No, I'd call the title downright wrong. Not voting for a policy that supports something is not voting against that thing. I'd say that Google's ability to provide some information is much more important than Google cutting off it's nose to spite China's face. At least the chinese public gets SOME info, and even if Google didn't allow chinese access, other companies would. And if Google did decide not to service China as a protest, the Chinese government wouldn't care; in fact, they'd prefer it.
It's no different than my local government voting in an anti-war resolution. It means nothing when they do it, and it doesn't mean they are hawks if they don't.
You think out of 100 million people, nobody will be having "egoic intentions"?
You think out of 100 million people, they won't pass laws that suppress, repress, digress, and every other 'ess, those who make up the other 150 or more million in this country?
The "pioneer, radical, outcast" you claim are essential simply won't be part of any collective.
The impetus for change comes from inside. Kruschev said he'd bury us. He banged his shoe on the lecturn. Banging his shoe on the lecturn did nothing. It's the slow erosion from minor changes that are doing the burying. It's the frog in the pot syndrome.
For example: where would you start designing the circuit I mentioned above (a simple blinking LED) using stuff from this book?
I'd spend $.85 and buy a flashing led. Of course, that's because the flashing led would only be part of a circuit doing other things and it would cost more than $.85 of my time making it flash.
Mod parent way way up. Oh, it's already +5. Informative.
I looked at the "misconceptions" site. "When you have an electron and a proton, do you have twice the charge?" Ummm, last time I checked, +1 added to -1 was 0. Did the rules of math change overnight?
When I got to the "electricity is a silver fluid" part, I was ROTFL. Sometimes when I want to screw with people's heads, I'll tell them not to cut a wire while the power is on because the electrons will leak out all over the floor and they'll have a hard time cleaning them all up. Or they'll ask me if or why they need to terminate the feedlines they run when they steal^H^H^H^H^Hborrow the neighbor's cable TV, and I'll tell them of the dangers of leaking electrons. Here's a whole book based on that concept. (Screwing with people's heads, that is.)
The problem with Card's summary is that this is not just a "use of an idea". He presents a very high level description of a concept that has appeared in more than one author's books as proof that Rowling shouldn't be suing.
The company she's suing isn't using a "high level concept" like "poor child learns he's got special abilities". That company is using Rowling's characters explicitely, cataloging them and defining them. They are attempting to make canon for her universe, not creating another universe of their own with characters with similar backgrounds.
Not only are they trying to make canon for her characters, they are now trying to profit off of them. Those specific characters, by name.
If I started trying to sell a Picard action-figure (which would be limited, of course, to saying "make it so" and "I surrender") Paramount would, rightly, sue me. Why is this any different?
The (legitimate) registrars would not want to have to pay for the cost of this in the event of a normal user/company returning a domain,
Why would the registrar be paying this charge when someone returns a domain? It should be the registree who pays this. If you register a domain, part of the contract will be ".20c is nonrefundable" or "$1 is nonrefundable" or whatever.
The cost of a real registration should not go up to cover those who borrow them.
The Revolutionary War took place due to a foreign "government" trying to rule US citizens. The breaking point was taxation without representation, but mostly it was all laws without representation.
Of COURSE the US laws and points of view prevail IN THE US over anything else. We are a soverign nation. We have our own laws and our own courts. We aren't SUPPOSED to be controlled by every other country on the planet. Our SCOTUS isn't SUPPOSED to be considering other country's laws when they rule on laws we have passed here, they have a Constitution they are supposed to consider as supreme.
That Constitution says nothing about the WTO getting to change US laws they don't like. It says nothing about UN Resolutions. Our government tops out at the federal level.
I'm GLAD that it is that way. If I wanted to live under the laws of Germany, I'd move there. If I wanted Sharia (sp?) law, I'd move to a country that has that. If I think Germany has a stupid law, I have every right to say that, but there is no mechanism for me to force them to change their laws, NOR SHOULD THERE BE. Nor should there be a mechanism for Germans to force a change to our laws. And if using a specific country as an example confuses things, simply replace Germany with any other country. England, Germany, China, Japan, Sweden, whatever.
If that sounds like flamebait, well, I get tired of hearing people say things like 'The WTO says we are wrong to do X, so obviously we are wrong to do X and our laws must conform.' No. It is not obvious. We do NOT have to do what the WTO says we must. If we listen to the WTO and AGREE, well, that's one thing, but agreement isn't automatic. We can also listen and disagree, and if we disagree, we don't have to act.
