I was just wondering when the robots will start shooting back. Will it be 2015, 2020 or 2030? Maybe we should have a slashdot poll on that. And should we call the computers controlling these robots for Skynet or would that infringe on known trademarks?
Yes, because Saudi Arabia is an Oasis of secular humanism now. The very model of a modern enlightenment.
Saudi Arabia has lots of money, but it's not distributed very broadly or fairly. Only a few Saudis are actually wealthy.
So they don't really have either prosperity or equality or enlightenment in that part of the world.
That is actually not true. The Gini coefficient (measure of economic in-equality, lower is more equal) is approximately 32 for Saudi Arabia and 40.8 for the USA. So it seems like your theory about economic equality and enlightenment is down the drain.
I agree entirely. Open a free market for organs (from dead people) and you will see the supply of organs explode. People who want to give away their organs for free can of course continue to do so. And the state authorities can of course continue to encourage people to donate their organs for free.
The only alternative to a free market is shortages and coercion. Both when we are talking about bread and organs.
Because you'd then have to auction off each seat in an order determined by order of importance, which would be logistically a nightmare with up to 100.000 seats available for an event.
I don't think that is true. They can just let a succesful bidder choose whatever remaining seat he wants. The seller does not have to decide which seat is the best for you. That way you can just wait until the price falls to $250 per ticket and grab the best seats available.
Because it is not a transposition of digits. There simply is no forecast and the estimate that they put in is pure BS. From TFA:
"The IPCC apparently sourced its forecast on a 2005 publication by the World Wildlife Fund. The WWF itself had picked it up from a 1999 magazine article based on a phone interview with an Indian scientist.
Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh, earlier this week, said that Himalayan glaciers are receding but he said the report they will vanish by 2035 is not based on scientific evidence. "
And because it has been going on for years it is okay? No, USA and allies needs to retaliate and take the battle to China. Or to put it plainly wage a cyberwar against China until they understand that this kind of behaviour is not tolerable. Otherwise we are just asking for more.
And of course USA and allies need to be careful to contain the conflict. And no, I am no war monger. But I do not believe that weakness is the path to lasting peace.
Paper tape? You were lucky. We had to write our programs with a pencil on a paper bag in a septic tank. We’d have to get up 6 o’ clock in the morning, rub out the pencil markings from the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down at the mill for 14 hours a day, week in, week out, for 6 pence a week, and when we got home, our father would thrash us to sleep with his belt
...now what if we establish a small backyard gold furnace in every commune and in each urban neighbourhood. I believe that will be a great leap forward in the gold farming economy.
"...states that ISP's must be capable of offering reasonably priced, atleast 1Mb broadband to every house."
It is clear that this is a hidden tax on broadband users in the more densely populated parts of Finland since the ISP's of course have to raise prices elsewhere to cover the cost of providing a cheap broadband to desolate areas.
In Denmark the government has a policy of not raising taxes (a very specific written promise to the population with some well described exemptions). This means that this kind of indirect taxing is the norm when the government needs to fund a new political initiative. Personally I dislike it since it is not transparent what the costs of a given policy implementation is and because it expands politicians control over business dramatically.
The real question is: How many rolls of duct tape can be moved to ISS per day? Perhaps the air gun will allow us to expand the life time of ISS indefinitely.
"And, FYI, your "peaceful marches" involved a freaking coup."
I thought the coup happened after an illegal demonstration by opposition groups and did not "involve" the coup. But anyway: So, you say that because a huge demonstration in 2002 violated directions on where they could demonstrate and therefore clashed violently with another demonstration you believe that it is sensible to use this as a carte blanche to harass peaceful demonstrations in general.
But nevermind. Let us rather look at the full picture of freedom in Venezuela. Freedomhouse.org publishes a survey of the political rights and civil liberties in all countries in the world every year. In their survey Venezuela is now a partially free country with a score of 4 (on a scale from 1-10 with 1 being the best) on both accounts. For comparison Cuba has a 7/6 (non free) score while USA has a 1/1 (free) score. So Venezuela is not as bad as Cuba but there is certainly room for improvement.
