but I've certainly met highly intelligent people who strongly believe that government withdrawal from these areas would be a good thing.
I've also met highly intelligent people who believe that banning firearms would actually eliminate them from society. I've met highly intelligent people that think that evolution has no scientific standing, that the scientific method doesn't work, that technology is inherently evil, and that we never went to the Moon. The truth of the matter is that intelligence is largely useless unless critical thinking skills are also present. No matter how "smart" a person is, if he or she doesn't know how to focus their gift properly it's largely wasted.
Well, I guess that means we need to kill off more trees and other CO2-producing green plants such as algae (just think how much CO2 is produced by the algae in the world's oceans) and let's not forget cows. Yes, cows, whose inestimable contribution to global warming is made via methane farts from fermented grass.
Dealing with the death of an operating system close to you can be one of the most traumatic experiences of your life, and you're bound to go through a range of emotions. While you may be able to work through those feelings on your own, it's often helpful to talk to a friend, a family member, or a counselor. You might also seek out a support group for people who are grieving.
Funny... when Windows 9x died I felt nothing but an overwhelming feeling of relief, and a certain sense of vindictiveness.
Scientific and technological advances happen continuously, during peace or war. However, it takes a really good war to force governments to allocate the vast sums needed to cause transcendental jumps in capability. And, because the penalties for failure are huge (what if Germany had developed fission weapons before we did: with their V-2 rockets to carry them they would have been unstoppable) there is little room for politics and ineffectual bureacracy... results must be achieved. NASA's greatest advances were made during the height of the Cold War. Well, the Cold War is over, and what has happened to NASA since was entirely predictable.
Maybe... but I would rather that DHS didn't come knocking at my door. I have nothing to hide, but given the way our government is heading, I can't honestly say I have nothing to fear.
Look. This is America. The nation that led the world in technological development for two hundred years, put men on the Moon a couple of times and invented the personal computer, and now we're saying that we can't even develop a machine that can count reliably???!!! Please. This is not, repeat not a technological issue. It is a political one, pure and simple.
The only reason that implementing a transparent, auditable electronic voting system is such a problem is because there are certain people that have a vested interest in making it a problem.
Well, the question isn't whether your bank will ask questions... like you said, you've been a good customer for decades. The question is whether some arm of the Federal Government will ask questions. You really don't want them to ask you questions.
He's right though... unlike many legal systems, ours was founded on the premise that it's better to let a guilty man go free than to imprison an innocent one.
Maybe... but it's pretty much a given that had the Democrats been able to field anyone more credible than John Kerry we'd have seen the last of G. W. Bush. They had to know that going in, which makes me wonder what sort of deals got made to assure Bush's re-election.
Fifteen? I should be so lucky. Where I live 25-30 minutes is pretty typical, and I once waited forty-five minutes before the "feature attraction" started. Absolutely unbelievable. And they are deliberately inconsistent, so I can't just show up x minutes late and avoid them. Consequently I don't patronize our local theaters much anymore. I mean, I know they are trying to improve their bottom line, but diluting my experience to the point where I simply want to leave is just stupid. I mean, really stupid, and it has cost them my business. I've walked out of a couple of films because of it. On the way out, I would ask for the manager and tell him why. They wouldn't give me my money back though. So now I watch at home, mostly. And that's sad, because I agree with you about the social aspects of moviegoing.
My father was born and raised in Chicago, and he told me about the advent of commercial air conditioning. City theaters got it first, and advertised it heavily. People would go there and hang out in the lobby, just to socialize and get out of the summer heat for a while, and maybe take in a movie. Different times, I guess.
No, I agree... AT&T was NOT innovating when it came to subscriber equipment. Sure, they made a lot of significant advances in communications technology (ESS and so forth) but the end user was still using Princess phones and the like. My point was, rather than take the relatively enormous step of breaking up old Ma Bell (which has had a number of significant consequences, not all of them good) it might have made more sense to start by eliminating portions of the monopoly. Since Judge Greene justified his breakup order, in part, because of the lack of competitive products available to consumers, the lock on end-user equipment would have been a good place to start.