It's like saying that the President doesn't listen to Sheehan or any other protesters because he doesn't immediately do what they demand. Yes, he listens, but he was elected to make choices, and not every person is going to agree with every choice. That's life.
Well, I am over 30, and I don't see just brushing off something because it's new.
"Because it's new" is irrelevant. "Because it would take time to install and investigate all the different and better features and decide if they really are better or not, when I already have something that does the job I need done" is the salient point.
Tied very closely to that is "because I could spend my entire life, or at least, my entire working life, installing different stuff and evaluating if it works better or not, instead of getting anything productive done".
Here's anecdotal evidence. I build systems to collect data. I typically use 800MHz single board systems running 2.4.21, from a Slackware distribution. Two weeks ago, I needed to build a system in a hurry. Instead of taking the time to use old technology, I decided to use a PC that was sitting unused.
It uses SATA disks. My stock system doesn't know SATA. I'll have to use a different one.
My backup Shrike (RH9) distro also doesn't know SATA. What now?
CentOS 5 knows SATA! But it doesn't know IEEE1394. I have to build the drivers.
Following the CentOS instructions to "build a new kernel" doesn't work, and it doesn't "build a kernel" anyway, it "builds a source RPM for the kernel that you can distribute". What now?
I found the source tree that was going to be made into an RPM, and I figured out how to compile the modules. All is happy? No.
The NEW Coriander won't run because it uses the NEW IEEE1394 stack and my application uses the old one. The OLD Coriander won't compile because it needs a version of Gnome libraries that no longer exist.
Thankfully, the CPU in this system is vastly overpowered for the job, because the CentOS people appear to do everything they can to prevent someone from modifying the stock kernel by reconfiguring and rebuilding it. The stock kernel runs fast enough to do what is necessary. (And I say "prevent" because five times I tried following the instructions to "build a new kernel" -- the source RPM so I could compile a new kernel myself -- and five times it died because the operating system didn't have "enough entropy" and gpg couldn't sign the rpm. I don't need a signature to prove to myself that myself made the RPM I want to use to install the source.)
All of the time I spent solving these problems I could have used to build an old-style embedded system. Yes, I certainly can spend a lot of time rewriting my code to use the new IEEE1394 stacks, assuming that the libraries I need for the devices are available, but then I am stuck having to support two radically different systems, since the new stuff won't run on the old systems already installed.
"Because it's new" has nothing to do with it. Sometimes "because it works" is the critical issue.
It's not wise to ignore that newer windows may be much more energy efficent than my current ones, although my current ones do keep the cold out. That doesn't mean I shouldn't bother investigating new windows.
Replacing perfectly good windows just because new ones are "energy efficient" is not always wise, either.
How much does it cost, and how long will I have to work to make the money to do it?
How much energy do they save, and at current energy prices, how long will it take for them to pay back the investment?
How long am I going to live in this house, and will the investment pay back before I move?
Will the sales price of my house increase enough to cover the cost of the improvement?
Sometimes "good enough" IS good enough. If they keep the cold out, then they are good enough.
If you're so afraid of change that it holds you back from something that very well might improve your life, I think that's a problem.
If something as trivial as a web browser is how you evaluate your life, then I think THAT'S a problem.
I'm using mozilla. 1.2.1. It's configured just how I want it. It has all the bookmarks I want. I know where it stores configuration files so I can go edit them when I need to. Why should I update?
Well, I did. I got firefox, ONLY because mozilla has one problem with a site we are running at work. Mozilla does everything except upload file attachments when writing a Drupal page. Now I can upload file attachments.
Except firefox didn't bother looking for my mozilla bookmarks, so they aren't there. And when I use it for/., it looks really awful -- to the point that it looks like a completely different/. interface.
I'll even give firefox BIG points for how easy it was to update. MUCH simpler than any other browser. I didn't get hit with ANY "missing dependencies", much less the missing dependencies that are unresolvable because the libraries don't exist for my version of the OS. But that doesn't mean I don't still use mozilla as my baseline browser.
And yes, if I started relying on firefox capabilities I might think that mozilla wasn't 'good enough' anymore, just like you don't think VS2003 is good enough anymore. I just don't think that "creeping featuritis" is how "good enough" should be defined. "Does the job" floats my boat.