Personally I would recommend C++ or Fortran since that should quickly kill their interest in programming. And I really don't want more competition from bright young people.
I have found a reference to the story. It is from Historia Norwegia and the quote I was looking for is for example referenced in this NYT 1911 article:
I remember some years ago learning about a Viking who were one of the first to visit Greenland (I do not recall who). It was written "en passant" in one of the sagas that he had reported back in Island that curiously enough if you stab an Inuit with a sword he just keeps on bleeding (due to the extreme cold Inuits are genetically adapted to have blood that does not coagulate easily).
And who says that these Vikings were brutal warriors and not peaceful traders?
People with reduced vision often prefer incandescent light bulbs (at least that is what I have heard). The reason is that they can see better with these bulbs. It must be due to the difference in light spectra between the incandescent and CFLs. Hopefully these new inventions will allow people with reduced vision to see brightly after 2012;-)
No, the 2 year warranty is only a general example and is only valid for physical goods (although the European Commission is presently trying to extend it to software as well, http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10237212-92.html).
There are however plenty of other hidden costs associated with doing business in EU.
You simply cannot expect the price of Windows to be equal all over the globe. In many EU countries there is a thick layer of hidden costs that increases the price tremendously for almost all consumer goods. Let us take one example: warranty. In EU there is a EU mandated 2 year warranty on almost all products while in the US the warranty is usually much less. Since there is only the consumer to pay for the warranty this is a hidden cost that forces the seller to increase the price. Another example is the risk of litigation (which I guess MS considers quite high in EU). Other examples are legio.
A hardware example is the MacBook Pro which in Denmark costs 40% more than in the US.
"While I support adoption of open source, I am starting to get worries that it will get strongly labeled as Communist/Socialist.. now that China,Russia,and Cuba have all officially adopted it. Do you actually think that America would join them, even if it is in America's best interest?"
Why not just a commercial or volunteer Linux distribution? I don't see more need for a state run Linux distribution than for state run car factories.
Btw. the Chinese Red Flag distribution is AFAIK now a commercial distribution focusing on the Chinese market (and maybe getting some preferential treatment by the government). The Russian national OS is still vapourware and so is the Cuban.
So the bottom line is: There are no successful government developed operating systems. And there are perfectly good reasons for that. No reason to walk that path for America. Regarding use of Linux in public institutions I am all for it (although I think the decision is best taken at a local level).
As a side note the Swedish energy company Vattenfall (which owns a lot of the Danish coal plants) are currently undertaking large scale experiments with CO2 neutral coal plants (also one in Denmark):
"They love to present the EU as the creator of "loony rules" and regulations."
[rant] And that happens for a reason. We could start with the very basic fact that the EU maintains two parliaments approximately 350 km apart and moves between these two parliaments (one in France and one in Belgium) every month. This would correspond to the US Congress moving between Washington and New Jersey every month. Do you consider such a decision to be sane?
Well more to the point. I am a scientist and I have had the unfortunate experience of participating in several EU efforts to build a EU capacity (Soviet style socialism with centrally issued 5 year plans with the goal of building government owned comglomerates in areas that are currently served by a mixture of private and public players) in different areas. It is clear at least from my experience that the EU Commission viewpoint is focused on expanding the influence of the EU in the member countries and not on what is best for the EU citizens as a whole.
But you are of course right that most EU regulation is not insane. It is simply the amount and pervasiveness of regulation that makes it easy to pick the insane parts. [/rant]
Slashdot Mirror
I was just wondering when the robots will start shooting back. Will it be 2015, 2020 or 2030? Maybe we should have a slashdot poll on that. And should we call the computers controlling these robots for Skynet or would that infringe on known trademarks?
Yes, because Saudi Arabia is an Oasis of secular humanism now. The very model of a modern enlightenment.
Saudi Arabia has lots of money, but it's not distributed very broadly or fairly. Only a few Saudis are actually wealthy.
So they don't really have either prosperity or equality or enlightenment in that part of the world.
That is actually not true. The Gini coefficient (measure of economic in-equality, lower is more equal) is approximately 32 for Saudi Arabia and 40.8 for the USA. So it seems like your theory about economic equality and enlightenment is down the drain.
