I'm reminded of a cartoon in the New Yorker about "Hummer Style" in which various normal objects were supersized and underpowered so they would appeal to bonehead Americans still living in a world where size always means value. For example, a cellphone the size and weight of a concrete block with a range of 200 feet from the cell tower and a battery life of fifteen minutes.
In Japan, of course, the idea is to make things smaller and charge more for them. I'd love a laptop with a 1600 X 1200 six inch screen that fit in my pocket. I wouldn't mind using reading glasses and typing on a tiny keyboard, at least until I get "to the office."
you could do the high voltage wiring yourself too. i've done lots of stuff with digital and analog circuits, and they nearly always have to be debugged. but once you know that black is hot and white is neutral and bare copper is ground, it's very rare to wire something at 120 volts and not have it do exactly as expected. dual-switched lights are the only exception to this rule, but only in cases where you're faced with someone else's existing work.
the comparison is valid because Heisenberg claimed to know where it was absurd to continue a path of scientific inquiry. ID purports to do the same thing, though it uses the arbitrary 'it's too fuckin' crazy man, there's no way we'll EVER be able to figure this one out" standard.
Could it be that Intelligent Design is like the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle in that it tells us the limits of what knowledge can be? Well, no. While nothing that HUP predicts not to be knowable has ever been known, it seems things that things Intelligent Design predicts to be unknowable are being gradually explained. This shows it to be a very bad theory. In Science, as opposed to other realms of inquiry, theories that are disproven are ABANDONED. Hey wingnut creationists, time to imitate the behavior of the rats that left your sinking ship!
I am reminded of the Chinese policy of charging the family of the executed for the price of the bullet used in the execution. In other words, something bad is done to you and you are asked to pay for the price of the administration of the badness as well as experiencing the badness itself.
WiFi will be the technology that allows the REST OF US to create networks to rival the internet. The frequency is pretty much unregulated (and, because of microwave ovens, unregulatable). Once every (or every other) house has a WiFi router in it, a suburb has the infrastructure in place to be its own part of a backboneless internet. Connections from it to elsewhere can depend on a few hackers in the community with the means to talk to hackers in the neighboring ones using esoteric technology (including links to redundant fail-overable old-school internet connections). Finally, there needs to be some good code to organize the mess. But the advantages that result would be enormous: huge unregulated pipes from everywhere to everywhere. with all sorts of untraceable free content. It's an intellectual property (or a God-I'm-glad-Osama-kept-me-in-office politician's) worst nightmare. But I think it's coming.
If parents want their children raised and educated by robots, they shouldn't expect them to excel using normal organic brains. Perhaps parents should hold off on reproducing and wait until technology advances to the point where silcon-based children can come pre-assembled and pre-programmed, knowing whatever lucrative skills will make them a success (helping to supplement their parents' inevitably meagre social security safety net, which by then will have surely acquired rather massive tears).
My statement still stands: people attempting to stop my "research" with the latest hacked copy of GTA San Andreas are "attacking" the internet. This system "withstands" this attack through "redundancy" and other features. Remember, research isn't always "legal" in a corporate-controlled society.
If these things were widespread and of sufficient density, they could form their own peer-to-peer grid networks capable of sending any sort of information, untraceably. It would be its own internet, the way the internet was first envisioned. Information would finally be completely free. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it Time Warner/RIAA/NSA!
I have RTFA and determined that there is no way such resistance could have simply evolved - to have done so would be like a tornado going through a junk yard and a 747 being the result. Therefore I must conclude that the new resistance of the Avian Flu virus was intelligently inserted, i.e., designed, much the way God designed our eyes, tonsils, and (most thoughtfully of all) our precious wisdom teeth
If the scope of this system can be expanded such that it can also make the brake harder to depress when the driver is driving less than the speed limit, that would be like totally awesome. I can't tell you how many times I've been stuck behind a granny (or person with Florida tags), wincing in anticipation of every curve in the road, no matter how gentle, which I know will bring up those infernal brake lights. And, just as a tangent, simply because there's a car in the oncoming lane doesn't mean a rapid deceleration is prudent!
Now might be a good time to sell any remaining Gateway stocks. My guess is that to the extent Gateway remains profitable, it's entirely due to its repair service, for which this story provides very bad PR.
Don't confuse Evolution with Natural Selection. One is theory that change and speciation exists. The other explains how that happens. Evolution was believed long before Darwin, and it was he who came up with Natural Selection. If you read Creationist propaganda, Evolution is used as an umbrella to cover everything that is considered unbiblical - ranging from continental drift to the big bang to the fact that light from stars wasn't created "on the way" to overcome the vast distances. We need to understand the difference between Natural Selection and Evolution so we can easily confront such nonsense as "if we're all constantly progressing according to evolution, why are there still cockroaches?"
Someone needs to write this book urgently! Chapter one could talk about how clean burning Hydrogen takes enormous amounts of energy to make. Chapter 2 could be all about the wonderful idiocy that is perpetual motion.