If so, is it right for a police officer to not bring charges against the owner of an establishment because they do not allow black people to enter?
Yes. It's not a criminal issue, it's a civil one.
And further, doesn't the "right of free association" necessarily include the right NOT to associate? IF (and notice I said IF and not SINCE) I and all my friends choose not to associate with certain people, how can the government tell me I have to?
Well configured ftp servers don't allow download of files that have been uploaded. Mine doesn't even allow you to 'ls' the upload directory. It's a black hole.
A couple of my credit card companies did this (call me by name when they answered the phone) for a while. It REALLY bugged me. Not that they knew my name, but that they assumed that my work phone number, used by a whole room full of people, was always me calling.
They stopped. I asked why, and they said it really creeped their customers out.
Is the fact that "calling in SWAT teams gets people killed" the fault of the prankster, or the SWAT teams?
The "prankster", or better named, CRIMINAL.
Getting the police to knock down the door to someone's house and put the entire household at risk is not a "prank". It is deliberate and malicious assault, as much as if the criminal himself had broken down the door and held the residents at gun-point. The criminal knows very well what the police response to his fictitious call will be, the results are extremely predictable.
I believe you might want to look up the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_murder_rule. It makes anyone who participates in a felony (assault with a deadly weapon, e.g.) guilty if any one of the participants kills someone.
could they simply be trigger-happy gun owners?
If someone is breaking into your house unannounced while your family is asleep, it is not being 'trigger happy' to defend them. It is a life-and-death situation, not taken lightly, and not something people go looking for. It is insulting and ludicrous, even in a "devil's advocate" context, to label such people that way.
Granted that many gun-owners are responsible and informed, but are they all?
Your question is moot. It is not the fault of the gun owner in any way, shape, or form, that the SWAT team is breaking down his door. It is the fault of the criminal who made the fictitious call.
I do not understand why this is a "unique challenge" to the justice system. He's blind. He's committed a criminal act. His action could have been the reason someone died. Put him on trial, and if he is found guilty, put him in prison. End of story.
It is possible to prove Big-E evolution. All you have to do is start with some non-living stuff,...
Anyone who says this doesn't understand the difference between "could have happened this way" and "did happen this way." One is a theory, one is a fact.
You can start with all the non-living stuff you can find and create an entire metropolis with Starbucks on every corner, and it will not PROVE that that is how exiting metropolises with Starbucks on every corner came into being. It WILL prove that it MIGHT be how it happened, but proof is more than "might be". Until you prove more than "might be", it will still be a theory. Even "just a theory", since yes, is it just a theory, in both "science" talk and "normal" talk.
Oh, gosh, I don't know how you'll handle this one - HeLa.
I'll handle that one like I do all interesting things I hear about. I'll say "gosh, that's interesting". If it's available (thank you for a link), I'll read about it. Like I just did. And then I'll note the following things:
It's from wikipedia, so I'll consider the source. That article looks reasonably well documented and factual.
You forgot to quote the last part of the article, which says:
It should be noted that this definition has not been followed by others in the scientific community, nor, indeed, has it been widely noted.
With near unanimity, evolutionary scientists and biologists hold that a chimeric human cell line is not a distinct species.
HeLa have yet to become anything that would look in the evolutionary record as anything close to human. It is a line of cancer cells which is clearly a non-advantageous adaptation in a world that lacks medical facilities that can treat the victim. It certainly would not aide the existance of the modified organism, even though the cells would reproduce in large numbers in the right culture medium. It appears to be a backwards step in Evolution -- a conscious, reasoning multi-cellular organism becomes a petri dish full of single-cell organisms.
Mutations in human birth have happened many times, and many of the results have a different number of chromosomes than "normal". See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromosome_abnormalities. None of these, to my knowledge, has ever caused rejoicing in the Evolution community as proof that Evolution was a fact.
In any case, the mutation of a cell line today does nothing to prove that Evolution (Big-E) is how life began or how we got here. A modern observation cannot prove the means of an unobserved result.
Here's a trivial example. You look up and see a softball wedged up in some wires on a telephone pole. How did it get there?
Someone climbed the pole and forced it into place.
An unlucky batter during a friendly softball game hit it there.
