Re:Semi-serious?
on
Game with God
·
· Score: 0, Troll
"Yes. But foreknowledge does not imply a lack of choice."
I'm sorry, but yes it does. If you can predict with one hundred percent certitude what it is that I will do, it means that free will is illusory: if means that no matter what I think, I can only act in precisely one manner. Moreover, since God stacked the deck of the universe in precisely the way he wanted (since (a) he could set it up however he wanted, (b) he knew how each setup would end up, ergo (c) he picked the setup to result in the outcome he wanted), he wanted us to behave in the way we did.
Hell, lets pretend Free Will isn't the discussion. Look at just the deterministic question: if God could pick the outcome of all our lives, and did so, why would he pick the one that involved suffering? The standard, and only possible, answer is that God wanted us to either (a) learn something we don't yet understand or (b) something we cannot understand. You dont think that that is both a cop-out and absurd?
By the way, I can't help but notice how you ignored almost my entire post: you don't think its disingenuous to ignore almost an entire argument and respond to only one part? Just curious.
"Because He is God."
Apparently you don't know what "a reason" is. You seem to be implying that it is part of the definition of "God" that he is to be worshipped (a thought which is disturbingly in line with the "I am" name that God uses for himself to Moses). Here's a question for you to ask yourself: if it is a core component of God's identity that he is to be worshipped, what does that mean about his motivations in Creation? If He knows (and He must know everything, right? Oh yeah, you didn't discuss that...) that his creations must worship Him because he's owed it because of nothing he did but rather only his nature, then why would he make those creations dislike worship so much? Wouldn't it make more sense to make some creation that couldn't do anything but enjoy worship? What's that you say, that the Angels were supposed to be like that? Interesting, except for the fact that apparently the Morningstar and 1/3rd of the heavenly host disagreed, and Fell.
Sorry, your god is either a liar or a bastard. If I die, I honestly hope I don't face him, because it would drive whatever consciousness I hold completely insane to find out that the deity of the universe was so wracked with paradoxes, contradictions, horribly morality and nonsensical belief.
Re:Religion IS escapism
on
Game with God
·
· Score: 1
"(see the letters of Paul for this kind of thing, though Paul seemed to believe it would happen any day now)"
Yes, this is called millenialism. This was the root of almost all the problems people have with the New Testament in form, if not content: Jesus' disciples believed he was returning quite literally 'any day now' after he 'ascended to heaven'. Jewish prophecies about the messiah (a military title referring to the Warrior King who would repell the invaders of Israel and reinstate the Kingdom of David) demanded the actualy presence of that man in the rebuilding of the kingdom.
Jesus' disciples all thought this was an imminant event. This is why the earliest gospels, even according to Christian scholarship, aren't written down for decades after Jesus' death (assuming he was an actual living person). Basically what happened was this: they each went about their lives, preaching the religion, expecting each day that Jesus would return soon (assuming they really believed it). When each of them began to get close to 'old age' and started to fear that the New Kingdom wasn't coming in their lifetime, they took up the task of writing their gospels.
Re:Semi-serious?
on
Game with God
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
"There's a difference between "all knowledge" and "specifically forbidden knowledge"."
Here's the thing: original sin is a disgusting idea for the simple fact that it blames descendents of a pair of people 2,000 years down the line, for the actions of those two people (assuming the myth is taking as wholly true). How is that possibly reasonable? We already bear the punishment that we'll die (since before the Fall, Man was immortal on Earth in Eden)
Moreover, what's the point in putting a tree which provides any sort of knowledge right in the path of your creation, if you're not only omnipotent and omniscient, but also don't want that creation to fiddle with the tree? If God is omniscient, He knew irrefutably that Adam and Eve would Fall; if he didn't know, he's not omniscient. Lack of omniscience by definition entails the lack of omnipotence (since omnipotence means having the ability to do anything, including acquire omniscience, and to do so at any time and throughout time). Thus, either God placed that Tree and those two people with the full foreknowledge that they would Fall, or this God is not the omniscient, omnipotent being it claims to be. In the former case, how can Adam and Eve be blamed, since it was God's fault they were there? In the latter case, God is apparently a deceiver and a liar, claiming to be something he most certainly is not. In either event, why should one worship such a being?
There is a difference between private people using their cameras, and law enforcement using their cameras. Law enforcement needs just-cause, private does not. The intentionality is different.
