Totally impractical. One of the huge survival issues they'd face is food storage. Food storage is seriously hard and getting spoilage -- then starvation -- amazingly easy. Even those plastic footlockers scattered about the ship so they could hide behind them and shoot back at centurians would be immensely valuable. I think the writers must have absolutely no farming/gardening experience at all. You laugh at "geeks living in basements" -- I laugh at suburbanites thinking that a healthy balanced diet in sufficient quantities to last throughout the year just grows on trees.
I think that is a rationalization. Besides, if the 12 colonies had been so smart as to figure out faster than light travel, I'd imagine they'd have independently come up with Clarke's Third Law, and rather than chuck everything and doom themselves to a grueling existence poking the earth and animals with sharp sticks, would have decided to learn about the higher technologyl
I was disappointed in how it ended up falling into the "Sci-Fear" subcategory of Sci-Fi, you know, the "technology is bad, stop the mad scientists, they're all out to get us" type.
While true that technology does help people do bad things, the amount of people helped in positive ways is vastly larger. Farming is a great example of the practical aspects of technology, but one which we take for granted. With no tools of any kind, it's a 24/7 exercise in bone breaking labor for scant rewards -- with effective tools, starvation isn't a constant companion.
Yet in BSG, technology is so bad they have to chuck it into the sun. Lame Sci-Fear.
I found it rather frustrating sitting through all the backstory stuff, like the drunk driving accident and boy toy one nighter causing Laura to join a campaign -- rather dull and not really that important at this stage of the game.
* Even a small spare backup generator would massively increase the chance of survival by allowing a small amount of refrigeration -- food storage is a serious issue. Heat can also be important.
* All that metal that was thrown into the sun would make gardening implements. Tilling the earth with sticks is a real bitch. Also, it is so much easier to cut wood with metal saws than with sticks. What are they going to live in to protect against hypothermia in cold areas.
* It will be at least 6 months till crops come in -- a few items in a backpack aren't going to be enough. Aside from that, while Gaius may know how to farm, I doubt enough of the rest do. That means hunting -- it's going to be hard to make hunting effective hunting tools without other tools and even harder to learn how to hunt.
* Medicine/splints/etc. -- A simple thing like a broken arm will become life threatening.
* Small groups are less likely to survive because people would actually have to rely on each other to a larger degree -- one person breaks an arm, they all die. As for the tribes, the greater liklihood is a flip out and killing spree. These people are outsiders and not being members of the tribal group, likely to be seen as enemies.
This could go on and on. The whole "chuck everything" bit was really hard to swallow.
Well, if they went ahead with Dell's Alienware cylon model phone, it might shoot back before exploding. As an aside, it would have been nice if the summary writer linked to a picture, or to an article that linked to a picture, or even linked to an article which linked to an article which linked to a picture.
I'm not saying biodiesel is bad, but realize that it won't be carbon neutral. This is because we basically eat natural gas, NG being the main feedstock for ammonia, which of course becomes fertilizer. Because our food isn't carbon neutral, it won't make carbon neutral fuel.
Perhaps someday fueling stations will sell diesel, biodiesel, and organic-biodiesel for successively greater prices. But we'll never ever be able to replace the energy we get out of mineral oil with organic-biodiesel for a price anywhere near what it takes suck oil out of the ground and refine it.
I agree with you on the point that most people use computers in a rote and unimaginative fashion. However, I think in some respects people do care what program/OS they use, just not for the right reasons.
For example, a couple weeks ago I saw my new receptionist sitting at her desk with a laptop wedged between herself and the monitor for her desktop. When I asked her what she was doing, she explained that she was entering some data into excel -- a simple two column "item,price" type thing. I told her I want her to use our spreadsheet (openoffice) using her office computer so the information would be saved in the proper place, and I sure as heck didn't want a windows machine connected to my network in any fashion. She said, "But I need to use excel because it will add the numbers automatically." !!! I showed her that sum(a1:a20) was the same in both.
I know she is not happy that she has to use openoffice -- she has made comments a number of times about how much more she likes windows in general. So, while her computer use is completely rote, she does have an unfathomable preference for windows.