Now, the CHANCES are someone climbed the pole, because the odds of hitting a ball just right to have it wedge like that are low. It's a reasonable theory. You can certainly climb the pole next to it with a ball in hand and wedge it into place so it looks like the first one. You could climb every pole in the neighborhood and wedge a ball into place by hand. However, having been the batter who hit the ball, I know the correct answer is 2.
Now, how did the first amino acids appear?
CO2, CH4, NH3, H2O, SO2, and electrical discharges, with maybe some high levels of UV created a primordial soup of all kinds of amino acids at random.
God said, "let there be amino acids".
An unlucky almost-passing meteor contained a pattern of some kind that caused the structured formation of amino acids, and it crashed into the earth without burning up completely.
If you recall, there was a famous experiment in the 50's or so that "proved" method 1 was what happened. Some people claim number 3 is what happened, but that leaves us asking "who created the pattern"? And some think number 2. Unfortunately, nobody was here to observe the method that was actually used, so we don't know, and there is no amount of science that can differentiate the right answer.
Third example. You are sitting under an apple tree and hear a thump. You turn to the left and see an apple that wasn't there when you sat down, and look up and see a branch that is now apple-less. The apple moved because:
Gravity pulled it down.
A random electrical discharge at the cellular level left the apple with a net positive charge and the earth with a net negative charge and positive attracted negative.
Magnetism.
A bird you did not see pushed against it as it flew away, and for every action there is an equal and o
Why do people keep insisting that Evolution, the act itself, isn't a fact?
Here's the problem. The word "evolution" is being used in two very different senses. The differences of scale do, indeed, make the words very different.
One use is for the small changes within a species over time. The "bird beaks". The deterioration of vision in humans. MRSA. These are all things that genetics easily explains. These are all evolution "facts".
The other sense covers "origin of life". Sludge turned into slime which turned into fish which turned into whatever. That's the "big E" Evolution. And yes, I know, I'm oversimplifying it alot. These are all the "could be's". These are all the ones where nobody was there to actually see it happen, so it's a theory that it is how it DID happen.
Two very different senses: these things were observed vs. these things we think happened. These observed facts vs. a theory about how unobserved results were obtained.
It is almost inevitable that whenever someone who argues for the latter, Big-E Evolution meets someone who doesn't believe in the Big-E version, the believer switches to talking about the little-E version and insults the non-believer for ignoring the "facts" of little-e evolution.
Yes, MRSA "evolved". That's a fact. A genetic mutation in non-MRSA resulted in a strain that was resistant. Simple genetics, and we can duplicate it in the lab as well as observe it in nature. Little-E evolution occurs.
BUT, little-E evolution does not prove Big-E Evolution. "This can happen" is not proof that "this did happen".
That's why "the theory of evolution" refers to Big-E evolution and is quite accurate in claiming that it is, indeed, only a theory. Science will not ever be able to convert Big-E evolution into a fact, since there is no method of proving how something DID happen, only ways to show how it COULD HAVE happened.
Maybe Big-E evolution did happen. Maybe the world was created to look as if it did. You cannot differentiate between the two, and little-E evolution does nothing to prove or disprove either.
I'm currently stuck with seeing if I can get a VM instance going and fake the same MAC for a migration...
The beauty of using Linux is that you get the source code. ALL the source code. Even the code that implements the IOCTL function for "tell me my interface's MAC address".
How many people need to be told that and still don't have it ready?
Why should I have to "have it ready" when going through the metal detector, when every security checkpoint I've been through has had someone who keeps you from getting into the line for the metal detector until he's seen your boarding pass AND picture ID?
If it's a good enough forgery to pass one TSA check, it will pass two. And three. And with this new online check-in, it's trivial to forge a boarding pass that can get past a human.
Trying to "start a dialogue" with people who strap bombs onto themselves so they can go out and kill women and children on a city bus is not "clear thinking". Rational discussion requires rationality on both sides. All you accomplish if you try to "dialogue" with radical terrorists is to prove to them that you are weak and an easy target.
binLaden is not the "face of panic", he's quite calm and very determined. There is no possible "reason" we can assert that will change his methods or goals. It is madness to think that we could ever give him enough to get him to leave us alone. Appeasement didn't work with Hitler, it won't work any better with today's nutcases.
