I don't understand why. Why should we spend money on collecting CO2 just so we can throw it away by pumping it down at the bottom of the sea?
Collecting, processing and storing CO2 will cost some serious amount of money. So it will only happen if it can be used for something that earns back some of the money. The only thing I can think of is as "fill masses" in oil and gas wells to increase pressure so one can extract more oil/gas.
But the whole idea is hideously expensive so it probably only makes sense if the CO2 can easily be collected and transported to the injection site.
Yet another argument for Hydrogen though.
Yeah selective quoting.. Let us add the last sentece too.
If all of the Antarctic ice melted, sea levels around the world would rise about 61 meters (200 feet). But the average temperature in Antarctica is -37C, so the ice there is in no danger of melting. In fact in most parts of the continent it never gets above freezing.
But as far as I can see (right now after being awake for 24h ++) your reasoning that the temperature would have to rise 37C ( for complete meltdown) is flawed.
For example if one assume that the temperature is fluctating between +5C and -60C you will find that the time when the temperature is between from 0--5C could become a melting period if the temperature rose "just" 5C. So even a small increase in temperature could destroy the balance and cause melting.
-Less snow each winter and more rain.
-Longer summer with higher temp.
-Cold winds results in water temparture between -4C to 4C in the oceans around Antarctic. A slighly higher temparture could change this.
-Not so cold sea water together with increased sea level would eat in on the ice causing further meltdown.
Everything because the difference between -1C and 1C is HUGE. Yes it might take 100+ years before 75% of the ice disappears but that is still fast.
As someone actually living in the North, I have problems understanding what all the Main Stream Media fuzz is about. People keep complaining about the governmental response despite the fact that living in New Orleans is entirely voluntarily. Back in the days when I was a kid and the hurricanes hit our home we were all by our self. No Police, no coast guard, no FEMA and no National Guard. Why do people expect that to be different today? Today as we barely pay tax we can't expect assistance every time a drop of rain falls.
I see mislead people on the Internet complaining about how global warming, but last time I checked out that theory it turned out that the number of hurricanes is not 100% directly related to global warming. The other day I heard a smart scientist from a credible and well founded institute present reasonable evidence against the global warming scam by using high quality PowerPoint slides. And those mad scientist that belive that there is a connection are the same people that refuse to see all the corporate benefits of cheap oil. Especially to the Gulf Regions and the private industry. Without oil in the Gulf Regions New Orleans would have been nothing today. Oil fuels the economy in the area, most people live in a sea of opportunities, the wetlands are thriving with new ecosystems that keep growing and even black gay liberals can get a job in the Mardi Gras festival.
The Bush administration is taking a lot of heat this week from leftist journalists that refuse to see how the Presidents action is strengthening the region through increased oil prices and new fertilizers made of dead niggers. Most of the companies in the Gulf earn good money these days as the American economy keeps on moving. The President has made some tough choices in order to increase the wealth of this country. And as we all know, it works great compared to the losers in Europe. The privatization and minimization of our ineffective government is necessary if we want to keep our vibrant economy. I notice how some people keeps ranting about the decision to (de facto) include FEMA into DHS. These people are doing their country a disservice by intentionally ignoring the good intentions behind the reformation. As outlined in the Republican convention last year we know that the threat from terrorists is much more urgent than the risk of a hurricane. Centrally planed bureaucratized rescue efforts are also much less effective compared to smaller faith based organizations. While the incapable government is stumbling smaller organization such as Operation Blessing are thriving even in chaos. Additionally we can now see how the Presidents strategy of letting the market deal with the disaster is actually helping the economy and the heroic man. Many businesses will get contracts in the rebuilding process, something that will increase the economic output of the region and create new wealth. We can also see how free enterprises can exploit problems in the area and turn the into gold mines that automagically benefits the poor and huddled masses in the region. This is the famous trickle down economy at work folks.
When victims in a moment of anger express their grief about how the government handled the evacuation remember that these people had the chance to leave for several days. By looking at how New Orleans developed after the organized official evacuation we can see that many of them where either in a persistent vegetative state, to high to think rationally or they where thinking about how they could exploit the situation. These hoodlums and ragheads are destroying the city and the only thing the federal government should be involved in is putting them down for good by using the Army so small business owners can rebuild our infrastructure. Looters that break into private property for food and medicine ought to be shot with the.50. Why should the federal government waste limited resources on helping these people that contribute nothing to the Electoral College and the Economy overall? The federal government did
Something that is good enough to be aired on both BBC and CBC, and then rejected by all the majors in USA is something everyone should view. Especially in USA.
