The risk of a terrorist attack is so infinitesimal and its impact so relatively insignificant....
Risk of attack infinitesimal? Close to it, perhaps. Impact relatively insignificant? Um, do you mind if I point out your error in logic or judgment?
I seem to remember September 11, 2001, as a rather significant day in history. The families and friends of approx. 3,000 people, both Americans and foreign nationals, would likely agree.
Caprica had a chance to develop as much thought-provoking depth as the new BSG, but for some reason the show's premise went in another direction. Maybe it was just so the whole show could revolve around a young, cute Zoe??? Ratings, ratings, ratings! How can such a great idea fail?!
The potential for genius in these series was the dichotomy of the Cylons as monotheists who believe in an imminent and transcendent God versus the humans who believe in a worldly pantheon. Why would the once-mechanical Cylons believe in the concept of God? How could this happen with machines? This is the dilemma that needed to drive Caprica, but the creators/writers blew it big time. "I've got it! The avatar or 'spirit' of a monotheist Caprican will be transferred into the original Cylon. That's how they come to believe in God! Plus, that Caprican can be a cute, sexy young girl!!!" Lame!
The question they should have explored is how the Cylons came to their faith. The dilemma they could have developed is, did the programming of their consciousness/AI evolve to develop transcendent spiritual dimensions, or were the Cylons touched by God and given an inextinguishable spirit by him? Mind you, this may be too religious a storyline to be popular, or for a major production company to sign off on....
"... all that we have learned since Laura Ingalls' day about teaching, learning, and technology."
By and large, what we've "learned" about teaching and learning in the past 125 or so years is how to do a poorer job. (My apologies to those developing tech-driven educational methods.) Socrates and his students did a far better job. They knew how to use their brains to think critically (dialectic, then rhetoric). Part of the development of a finely honed mind is rote memorization (grammar), which modern educational theory regards as more or less barbaric.
The classical scholars, the great minds of any era, didn't have technology. They didn't *need* technology. Much of modern technology simply ends up replacing the functioning of the human mind. It seems to invariably become a crutch for so poorly trained a mind. *This* is why Dick and Jane can't read.
Seriously, dude, get over yourself. You're acting as the PC police, attempting to regulate the Moral police. Don't you understand that your words are self-contradictory?
I'm working to *reduce* the demands my household puts on the electric infrastructure by conserving energy at home. Were I to buy a plug-in EV, my electricity usage would skyrocket. I'd likely have to get electrical work done to upgrade my service for the load of plugging in an electric car, so I'm saving money all around. Finally, all the electricity an EV would need would greatly increase my carbon footprint, because more coal would have to be burned to supply that energy.
I'll just keep on driving my high-MPG new technology diesel (a VW Jetta TDI SportWagon). It's better for my pocketbook, for the infrastructure and for the environment. Going EV now would be foolish.
$2mil/yr is peanuts, in almost any business serving more than a small handful of clients. OTOH, if you run your business out of your mom's basement, $250k/yr may be enough. </sarcasm>
I'm jealous! because s/he beat me to the punch. I was gonna say, "How dare anyone -- especially a government agency, harrumph! -- perform an automated scan of publicly posted statements on a public website. How dare they!"
It's public, people. It's posted with the expectation that it _will_ be freely accessed and read. That's just the opposite of an expectation of privacy, regardless of who's accessing or reading it.
If it were a hard copy, I wouldn't be the slightest bit less ticked off. I'd be pressing charges for every law they broke in order to take back the book, and throw a lawsuit on top of it for whatever my lawyer could think of.
I agree with you. If they took back the (hard copy) book (I would agree with the wording "stole it from me"), I'd be really ticked off, too. If they refunded my purchase price in full, I'd be quite a bit less ticked off. (Please note that I'm not addressing the issue of censorship here.)
And your point here is an excellent one. Recapturing something from someone's hard/flash drive in their home is the digital equivalent of breaking and entering, unless the publisher has a court order/warrant to repossess it. Just because it's licensed, the licensor isn't granted the right to take it back at any time and place. Thank you for emphasizing that. I'm dubious as to whether clicking on a EULA can legally grant a seemingly unlimited right of repossession, just because the media is digital.
So, thanks for hitting another important issue this raises:^)
"To buy" a book versus "to license" it, I don't think you understand the concept. Granted, it was much easier to understand when books were hardcopy only. Back then, it was well understood that you couldn't just go to the local copy shop and have them make 10, 100, 1,000 copies which you then sold, or even gave away. Digital makes this process trivial. It is no longer thought-provoking (huh, a publisher sells these, maybe they'll object to my selling them or giving them away -- there is that thing about copyright) because it's so easy and appears so innocuous.