I, too, am waiting for mine. I am almost at the point where I am going to dispute the charge and report the organization as a scam.
"Delivered by the holidays". Nope. "Delivered by Jan 15." Nope. Went to the website. "You can track your order...". Nope. All I get for a "tracking" result is a statement that almost all of the US units have been shipped, and that I can track my order at... an invalid link.
I called them on the 18th. "Your address is invalid". Well, that address is valid enough that I get my credit card statements there, and paypal validated it to make the charge. It's an address at one of the two largest employers in the city, large enough we have our own zipcode. The post office certainly knows where we are. "That address is invalid" after I correct the fact that they simply dropped the street address part of the address when they entered the order. "That address is invalid", even after I read them verbatim the address off the last credit card statement. The "support" person finally "set a flag" to ship to that address, even though he knew it was invalid. Right. He knows my address better than I do.
So, I asked, when were you intending on letting me know my address was invalid? "You are on the list of people we are going to call" he said. Since they don't have my phone number, I'm not sure how they thought they'd call me.
Several days later, I get an email notice: "your address is invalid". I call again. This time they don't even pretend that they can tell what is valid or not, they just write down the address and say "7 to ten business days". It was 7 to ten days a week ago, now it's seven to ten days again.
That email also says I can cancel my gift and get "$199 plus shipping" back. Companies that charge me before they ship and then cannot fulfill the order within the legal timeframe don't get to keep half my money, sorry.
Had they told me "we're low on supply", that would be a different story. That's not what they say. Feb. 7 is ten business days. Let's see what they say on the 8th when it hasn't arrived yet.
Slashdot Mirror
ab used to be Sun's Answerbook. Online documentation.
No, I'd call the title downright wrong. Not voting for a policy that supports something is not voting against that thing. I'd say that Google's ability to provide some information is much more important than Google cutting off it's nose to spite China's face. At least the chinese public gets SOME info, and even if Google didn't allow chinese access, other companies would. And if Google did decide not to service China as a protest, the Chinese government wouldn't care; in fact, they'd prefer it. It's no different than my local government voting in an anti-war resolution. It means nothing when they do it, and it doesn't mean they are hawks if they don't.
You think out of 100 million people, they won't pass laws that suppress, repress, digress, and every other 'ess, those who make up the other 150 or more million in this country?
The "pioneer, radical, outcast" you claim are essential simply won't be part of any collective.
The impetus for change comes from inside. Kruschev said he'd bury us. He banged his shoe on the lecturn. Banging his shoe on the lecturn did nothing. It's the slow erosion from minor changes that are doing the burying. It's the frog in the pot syndrome.
I'd spend $.85 and buy a flashing led. Of course, that's because the flashing led would only be part of a circuit doing other things and it would cost more than $.85 of my time making it flash.
I looked at the "misconceptions" site. "When you have an electron and a proton, do you have twice the charge?" Ummm, last time I checked, +1 added to -1 was 0. Did the rules of math change overnight?
When I got to the "electricity is a silver fluid" part, I was ROTFL. Sometimes when I want to screw with people's heads, I'll tell them not to cut a wire while the power is on because the electrons will leak out all over the floor and they'll have a hard time cleaning them all up. Or they'll ask me if or why they need to terminate the feedlines they run when they steal^H^H^H^H^Hborrow the neighbor's cable TV, and I'll tell them of the dangers of leaking electrons. Here's a whole book based on that concept. (Screwing with people's heads, that is.)
That guy has way too much free time on his hands.
The company she's suing isn't using a "high level concept" like "poor child learns he's got special abilities". That company is using Rowling's characters explicitely, cataloging them and defining them. They are attempting to make canon for her universe, not creating another universe of their own with characters with similar backgrounds.
Not only are they trying to make canon for her characters, they are now trying to profit off of them. Those specific characters, by name.
If I started trying to sell a Picard action-figure (which would be limited, of course, to saying "make it so" and "I surrender") Paramount would, rightly, sue me. Why is this any different?
Moving into the 134.17.0.0/16 netblock, are we?
Why would the registrar be paying this charge when someone returns a domain? It should be the registree who pays this. If you register a domain, part of the contract will be ".20c is nonrefundable" or "$1 is nonrefundable" or whatever.
The cost of a real registration should not go up to cover those who borrow them.
No, it's a glad truth.