Even those that strongly supports the current War on Terror should watch this documentary, if only to challenge their own view. Yeah, I know such a concept is naive, but just remember how communist refused to read "american capitalist-literature" in the 10's and 20's. Today some republicans more or less refuse to view "liberal euro-weeniee-propaganda".
No offense, but I don't think you understand.
Both the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) (that is behind this "study" and the cable business as well as the content owners wants these 12%* as customers. But not in the current form!
Today these people are TLBs to the industry. They don't buy enough new TVs and they don't pay for cable/content. The news TVs they buy are old and with low profit margins. The contenet owners wants to move their "content" to cable because of stagnation in TV advertising income.
The CEA has a vested interest in kiling of OTA broadcast. To kill OTA they need to downplay the number of viewers that rely on such a transmission in order to convince the Senate. After OTA is dead those with Analog TVs would "have" to buy new HDTVs from CEA members. So the CEA can "force" the TLBs to buy new TVs by legislation.
Home Theater Magazine is just the stupid fools/home theater enthusiasts that are being used to promote CEAs special interest. They even printed the BS "public service to assist the Committees" remark without any disclaimer or explanation.
*Probably much higher than 12% but that is just statistics.
"Who would buy 828 feet worth of books, for nearly $8,000,[..]
Isn't that obvious? For small community/school libraries this is a bargain. Paperback is not perfect for libarries but hey for $8000 I think most linrarians can accept that downside.
WSJ fails to explain (for ideological reasons?) why Penguin are so desperatly willing to sell such a collection though. Because of expiring copyright most of these titles are in the public domain and will be almost worthless to Penguin within a few years. It is as much a benefit of capitalism at it is "a marketing scheme". But since some corporation might loose money on it some years ahead becasue of their antique business idea I guess it's evil.
IIRC most of those are old bugs from installation reports. They are typicaly quite shallow, like some obscure and hard to reproduce bug in a controller or arch.
I would think that the team tried to work it out and didn't succeed. Sometimes you've just got to draw that line in the sand and say; that's it: Your bug is not important enough to hold back the whole release.
No problem. A "thin client" is a computer or terminal that displays software that is running on a server and/or is running software from a flash based disk or a CD-ROM. On most thin clients the data processing occurs on the server.
In most of the tradidtional cases a thin client is a networked computer using software such as Citrix. The advantages (according to the Citrix folks) are cheaper clients, lower TCO and easier administrations.
Ships often use cheaper bunker oil instead of diesel so it might even work out to their advantage.
I think you are wrong here. They can't bunker all they need ashore as a cruise ship is designet for a capacity around two weeks. Have you seen the rates on supply ships lately? I don't know about Gulf of Mexico or California but in the Noth Sea you had to pay ~$15000 a day last week for a "decent sizeed" supply ship. Even if they only need to hire such a ship for a couple of days each month (for oil, diesel, food etc.)it would quickly eat up much of their profit.
And how about bandwith? The best thing would be to rent a T3, if that is enough, and lay a cable. But subsea stuff like that is quite expensive.
And I doubt they could get away with the 3 nm distance. More like 12 nm.
How about security and piracy. Did they think about that? Doubt so. And safety regulations? On both oil platforms and cruise ships everyone that works there needs to take a (two?) weeks safety course. Lots of $ there too.
What about waste/sewage? I'm sure the supply ship can handle that too. Only $15000.
And how long do they think coders are willing to stay on this ship before they _need_ some R&R? I'd say max 4 weeks. What then? How do they get visas so they can visit LA? And how do they get back to LA anyway? What about productivity and retaining workers?
I second that oone. Only Apple followers are willing to pay ~$100 for an OS update where one of the main features is a RSS reader. OK, I'll give them one thing; "the filesystem is new" and all that. But still, if you already have 10.3, paying $100 for something that only looks slighly better (in terms of added value) than SP2, is zealotry.
"Alas, despite the wait, Tiger is a minor revision, like all previous OS X updates."
and
"Though it is marketed by Apple as a major release, Tiger is in fact a minor upgrade with few major new features for end users (though developers will be interested in some of the low-level work Apple has done with Core Image, Core Audio, and other technologies. That won't stop Apple fans from flocking to Apple Stores on April 29 and standing in line to buy it, even at its inflated $129 price.
Well, I think you are right, but also that you are a bit outdated and the IDF reaction is wrong.
Before, the standard thinking about soldiers/privates was that it didn't mattered if they were stupid or had "lower intelligence than the average" because all an Army wanted them to to was to follow orders from above anyway (simplified explanation but yo get the point).
Today, the large scale tank battle with fixed position against a defined enemy is not that likely. In stead more smaller conflicts against smaller but more sophisticated enemies is expected. For Isralel, think; Egypt, Iran, Syria etc. but also al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hizbolla. So most armies are moving towards more indepentant soldiers that are able to make better choices in difficult environments. Back in the cold war days you should shoot the enemy and that's it.