When you buy a book, you're buying the physical media -- the paper and cover/spine/jacket/glue/stitching, and also the ink covering the page -- for what that's worth. You're also buying the consumption of the words. You're not buying the words or the right to reproduce them. The same holds true with digital media. You're buying the right to consume the information contained within a particular ordering of bits, but you're not buying the information itself or the right to make even one filecopy of that information which you sell or give to someone else. (Yes, backups are fair use, no matter what anyone says.) I'm sorry, but you're just not.
In other words, whether hard or electronic copy, when you "buy" a book, you're really just licensing it, to put it in the words you used. There is no "bought."
This is why I like the book/record model of licensing. Buy this digital resource, and you can use or lend or trade it just like you'd do with a hard media book or record or tape in days of yore. The problem with "piracy" in the digital age is that enforcement of copyright is no longer strongly supported by the limitations of the (physical) media that carries the copyrighted information. To me, this is a true "middle of the road" licensing position.
Now, that being said, if I purchase "1984" and wake up one morning and find it missing, then discover the publisher I bought it from repossessed it, I'm going to be ticked off. If they've refunded my purchase price in full, I'll be quite a bit less ticked off.
One other thing. My limited reading indicates to me that when a digital media resource is allowed to be "shared" (even if that means copying), it seems to stimulate sales. If the objective is highest sales, which one assumes helps maximize profits, maybe lax copyright enforcement is the way for artists and even publishers to go in the digital age. When you think back to the way things worked 50, 75, 100 years ago, that's pretty amazing.
It appears that your thesis is simple: You have a good background in physical sciences (do you possess an university undergrad. or grad. degree in the physical sciences or engineering? I do. Both). Therefore, since I disagree with you, I'm wrong and you're right. Congratulations. You're the perfect AGW shill. That's as far as the AGW argumentation logic goes in the post-Gore world.
I hope our descendants will be able to find their graves so that they might defecate on them. I'm done here.
Wow. My apologies for hitting such a sensitive nerve.
I don't think anyone in their right mind wants AGW to be happening.
Well, at least you're one person who isn't depending on global warming being "correct" to continue funding all their research grants. C'mon, man, everybody else has boat payments to make, and vacations in the Caymans planned over the next few "winters!!!"
Y'know, it's odd how "another" anonymous coward replied here, and was quickly moderated informative. Could be a conspiracy...;-)
Then let me speak up. The standing assumption is that "solar output" only varies by approx. 0.1%, and therefore has almost no effect on global warming and cooling. IOW, they say that the sun has no effect on how warm or cool the earth is. Yeah, right. That is so pathetically wrong, I can barely comprehend the lack of understanding of how the earth is heated that could result in such a ludicrous contention (with apologies for so badly paraphrasing Babbage).
The problem is that these so-called "climate scientists" assume that measured solar irradiance is in one-to-one correspondence with energy transport from sun to earth. What about poorly or incorrectly measured wavelengths of solar output? What about magnetic coupling from sun to earth? What about other forms of radiation, particles/solar wind streaming from the sun to earth? What about the effect of CMEs hitting or not hitting the earth? I may be _very_ wrong, but in the little reading I've done I've seen no mention of such effects. One thing that bothers me is it seems (not all, but) a bunch of these "experts" have studied these questions just a deeply as I have, which is to say, hardly at all.
I'm no AC. The shrill AGW proselytizers are so wrong, and have garnered so much attention from those who set our collective direction (govt. and the damned UN), that we all deserve to be frightened. What will we do if and when earth begins cooling again, and they all start screaming of the coming Ice Age like back in the '70's? Rush off to fund their "new" research to the tune of tens of billions of dollars, and pass legislation that will retard our national economy hundreds of billions of dollars in excess costs and lost opportunities?
In that case, I simply recommend burning more carbon-based energy sources. Yeah, that's the ticket! </cynicism>
Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but the answer shouldn't be complex. Base the decision to contain either hot or cold aisles on the differences to ambient temperature. If (HotT - AmbientT) > (AmbientT - ColdT), then contain the hot aisles. If it's the other way around, contain the cold aisles. This minimizes the entropy loss due to temperature mixing in the data center, I believe. Just my 2 cents.
Slashdot Mirror
The risk of a terrorist attack is so infinitesimal and its impact so relatively insignificant....
Risk of attack infinitesimal? Close to it, perhaps. Impact relatively insignificant? Um, do you mind if I point out your error in logic or judgment?
I seem to remember September 11, 2001, as a rather significant day in history. The families and friends of approx. 3,000 people, both Americans and foreign nationals, would likely agree.
Pardon me while I call "shenanigans."
Caprica had a chance to develop as much thought-provoking depth as the new BSG, but for some reason the show's premise went in another direction. Maybe it was just so the whole show could revolve around a young, cute Zoe??? Ratings, ratings, ratings! How can such a great idea fail?!