As an aside, I don't understand why community colleges focus on teaching specific applications -- they should focus on teaching application concepts. Rather than "excel", they should teach working-with-spreadsheets. Rather than "Word", they should teach key wordprocessing concepts. These types of office programs haven't had anything actually new in them, aside from spellcheck perhaps, since the 80s. There is simply no excuse for teaching a specific program - just how useful is WordPerfect for DOS knowledge anymore? I feel like I hit Shift-F7 in WP a lot. Can't even remember what it was for now.
It's a nice talking point, but the real reason is the middleman -- the insurance companies and group health whatever. There's a clinic in Seattle that has opened -- they accept only cash and are able to provide services more cheaply that way.
I read another article about such a clinic opening in Seattle more recently, but just can't find it. As pointed out in the link above, doctors can charge their patients less money by cutting out the insurance company bureaucracy.
Most people don't think about this however until they go out to buy their own insurance. Almost universally, a catastrophic insurance plan coupled with cash payment for regular medical services is way cheaper than getting Group Health or something like that.
Then tell me that our government doesn't work like a ponzi scheme. Madoff will go to jail for diverting investment funds. In DC, misspend social security funds and they give you a bigger limmo or a jet.
All this because we gave TOO MUCH money to the government. Ticks me off to hear a bunch of DC crooks call people not willing to bend over and take it goatse style "cheats".
Why should I download? I've checked out the main site, at least the top pages on the site, and it doesn't say why I should care about pclinux. Compare with Debian, Ubuntu, or Gentoo -- these suggest a reason for using any of those right off the bat. Fedora is a little more vague, but then Red Hat can be a little more coy than others.
The Ripper Gang is pleased to announce the final public ISO release of PCLinuxOS 2009.1.
This release features kernel 2.6.26.8.tex3, KDE 3.5.10, Open Office 3.0, Firefox 3.0.7, Thunderbird 2.0.0.14, Ktorrent, Frostwire, Amarok, Flash, Java JRE, Compiz-Fusion 3D and much more. We decided to use kde3-5-10 as our default desktop as the we could not achieve a similar functionality from kde4. We will however offer kde4 as an alternative desktop environment available from the repo once we stabilize it.
That alphabet soup doesn't really inspire at all. Now, I actually know that I don't want to use Gentoo, but the first thing from the site makes it seem tempting:
We produce Gentoo Linux, a special flavor of Linux that can be automatically optimized and customized for just about any application or need. Extreme performance, configurability and a top-notch user and developer community are all hallmarks of the Gentoo experience. To learn more, read our about page.
Nice -- I'm a potter too! I hit 2200F in my raku kiln with a single burner and a piece of firewood split into kindling. I was just doing a clay test and my fiber is really worn, so I didn't go that far with it, but I would think that with several pieces of wood split into small kindling, you could get a bit more temperature. I'd wonder if using two burners will take it all the way to 2500F though, because you can only pump so much fuel into your kiln before you get reduction conditions -- it's going to be much easier to raise the temperature in oxidation, though of course in reduction, there may be chemical changes that lower the melting point. If you can get a 2-3 ft tall flame out of your exhaust hole with one burner, I doubt you can really put much more fuel in it. If you don't get that flame and are using a regulator, take off the regulator (and accept the danger). Here's my clay test and shot of the pyrometer at 2200: http://www.anagama-west.com/firing_log/archives/80
Free? At best it will reduce your taxable income and worse still, you may have to depreciate it, i.e., spread out that reduction, over five years. It would rock if you could get a tax credit for such things but I don't think that's how it works, although IANAA (....Accountant).
No car company can really stop people from locking their keys in their cars without fancy solutions like RFID fingers or Bluetooth or some-such. I don't think the people at Isuzu who designed your car door thought that they could. Instead, they were trying to solve the problem of unintentionally closing the locked door.
There are other ways to solve that problem which are more effective or less effective. For example, in my old VW Jetta, it is impossible to push the lock plunger down on the driver's door when the door is open, and the door will not open while it is locked. The only way to lock the driver's door is to use the key from the outside (which also operated all the other locks), or reach across from the passenger side and press the lock while the driver's door is closed. I've done that one or two times when I didn't have the key on me, but of course, that left no risk of locking the key in the car. While not impossible, it is as close to impossible to unintentionally lock the keys in the car with this system.
For the first couple months, it bothered me. Then I simply got used to it and felt happy knowing I would never lock my keys in the car. If Windows users would just get used to some security blocks, they'd ultimately be happier.
