which would be disruptive and annoying, at best.
Regards,
Ross
I've got my own Best Buy Worst Salesman experience. I was trying to decide between digital SLR's and the three candidates were the Nikon D70, the Canon 350D and the Canon 20D. What I really wanted to do was pick each one up in my hand, look through it, adjust some settings, take a few photos, make a decision.
So, none of the power supplies they've got the cameras attached to are working. Further, the security leashes prevent me from putting batteries in any of them (I brought some Canon batteries from another camera). Zero for three on actually seeing a camera in action. The salesguy can't seem to remember if he's ever seen any of them working. So I'm limited to feeling up the grip and looking through the viewfinder. As I'm doing this, I'm talking about how many people are criticizing the newer viewfinders of all three cameras as dim and difficult to focus with. His response is that most people don't use viewfinders any more and they just use the screen on the back to compose.
Except that current digital SLR's don't ever have live preview (the 20Da has a very special mode for low light (astronomical) photos only). The mirror is blocking the sensor and nobody has a second sensor or a pellicle mirror or has figured out a way to use the main sensor without burning it up. I tried gently to explain all of these facts. I even removed the lens from the camera to show the mirror that prevented live preview. To no avail. Apparently, I was not informed enough on how digital cameras worked as all of them are "that way" now.
I thanked him for his time and left the store. What a nimrod. I ended up buying the 20D from the nearest Sammy's Camera on one of their sale days. Took a lot longer than I expected, but then, they were packed. Darn good price for a brick and mortar store.
Ross
The "average working life" figure is 100,000 hours. 50 man years at 2000 hours per man year.
Regards,
Ross
XFS has had ACL support for quite some time.
True, but how long has XFS been a choice when compiling the kernel? Not as long. XFS is very sweet and has been around for a while, but only recently has it been commonly available to linux users.
Regards,
Ross
Most of your netflix DVD's are 9.4GB. Almost all movies nowadays use both layers of one side (and they try pretty hard to fill all of that space up).
Regards,
Ross
You've got a bunch of points (many of which are valid to one degree or another) but I'm only going to respond to one.
It [NT4] had full support for ACLs in the filesystem. Linux got that in, what, 2000? Does it even work with the standard filesystems?
ACL's are a filesystem feature, not an OS feature. NTFS has them, FAT and FAT32 do not. Ext2 does not have ACL's, though hooks were left for ACL's from the beginning and support can be patched into 2.4 and 2.6 kernels for Ext2 and Ext3. AFS (Andrew File System), which is the original king of ACL's, could be used on Linux in 1998. ReiserFS has them (don't know for how long). SGI's XFS is the same (I think this was pretty recent).
I've been using ACLs with UFS2 (the default FS) on FreeBSD for a couple of years, but I've not seen them in common use on Linux.
Evidently, people don't miss them, because the option has been available to Linux users about as long as NTFS has been on the scene. I would hazard a guess that ACL's aren't the "make or break" feature for most people's filesystem choice.
Now, I'm not going to seriously rain on your parade as the point of this argument seems to boil down to: NTFS is a great filesystem. I agree. NTFS is some sweet technology that works real nice in the here and now. But it isn't the only game in town for high performance journaling file systems (with ACL's no less). The fact that people don't really seek out ACL's on linux is simply that ogw permissions are so well understood by so many unix admins, and most of the time, ogw permissions are good enough.
Regards,
Ross
Mod +1 "Sad but true"
You'd also have to have the same finger prints and iris geometry...and that isn't on the card.
You didn't RTFA. The whole point of this card is so that people don't have to open their car windows or slow down at border crossings because the current border crossings interfere with commerce.
When cars are moving past the checkpoint at 30-60mph, which of the machines there are going to check finger prints and iris geometry again?
Regards,
Ross