Bzzzt! Wrong. There's a reason why every police car has a camera mounted on the front that runs whether or not the cop has pulled someone over or not: they're allowed to video public space, period. The reason they do it is to protect the police officer, and to collect evidence during routine pull-overs, but its legality is due to the nature of public space.
Please do not call imply others are "retarded, don't understand the words you're using, or you're just being flamebait" until you step back and fully digest the topic at hand.
The poster to whom I was responding stated (not implied) that video taping someone in public space was a kind of rape. The intellect required to make that sort of erroneous parallel implies such a low iq as to qualify as retarded (i.e. iq=75 or less). The only other options were the ones I listed: he didn't understand the words he was using (rape, video, or something else), or he was being flamebait (i.e. posting an absurd point in order to agitate people). Perhaps you should try and digest what the topic was at hand.
Police officers are not legally allowed to rape you; cameras for monitoring as a "preventative" measure is a kind of rape.
You're kidding, right? You actually believe that (a) your protection against rape has anything to do with privacy, and (b) that passively recording your activities in public is somehow equivalent to violently forcing you to submit to unwanted sexual acts? Either you're retarded, don't understand the words you're using, or you're just being flamebait.
If you don't stop this now, you'll become accustomed to these new ways, and then you'll next reques "we should all be innoculated with XXXXXX to prevent YYYYYY" or "we should specially register all XXXArabsXXX for reason YYYTerrorismYYY". Oh the latter part already has happened.
Apparently, you don't understand any of the arguments involved here. The fact is that public space has repeatedly been determined to be fair-game for anyone including the state to use cameras. In fact, if this were not true it would be illegal for you to use a camera of any type in any space except your own private property. You're pretending as if this is some new invasion into a mythical privacy, in the pursuit of safety. No, it just isn't: this is the use of existing legal rights [of both private citizens and the public state] to protect existing rights.
Re:It's a city, and a public place.
on
1984 Comes To Boston
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
No, this isn't something that's appropriate to fight. This is the State administering public space. Its placing cameras in public space, and thus not invading your privacy in any way, whatsoever. This is no worse than the ticket-cameras in Ft. Lauderdale or any of the other cities that have such pilot programs.
It violates the third law of thermodynamics, that the universe moves towards an increasingly entropic state.
Look at it this way: if all the matter in the universe were condensed into a black hole which in doing so destroyed all the information about that matter, the universe would be less entropic than before the black hole consumed everything.
Hawking radiation was in fact initially proposed as a means of seeming to counteract that: the radiation emitted due to quantum pair formation at the event horizon was calculated so that the following was always true: the Hawking radiation contributed more entropy to the universe than the infalling matter could have contained. Considering that the event horizon increases with the mass of the black hole, the balance was maintained.
String theory, for several reasons, has changed some of the underlying theories, hence the upcoming speech.
As much as you're being ironic, you've actually hit on a real point here.
There are already a few cases involving people displaying porn on the headrest displays in their car (I dont have a link handy, but I could swear I saw one or more mentioned here at/.).
How long after these are developed do you think it will be before someone is arrested for seruptitiously displaying pornography in public? What about if you flash it quickly so only oner person sees it, and stop before they realize who caused it? I'm dreading the moment where I'm walking in the street and suddenly Goatse.cx pops up on the ground in front of me =P...
1: Plasmas look perfect in bright light, allowing you to use them without blanketing the room in darkness.
2: Plasmas are rated to last around a decade, give or take. Bulbs in projectors need to be replaced (after a comprarable amount of use) in about 1-2 years.
3: Plasmas are almost without exception higher resolution and clarity than projectors.
4: Plasmas are almost without exception better at displaying pure black and pure white, and thus at displaying all colors in between, than projectors.
5: Plasms dont require an unobstructed path between the projector at the screen, i.e. they're easier to position in a potentially crowded room.
I think you're confused. It supports avi files in the Divx codec (i.e. example.avi) as opposed to divx files in the divx codec (i.e. example.divx). Does that help you?
There's no actual reason why older movies must be better. Some movies - from whatever era - are better than other movies. Few people, for example, would question that Casablanca is wonderful. However, there is a serious deficit which older movies must overcome: the lack of cinematographic techniques that are bundled into the advances in lenses and filmwork that have been developed in the past few decades. It's a little like comparing a drawing done with only charcoal to a drawing done with charcoal and wax highlights. Its not that highlights are automatically better, but there are certain effects that cannot be accomplished without that wax tool. Similarly, there are things that modern directors can do that early directors never could.