Now you might have to cooperate with other groups/units/countries/enemies, decide if the plan from above is possible, decide if it's worth it(friendly fire/collateral damage), come up with unconventional solutions etc etc. The whole battle field is different.
So my guess is that filtering out D&D players is not that smart in the long term, since some of those folks might be better decision makers than the average, they might be higher educated and can also be better at understanding complex scenarios.
So why is IDF doing this. Some possible explanations:
1. The IDF psychologists are not updated on who they should de-select. Either because they are a bit conservative on who they should sort out or because the IDF fucked up the whole thing.
2. IDF really don't want independant thinkers because they mess up with the "normal" chain of command and "the traditional way of doings things here". Change is bad. D&D'ers are liberal-communist-hippies. TM.
3. D&D'ers* are more prone to disobeying orders that they belive are unethical. Such as occupying Palestinian land and other stuff that Israel do. If this is the reason it speaks voloumes about IDF and Israel.
4. I'm a clueless guy. D&D'ers are evil and will hurt Israel.
*BTW I really hate D&D. It's lame.
BTW 2. The advice about standing out is also misleading. You should stand out. But in a postitive, not negative way.
1. Emissions. Cars that use more fuel, pollute more. Not 100% correlation but still. Much more efficient and cheaper to implement than this GPS thing.
or
2. Based on damage to the road. Damage to the road from driving is more about weight and axle pressure than about miles. A large truck can do much more damage to a road than several hundred cars. On the other hand a large truck takes less space and clog the road less.
But you can produce some nice formulas based on those two assumptions and then decide how much less damage you can get by reducing maximum axle weight.
He _can_ do that, but how often do you think that happen? Passengers alerting the driver would result in fewer accidents with cars with more passangers.
I remember this study, can't find a link, 4 years ago or so in Europe, that showed that the "mobile phone-talking will lead to death and destruction. TM" idea is very overrated.
Out of several hundred serious car crashes that occured due to distractions (not lack of sleep, drugs, alco, suicide, overall fucked up skills, weather etc.) ~60% were caused by talking to the other passangers, ~25% from car stereo fiddling, and 10-20% from other reasons like trying to find something in the car etc. Only 1% of the distraction-related accident were related to mobile phones. And remember that that distraction-related accidents only caused 20%(? cant remember the exact figure) of the serious (in terms of body damage) traffic accidents.
I wish the government, a well as the public and jounalists, would just stop foucusing on something that casues so few accidents in the first place.
My personal teory is that it's technology fear combined with the recent introduction of mobile phones that creates all these stories about how dangerous this new driving while talking is.
No they are not myths, but its important that you put them in perspective.
So the Chinese Army did not send in tanks to stop students protesting?
Yes, they did. But recent studies vary on the number of casualties though from 25 to several thousand. And remeber that also USA used soldiers against protesting students in the early 70's. IIRC they actually shot and killed 4 at some University during a peacefull protest. Not thanks exactly, but still its not that far fetched to belive that it _could_ have happend in USA only some years before. People don't like to think about stuff like that but it _could__ have happend under Nixon or Reagan too. Maybe not as violent and massive, but still. In this perspecive 20 years is quite short.
So those executions I saw where they had the people kneel and put a bullet in their brain never happened?
Both USA and China use the deathpenalty as a deterrent against crime. OK I'll admit that you don't use the telly to broadcast it but media is quite involved in it anyway.
So there really is freedom of religion and speech in China?
In some parts of China most people can practise their religion to some extent as long as they don't activly engage in some activities. Free speech is quite limited though. All this might seem very restrictive to us free speachers but to most people over there are quite ignorant about it.
So the Chinese government does not make huge amounts of money from prison labor?
Not really. Just as in former Soviet and USA today they fail it here. All three countries are (were for Soviet) trying to recooup some of their prisoning costs by slave labour. But becasue of ineffectiveness, beurocracy etc. it fails.
And the Chinese did not lob missiles over an island full of people to keep them in line?
Well I'lll guess you didn't participate in those _enourmous_ NATO or USA/Japan/SK fleet excercises in the North Atlantic and Pacific in the eighties. I can't see how they differ much from what China did towards Taiwan.
Overall China got some pretty black marks on their "internal affairs" record but then again USA got some pretty bad remarks on their foreign policy record too*. Please not that I'm not exusing those bad things that are happening in China, just pointing out that if you look at it with those big history glasses it might not look as bad as you are implying. Just as those "bad things" in US foreign policy don't negate the fact that USA has been an overall postitive factor in the last 100+ years**.
*Iran, Chile, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Iraq, Guantanamo etc.