The potential for genius in these series was the dichotomy of the Cylons as monotheists who believe in an imminent and transcendent God versus the humans who believe in a worldly pantheon. Why would the once-mechanical Cylons believe in the concept of God? How could this happen with machines? This is the dilemma that needed to drive Caprica, but the creators/writers blew it big time. "I've got it! The avatar or 'spirit' of a monotheist Caprican will be transferred into the original Cylon. That's how they come to believe in God! Plus, that Caprican can be a cute, sexy young girl!!!" Lame!
The question they should have explored is how the Cylons came to their faith. The dilemma they could have developed is, did the programming of their consciousness/AI evolve to develop transcendent spiritual dimensions, or were the Cylons touched by God and given an inextinguishable spirit by him? Mind you, this may be too religious a storyline to be popular, or for a major production company to sign off on....
However, I do believe that word is spelled "leers." So it's both a typo and a misspelling, par for the course on /., I guess???
"... all that we have learned since Laura Ingalls' day about teaching, learning, and technology."
By and large, what we've "learned" about teaching and learning in the past 125 or so years is how to do a poorer job. (My apologies to those developing tech-driven educational methods.) Socrates and his students did a far better job. They knew how to use their brains to think critically (dialectic, then rhetoric). Part of the development of a finely honed mind is rote memorization (grammar), which modern educational theory regards as more or less barbaric.
The classical scholars, the great minds of any era, didn't have technology. They didn't *need* technology. Much of modern technology simply ends up replacing the functioning of the human mind. It seems to invariably become a crutch for so poorly trained a mind. *This* is why Dick and Jane can't read.
"... unless we elect Sarah Palin for President."
Seriously, dude, get over yourself. You're acting as the PC police, attempting to regulate the Moral police. Don't you understand that your words are self-contradictory?
I'm working to *reduce* the demands my household puts on the electric infrastructure by conserving energy at home. Were I to buy a plug-in EV, my electricity usage would skyrocket. I'd likely have to get electrical work done to upgrade my service for the load of plugging in an electric car, so I'm saving money all around. Finally, all the electricity an EV would need would greatly increase my carbon footprint, because more coal would have to be burned to supply that energy.
I'll just keep on driving my high-MPG new technology diesel (a VW Jetta TDI SportWagon). It's better for my pocketbook, for the infrastructure and for the environment. Going EV now would be foolish.
Please mod parent up! -- I have no mod points.
$2mil/yr is peanuts, in almost any business serving more than a small handful of clients. OTOH, if you run your business out of your mom's basement, $250k/yr may be enough. </sarcasm>
... would it have been so hard to start your comment with, "The goggles, they do nothing!" Would it, really???
Boo-frickin'-hoo. Thank the Lord above this war is being fought in Afghanistan, not Manhattan. Then grow a pair and get a life.
Their compassion for all human life -- as long as it's civilian life -- is touching.
</sarcasm>
G = 8 pi T
Or is that:
G + lambda g = 8 pi T
On the other hand, don't get any tattoos. It's like that sunscreen warning thingy -- one day, you'll be sorry. Even about the equations.
+1 -- Please mod parent up.
I'm jealous! because s/he beat me to the punch. I was gonna say, "How dare anyone -- especially a government agency, harrumph! -- perform an automated scan of publicly posted statements on a public website. How dare they!"
It's public, people. It's posted with the expectation that it _will_ be freely accessed and read. That's just the opposite of an expectation of privacy, regardless of who's accessing or reading it.
... you patronising [sic] jackass.
.... Huh?
Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week. Try the veal!
Thanks for clarifying. I was totally puzzled because your wording was too short to take from it any clear meaning. Sorry.
If it were a hard copy, I wouldn't be the slightest bit less ticked off. I'd be pressing charges for every law they broke in order to take back the book, and throw a lawsuit on top of it for whatever my lawyer could think of.
I agree with you. If they took back the (hard copy) book (I would agree with the wording "stole it from me"), I'd be really ticked off, too. If they refunded my purchase price in full, I'd be quite a bit less ticked off. (Please note that I'm not addressing the issue of censorship here.)
And your point here is an excellent one. Recapturing something from someone's hard/flash drive in their home is the digital equivalent of breaking and entering, unless the publisher has a court order/warrant to repossess it. Just because it's licensed, the licensor isn't granted the right to take it back at any time and place. Thank you for emphasizing that. I'm dubious as to whether clicking on a EULA can legally grant a seemingly unlimited right of repossession, just because the media is digital.
So, thanks for hitting another important issue this raises :^)
"To buy" a book versus "to license" it, I don't think you understand the concept. Granted, it was much easier to understand when books were hardcopy only. Back then, it was well understood that you couldn't just go to the local copy shop and have them make 10, 100, 1,000 copies which you then sold, or even gave away. Digital makes this process trivial. It is no longer thought-provoking (huh, a publisher sells these, maybe they'll object to my selling them or giving them away -- there is that thing about copyright) because it's so easy and appears so innocuous.