There's a difference. Paying to see a movie is just that: paying to see something. In other words, when you go to a movie theater, you're paying for a service
By contrast, when you pay to buy a movie [i.e. on DVD], you're paying to own a copy of something. In other words, when you buy a DVD [or parallel product, i.e. CD] you're paying for a good.
So there it is: the key economic distinction between goods and services is that in the former case, you're expected to leave with a new product, while in the latter case you expect only to be treated in a certain manner.
Um, this may be more philosophy than Slashdot usually prefers, but you're being a bit too glib here.
Punishment (including jail) can serve any combination of the following: to rehabilitate, to exact vengeance, and to isolate [i.e. to protect either the perpetrator or the innocent]. These are typically if not entirely not mutually exclusive, so it isn't unreasonable for a judicial system to adopt more than one.
The problem however, is that the American judicial system (or perhaps more clearly, the American criminal system) does not have a single perspective on the goal of the system [and in all fairness, no other nation in the world has a single perspective either]. Historically, legal Opinions laid down by Judges (these are the explanations written by judges in various cases, and are only presented when desired by the judge) have advocated various combinations of the three possible goals, and so it becomes impossible to determine which is 'right'. As if to make the problem worse, our founding fathers were clearly in dispute about the goals of their criminal system both as implied by their lack of its discussion in the constitution (there are no claims to the purpose of the criminal system in that hallowed document), and in their explicitly written debates about the issue over their lifetimes.
The only consensus is that the Jury is never supposed to attempt to subvert the law to their own opinions. The entire purpose of a jury is to determine the guilt [or lack thereof] of a defendent, and then in certain cases to determine the specific punishment from a list of possibilities.
So, to summarize, I agree that the jury should have given the subject lifetime in jail (if it was his 3rd offense in a 3-strike state), but I disagree with your statement of hte purpose of jailtime.
Actually, no. The internet is an interactive service in a sense that air is not, and thus the analogy is false.
Even more relevant is the fact that the internet must be paid for - in this case by the university, who then charges a sub-fee to the students) - whereas air is free.
This of course doesn't work at universities where you must live on campus. Georgetown (my alma mater) requires that you live on campus for the first two years of undergrad, and I'm pretty sure Harvard requires all four years.
Am I the only one saying WTF?
on
Spider-Man in India
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Explain to me why we're re-doing comics for other locales? Can't they make their own comics?
That said, its pretty much a non-issue. There have been several alternate spider-man styles over the years (most recently the on-going Ultimate line), so its not like this is anything special.
The only thing I find really that stupid is that they're going to have to completely reinvent all the relevant characters to fit this 'new' spider man, so what is the point? Why not just make a new super hero?*
*: obviously, the Ultimate line isn't vulnerable to the same criticism, because the entire point of it is to provide an alternate take on a hero that is already popular. Spider Man, however, isn't popular in India.
I was suggesting it'd be pressurized so that instead of pouring it into the battery, you'd hook it up and the pressure would force the liquid fuel into the battery.
As to whether your rechargables are costing you money, my feeling is that even if they do (and I dont know either way), you'd be paying for the convenience of never swapping them out (or going out to buy more).
As to the fuel cells, my guess is that you'd have to do something like recharge them via a larger containment cell like when you refill your blowtorch from a larger gas can. The methanol can, in this case, would be pressurized, with a nozzle that fits into a socket on the battery. You'd push it it, and either it would load automatically or you'd press a release, etc.
I'm pretty positive I said "see your data", as in have it be accessible by myself and the rest of the slashdot readers. Otherwise, you're asking us to take your word for it.
I included ERGM in the post for the simple reason that the article being discussed here did the same. Moreover, I took my numbers from that same article, so if you have any dispute with those numbers, take it up with them, not me.
That said, I'd be interested to see your data for such a comparison, since I was operating based on the article here.