The Revolutionary War took place due to a foreign "government" trying to rule US citizens. The breaking point was taxation without representation, but mostly it was all laws without representation.
Of COURSE the US laws and points of view prevail IN THE US over anything else. We are a soverign nation. We have our own laws and our own courts. We aren't SUPPOSED to be controlled by every other country on the planet. Our SCOTUS isn't SUPPOSED to be considering other country's laws when they rule on laws we have passed here, they have a Constitution they are supposed to consider as supreme.
That Constitution says nothing about the WTO getting to change US laws they don't like. It says nothing about UN Resolutions. Our government tops out at the federal level.
I'm GLAD that it is that way. If I wanted to live under the laws of Germany, I'd move there. If I wanted Sharia (sp?) law, I'd move to a country that has that. If I think Germany has a stupid law, I have every right to say that, but there is no mechanism for me to force them to change their laws, NOR SHOULD THERE BE. Nor should there be a mechanism for Germans to force a change to our laws. And if using a specific country as an example confuses things, simply replace Germany with any other country. England, Germany, China, Japan, Sweden, whatever.
If that sounds like flamebait, well, I get tired of hearing people say things like 'The WTO says we are wrong to do X, so obviously we are wrong to do X and our laws must conform.' No. It is not obvious. We do NOT have to do what the WTO says we must. If we listen to the WTO and AGREE, well, that's one thing, but agreement isn't automatic. We can also listen and disagree, and if we disagree, we don't have to act.
It's like saying that the President doesn't listen to Sheehan or any other protesters because he doesn't immediately do what they demand. Yes, he listens, but he was elected to make choices, and not every person is going to agree with every choice. That's life.
The parent article dealt specifically with "his browsing" and the use of Netscape. How is this not tied to one specific kind of product?
"Because it's new" is irrelevant. "Because it would take time to install and investigate all the different and better features and decide if they really are better or not, when I already have something that does the job I need done" is the salient point.
Tied very closely to that is "because I could spend my entire life, or at least, my entire working life, installing different stuff and evaluating if it works better or not, instead of getting anything productive done".
Here's anecdotal evidence. I build systems to collect data. I typically use 800MHz single board systems running 2.4.21, from a Slackware distribution. Two weeks ago, I needed to build a system in a hurry. Instead of taking the time to use old technology, I decided to use a PC that was sitting unused.
- It uses SATA disks. My stock system doesn't know SATA. I'll have to use a different one.
- My backup Shrike (RH9) distro also doesn't know SATA. What now?
- CentOS 5 knows SATA! But it doesn't know IEEE1394. I have to build the drivers.
- Following the CentOS instructions to "build a new kernel" doesn't work, and it doesn't "build a kernel" anyway, it "builds a source RPM for the kernel that you can distribute". What now?
- I found the source tree that was going to be made into an RPM, and I figured out how to compile the modules. All is happy? No.
- The NEW Coriander won't run because it uses the NEW IEEE1394 stack and my application uses the old one. The OLD Coriander won't compile because it needs a version of Gnome libraries that no longer exist.
- Thankfully, the CPU in this system is vastly overpowered for the job, because the CentOS people appear to do everything they can to prevent someone from modifying the stock kernel by reconfiguring and rebuilding it. The stock kernel runs fast enough to do what is necessary. (And I say "prevent" because five times I tried following the instructions to "build a new kernel" -- the source RPM so I could compile a new kernel myself -- and five times it died because the operating system didn't have "enough entropy" and gpg couldn't sign the rpm. I don't need a signature to prove to myself that myself made the RPM I want to use to install the source.)
All of the time I spent solving these problems I could have used to build an old-style embedded system. Yes, I certainly can spend a lot of time rewriting my code to use the new IEEE1394 stacks, assuming that the libraries I need for the devices are available, but then I am stuck having to support two radically different systems, since the new stuff won't run on the old systems already installed."Because it's new" has nothing to do with it. Sometimes "because it works" is the critical issue.
It's not wise to ignore that newer windows may be much more energy efficent than my current ones, although my current ones do keep the cold out. That doesn't mean I shouldn't bother investigating new windows.
Replacing perfectly good windows just because new ones are "energy efficient" is not always wise, either.
- How much does it cost, and how long will I have to work to make the money to do it?
- How much energy do they save, and at current energy prices, how long will it take for them to pay back the investment?