A chapter near the back could wax eloquent about how even if energy is FREE (as in beer) or clean (as in the toilet) it still causes bad things to happen when it is used. Chainsaws cut down trees - cars hit animals and people.
Do you notice how the resolution gets bad right around the Capitol building? Why not the Pentagon? Is that a fake picture? Why would google do this anyway?
50 billion is such a large quantity of money that just by spending it semi-strategically it leads to vast returns. If Gates' concern is about America being left in the dust, he could do well by encouraging things that once made America an attractive place for intelligent people to come. One thing that needs to end RIGHT NOW is the increasing dominance of America by religious extremists. These people do not believe in asking questions, performing experiments, or ideas that came after the various gospels. These people benefit from CD players and incandescent lightbulbs, but they act as if we'd be happier with a fully medieval mindset. Take for example, their advocacy of the teaching of Creationism or "Intelligent Design" in public school. To teach these things, a teacher must convince a child to deny what is observed and believe something on faith. What kind of semiconductors will a mind molded this way be able to imagine? Never even mind that - what kind of plumber can think that way? Have you ever had faith-based plumbing or electrical work done on your home?
Bill Gates needs to be fighting the imposition of faith-based culture or soon enough we'll be the technological equals of Tragicistan.
Someone told me that santorum was the word for the substance that drains from an anus when someone ejaculates into it. This is quite an irony considering that this man, when he isn't pimping for the complete corporativization of America, is getting worked up about the supposed "rights" of microscopic foetuses who still have gill slits and tails or wondering aloud what exactly gay men do together in the privacy of their own homes.
The risk is sharing your files so it can be UPLOADED. Why does no one ever make this clear? People never get busted for downloading. It hasn't happened.
Geosynchronous satellites such as those used by DirectTV are located over the equator in international water (600 miles due west of the Galapagos, in the case of my antenna, at 101 West Longitude). What say-so does the FCC have over this satellite? It could just as easily be owned by a Cuban or Costa Rican company if DirectTV got in trouble (our present government generally supports off-shoring of corporations for labor and tax reasons after all).
Of course, the Supremes would surely hold that subscription TV is free speech, end of story. Unless, of course, it included five John Ashcroft clones.
For managing to maintain his medievality in the postmodern age. Here's a man who snorted so much coke that he still sees multiple whenever he gazes upon Al Gore's greatest achievement.
I think the ALA homeslice has a point, but I think he neglects to consider the Darwinian effects of peer selection. Sure there are a lot of crappy blogs. This is the predictable result of anyone being able to create one. If a twelve year old or a fan of Lenny Kravitz can make a blog, there will always be crappy blogs. But from this huge pile of crap Darwinian forces will allow a meritocracy of brilliance to rise from the slime.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm reminded of a cartoon in the New Yorker about "Hummer Style" in which various normal objects were supersized and underpowered so they would appeal to bonehead Americans still living in a world where size always means value. For example, a cellphone the size and weight of a concrete block with a range of 200 feet from the cell tower and a battery life of fifteen minutes. In Japan, of course, the idea is to make things smaller and charge more for them. I'd love a laptop with a 1600 X 1200 six inch screen that fit in my pocket. I wouldn't mind using reading glasses and typing on a tiny keyboard, at least until I get "to the office."
you could do the high voltage wiring yourself too. i've done lots of stuff with digital and analog circuits, and they nearly always have to be debugged. but once you know that black is hot and white is neutral and bare copper is ground, it's very rare to wire something at 120 volts and not have it do exactly as expected. dual-switched lights are the only exception to this rule, but only in cases where you're faced with someone else's existing work.
the comparison is valid because Heisenberg claimed to know where it was absurd to continue a path of scientific inquiry. ID purports to do the same thing, though it uses the arbitrary 'it's too fuckin' crazy man, there's no way we'll EVER be able to figure this one out" standard.
Could it be that Intelligent Design is like the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle in that it tells us the limits of what knowledge can be? Well, no. While nothing that HUP predicts not to be knowable has ever been known, it seems things that things Intelligent Design predicts to be unknowable are being gradually explained. This shows it to be a very bad theory. In Science, as opposed to other realms of inquiry, theories that are disproven are ABANDONED. Hey wingnut creationists, time to imitate the behavior of the rats that left your sinking ship!
I am reminded of the Chinese policy of charging the family of the executed for the price of the bullet used in the execution. In other words, something bad is done to you and you are asked to pay for the price of the administration of the badness as well as experiencing the badness itself.
no, you're totally right. i don't know what i was thinking.
WiFi will be the technology that allows the REST OF US to create networks to rival the internet. The frequency is pretty much unregulated (and, because of microwave ovens, unregulatable). Once every (or every other) house has a WiFi router in it, a suburb has the infrastructure in place to be its own part of a backboneless internet. Connections from it to elsewhere can depend on a few hackers in the community with the means to talk to hackers in the neighboring ones using esoteric technology (including links to redundant fail-overable old-school internet connections). Finally, there needs to be some good code to organize the mess. But the advantages that result would be enormous: huge unregulated pipes from everywhere to everywhere. with all sorts of untraceable free content. It's an intellectual property (or a God-I'm-glad-Osama-kept-me-in-office politician's) worst nightmare. But I think it's coming.