**That might have changed under Bush though..
..and is said to be "years ahead of the larger Future Combat System vehicles currently under development[..]
and
..the Rules of Robotics that some readers have linked to don't really apply to remote-controlled drones, which is what these are.[..]
The systems in development by the big companies are different on so many levels that it's hard to compare them. Not to negate the accomplishment by the SWORDS Team but LM and others are aiming for more advanced systems. (This robot is more of a solution to the current problems in Iraq than a future system to replace existing systems. It's a add on to existing capabilities.)
For example this system is remotly controlled at the infantry level out in the field by an operator that controlls the movement, behavior, offensive opperations etc according to the Rules of Engagement.
The big corps strayegy and the DOD think tanks on the other hand belive that futore robots, weapon platforms, systems needs to be more independent and able to operate autonomously.
The prime example here is the Unmanned Combat Armed Rotorcraft (currently on hold for budget issues?). The goal is to connect it to other units through the FCS and make it possible for it to operate without a base station with a controll crew. With the UCAR taking care of target indentification, engagement, movement and BDA there will still be a man in the loop to authorize weapon release. The DOD uses a "rating system" to describe the level of ability to operate autonomously. Level 3 and 4 is where most of the currect UAV are and I think this robot if it can be classified under the same system would be placed. AFAIK the UCAR will be level 6. (?)
As the systems becomes more advanced with more sensors, "better AI", social understanding, more network sharing etc. the man in the loop will become somewhat irrelevant and reduntant as his information will come from the systems ability to indentify the opponent. Imagine if this robot in the future is stationed in Falluja and is tracking down some Freedom fighters| guerillas|terrorists|insurgents|civilians inside a building. Since there will be some delay between the operator and the robot it will be tempting to just "leave it to the robot to decide" aka "send the robot into the building and let him take care of it". Operating a M240 can be done much faster without a man in the loop. With IR, X-RAY, optical, laser, NV etc the robots can (in the future) track down the enemy much more efficently without the operator delay.
So in the future I think the Military-Industrial Complex will seek to make robots that will violate all the three Laws of Robotics.
This is actually true. In the early days of the first Clinton administration the Social Security trustees forecast belived the fund would be exhausted in 2028 (or 2029?). But in 2004 they belive it will be exhausted in 2042.
Mr Bush on the other hand continue to mention 2018 as the year it will be exhausted, even though selling of of the bonds of the trust fund that came from the surplus paid in payroll tax will make social security well funded until 2042.
Maybe that is the problem with media in USA (and Europe too) today. As a percantage of the total less than 5% (pulling number out of the air) is probably willing to spend time fact checking news, getting a second opinion from someone they disagree with or confronting their own beliefs. As a European, Social security in USA is none of my business, but after discussing this with a friend of mine I decided to take a look at the information out there. And the most frightening is all the propaganda about a "collapse" out there. When anyone that is pro privtatization out there talks about the shortfall (the date spending starts to exceed revenues) they talk about it as if thats the date all the money will be spent. Like "Imagine that you the poor retiree vistits the bank to collect your monthly check and they say: Sorry the fund is empty. Bad luck." No one bothers to explain the uncertainity of the predictions behind estimating the future economy or explaining the possible problems associated with borrowing money to fund the existing soscial security as they continue their "plan". And they (conservatives/pro market folks/think tanks ) _always_ mention the year 2018 even though the Social Security trustees belive 2042 is the year and the Congressional Budget Office belive 2053.
On the other hand the pro-"leave it as it is" crowd rarely mention the coming boom of retirees and the growth in the number of retirees combined with a shrinking work force. For example; if people live too 100 in stead of 80 because of better nutrition, care and medicine it could cause problem with much higher health care costs than previously though. And the existing solution fail to account for the the slackers that work far less than they could.
So I have come to the conclusion that something needs to be done with the system at a point. But, and there is this this big but, at the same time I don't think the proposed solution is a good one. It seems to create far more problems than it solves. It is basically a free market solution with an add on to solve some of the problems with the people allready "inside" the existing soulution. Since they need to be covered in the future even if their children ("we under 30") stops funding them, Mr Bush needs to visit the bank and borrow an awful lot of money. I don't remember the exact number but i belive it was around $3 Trillion.
Also the new system places a lot of faith on both the market as a mechanism to handle money effectly without waste and more importantly peoples ability to handle their own money on the market. Quite frankly I don't think people will be able to handle their pension. Even if they are forced to invest them somewhere under some program people will waste them on stupid funds, expensive stock and all sort of scams that will pop up. I have faith in Wall Streets ability to lobby the administrators that regulate this new solution but I also think that many folks will lose much or substantial parts of their investment. Just look at how many people today pay insane amounts on various fees and administartion costs on their index funds.