On the other side of the coin, the convenience side, my wife's Honda CRV "conveniently" locks the doors automatically after about five minutes. As a result, it is exceptionally easy to lock the keys in the car -- all you have to do is leave the keys in it and then run inside to grab something you forgot -- a second too long and you suddenly face a huge delay and a locksmith bill. It's the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. In the name of "ease of use", it creates tremendous user interference on rare but significant occasions.
I didn't, I actually switched to Windows due in part to the... removal of backwards-compatibility in OS X. The difference is that Apple, and "reality distortion field" Apple customers, don't give a third of a crap about backwards compatibility.
I don't get this -- you could install OS 9 support as recently as Tiger with Apple's tools and then run your OS 9 compatible apps alongside your OS X apps. OS 9 was introduced on Oct 23, 1999. Leopard (without OS 9 support) was introduced on October 27, 2007. That's 8 years of active support for OS 9, which doesn't really seem all that bad for a consumer machine. Besides, would you really want to run any hardware/software from 1999 except on a nostalgia basis?
In most US jurisdictions, both sides have to agree to a bench trial. If one side wants a jury, a jury trial it is. So a bench trial isn't exactly something you can simply elect to have.
You are wrong, from the page you quote, for all models of the imac: "Support for external display in video mirroring mode"
No -- you are wrong. Lift your eyes up a bullet point, and you will see "Support for external display in extended desktop mode". In other words, the iMac supports spanning AND mirroring.
From the opinion, a summary of the facts. It appears they did take his laptop and attempt to clone the drive:
The material facts pertaining to the motion to quash, as set forth in the Magistrate
Judge's Opinion and Order, have not been disputed. On December 17, 2006, Boucher and
his father crossed the Canadian border into the United States at Derby Line, Vermont. A
Custom and Border Protection inspector directed Boucher's car into secondary inspection.
The inspector conducting the secondary inspection observed a laptop computer in the
back seat of Boucher's car, which Boucher acknowledged as his. The inspector searched
the computer files and found approximately 40,000 images.
Based upon the file names, some of the files appeared to contain pornographic
images, including child pornography. The inspector called in a Special Agent for
Immigration and Customs Enforcement ("ICE") with experience and training in
recognizing child pornography. The agent examined the computer and file names and
observed several images of adult pornography and animated child pornography. He
clicked on a file labeled "2yo getting raped during diaper change," but was unable to
open it. The "Properties" feature indicated that the file had last been opened on December
11, 2006.
After giving Boucher Miranda warnings, and obtaining a waiver from him, the agent
asked Boucher about the inaccessible file. Boucher replied that he downloads many
pornographic files from online newsgroups onto a desktop computer and transfers them
to his laptop. He stated that he sometimes unknowingly downloads images that contain
child pornography, but deletes them when he realizes their contents.
The agent asked Boucher to show him the files he downloads. Boucher navigated to
drive "Z" of the laptop, and the agent began searching the Z drive. The agent located and
examined several videos or images that appeared to meet the definition of child
pornography.
The agent arrested Boucher, seized the laptop and shut it down. He applied for and
obtained a search warrant for the laptop. In the course of creating a mirror image of the
contents of the laptop, however, the government discovered that it could not find or open
the Z drive because it is protected by encryption algorithms from the computer software
"Pretty Good Protection," which requires a password to obtain access. The government is
not able to open the encrypted files without knowing the password. In order to gain
access to the Z drive, the government is using an automated system which attempts to
guess the password, a process that could take years.
The grand jury subpoena directed Boucher to produce the password. The request
described in the original subpoena, and the request to which the magistrate judge directed
his attention, have been narrowed to requiring Boucher to produce an unencrypted
version of the Z drive.
Slashdot Mirror
Totally impractical. One of the huge survival issues they'd face is food storage. Food storage is seriously hard and getting spoilage -- then starvation -- amazingly easy. Even those plastic footlockers scattered about the ship so they could hide behind them and shoot back at centurians would be immensely valuable. I think the writers must have absolutely no farming/gardening experience at all. You laugh at "geeks living in basements" -- I laugh at suburbanites thinking that a healthy balanced diet in sufficient quantities to last throughout the year just grows on trees.