Remember also that AT&T was, unlike a de-facto monopoly like Microsoft, a government-instituted, heavily-regulated monopoly. They got away with those rates because AT&T knew its way around Washington. All I'm saying is that the quality of my phone service and the quality of the support personnel I deal with have both deteriorated substantially since the breakup, since the government stopped bothering to enforce quality-of-service standards. Hell, I have Comcast Digital, and when the technician (I'm using the term loosely... electronics hobbyist would be a better term) installed my two lines I ended up with a ball of wire hanging in midair in my utility room, with open wires twisted together. Not a wire-nut or terminator in sight, much less a punch-down block. I complained but nothing happened... had to put in a punch-down block myself. When old Illinois Bell used to do it, it was solid and professional and the technician had a solid grasp of telephony principles. SBC and Comcast hire nudges in comparison.
On of the big complaints the judge made about AT&T was that the market was restricted in terms of equipment end users could attach to their lines, and thus customers were limited in the capabilities of the equipment they could use. You HAD to rent an AT&T phone... nobody not authorized by AT&T could sell you one. And AT&T would not sell them, they only leased them. Of course, that power was given to them by the government so it always seemed hypocritical for the Feds to complain about it. I agree with you though: when you get right down to it, monopoly and all, AT&T did provide solid phone service. They really did. I think it would have made a hell of a lot more sense to simply remove their monopoly on subscriber equipment, let the free market provide us with all the advanced phones and other accessories that we want, and let AT&T continue to run the network. That would have been a much more reasonable first step, I think, as opposed to the eventual breakup and the anticompetitive mess we're finding ourselves in now.
Probably not nuclear: I can't imagine us building a fission reactor with an operational life of five centuries. The materials science alone would be far in advance of what we can do now. A better approach might be to have a lot of one-shot disposable nuclear power modules: when one runs out of fuel or otherwise becomes inoperable jettison it and bring another one online. A Bussard ramjet would make a lot more sense, of course, since it captures its own fuel from interstellar hydrogen. Unfortunately we haven't even managed to get fusion working yet.
But yeah... I suppose if we really wanted to do it we could, but any such vessel would have to be so large as to have its own manufacturing facilities for spare parts and plenty of raw materials. Probably we'd want to spinform an asteroid and convert the insides into living space. We'd need to equip it with a power source and some kind of motive power (light drive, or maybe an advanced ion engine) capable of continuous low-level acceleration for years on end.
Really though, we'd be far better of investing such resources in near-space development (power satellites and orbital R&D and manufacturing) and colonization of the solar system. If people just understood the mineral wealth that is within our grasp, if we just had the vision to reach out and take it. A single large nickel-iron asteroid would supply the world's need for iron and steel for a long, long time. And that's just for starters.
And then, once we've had fifty or a hundred years of successful exploitation of our own solar system's resources, it wouldn't be such a big deal to launch a generation ship. We'll know a lot more by then about engineering in space, and the technological improvements alone would give such a mission a much better chance of survival than if we tried it now. And who knows... maybe by then someone will come up with the requisite breakthroughs in physics to make a true interstellar drive possible.
I'm not holding my breath for that last one, though.
Actually, in such cases it generally isn't the researchers at fault, but our drain-bamaged, ignorant, "blow everything out of proportion to sell more advertising" media. That started with saccharin... the researchers simply reported their results and went on to the next thing, but some reporter got wind of their study and turned it into a media circus. It got so ridiculous that the FDA bowed to political pressure and banned the stuff, which was unfortunate for diabetics like my father that were willing to take the (minimal) risk of cancer to avoid exacerbating their existing medical conditions. Anyway, that's really what you have to watch out for... bad science reporting.
There are some scientists (Pons and Fleischmann come to mind) that do go directly to the media without waiting for proper peer-review and replication of their results. And I agree, that's bad.
In SiteAdvisor's case, I don't think it's fair to compare them to the likes of Symantec (yet) until they start unfairly slamming legitimate sites in order to sell more copies of their product. At this point they don't appear to be selling anything so I'm willing to wait and see.
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but I've certainly met highly intelligent people who strongly believe that government withdrawal from these areas would be a good thing.
I've also met highly intelligent people who believe that banning firearms would actually eliminate them from society. I've met highly intelligent people that think that evolution has no scientific standing, that the scientific method doesn't work, that technology is inherently evil, and that we never went to the Moon. The truth of the matter is that intelligence is largely useless unless critical thinking skills are also present. No matter how "smart" a person is, if he or she doesn't know how to focus their gift properly it's largely wasted.