One might think that well that is those peoples problem and lets leave it to Darwin, but there is this problem about what all those partially broke people will do when they approach retirement. My guess is that all those retirees close to 40% of the population and maybe 50% of the voters will vote for a social security system anyway.
So allthough I belive that something needs to be done in the long term; I don't think Mr. Bush is the man to handle such a big reform. Of Bush 20 biggest contributors at least 15 of them, and all in the top 5, have serious finanial interests in this reform and I belive much of the money will eventually end up in their hands.
So as long as the system doesn't need to be changed now I see no reason to change it now with the risk of a failed reform.
Not very likely. The risk of running into lawyers that demand money is to high.
And false files would not help out in the sharing.
In my little crystal bowl I see instead couriers and uploaders using troajned clients to spread the files. That would create large amounts of false positives with people that claim, sometimes correctly, that they didn't pirate The Hulk 2.
t is unlikely, however, that the collapse is imminent. Theoretical studies, by Derek Elsworth of Penn State University, of how these landslides are triggered indicate that the forces generated by intrusion of magma into the volcano, ranging from the direct pressure of the rising magma to (perhaps the most significant) pressurisation of trapped groundwater as it is heated by the magma, are necessary to trigger collapse. Elsworth and I have analysed the time taken for these forces to build up and we predict that collapse of a volcano like the Cumbre Vieja is most likely to occur several days to several months after the start of an eruption. As at Mount St. Helens, the collapse is likely to be preceded by progressively accelerating deformation of the unstable flank. Thus, there will be plenty of short-term indications that a collapse may be about to occur, although successful interpretation of these will require detailed monitoring of the volcano.
The upshot of the model is that it predicts that between 6 and 9 hours after the collapse of the Cumbre Vieja, tsunami waves with amplitudes of around 50 metres will strike the entire western seaboard of the Atlantic: these values are consistent with the size of the giant boulders and other deposits in the Bahamas, lending support to the model.
6 hours+. Plenty of time to evacuate a lot of people. If they A. know about the danger a from through media and B. a reasonably updtated tsunami warning system.
With the danger of sounding like a depreciative bitch I'm willing to play the devils advocate and say that "this whole donate privatly a few bucks on some page" is, allthough good, as significant as a mouse peeing in the ocean to rasie the level.
Private donatins and charity and campaigns like this are the kind of feel-good actions that do very little overall. They are usualy short-term campaigns tha collect a few millions than fade into obscurity within a week and bring little long term benefit.
Fast forward a week or two. Amazon may have collected $5-10 million then everyone forgets about the whole deal. It's a perfect setup. Those that give a few bucks get the feeling that they contributed "enough", some people got some help, politicans can take the populistic "sure we are helping through private aid", the private NGOs get they paycheck and got the chance to help _some_ and off couse promote their agenda. And everyone in the western world is happy.
So yes I think private charity like this is insignificant comapred to large initiatives, long term work and state based aid.
So yes I do think Americans are stingy, together with the rest of the rich world. I know because I'm a stingy person myself on this area*. But then again I'm honest enough to admit it.
*For the record I gave less than $100 to the Red Cross yesterday. Should/Could have given much more.
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Collecting, processing and storing CO2 will cost some serious amount of money. So it will only happen if it can be used for something that earns back some of the money. The only thing I can think of is as "fill masses" in oil and gas wells to increase pressure so one can extract more oil/gas.
But the whole idea is hideously expensive so it probably only makes sense if the CO2 can easily be collected and transported to the injection site.
Yet another argument for Hydrogen though.
But as far as I can see (right now after being awake for 24h ++) your reasoning that the temperature would have to rise 37C ( for complete meltdown) is flawed.
For example if one assume that the temperature is fluctating between +5C and -60C you will find that the time when the temperature is between from 0--5C could become a melting period if the temperature rose "just" 5C. So even a small increase in temperature could destroy the balance and cause melting.
-Less snow each winter and more rain.
-Longer summer with higher temp.
-Cold winds results in water temparture between -4C to 4C in the oceans around Antarctic. A slighly higher temparture could change this.
-Not so cold sea water together with increased sea level would eat in on the ice causing further meltdown.
Everything because the difference between -1C and 1C is HUGE. Yes it might take 100+ years before 75% of the ice disappears but that is still fast.
I see mislead people on the Internet complaining about how global warming, but last time I checked out that theory it turned out that the number of hurricanes is not 100% directly related to global warming. The other day I heard a smart scientist from a credible and well founded institute present reasonable evidence against the global warming scam by using high quality PowerPoint slides. And those mad scientist that belive that there is a connection are the same people that refuse to see all the corporate benefits of cheap oil. Especially to the Gulf Regions and the private industry. Without oil in the Gulf Regions New Orleans would have been nothing today. Oil fuels the economy in the area, most people live in a sea of opportunities, the wetlands are thriving with new ecosystems that keep growing and even black gay liberals can get a job in the Mardi Gras festival.