I think that is a rationalization. Besides, if the 12 colonies had been so smart as to figure out faster than light travel, I'd imagine they'd have independently come up with Clarke's Third Law, and rather than chuck everything and doom themselves to a grueling existence poking the earth and animals with sharp sticks, would have decided to learn about the higher technologyl
I was disappointed in how it ended up falling into the "Sci-Fear" subcategory of Sci-Fi, you know, the "technology is bad, stop the mad scientists, they're all out to get us" type.
While true that technology does help people do bad things, the amount of people helped in positive ways is vastly larger. Farming is a great example of the practical aspects of technology, but one which we take for granted. With no tools of any kind, it's a 24/7 exercise in bone breaking labor for scant rewards -- with effective tools, starvation isn't a constant companion.
Yet in BSG, technology is so bad they have to chuck it into the sun. Lame Sci-Fear.
"about the characters"
I found it rather frustrating sitting through all the backstory stuff, like the drunk driving accident and boy toy one nighter causing Laura to join a campaign -- rather dull and not really that important at this stage of the game.
Option 1 is more practical.
* Even a small spare backup generator would massively increase the chance of survival by allowing a small amount of refrigeration -- food storage is a serious issue. Heat can also be important.
* All that metal that was thrown into the sun would make gardening implements. Tilling the earth with sticks is a real bitch. Also, it is so much easier to cut wood with metal saws than with sticks. What are they going to live in to protect against hypothermia in cold areas.
* It will be at least 6 months till crops come in -- a few items in a backpack aren't going to be enough. Aside from that, while Gaius may know how to farm, I doubt enough of the rest do. That means hunting -- it's going to be hard to make hunting effective hunting tools without other tools and even harder to learn how to hunt.
* Medicine/splints/etc. -- A simple thing like a broken arm will become life threatening.
* Small groups are less likely to survive because people would actually have to rely on each other to a larger degree -- one person breaks an arm, they all die. As for the tribes, the greater liklihood is a flip out and killing spree. These people are outsiders and not being members of the tribal group, likely to be seen as enemies.
This could go on and on. The whole "chuck everything" bit was really hard to swallow.
Well, if they went ahead with Dell's Alienware cylon model phone, it might shoot back before exploding. As an aside, it would have been nice if the summary writer linked to a picture, or to an article that linked to a picture, or even linked to an article which linked to an article which linked to a picture.
Not by themselves, at least for plants like Zhaan who'd enjoy a good photogasm from time to time.
I should have included a link to the NG to ammonia process (Haber-Bosch): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process
I'm not saying biodiesel is bad, but realize that it won't be carbon neutral. This is because we basically eat natural gas, NG being the main feedstock for ammonia, which of course becomes fertilizer. Because our food isn't carbon neutral, it won't make carbon neutral fuel.
Perhaps someday fueling stations will sell diesel, biodiesel, and organic-biodiesel for successively greater prices. But we'll never ever be able to replace the energy we get out of mineral oil with organic-biodiesel for a price anywhere near what it takes suck oil out of the ground and refine it.
I agree with you on the point that most people use computers in a rote and unimaginative fashion. However, I think in some respects people do care what program/OS they use, just not for the right reasons.
For example, a couple weeks ago I saw my new receptionist sitting at her desk with a laptop wedged between herself and the monitor for her desktop. When I asked her what she was doing, she explained that she was entering some data into excel -- a simple two column "item,price" type thing. I told her I want her to use our spreadsheet (openoffice) using her office computer so the information would be saved in the proper place, and I sure as heck didn't want a windows machine connected to my network in any fashion. She said, "But I need to use excel because it will add the numbers automatically." !!! I showed her that sum(a1:a20) was the same in both.
I know she is not happy that she has to use openoffice -- she has made comments a number of times about how much more she likes windows in general. So, while her computer use is completely rote, she does have an unfathomable preference for windows.
As an aside, I don't understand why community colleges focus on teaching specific applications -- they should focus on teaching application concepts. Rather than "excel", they should teach working-with-spreadsheets. Rather than "Word", they should teach key wordprocessing concepts. These types of office programs haven't had anything actually new in them, aside from spellcheck perhaps, since the 80s. There is simply no excuse for teaching a specific program - just how useful is WordPerfect for DOS knowledge anymore? I feel like I hit Shift-F7 in WP a lot. Can't even remember what it was for now.
It's a nice talking point, but the real reason is the middleman -- the insurance companies and group health whatever. There's a clinic in Seattle that has opened -- they accept only cash and are able to provide services more cheaply that way.