Well, I guess that means we need to kill off more trees and other CO2-producing green plants such as algae (just think how much CO2 is produced by the algae in the world's oceans) and let's not forget cows. Yes, cows, whose inestimable contribution to global warming is made via methane farts from fermented grass.
and the excessive packaging of one time use products.
... but I'll be damned if I'm going to buy recycled condoms.
Maybe
Dealing with the death of an operating system close to you can be one of the most traumatic experiences of your life, and you're bound to go through a range of emotions. While you may be able to work through those feelings on your own, it's often helpful to talk to a friend, a family member, or a counselor. You might also seek out a support group for people who are grieving.
... when Windows 9x died I felt nothing but an overwhelming feeling of relief, and a certain sense of vindictiveness.
Funny
True ... but ignorance of Windows is a welcome form of bliss to many of us.
Scientific and technological advances happen continuously, during peace or war. However, it takes a really good war to force governments to allocate the vast sums needed to cause transcendental jumps in capability. And, because the penalties for failure are huge (what if Germany had developed fission weapons before we did: with their V-2 rockets to carry them they would have been unstoppable) there is little room for politics and ineffectual bureacracy ... results must be achieved. NASA's greatest advances were made during the height of the Cold War. Well, the Cold War is over, and what has happened to NASA since was entirely predictable.
If he does understand it, he probably isn't a PHB. But that doesn't mean he won't have to defend himself from actual PHB's. You're right about that.
Maybe ... but I would rather that DHS didn't come knocking at my door. I have nothing to hide, but given the way our government is heading, I can't honestly say I have nothing to fear.
Yeah well ... it's called "hyperbole" and I used it to make a point.
You're the second person that's recognized that quote. Most people that have commented on it have just been offended. No sense of humor, I guess.
Look. This is America. The nation that led the world in technological development for two hundred years, put men on the Moon a couple of times and invented the personal computer, and now we're saying that we can't even develop a machine that can count reliably???!!! Please. This is not, repeat not a technological issue. It is a political one, pure and simple.
The only reason that implementing a transparent, auditable electronic voting system is such a problem is because there are certain people that have a vested interest in making it a problem.
Don't forget projects like Smoothwall and its fork, IPCop. Both still going strong.
You just keep disabling features until you get a subset that works.
That has got to be the best description of Windows that I've ever heard.
Well, the question isn't whether your bank will ask questions ... like you said, you've been a good customer for decades. The question is whether some arm of the Federal Government will ask questions. You really don't want them to ask you questions.
Well, debtor's prison is illegal here in America, but I guess maybe "fiscal responsibility prison" may become a reality.
He's right though ... unlike many legal systems, ours was founded on the premise that it's better to let a guilty man go free than to imprison an innocent one.
Maybe ... but it's pretty much a given that had the Democrats been able to field anyone more credible than John Kerry we'd have seen the last of G. W. Bush. They had to know that going in, which makes me wonder what sort of deals got made to assure Bush's re-election.
Fifteen? I should be so lucky. Where I live 25-30 minutes is pretty typical, and I once waited forty-five minutes before the "feature attraction" started. Absolutely unbelievable. And they are deliberately inconsistent, so I can't just show up x minutes late and avoid them. Consequently I don't patronize our local theaters much anymore. I mean, I know they are trying to improve their bottom line, but diluting my experience to the point where I simply want to leave is just stupid. I mean, really stupid, and it has cost them my business. I've walked out of a couple of films because of it. On the way out, I would ask for the manager and tell him why. They wouldn't give me my money back though. So now I watch at home, mostly. And that's sad, because I agree with you about the social aspects of moviegoing.
My father was born and raised in Chicago, and he told me about the advent of commercial air conditioning. City theaters got it first, and advertised it heavily. People would go there and hang out in the lobby, just to socialize and get out of the summer heat for a while, and maybe take in a movie. Different times, I guess.
No, I agree ... AT&T was NOT innovating when it came to subscriber equipment. Sure, they made a lot of significant advances in communications technology (ESS and so forth) but the end user was still using Princess phones and the like. My point was, rather than take the relatively enormous step of breaking up old Ma Bell (which has had a number of significant consequences, not all of them good) it might have made more sense to start by eliminating portions of the monopoly. Since Judge Greene justified his breakup order, in part, because of the lack of competitive products available to consumers, the lock on end-user equipment would have been a good place to start.