I agree entirely. Open a free market for organs (from dead people) and you will see the supply of organs explode. People who want to give away their organs for free can of course continue to do so. And the state authorities can of course continue to encourage people to donate their organs for free.
The only alternative to a free market is shortages and coercion. Both when we are talking about bread and organs.
Because you'd then have to auction off each seat in an order determined by order of importance, which would be logistically a nightmare with up to 100.000 seats available for an event.
I don't think that is true. They can just let a succesful bidder choose whatever remaining seat he wants. The seller does not have to decide which seat is the best for you. That way you can just wait until the price falls to $250 per ticket and grab the best seats available.
Because it is not a transposition of digits. There simply is no forecast and the estimate that they put in is pure BS. From TFA:
"The IPCC apparently sourced its forecast on a 2005 publication by the World Wildlife Fund. The WWF itself had picked it up from a 1999 magazine article based on a phone interview with an Indian scientist.
Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh, earlier this week, said that Himalayan glaciers are receding but he said the report they will vanish by 2035 is not based on scientific evidence. "
And because it has been going on for years it is okay? No, USA and allies needs to retaliate and take the battle to China. Or to put it plainly wage a cyberwar against China until they understand that this kind of behaviour is not tolerable. Otherwise we are just asking for more.
And of course USA and allies need to be careful to contain the conflict. And no, I am no war monger. But I do not believe that weakness is the path to lasting peace.
That reminds me of the red button in the pool of Maniac Mansion:
http://www.mobygames.com/game/amiga/maniac-mansion/screenshots/gameShotId,267642/
If you pushed the red button it would trigger a nuclear explosion would. I believe the text on the button was something along the line "Do not push".
Paper tape? You were lucky. We had to write our programs with a pencil on a paper bag in a septic tank. We’d have to get up 6 o’ clock in the morning, rub out the pencil markings from the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down at the mill for 14 hours a day, week in, week out, for 6 pence a week, and when we got home, our father would thrash us to sleep with his belt
...now what if we establish a small backyard gold furnace in every commune and in each urban neighbourhood. I believe that will be a great leap forward in the gold farming economy.
"...states that ISP's must be capable of offering reasonably priced, atleast 1Mb broadband to every house."
It is clear that this is a hidden tax on broadband users in the more densely populated parts of Finland since the ISP's of course have to raise prices elsewhere to cover the cost of providing a cheap broadband to desolate areas.
In Denmark the government has a policy of not raising taxes (a very specific written promise to the population with some well described exemptions). This means that this kind of indirect taxing is the norm when the government needs to fund a new political initiative. Personally I dislike it since it is not transparent what the costs of a given policy implementation is and because it expands politicians control over business dramatically.
The real question is: How many rolls of duct tape can be moved to ISS per day? Perhaps the air gun will allow us to expand the life time of ISS indefinitely.
"And, FYI, your "peaceful marches" involved a freaking coup."
I thought the coup happened after an illegal demonstration by opposition groups and did not "involve" the coup. But anyway: So, you say that because a huge demonstration in 2002 violated directions on where they could demonstrate and therefore clashed violently with another demonstration you believe that it is sensible to use this as a carte blanche to harass peaceful demonstrations in general.
But nevermind. Let us rather look at the full picture of freedom in Venezuela. Freedomhouse.org publishes a survey of the political rights and civil liberties in all countries in the world every year. In their survey Venezuela is now a partially free country with a score of 4 (on a scale from 1-10 with 1 being the best) on both accounts. For comparison Cuba has a 7/6 (non free) score while USA has a 1/1 (free) score. So Venezuela is not as bad as Cuba but there is certainly room for improvement.
Do you mean the US companies helped setup the filters in Iran? I thought that was European companies (Siemens and Nokia):
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124562668777335653.html
In China american companies like Yahoo, Microsoft and Google censor their search engines and content.
Personally I would recommend C++ or Fortran since that should quickly kill their interest in programming. And I really don't want more competition from bright young people.
"Around two billion people are thought to suffer some kind of brain impairment, he said."