It has a few obvious benefits, especially as compared to rockets/missiles:
1: It cannot be tracked in a meaningful amount of time. In other words, because of the comparatively high speed (6 minutes in the air, as compared to 60 minutes or 10 minutes for the ERGM and LRLAP), and significally smaller size (30 inches as compared to 60 inches for an ERGM or 88 inches for an LRLAP) and higher impact force (16.9 MJ as compared to 2.2MJ and 7.8 MJ for the ERGM and LRLAP respectively) the rail cannot be anticipated anywhere nearly as easily.
2: Because of this, it is almost impossible to deflect it/move out of the way.
3: Also, the cost of individual rails will be significantly less than the cost of an individual missile.
Civil wars aren't civil wars. They're insurrections. The term 'civil war' is a complete misnomer, contrary to political definitions of war since the concept was codified in the 1500s.
First, I applaud you having the guts to say something that is going to almost certainly get you modded down: slashdot isn't a haven for posts that suggest that privacy isn't the primal need in the world. Its just a need, to some degree or another.
However, the problem you're discussing is massively more complex than you're realizing: true, terrorists think they're fighting a war. However, they are most certainly not. A war is a conflict between nations - political entities that not only make themselves available for communication, but who hold physical territory. Terrorists such as Al-Queda hold no land which is their nation, but rather are hosted by friendly nations such as Saudi Arabia (our partner in peace, of course). As such, terrorists are able to engage in 'military' attacks which cannot be reciprocated (find me a tower full of civilian al-queda, please...). In a war, all attacks are potentially reciprocal (within the limitations of comparative wealth, size, obviously). This reciprocity serves as a form of restraint on the actions of nations, limiting their willingness to commit atrocities*.
Because terrorists by definition need not fear reciprocation, nor [in the case of Islamic extremists] do they fear suicidal missions, they cannot be dealt with by traditional or by-and-large existing military methods. Rather, they must be approached in the same manner as which domestic terrorists [a la the Unabomber] are: a combination of military and police intelligence and effort.
While I don't agree with the need for this ability for the CIA (since the FBI and local law enforcement have can fulfill this function so long as they're properly trained/breifed), I do agree with their reasoning for the nature of the 'war'.
*: Yes, obviously Russia, Italy, Germany and the rest of the Axis committed atrocities [purges of all types], as some would argue we did [Japanese internment, Dresden, Nagasaki]. However, those nations who knew they were atrocities kept them hidden, while those 'atrocities' which are debateable are obviously excempt.
Slashdot Mirror
"Yes. But foreknowledge does not imply a lack of choice."
I'm sorry, but yes it does. If you can predict with one hundred percent certitude what it is that I will do, it means that free will is illusory: if means that no matter what I think, I can only act in precisely one manner. Moreover, since God stacked the deck of the universe in precisely the way he wanted (since (a) he could set it up however he wanted, (b) he knew how each setup would end up, ergo (c) he picked the setup to result in the outcome he wanted), he wanted us to behave in the way we did.
Hell, lets pretend Free Will isn't the discussion. Look at just the deterministic question: if God could pick the outcome of all our lives, and did so, why would he pick the one that involved suffering? The standard, and only possible, answer is that God wanted us to either (a) learn something we don't yet understand or (b) something we cannot understand. You dont think that that is both a cop-out and absurd?
By the way, I can't help but notice how you ignored almost my entire post: you don't think its disingenuous to ignore almost an entire argument and respond to only one part? Just curious.
"Because He is God."
Apparently you don't know what "a reason" is. You seem to be implying that it is part of the definition of "God" that he is to be worshipped (a thought which is disturbingly in line with the "I am" name that God uses for himself to Moses). Here's a question for you to ask yourself: if it is a core component of God's identity that he is to be worshipped, what does that mean about his motivations in Creation? If He knows (and He must know everything, right? Oh yeah, you didn't discuss that...) that his creations must worship Him because he's owed it because of nothing he did but rather only his nature, then why would he make those creations dislike worship so much? Wouldn't it make more sense to make some creation that couldn't do anything but enjoy worship? What's that you say, that the Angels were supposed to be like that? Interesting, except for the fact that apparently the Morningstar and 1/3rd of the heavenly host disagreed, and Fell.
Sorry, your god is either a liar or a bastard. If I die, I honestly hope I don't face him, because it would drive whatever consciousness I hold completely insane to find out that the deity of the universe was so wracked with paradoxes, contradictions, horribly morality and nonsensical belief.