... electronics hobbyist would be a better term) installed my two lines I ended up with a ball of wire hanging in midair in my utility room, with open wires twisted together. Not a wire-nut or terminator in sight, much less a punch-down block. I complained but nothing happened ... had to put in a punch-down block myself. When old Illinois Bell used to do it, it was solid and professional and the technician had a solid grasp of telephony principles. SBC and Comcast hire nudges in comparison.
Remember also that AT&T was, unlike a de-facto monopoly like Microsoft, a government-instituted, heavily-regulated monopoly. They got away with those rates because AT&T knew its way around Washington. All I'm saying is that the quality of my phone service and the quality of the support personnel I deal with have both deteriorated substantially since the breakup, since the government stopped bothering to enforce quality-of-service standards. Hell, I have Comcast Digital, and when the technician (I'm using the term loosely
As the owner of the oldest ISP in South Carolina ...
... what ISP would that be?
Ah
Yeah ... but the replicators eventually gained self-awareness and a sense of morality. Frankly, I don't see that happening in this case.
On of the big complaints the judge made about AT&T was that the market was restricted in terms of equipment end users could attach to their lines, and thus customers were limited in the capabilities of the equipment they could use. You HAD to rent an AT&T phone ... nobody not authorized by AT&T could sell you one. And AT&T would not sell them, they only leased them. Of course, that power was given to them by the government so it always seemed hypocritical for the Feds to complain about it. I agree with you though: when you get right down to it, monopoly and all, AT&T did provide solid phone service. They really did. I think it would have made a hell of a lot more sense to simply remove their monopoly on subscriber equipment, let the free market provide us with all the advanced phones and other accessories that we want, and let AT&T continue to run the network. That would have been a much more reasonable first step, I think, as opposed to the eventual breakup and the anticompetitive mess we're finding ourselves in now.
No, because one does not (repeat not) pray to George W. Bush.
Well, in a Phillips Coolshave commercial there was a fake razor called the "Quintippio" that had fifteen blades.
Probably not nuclear: I can't imagine us building a fission reactor with an operational life of five centuries. The materials science alone would be far in advance of what we can do now. A better approach might be to have a lot of one-shot disposable nuclear power modules: when one runs out of fuel or otherwise becomes inoperable jettison it and bring another one online. A Bussard ramjet would make a lot more sense, of course, since it captures its own fuel from interstellar hydrogen. Unfortunately we haven't even managed to get fusion working yet.
... I suppose if we really wanted to do it we could, but any such vessel would have to be so large as to have its own manufacturing facilities for spare parts and plenty of raw materials. Probably we'd want to spinform an asteroid and convert the insides into living space. We'd need to equip it with a power source and some kind of motive power (light drive, or maybe an advanced ion engine) capable of continuous low-level acceleration for years on end.
... maybe by then someone will come up with the requisite breakthroughs in physics to make a true interstellar drive possible.
But yeah
Really though, we'd be far better of investing such resources in near-space development (power satellites and orbital R&D and manufacturing) and colonization of the solar system. If people just understood the mineral wealth that is within our grasp, if we just had the vision to reach out and take it. A single large nickel-iron asteroid would supply the world's need for iron and steel for a long, long time. And that's just for starters.
And then, once we've had fifty or a hundred years of successful exploitation of our own solar system's resources, it wouldn't be such a big deal to launch a generation ship. We'll know a lot more by then about engineering in space, and the technological improvements alone would give such a mission a much better chance of survival than if we tried it now. And who knows
I'm not holding my breath for that last one, though.
Actually, in such cases it generally isn't the researchers at fault, but our drain-bamaged, ignorant, "blow everything out of proportion to sell more advertising" media. That started with saccharin ... the researchers simply reported their results and went on to the next thing, but some reporter got wind of their study and turned it into a media circus. It got so ridiculous that the FDA bowed to political pressure and banned the stuff, which was unfortunate for diabetics like my father that were willing to take the (minimal) risk of cancer to avoid exacerbating their existing medical conditions. Anyway, that's really what you have to watch out for ... bad science reporting.
There are some scientists (Pons and Fleischmann come to mind) that do go directly to the media without waiting for proper peer-review and replication of their results. And I agree, that's bad.
In SiteAdvisor's case, I don't think it's fair to compare them to the likes of Symantec (yet) until they start unfairly slamming legitimate sites in order to sell more copies of their product. At this point they don't appear to be selling anything so I'm willing to wait and see.