Only two billion? Sounds kind of low. My estimate is more in the neighborhood of 6-7 billion.
Well, Wikipedia does not agree with you:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Greenland
I have found a reference to the story. It is from Historia Norwegia and the quote I was looking for is for example referenced in this NYT 1911 article:
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9D02EFDC1E31E233A25755C2A9679D946096D6CF
So the full quote was actually (about the Skraelings of Greenland):
"...they are struok with weapons when alive, their wounds are white and do not bleed, but when they are dead the blood scarcely stops running."
I remember some years ago learning about a Viking who were one of the first to visit Greenland (I do not recall who). It was written "en passant" in one of the sagas that he had reported back in Island that curiously enough if you stab an Inuit with a sword he just keeps on bleeding (due to the extreme cold Inuits are genetically adapted to have blood that does not coagulate easily).
And who says that these Vikings were brutal warriors and not peaceful traders?
People with reduced vision often prefer incandescent light bulbs (at least that is what I have heard). The reason is that they can see better with these bulbs. It must be due to the difference in light spectra between the incandescent and CFLs. Hopefully these new inventions will allow people with reduced vision to see brightly after 2012;-)
No, the 2 year warranty is only a general example and is only valid for physical goods (although the European Commission is presently trying to extend it to software as well, http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10237212-92.html).
There are however plenty of other hidden costs associated with doing business in EU.
You simply cannot expect the price of Windows to be equal all over the globe. In many EU countries there is a thick layer of hidden costs that increases the price tremendously for almost all consumer goods. Let us take one example: warranty. In EU there is a EU mandated 2 year warranty on almost all products while in the US the warranty is usually much less. Since there is only the consumer to pay for the warranty this is a hidden cost that forces the seller to increase the price. Another example is the risk of litigation (which I guess MS considers quite high in EU). Other examples are legio.
A hardware example is the MacBook Pro which in Denmark costs 40% more than in the US.
"While I support adoption of open source, I am starting to get worries that it will get strongly labeled as Communist/Socialist.. now that China,Russia,and Cuba have all officially adopted it. Do you actually think that America would join them, even if it is in America's best interest?"
Why not just a commercial or volunteer Linux distribution? I don't see more need for a state run Linux distribution than for state run car factories.
Btw. the Chinese Red Flag distribution is AFAIK now a commercial distribution focusing on the Chinese market (and maybe getting some preferential treatment by the government). The Russian national OS is still vapourware and so is the Cuban.
So the bottom line is: There are no successful government developed operating systems. And there are perfectly good reasons for that. No reason to walk that path for America. Regarding use of Linux in public institutions I am all for it (although I think the decision is best taken at a local level).
By pure extrapolation slashdotters _will_ be able to live on pizzas and coke in approximately:
25 years/generation * 40000 generations = 1 million years. Assuming of course that slashdotters reproduce.
As a side note the Swedish energy company Vattenfall (which owns a lot of the Danish coal plants) are currently undertaking large scale experiments with CO2 neutral coal plants (also one in Denmark):
http://www.atlantic-times.com/archive_detail.php?recordID=1532
So who knows. Maybe coal will be the next green energy source (or maybe not).
"They love to present the EU as the creator of "loony rules" and regulations."
[rant]
And that happens for a reason. We could start with the very basic fact that the EU maintains two parliaments approximately 350 km apart and moves between these two parliaments (one in France and one in Belgium) every month. This would correspond to the US Congress moving between Washington and New Jersey every month. Do you consider such a decision to be sane?
Well more to the point. I am a scientist and I have had the unfortunate experience of participating in several EU efforts to build a EU capacity (Soviet style socialism with centrally issued 5 year plans with the goal of building government owned comglomerates in areas that are currently served by a mixture of private and public players) in different areas. It is clear at least from my experience that the EU Commission viewpoint is focused on expanding the influence of the EU in the member countries and not on what is best for the EU citizens as a whole.
But you are of course right that most EU regulation is not insane. It is simply the amount and pervasiveness of regulation that makes it easy to pick the insane parts.
[/rant]
Yup, you can sign up here:
https://www.google.com/health