The Bush administration is taking a lot of heat this week from leftist journalists that refuse to see how the Presidents action is strengthening the region through increased oil prices and new fertilizers made of dead niggers. Most of the companies in the Gulf earn good money these days as the American economy keeps on moving. The President has made some tough choices in order to increase the wealth of this country. And as we all know, it works great compared to the losers in Europe. The privatization and minimization of our ineffective government is necessary if we want to keep our vibrant economy. I notice how some people keeps ranting about the decision to (de facto) include FEMA into DHS. These people are doing their country a disservice by intentionally ignoring the good intentions behind the reformation. As outlined in the Republican convention last year we know that the threat from terrorists is much more urgent than the risk of a hurricane. Centrally planed bureaucratized rescue efforts are also much less effective compared to smaller faith based organizations. While the incapable government is stumbling smaller organization such as Operation Blessing are thriving even in chaos. Additionally we can now see how the Presidents strategy of letting the market deal with the disaster is actually helping the economy and the heroic man. Many businesses will get contracts in the rebuilding process, something that will increase the economic output of the region and create new wealth. We can also see how free enterprises can exploit problems in the area and turn the into gold mines that automagically benefits the poor and huddled masses in the region. This is the famous trickle down economy at work folks.
When victims in a moment of anger express their grief about how the government handled the evacuation remember that these people had the chance to leave for several days. By looking at how New Orleans developed after the organized official evacuation we can see that many of them where either in a persistent vegetative state, to high to think rationally or they where thinking about how they could exploit the situation. These hoodlums and ragheads are destroying the city and the only thing the federal government should be involved in is putting them down for good by using the Army so small business owners can rebuild our infrastructure. Looters that break into private property for food and medicine ought to be shot with the .50. Why should the federal government waste limited resources on helping these people that contribute nothing to the Electoral College and the Economy overall? The federal government did
Something that is good enough to be aired on both BBC and CBC, and then rejected by all the majors in USA is something everyone should view. Especially in USA.
Even those that strongly supports the current War on Terror should watch this documentary, if only to challenge their own view. Yeah, I know such a concept is naive, but just remember how communist refused to read "american capitalist-literature" in the 10's and 20's. Today some republicans more or less refuse to view "liberal euro-weeniee-propaganda".
Both the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) (that is behind this "study" and the cable business as well as the content owners wants these 12%* as customers. But not in the current form!
Today these people are TLBs to the industry. They don't buy enough new TVs and they don't pay for cable/content. The news TVs they buy are old and with low profit margins. The contenet owners wants to move their "content" to cable because of stagnation in TV advertising income.
The CEA has a vested interest in kiling of OTA broadcast. To kill OTA they need to downplay the number of viewers that rely on such a transmission in order to convince the Senate. After OTA is dead those with Analog TVs would "have" to buy new HDTVs from CEA members. So the CEA can "force" the TLBs to buy new TVs by legislation.
Home Theater Magazine is just the stupid fools/home theater enthusiasts that are being used to promote CEAs special interest. They even printed the BS "public service to assist the Committees" remark without any disclaimer or explanation.
*Probably much higher than 12% but that is just statistics.
WSJ fails to explain (for ideological reasons?) why Penguin are so desperatly willing to sell such a collection though. Because of expiring copyright most of these titles are in the public domain and will be almost worthless to Penguin within a few years. It is as much a benefit of capitalism at it is "a marketing scheme". But since some corporation might loose money on it some years ahead becasue of their antique business idea I guess it's evil.
I would think that the team tried to work it out and didn't succeed. Sometimes you've just got to draw that line in the sand and say; that's it: Your bug is not important enough to hold back the whole release.
Congratulations to the Debian developers.
No Ethernet. No space for a floppy. Lame.
You're right. I should have used the word standard (or typical) instead.
No problem. A "thin client" is a computer or terminal that displays software that is running on a server and/or is running software from a flash based disk or a CD-ROM. On most thin clients the data processing occurs on the server.
In most of the tradidtional cases a thin client is a networked computer using software such as Citrix.
The advantages (according to the Citrix folks) are cheaper clients, lower TCO and easier administrations.
[/trollmode]
And how about bandwith? The best thing would be to rent a T3, if that is enough, and lay a cable. But subsea stuff like that is quite expensive.
And I doubt they could get away with the 3 nm distance. More like 12 nm.
How about security and piracy. Did they think about that? Doubt so. And safety regulations? On both oil platforms and cruise ships everyone that works there needs to take a (two?) weeks safety course. Lots of $ there too.