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20040405&slug=cashdoctors05
I read another article about such a clinic opening in Seattle more recently, but just can't find it. As pointed out in the link above, doctors can charge their patients less money by cutting out the insurance company bureaucracy.
Most people don't think about this however until they go out to buy their own insurance. Almost universally, a catastrophic insurance plan coupled with cash payment for regular medical services is way cheaper than getting Group Health or something like that.
Take 30 seconds to view this graph: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGgjU-h_xQw
Then tell me that our government doesn't work like a ponzi scheme. Madoff will go to jail for diverting investment funds. In DC, misspend social security funds and they give you a bigger limmo or a jet.
As for roads etc, won't matter in twenty years whether we want them or not: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTJVYDDFXPY
Then watch the 30 minute version of IOUSA: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_TjBNjc9Bo
All this because we gave TOO MUCH money to the government. Ticks me off to hear a bunch of DC crooks call people not willing to bend over and take it goatse style "cheats".
Like cheating an inept and corrupt government is wrong somehow.
This is the first thing said about PCLinuxOS:
That alphabet soup doesn't really inspire at all. Now, I actually know that I don't want to use Gentoo, but the first thing from the site makes it seem tempting:
I've really wanted to get into metal casting for a long time now. I just have to get my act together and build something.
Nice -- I'm a potter too! I hit 2200F in my raku kiln with a single burner and a piece of firewood split into kindling. I was just doing a clay test and my fiber is really worn, so I didn't go that far with it, but I would think that with several pieces of wood split into small kindling, you could get a bit more temperature. I'd wonder if using two burners will take it all the way to 2500F though, because you can only pump so much fuel into your kiln before you get reduction conditions -- it's going to be much easier to raise the temperature in oxidation, though of course in reduction, there may be chemical changes that lower the melting point. If you can get a 2-3 ft tall flame out of your exhaust hole with one burner, I doubt you can really put much more fuel in it. If you don't get that flame and are using a regulator, take off the regulator (and accept the danger). Here's my clay test and shot of the pyrometer at 2200: http://www.anagama-west.com/firing_log/archives/80
Free? At best it will reduce your taxable income and worse still, you may have to depreciate it, i.e., spread out that reduction, over five years. It would rock if you could get a tax credit for such things but I don't think that's how it works, although IANAA (....Accountant).
There are other ways to solve that problem which are more effective or less effective. For example, in my old VW Jetta, it is impossible to push the lock plunger down on the driver's door when the door is open, and the door will not open while it is locked. The only way to lock the driver's door is to use the key from the outside (which also operated all the other locks), or reach across from the passenger side and press the lock while the driver's door is closed. I've done that one or two times when I didn't have the key on me, but of course, that left no risk of locking the key in the car. While not impossible, it is as close to impossible to unintentionally lock the keys in the car with this system.
For the first couple months, it bothered me. Then I simply got used to it and felt happy knowing I would never lock my keys in the car. If Windows users would just get used to some security blocks, they'd ultimately be happier.
On the other side of the coin, the convenience side, my wife's Honda CRV "conveniently" locks the doors automatically after about five minutes. As a result, it is exceptionally easy to lock the keys in the car -- all you have to do is leave the keys in it and then run inside to grab something you forgot -- a second too long and you suddenly face a huge delay and a locksmith bill. It's the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. In the name of "ease of use", it creates tremendous user interference on rare but significant occasions.
I don't get this -- you could install OS 9 support as recently as Tiger with Apple's tools and then run your OS 9 compatible apps alongside your OS X apps. OS 9 was introduced on Oct 23, 1999. Leopard (without OS 9 support) was introduced on October 27, 2007. That's 8 years of active support for OS 9, which doesn't really seem all that bad for a consumer machine. Besides, would you really want to run any hardware/software from 1999 except on a nostalgia basis?
Mod way up. This doesn't deserve a '0'.
In most US jurisdictions, both sides have to agree to a bench trial. If one side wants a jury, a jury trial it is. So a bench trial isn't exactly something you can simply elect to have.
It was transported there by rail of course. Airplanes didn't exist way back when earth that makes up Kansas was underwater.
No -- you are wrong. Lift your eyes up a bullet point, and you will see "Support for external display in extended desktop mode". In other words, the iMac supports spanning AND mirroring.
You need to upgrade your "sense of entitlement" -- you're falling way behind the current population.