"(see the letters of Paul for this kind of thing, though Paul seemed to believe it would happen any day now)"
Yes, this is called millenialism. This was the root of almost all the problems people have with the New Testament in form, if not content: Jesus' disciples believed he was returning quite literally 'any day now' after he 'ascended to heaven'. Jewish prophecies about the messiah (a military title referring to the Warrior King who would repell the invaders of Israel and reinstate the Kingdom of David) demanded the actualy presence of that man in the rebuilding of the kingdom.
Jesus' disciples all thought this was an imminant event. This is why the earliest gospels, even according to Christian scholarship, aren't written down for decades after Jesus' death (assuming he was an actual living person). Basically what happened was this: they each went about their lives, preaching the religion, expecting each day that Jesus would return soon (assuming they really believed it). When each of them began to get close to 'old age' and started to fear that the New Kingdom wasn't coming in their lifetime, they took up the task of writing their gospels.
"There's a difference between "all knowledge" and "specifically forbidden knowledge"."
Here's the thing: original sin is a disgusting idea for the simple fact that it blames descendents of a pair of people 2,000 years down the line, for the actions of those two people (assuming the myth is taking as wholly true). How is that possibly reasonable? We already bear the punishment that we'll die (since before the Fall, Man was immortal on Earth in Eden)
Moreover, what's the point in putting a tree which provides any sort of knowledge right in the path of your creation, if you're not only omnipotent and omniscient, but also don't want that creation to fiddle with the tree? If God is omniscient, He knew irrefutably that Adam and Eve would Fall; if he didn't know, he's not omniscient. Lack of omniscience by definition entails the lack of omnipotence (since omnipotence means having the ability to do anything, including acquire omniscience, and to do so at any time and throughout time). Thus, either God placed that Tree and those two people with the full foreknowledge that they would Fall, or this God is not the omniscient, omnipotent being it claims to be. In the former case, how can Adam and Eve be blamed, since it was God's fault they were there? In the latter case, God is apparently a deceiver and a liar, claiming to be something he most certainly is not. In either event, why should one worship such a being?
There is a difference between private people using their cameras, and law enforcement using their cameras. Law enforcement needs just-cause, private does not. The intentionality is different. Bzzzt! Wrong. There's a reason why every police car has a camera mounted on the front that runs whether or not the cop has pulled someone over or not: they're allowed to video public space, period. The reason they do it is to protect the police officer, and to collect evidence during routine pull-overs, but its legality is due to the nature of public space.
Please do not call imply others are "retarded, don't understand the words you're using, or you're just being flamebait" until you step back and fully digest the topic at hand.
The poster to whom I was responding stated (not implied) that video taping someone in public space was a kind of rape. The intellect required to make that sort of erroneous parallel implies such a low iq as to qualify as retarded (i.e. iq=75 or less). The only other options were the ones I listed: he didn't understand the words he was using (rape, video, or something else), or he was being flamebait (i.e. posting an absurd point in order to agitate people). Perhaps you should try and digest what the topic was at hand.
Police officers are not legally allowed to rape you; cameras for monitoring as a "preventative" measure is a kind of rape.
You're kidding, right? You actually believe that (a) your protection against rape has anything to do with privacy, and (b) that passively recording your activities in public is somehow equivalent to violently forcing you to submit to unwanted sexual acts? Either you're retarded, don't understand the words you're using, or you're just being flamebait.
If you don't stop this now, you'll become accustomed to these new ways, and then you'll next reques "we should all be innoculated with XXXXXX to prevent YYYYYY" or "we should specially register all XXXArabsXXX for reason YYYTerrorismYYY". Oh the latter part already has happened.
Apparently, you don't understand any of the arguments involved here. The fact is that public space has repeatedly been determined to be fair-game for anyone including the state to use cameras. In fact, if this were not true it would be illegal for you to use a camera of any type in any space except your own private property. You're pretending as if this is some new invasion into a mythical privacy, in the pursuit of safety. No, it just isn't: this is the use of existing legal rights [of both private citizens and the public state] to protect existing rights.
No, this isn't something that's appropriate to fight. This is the State administering public space. Its placing cameras in public space, and thus not invading your privacy in any way, whatsoever. This is no worse than the ticket-cameras in Ft. Lauderdale or any of the other cities that have such pilot programs.
It violates the third law of thermodynamics, that the universe moves towards an increasingly entropic state.