- How long am I going to live in this house, and will the investment pay back before I move?
- Will the sales price of my house increase enough to cover the cost of the improvement?
Sometimes "good enough" IS good enough. If they keep the cold out, then they are good enough.If something as trivial as a web browser is how you evaluate your life, then I think THAT'S a problem.
I'm using mozilla. 1.2.1. It's configured just how I want it. It has all the bookmarks I want. I know where it stores configuration files so I can go edit them when I need to. Why should I update?
Well, I did. I got firefox, ONLY because mozilla has one problem with a site we are running at work. Mozilla does everything except upload file attachments when writing a Drupal page. Now I can upload file attachments.
Except firefox didn't bother looking for my mozilla bookmarks, so they aren't there. And when I use it for /., it looks really awful -- to the point that it looks like a completely different /. interface.
I'll even give firefox BIG points for how easy it was to update. MUCH simpler than any other browser. I didn't get hit with ANY "missing dependencies", much less the missing dependencies that are unresolvable because the libraries don't exist for my version of the OS. But that doesn't mean I don't still use mozilla as my baseline browser.
And yes, if I started relying on firefox capabilities I might think that mozilla wasn't 'good enough' anymore, just like you don't think VS2003 is good enough anymore. I just don't think that "creeping featuritis" is how "good enough" should be defined. "Does the job" floats my boat.
It just doesn't work as well without the the vocalization.
Yes. It's not a criminal issue, it's a civil one.
And further, doesn't the "right of free association" necessarily include the right NOT to associate? IF (and notice I said IF and not SINCE) I and all my friends choose not to associate with certain people, how can the government tell me I have to?
Well configured ftp servers don't allow download of files that have been uploaded. Mine doesn't even allow you to 'ls' the upload directory. It's a black hole.
They stopped. I asked why, and they said it really creeped their customers out.
The "prankster", or better named, CRIMINAL.
Getting the police to knock down the door to someone's house and put the entire household at risk is not a "prank". It is deliberate and malicious assault, as much as if the criminal himself had broken down the door and held the residents at gun-point. The criminal knows very well what the police response to his fictitious call will be, the results are extremely predictable.
I believe you might want to look up the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_murder_rule. It makes anyone who participates in a felony (assault with a deadly weapon, e.g.) guilty if any one of the participants kills someone.
could they simply be trigger-happy gun owners?
If someone is breaking into your house unannounced while your family is asleep, it is not being 'trigger happy' to defend them. It is a life-and-death situation, not taken lightly, and not something people go looking for. It is insulting and ludicrous, even in a "devil's advocate" context, to label such people that way.
Granted that many gun-owners are responsible and informed, but are they all?
Your question is moot. It is not the fault of the gun owner in any way, shape, or form, that the SWAT team is breaking down his door. It is the fault of the criminal who made the fictitious call.
I do not understand why this is a "unique challenge" to the justice system. He's blind. He's committed a criminal act. His action could have been the reason someone died. Put him on trial, and if he is found guilty, put him in prison. End of story.
Anyone who says this doesn't understand the difference between "could have happened this way" and "did happen this way." One is a theory, one is a fact.
You can start with all the non-living stuff you can find and create an entire metropolis with Starbucks on every corner, and it will not PROVE that that is how exiting metropolises with Starbucks on every corner came into being. It WILL prove that it MIGHT be how it happened, but proof is more than "might be". Until you prove more than "might be", it will still be a theory. Even "just a theory", since yes, is it just a theory, in both "science" talk and "normal" talk.
I'll handle that one like I do all interesting things I hear about. I'll say "gosh, that's interesting". If it's available (thank you for a link), I'll read about it. Like I just did. And then I'll note the following things:
Here's a trivial example. You look up and see a softball wedged up in some wires on a telephone pole. How did it get there?
Now, the CHANCES are someone climbed the pole, because the odds of hitting a ball just right to have it wedge like that are low. It's a reasonable theory. You can certainly climb the pole next to it with a ball in hand and wedge it into place so it looks like the first one. You could climb every pole in the neighborhood and wedge a ball into place by hand. However, having been the batter who hit the ball, I know the correct answer is 2.
Now, how did the first amino acids appear?