When you buy a book, you're buying the physical media -- the paper and cover/spine/jacket/glue/stitching, and also the ink covering the page -- for what that's worth. You're also buying the consumption of the words. You're not buying the words or the right to reproduce them. The same holds true with digital media. You're buying the right to consume the information contained within a particular ordering of bits, but you're not buying the information itself or the right to make even one filecopy of that information which you sell or give to someone else. (Yes, backups are fair use, no matter what anyone says.) I'm sorry, but you're just not.
In other words, whether hard or electronic copy, when you "buy" a book, you're really just licensing it, to put it in the words you used. There is no "bought."
This is why I like the book/record model of licensing. Buy this digital resource, and you can use or lend or trade it just like you'd do with a hard media book or record or tape in days of yore. The problem with "piracy" in the digital age is that enforcement of copyright is no longer strongly supported by the limitations of the (physical) media that carries the copyrighted information. To me, this is a true "middle of the road" licensing position.
Now, that being said, if I purchase "1984" and wake up one morning and find it missing, then discover the publisher I bought it from repossessed it, I'm going to be ticked off. If they've refunded my purchase price in full, I'll be quite a bit less ticked off.
One other thing. My limited reading indicates to me that when a digital media resource is allowed to be "shared" (even if that means copying), it seems to stimulate sales. If the objective is highest sales, which one assumes helps maximize profits, maybe lax copyright enforcement is the way for artists and even publishers to go in the digital age. When you think back to the way things worked 50, 75, 100 years ago, that's pretty amazing.
If one thinks it odd that this article is tagged "commonsense", remember that one of the documents in this collection is that historic pamphlet of the American Revolution.
Thank you, diligent taggers </sarcasm>.
Deficit != Debt
Aw, crap! Thank you for that. I stand corrected.
Good! Now the U.S. Gov't. needs to seize RIAA. That'll take a sizable chunk out of our $13+ trillion deficit!
It appears that your thesis is simple: You have a good background in physical sciences (do you possess an university undergrad. or grad. degree in the physical sciences or engineering? I do. Both). Therefore, since I disagree with you, I'm wrong and you're right. Congratulations. You're the perfect AGW shill. That's as far as the AGW argumentation logic goes in the post-Gore world.
I hope our descendants will be able to find their graves so that they might defecate on them. I'm done here.
Wow. My apologies for hitting such a sensitive nerve.
I don't think anyone in their right mind wants AGW to be happening.
Well, at least you're one person who isn't depending on global warming being "correct" to continue funding all their research grants. C'mon, man, everybody else has boat payments to make, and vacations in the Caymans planned over the next few "winters!!!"
Please, for those with mod points, mod this parent Up! Very insightful, and prescient, IMHO.
Y'know, it's odd how "another" anonymous coward replied here, and was quickly moderated informative. Could be a conspiracy... ;-)
Then let me speak up. The standing assumption is that "solar output" only varies by approx. 0.1%, and therefore has almost no effect on global warming and cooling. IOW, they say that the sun has no effect on how warm or cool the earth is. Yeah, right. That is so pathetically wrong, I can barely comprehend the lack of understanding of how the earth is heated that could result in such a ludicrous contention (with apologies for so badly paraphrasing Babbage).
The problem is that these so-called "climate scientists" assume that measured solar irradiance is in one-to-one correspondence with energy transport from sun to earth. What about poorly or incorrectly measured wavelengths of solar output? What about magnetic coupling from sun to earth? What about other forms of radiation, particles/solar wind streaming from the sun to earth? What about the effect of CMEs hitting or not hitting the earth? I may be _very_ wrong, but in the little reading I've done I've seen no mention of such effects. One thing that bothers me is it seems (not all, but) a bunch of these "experts" have studied these questions just a deeply as I have, which is to say, hardly at all.
I'm no AC. The shrill AGW proselytizers are so wrong, and have garnered so much attention from those who set our collective direction (govt. and the damned UN), that we all deserve to be frightened. What will we do if and when earth begins cooling again, and they all start screaming of the coming Ice Age like back in the '70's? Rush off to fund their "new" research to the tune of tens of billions of dollars, and pass legislation that will retard our national economy hundreds of billions of dollars in excess costs and lost opportunities?
In that case, I simply recommend burning more carbon-based energy sources. Yeah, that's the ticket! </cynicism>
Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but the answer shouldn't be complex. Base the decision to contain either hot or cold aisles on the differences to ambient temperature. If (HotT - AmbientT) > (AmbientT - ColdT), then contain the hot aisles. If it's the other way around, contain the cold aisles. This minimizes the entropy loss due to temperature mixing in the data center, I believe. Just my 2 cents.
Jam a bastard in it, you crap!