Look at it this way: if all the matter in the universe were condensed into a black hole which in doing so destroyed all the information about that matter, the universe would be less entropic than before the black hole consumed everything.
Hawking radiation was in fact initially proposed as a means of seeming to counteract that: the radiation emitted due to quantum pair formation at the event horizon was calculated so that the following was always true: the Hawking radiation contributed more entropy to the universe than the infalling matter could have contained. Considering that the event horizon increases with the mass of the black hole, the balance was maintained.
String theory, for several reasons, has changed some of the underlying theories, hence the upcoming speech.
As much as you're being ironic, you've actually hit on a real point here.
/.).
There are already a few cases involving people displaying porn on the headrest displays in their car (I dont have a link handy, but I could swear I saw one or more mentioned here at
How long after these are developed do you think it will be before someone is arrested for seruptitiously displaying pornography in public? What about if you flash it quickly so only oner person sees it, and stop before they realize who caused it? I'm dreading the moment where I'm walking in the street and suddenly Goatse.cx pops up on the ground in front of me =P...
There are several reasons:
1: Plasmas look perfect in bright light, allowing you to use them without blanketing the room in darkness.
2: Plasmas are rated to last around a decade, give or take. Bulbs in projectors need to be replaced (after a comprarable amount of use) in about 1-2 years.
3: Plasmas are almost without exception higher resolution and clarity than projectors.
4: Plasmas are almost without exception better at displaying pure black and pure white, and thus at displaying all colors in between, than projectors.
5: Plasms dont require an unobstructed path between the projector at the screen, i.e. they're easier to position in a potentially crowded room.
There are more, but I'll leave it at that.
I think you're confused. It supports avi files in the Divx codec (i.e. example.avi) as opposed to divx files in the divx codec (i.e. example.divx). Does that help you?
Just press and hold both the play/pause button and the menu button for a few seconds (both simultaneously).
I don't want to rant, so this will be short.
There's no actual reason why older movies must be better. Some movies - from whatever era - are better than other movies. Few people, for example, would question that Casablanca is wonderful. However, there is a serious deficit which older movies must overcome: the lack of cinematographic techniques that are bundled into the advances in lenses and filmwork that have been developed in the past few decades. It's a little like comparing a drawing done with only charcoal to a drawing done with charcoal and wax highlights. Its not that highlights are automatically better, but there are certain effects that cannot be accomplished without that wax tool. Similarly, there are things that modern directors can do that early directors never could.
There's a difference. Paying to see a movie is just that: paying to see something. In other words, when you go to a movie theater, you're paying for a service
By contrast, when you pay to buy a movie [i.e. on DVD], you're paying to own a copy of something. In other words, when you buy a DVD [or parallel product, i.e. CD] you're paying for a good.
So there it is: the key economic distinction between goods and services is that in the former case, you're expected to leave with a new product, while in the latter case you expect only to be treated in a certain manner.
Um, this may be more philosophy than Slashdot usually prefers, but you're being a bit too glib here.
Punishment (including jail) can serve any combination of the following: to rehabilitate, to exact vengeance, and to isolate [i.e. to protect either the perpetrator or the innocent]. These are typically if not entirely not mutually exclusive, so it isn't unreasonable for a judicial system to adopt more than one.
The problem however, is that the American judicial system (or perhaps more clearly, the American criminal system) does not have a single perspective on the goal of the system [and in all fairness, no other nation in the world has a single perspective either]. Historically, legal Opinions laid down by Judges (these are the explanations written by judges in various cases, and are only presented when desired by the judge) have advocated various combinations of the three possible goals, and so it becomes impossible to determine which is 'right'. As if to make the problem worse, our founding fathers were clearly in dispute about the goals of their criminal system both as implied by their lack of its discussion in the constitution (there are no claims to the purpose of the criminal system in that hallowed document), and in their explicitly written debates about the issue over their lifetimes.
The only consensus is that the Jury is never supposed to attempt to subvert the law to their own opinions. The entire purpose of a jury is to determine the guilt [or lack thereof] of a defendent, and then in certain cases to determine the specific punishment from a list of possibilities.
So, to summarize, I agree that the jury should have given the subject lifetime in jail (if it was his 3rd offense in a 3-strike state), but I disagree with your statement of hte purpose of jailtime.
He's just getting started.
Actually, no. The internet is an interactive service in a sense that air is not, and thus the analogy is false.