What about waste/sewage? I'm sure the supply ship can handle that too. Only $15000.
And how long do they think coders are willing to stay on this ship before they _need_ some R&R? I'd say max 4 weeks. What then? How do they get visas so they can visit LA? And how do they get back to LA anyway? What about productivity and retaining workers?
This is a shitty idea.
Most experienced reviewers clearly shows this:
and
Before, the standard thinking about soldiers/privates was that it didn't mattered if they were stupid or had "lower intelligence than the average" because all an Army wanted them to to was to follow orders from above anyway (simplified explanation but yo get the point).
Today, the large scale tank battle with fixed position against a defined enemy is not that likely. In stead more smaller conflicts against smaller but more sophisticated enemies is expected. For Isralel, think; Egypt, Iran, Syria etc. but also al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hizbolla. So most armies are moving towards more indepentant soldiers that are able to make better choices in difficult environments. Back in the cold war days you should shoot the enemy and that's it.
Now you might have to cooperate with other groups/units/countries/enemies, decide if the plan from above is possible, decide if it's worth it(friendly fire/collateral damage), come up with unconventional solutions etc etc. The whole battle field is different.
So my guess is that filtering out D&D players is not that smart in the long term, since some of those folks might be better decision makers than the average, they might be higher educated and can also be better at understanding complex scenarios.
So why is IDF doing this. Some possible explanations:
1. The IDF psychologists are not updated on who they should de-select. Either because they are a bit conservative on who they should sort out or because the IDF fucked up the whole thing.
2. IDF really don't want independant thinkers because they mess up with the "normal" chain of command and "the traditional way of doings things here". Change is bad. D&D'ers are liberal-communist-hippies. TM.
3. D&D'ers* are more prone to disobeying orders that they belive are unethical. Such as occupying Palestinian land and other stuff that Israel do. If this is the reason it speaks voloumes about IDF and Israel.
4. I'm a clueless guy. D&D'ers are evil and will hurt Israel.
*BTW I really hate D&D. It's lame.
BTW 2. The advice about standing out is also misleading. You should stand out. But in a postitive, not negative way.
1. Emissions. Cars that use more fuel, pollute more. Not 100% correlation but still. Much more efficient and cheaper to implement than this GPS thing.
or
2. Based on damage to the road. Damage to the road from driving is more about weight and axle pressure than about miles. A large truck can do much more damage to a road than several hundred cars. On the other hand a large truck takes less space and clog the road less.
But you can produce some nice formulas based on those two assumptions and then decide how much less damage you can get by reducing maximum axle weight.
I remember this study, can't find a link, 4 years ago or so in Europe, that showed that the "mobile phone-talking will lead to death and destruction. TM" idea is very overrated.
Out of several hundred serious car crashes that occured due to distractions (not lack of sleep, drugs, alco, suicide, overall fucked up skills, weather etc.) ~60% were caused by talking to the other passangers, ~25% from car stereo fiddling, and 10-20% from other reasons like trying to find something in the car etc. Only 1% of the distraction-related accident were related to mobile phones. And remember that that distraction-related accidents only caused 20%(? cant remember the exact figure) of the serious (in terms of body damage) traffic accidents.
I wish the government, a well as the public and jounalists, would just stop foucusing on something that casues so few accidents in the first place.
My personal teory is that it's technology fear combined with the recent introduction of mobile phones that creates all these stories about how dangerous this new driving while talking is.
Overall China got some pretty black marks on their "internal affairs" record but then again USA got some pretty bad remarks on their foreign policy record too*. Please not that I'm not exusing those bad things that are happening in China, just pointing out that if you look at it with those big history glasses it might not look as bad as you are implying. Just as those "bad things" in US foreign policy don't negate the fact that USA has been an overall postitive factor in the last 100+ years**.
*Iran, Chile, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Iraq, Guantanamo etc.
**That might have changed under Bush though..
For example this system is remotly controlled at the infantry level out in the field by an operator that controlls the movement, behavior, offensive opperations etc according to the Rules of Engagement.
The big corps strayegy and the DOD think tanks on the other hand belive that futore robots, weapon platforms, systems needs to be more independent and able to operate autonomously.
The prime example here is the Unmanned Combat Armed Rotorcraft (currently on hold for budget issues?). The goal is to connect it to other units through the FCS and make it possible for it to operate without a base station with a controll crew. With the UCAR taking care of target indentification, engagement, movement and BDA there will still be a man in the loop to authorize weapon release. The DOD uses a "rating system" to describe the level of ability to operate autonomously. Level 3 and 4 is where most of the currect UAV are and I think this robot if it can be classified under the same system would be placed. AFAIK the UCAR will be level 6. (?)