If you recall, there was a famous experiment in the 50's or so that "proved" method 1 was what happened. Some people claim number 3 is what happened, but that leaves us asking "who created the pattern"? And some think number 2. Unfortunately, nobody was here to observe the method that was actually used, so we don't know, and there is no amount of science that can differentiate the right answer.
Third example. You are sitting under an apple tree and hear a thump. You turn to the left and see an apple that wasn't there when you sat down, and look up and see a branch that is now apple-less. The apple moved because:
Here's the problem. The word "evolution" is being used in two very different senses. The differences of scale do, indeed, make the words very different.
One use is for the small changes within a species over time. The "bird beaks". The deterioration of vision in humans. MRSA. These are all things that genetics easily explains. These are all evolution "facts".
The other sense covers "origin of life". Sludge turned into slime which turned into fish which turned into whatever. That's the "big E" Evolution. And yes, I know, I'm oversimplifying it alot. These are all the "could be's". These are all the ones where nobody was there to actually see it happen, so it's a theory that it is how it DID happen.
Two very different senses: these things were observed vs. these things we think happened. These observed facts vs. a theory about how unobserved results were obtained.
It is almost inevitable that whenever someone who argues for the latter, Big-E Evolution meets someone who doesn't believe in the Big-E version, the believer switches to talking about the little-E version and insults the non-believer for ignoring the "facts" of little-e evolution.
Yes, MRSA "evolved". That's a fact. A genetic mutation in non-MRSA resulted in a strain that was resistant. Simple genetics, and we can duplicate it in the lab as well as observe it in nature. Little-E evolution occurs.
BUT, little-E evolution does not prove Big-E Evolution. "This can happen" is not proof that "this did happen".
That's why "the theory of evolution" refers to Big-E evolution and is quite accurate in claiming that it is, indeed, only a theory. Science will not ever be able to convert Big-E evolution into a fact, since there is no method of proving how something DID happen, only ways to show how it COULD HAVE happened.
Maybe Big-E evolution did happen. Maybe the world was created to look as if it did. You cannot differentiate between the two, and little-E evolution does nothing to prove or disprove either.
The beauty of using Linux is that you get the source code. ALL the source code. Even the code that implements the IOCTL function for "tell me my interface's MAC address".
Why should I have to "have it ready" when going through the metal detector, when every security checkpoint I've been through has had someone who keeps you from getting into the line for the metal detector until he's seen your boarding pass AND picture ID?
If it's a good enough forgery to pass one TSA check, it will pass two. And three. And with this new online check-in, it's trivial to forge a boarding pass that can get past a human.
binLaden is not the "face of panic", he's quite calm and very determined. There is no possible "reason" we can assert that will change his methods or goals. It is madness to think that we could ever give him enough to get him to leave us alone. Appeasement didn't work with Hitler, it won't work any better with today's nutcases.
The host resolved to NSA.
Wait a minute, I thought it was Network Solutions (NSI) that was picking up all the domain names.
"Delivered by the holidays". Nope. "Delivered by Jan 15." Nope. Went to the website. "You can track your order...". Nope. All I get for a "tracking" result is a statement that almost all of the US units have been shipped, and that I can track my order at ... an invalid link.
I called them on the 18th. "Your address is invalid". Well, that address is valid enough that I get my credit card statements there, and paypal validated it to make the charge. It's an address at one of the two largest employers in the city, large enough we have our own zipcode. The post office certainly knows where we are. "That address is invalid" after I correct the fact that they simply dropped the street address part of the address when they entered the order. "That address is invalid", even after I read them verbatim the address off the last credit card statement. The "support" person finally "set a flag" to ship to that address, even though he knew it was invalid. Right. He knows my address better than I do.
So, I asked, when were you intending on letting me know my address was invalid? "You are on the list of people we are going to call" he said. Since they don't have my phone number, I'm not sure how they thought they'd call me.
Several days later, I get an email notice: "your address is invalid". I call again. This time they don't even pretend that they can tell what is valid or not, they just write down the address and say "7 to ten business days". It was 7 to ten days a week ago, now it's seven to ten days again.
That email also says I can cancel my gift and get "$199 plus shipping" back. Companies that charge me before they ship and then cannot fulfill the order within the legal timeframe don't get to keep half my money, sorry.
Had they told me "we're low on supply", that would be a different story. That's not what they say. Feb. 7 is ten business days. Let's see what they say on the 8th when it hasn't arrived yet.