Even more relevant is the fact that the internet must be paid for - in this case by the university, who then charges a sub-fee to the students) - whereas air is free.
This of course doesn't work at universities where you must live on campus. Georgetown (my alma mater) requires that you live on campus for the first two years of undergrad, and I'm pretty sure Harvard requires all four years.
Explain to me why we're re-doing comics for other locales? Can't they make their own comics?
That said, its pretty much a non-issue. There have been several alternate spider-man styles over the years (most recently the on-going Ultimate line), so its not like this is anything special.
The only thing I find really that stupid is that they're going to have to completely reinvent all the relevant characters to fit this 'new' spider man, so what is the point? Why not just make a new super hero?*
*: obviously, the Ultimate line isn't vulnerable to the same criticism, because the entire point of it is to provide an alternate take on a hero that is already popular. Spider Man, however, isn't popular in India.
I was suggesting it'd be pressurized so that instead of pouring it into the battery, you'd hook it up and the pressure would force the liquid fuel into the battery.
As to whether your rechargables are costing you money, my feeling is that even if they do (and I dont know either way), you'd be paying for the convenience of never swapping them out (or going out to buy more).
As to the fuel cells, my guess is that you'd have to do something like recharge them via a larger containment cell like when you refill your blowtorch from a larger gas can. The methanol can, in this case, would be pressurized, with a nozzle that fits into a socket on the battery. You'd push it it, and either it would load automatically or you'd press a release, etc.
I'm pretty positive I said "see your data", as in have it be accessible by myself and the rest of the slashdot readers. Otherwise, you're asking us to take your word for it.
I included ERGM in the post for the simple reason that the article being discussed here did the same. Moreover, I took my numbers from that same article, so if you have any dispute with those numbers, take it up with them, not me.
That said, I'd be interested to see your data for such a comparison, since I was operating based on the article here.
It has a few obvious benefits, especially as compared to rockets/missiles:
1: It cannot be tracked in a meaningful amount of time. In other words, because of the comparatively high speed (6 minutes in the air, as compared to 60 minutes or 10 minutes for the ERGM and LRLAP), and significally smaller size (30 inches as compared to 60 inches for an ERGM or 88 inches for an LRLAP) and higher impact force (16.9 MJ as compared to 2.2MJ and 7.8 MJ for the ERGM and LRLAP respectively) the rail cannot be anticipated anywhere nearly as easily.
2: Because of this, it is almost impossible to deflect it/move out of the way.
3: Also, the cost of individual rails will be significantly less than the cost of an individual missile.
Civil wars aren't civil wars. They're insurrections. The term 'civil war' is a complete misnomer, contrary to political definitions of war since the concept was codified in the 1500s.
First, I applaud you having the guts to say something that is going to almost certainly get you modded down: slashdot isn't a haven for posts that suggest that privacy isn't the primal need in the world. Its just a need, to some degree or another.
However, the problem you're discussing is massively more complex than you're realizing: true, terrorists think they're fighting a war. However, they are most certainly not. A war is a conflict between nations - political entities that not only make themselves available for communication, but who hold physical territory. Terrorists such as Al-Queda hold no land which is their nation, but rather are hosted by friendly nations such as Saudi Arabia (our partner in peace, of course). As such, terrorists are able to engage in 'military' attacks which cannot be reciprocated (find me a tower full of civilian al-queda, please...). In a war, all attacks are potentially reciprocal (within the limitations of comparative wealth, size, obviously). This reciprocity serves as a form of restraint on the actions of nations, limiting their willingness to commit atrocities*.
Because terrorists by definition need not fear reciprocation, nor [in the case of Islamic extremists] do they fear suicidal missions, they cannot be dealt with by traditional or by-and-large existing military methods. Rather, they must be approached in the same manner as which domestic terrorists [a la the Unabomber] are: a combination of military and police intelligence and effort.
While I don't agree with the need for this ability for the CIA (since the FBI and local law enforcement have can fulfill this function so long as they're properly trained/breifed), I do agree with their reasoning for the nature of the 'war'.
*: Yes, obviously Russia, Italy, Germany and the rest of the Axis committed atrocities [purges of all types], as some would argue we did [Japanese internment, Dresden, Nagasaki]. However, those nations who knew they were atrocities kept them hidden, while those 'atrocities' which are debateable are obviously excempt.