As the systems becomes more advanced with more sensors, "better AI", social understanding, more network sharing etc. the man in the loop will become somewhat irrelevant and reduntant as his information will come from the systems ability to indentify the opponent. Imagine if this robot in the future is stationed in Falluja and is tracking down some Freedom fighters| guerillas|terrorists|insurgents|civilians inside a building. Since there will be some delay between the operator and the robot it will be tempting to just "leave it to the robot to decide" aka "send the robot into the building and let him take care of it". Operating a M240 can be done much faster without a man in the loop. With IR, X-RAY, optical, laser, NV etc the robots can (in the future) track down the enemy much more efficently without the operator delay.
So in the future I think the Military-Industrial Complex will seek to make robots that will violate all the three Laws of Robotics.
This is actually true. In the early days of the first Clinton administration the Social Security trustees forecast belived the fund would be exhausted in 2028 (or 2029?). But in 2004 they belive it will be exhausted in 2042.
Mr Bush on the other hand continue to mention 2018 as the year it will be exhausted, even though selling of of the bonds of the trust fund that came from the surplus paid in payroll tax will make social security well funded until 2042.
On the other hand the pro-"leave it as it is" crowd rarely mention the coming boom of retirees and the growth in the number of retirees combined with a shrinking work force. For example; if people live too 100 in stead of 80 because of better nutrition, care and medicine it could cause problem with much higher health care costs than previously though. And the existing solution fail to account for the the slackers that work far less than they could.
So I have come to the conclusion that something needs to be done with the system at a point. But, and there is this this big but, at the same time I don't think the proposed solution is a good one. It seems to create far more problems than it solves. It is basically a free market solution with an add on to solve some of the problems with the people allready "inside" the existing soulution. Since they need to be covered in the future even if their children ("we under 30") stops funding them, Mr Bush needs to visit the bank and borrow an awful lot of money. I don't remember the exact number but i belive it was around $3 Trillion.
Also the new system places a lot of faith on both the market as a mechanism to handle money effectly without waste and more importantly peoples ability to handle their own money on the market. Quite frankly I don't think people will be able to handle their pension. Even if they are forced to invest them somewhere under some program people will waste them on stupid funds, expensive stock and all sort of scams that will pop up. I have faith in Wall Streets ability to lobby the administrators that regulate this new solution but I also think that many folks will lose much or substantial parts of their investment. Just look at how many people today pay insane amounts on various fees and administartion costs on their index funds.
One might think that well that is those peoples problem and lets leave it to Darwin, but there is this problem about what all those partially broke people will do when they approach retirement. My guess is that all those retirees close to 40% of the population and maybe 50% of the voters will vote for a social security system anyway.
So allthough I belive that something needs to be done in the long term; I don't think Mr. Bush is the man to handle such a big reform. Of Bush 20 biggest contributors at least 15 of them, and all in the top 5, have serious finanial interests in this reform and I belive much of the money will eventually end up in their hands.
So as long as the system doesn't need to be changed now I see no reason to change it now with the risk of a failed reform.
Anyway; just my opinion.
Why do you think UPS ordered it?
;-)
And false files would not help out in the sharing.
In my little crystal bowl I see instead couriers and uploaders using troajned clients to spread the files. That would create large amounts of false positives with people that claim, sometimes correctly, that they didn't pirate The Hulk 2.
I would rather put my money on Skypes future VoIP GSM phone...
The Spyware/adware could make it suck though. But for convenience and international calls it might be a winner.
Benfield Hazard Research Centre Tsunami Pages. Click on the last article there.
The most interesting part IMO:
So just give these people some money, ok?
A pdf about tsunamis in the Atlanic. Link
And off course the pics. Link
6 hours+. Plenty of time to evacuate a lot of people. If they A. know about the danger a from through media and B. a reasonably updtated tsunami warning system.Private donatins and charity and campaigns like this are the kind of feel-good actions that do very little overall. They are usualy short-term campaigns tha collect a few millions than fade into obscurity within a week and bring little long term benefit.
Fast forward a week or two. Amazon may have collected $5-10 million then everyone forgets about the whole deal. It's a perfect setup. Those that give a few bucks get the feeling that they contributed "enough", some people got some help, politicans can take the populistic "sure we are helping through private aid", the private NGOs get they paycheck and got the chance to help _some_ and off couse promote their agenda. And everyone in the western world is happy.
So yes I think private charity like this is insignificant comapred to large initiatives, long term work and state based aid.
So yes I do think Americans are stingy, together with the rest of the rich world. I know because I'm a stingy person myself on this area*. But then again I'm honest enough to admit it.
*For the record I gave less than $100 to the Red Cross yesterday. Should/Could have given much more.