If parents want their children raised and educated by robots, they shouldn't expect them to excel using normal organic brains. Perhaps parents should hold off on reproducing and wait until technology advances to the point where silcon-based children can come pre-assembled and pre-programmed, knowing whatever lucrative skills will make them a success (helping to supplement their parents' inevitably meagre social security safety net, which by then will have surely acquired rather massive tears).
My statement still stands: people attempting to stop my "research" with the latest hacked copy of GTA San Andreas are "attacking" the internet. This system "withstands" this attack through "redundancy" and other features. Remember, research isn't always "legal" in a corporate-controlled society.
Creative people work because they need to, not because they're paid. Getting rich should be a side effect, not an end in itself.
If these things were widespread and of sufficient density, they could form their own peer-to-peer grid networks capable of sending any sort of information, untraceably. It would be its own internet, the way the internet was first envisioned. Information would finally be completely free. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it Time Warner/RIAA/NSA!
I have RTFA and determined that there is no way such resistance could have simply evolved - to have done so would be like a tornado going through a junk yard and a 747 being the result. Therefore I must conclude that the new resistance of the Avian Flu virus was intelligently inserted, i.e., designed, much the way God designed our eyes, tonsils, and (most thoughtfully of all) our precious wisdom teeth
If the scope of this system can be expanded such that it can also make the brake harder to depress when the driver is driving less than the speed limit, that would be like totally awesome. I can't tell you how many times I've been stuck behind a granny (or person with Florida tags), wincing in anticipation of every curve in the road, no matter how gentle, which I know will bring up those infernal brake lights. And, just as a tangent, simply because there's a car in the oncoming lane doesn't mean a rapid deceleration is prudent!
Now might be a good time to sell any remaining Gateway stocks. My guess is that to the extent Gateway remains profitable, it's entirely due to its repair service, for which this story provides very bad PR.
Don't confuse Evolution with Natural Selection. One is theory that change and speciation exists. The other explains how that happens. Evolution was believed long before Darwin, and it was he who came up with Natural Selection. If you read Creationist propaganda, Evolution is used as an umbrella to cover everything that is considered unbiblical - ranging from continental drift to the big bang to the fact that light from stars wasn't created "on the way" to overcome the vast distances. We need to understand the difference between Natural Selection and Evolution so we can easily confront such nonsense as "if we're all constantly progressing according to evolution, why are there still cockroaches?"
Who knew what a bunch of nuts for hydrogen slashdot was! I had no idea I'd be pegged as flamebait for stating basic thermodynamic reality.
Yeah, Ethanol is a portable source of energy that requires a portable source of energy (gasoline) to make. Corn cannot be grown without tractors.
Someone needs to write this book urgently! Chapter one could talk about how clean burning Hydrogen takes enormous amounts of energy to make. Chapter 2 could be all about the wonderful idiocy that is perpetual motion. A chapter near the back could wax eloquent about how even if energy is FREE (as in beer) or clean (as in the toilet) it still causes bad things to happen when it is used. Chainsaws cut down trees - cars hit animals and people.
Do you notice how the resolution gets bad right around the Capitol building? Why not the Pentagon? Is that a fake picture? Why would google do this anyway?
Bill Gates needs to be fighting the imposition of faith-based culture or soon enough we'll be the technological equals of Tragicistan.
Someone told me that santorum was the word for the substance that drains from an anus when someone ejaculates into it. This is quite an irony considering that this man, when he isn't pimping for the complete corporativization of America, is getting worked up about the supposed "rights" of microscopic foetuses who still have gill slits and tails or wondering aloud what exactly gay men do together in the privacy of their own homes.
The risk is sharing your files so it can be UPLOADED. Why does no one ever make this clear? People never get busted for downloading. It hasn't happened.
Geosynchronous satellites such as those used by DirectTV are located over the equator in international water (600 miles due west of the Galapagos, in the case of my antenna, at 101 West Longitude). What say-so does the FCC have over this satellite? It could just as easily be owned by a Cuban or Costa Rican company if DirectTV got in trouble (our present government generally supports off-shoring of corporations for labor and tax reasons after all). Of course, the Supremes would surely hold that subscription TV is free speech, end of story. Unless, of course, it included five John Ashcroft clones.
For managing to maintain his medievality in the postmodern age. Here's a man who snorted so much coke that he still sees multiple whenever he gazes upon Al Gore's greatest achievement.
I think the ALA homeslice has a point, but I think he neglects to consider the Darwinian effects of peer selection. Sure there are a lot of crappy blogs. This is the predictable result of anyone being able to create one. If a twelve year old or a fan of Lenny Kravitz can make a blog, there will always be crappy blogs. But from this huge pile of crap Darwinian forces will allow a meritocracy of brilliance to rise from the slime.