But, in typical slashdot fashion, 99.9 percent of the posts are people telling the author of the question that he is stupid, lacks intellectual ability, must be a high school drop out, or has some bastardized sexual persuasion that prevents his router from working.
This might amaze you, but you're not the first person on Slashdot to run into this problem!
It turns out that the editors devised a "moderation" system whereby moderators assign a "score" to individual posts.
But it gets better! See the slider floating at the top of the page? If you drag it to the left, Slashdot will filter out the lower scored posts and you don't have to read the irrelevant and stupid stuff.
Or is it my lack of knowledge of American politics? In Australia, if a member of a party distanced themselves by saying this, they would not last too long in that party.
I'm somewhat familiar with politics in Oz, so I know where you're coming from. The Republicans ever since Regan have been a "big tent" party. If you look at voting records, most republicans vote the party line about 70%-90% of the time; this is supported by numbers from both the right-wing American Conservative Union and the leftist Americans for Democratic Action. This is very much a matter of extent of course, but entire blocks of Democratic voters are influenced by extremely powerful union interests that have no counterpart in the Republican party. I can hand in my NRA card any time I like, but to get out of the union you have to quit your job. No Democratic candidate will last long opposing the unions.
The downside is, as you've observed, that there is little party discipline which is a major reason why, for example, the Republican leadership has often promised fiscal responsibility and failed to deliver. The upside is that they can quickly co-opt would be third-party challengers by stealing their ideas and talent, which is a main reason the Libertarian party has never taken off.
Regarding McCain, although has a reputation for holding controversial views, he's actually a fairly mainstream conservative by his voting record; I believe he gets a score of 75 with the ACU. Many conservatives are upset with him about a few key issues like campaign finance reform (due to free speech implications) and illegal immigration, but those are only a few issues out of many.
In America, if you're capable of learning, you're supposed to hide the fact. Demonstrating the capacity to learn is guaranteed to get to ridiculed for being a "flip-flopper".
Hmm... from the sound of the whine, you must be a Obama supporter. Here's the problem with your analysis: to learn something, you have to actually *do* something and see how it turns out. Obama hasn't been around long enough and done anything significant enough to have a good reason to change his mind.
Except on one issue: Iraq. He voiced opposition to the surge early on and he could go to Iraq and see first hand how it is. But he won't go. How can you have "capacity to learn" if you won't go and see what is happening?
Instead we have the spectacle of him saying he wants an undivided Jerusalem in front of AIPAC and backpedaling in front of other audiences. Sorry, that's either rank opportunism or naivete, not a "capacity to learn."
We have him pledging to take public funds and then changing his mind when it's inconvenient. I don't even like public funds and I'd even support a politician who was honest and said that he'd make his decision based on what would get the most money. But to just break a pledge indicates that you have no principles.
And there are cases where he ought to have simply admitted he was wrong, like when he said during the primaries that he'd speak to Ahmadinejad without preconditions. Instead he's turned an unscripted answer borne of ignorance into his foreign policy, or in some cases tried to deny that he said it.
Further, when another candidate admits he has limited knowledge, as when McCain acknowledged he didn't have all the answers on economic issues, Obama ridiculed him. Obama has presented himself as having all the answers and has thus put himself into the position of being unable to change his mind. So when he gets the flip-flopper label, its his own hubris coming back to bite him.
Until now I thought that ouside the real of mathematics (where things can be proven and no further revision is possible, save for attacking the logic of the proof), there is no such thing as "an experiment that removes all doubt"?
I think there's an experiment you can do that involves removing most of the pre-frontal cortex...
Please explain how this "ownership" works. Why, exactly, can't the Congressman simply vote exactly as he pleases and pick up 2-3 million dollars from someone else the next time around, or retire?
I've actually tried, out of curiosity, to order something. I rarely get to a working web page, let alone an order form. Sometimes you'll see a 1800 number. Many times you'll just be redirected to a page full of ads.
I would heartlessly argue that someone who's rushed to the ER because they were partying too hard and spending all their money on drugs instead of health insurance shouldn't be treated with the bill paid by society's safety net the same way as, say, a homeless person hit by a car should be treated. So before beginning treatment, an ER has to spend time figuring out how an incoming casualty got injured and then, if that casualty doesn't qualify for free care, determining whether said casualty has insurance. That just doesn't make sense.
I'd prefer a health system that is largely pay as you go. But given that we have to provide universal emergency coverage, it actually reduces the burden on individuals if we have a basic level of mandated preventative care. Yeah, the government is making you get your shots, checking your asshole, and it's violating the sanctity of your body. But if it means that you don't have to work as much to dump money into emergency rooms for people who don't take care of themselves, and if you spend less time sick (imprisoned in bed!) it's a net gain in actual freedom.
In a follow on story, tech company employees behave rudely and unprofessionally in an Internet chat. The employees defended their actions stating that "what happens on the Internet, stays on the Internet."
At least Half (if not all) of the military's equipment has VERY explicit instructions written on it, to the point that if you had not been trained in its use, you could pick it up on the battlefield and make it work in a few minutes.
This is going to be Army centric; guessing my MOS probably won't be hard. No direct fire weapon I know of (M2HB, M4, M9, M16, M60, M203, M240, M249, Mk19) has instructions. Claymores do, sewn into the carrier. Neither hand grenades, M203 grenades nor Mk19 grenades have any instructions. Vehicles, generally no. The M2 BFV has a diagram showing how to load 25mm ammo, but that's about it. (You have to load the 25mm ammo just right or it will jam.) I can't think of any diagrams in the Abrams. HMMWVs, at least the common M998, have no instructions, nor do the Army trucks. There are no instructions on SINGCARS or ASIPS radios. PLGR (sp?) GPS units have no instructions that I can recall. Military compasses have no instructions. IBA has some instructions, but I can't recall what they are about. I've never seen any instructions on NVDs of any sort, nor PAC4s or other night gear. AT4s and Javelins both have some instructions. Neither the old FLC nor the new MOLLE gear has any instructions. The shelter halves have no instructions. There are no instructions on how to wear a beret, or any part of the uniform, though they are obviously labeled with washing instructions. There are some instructions that come with the old PASGT and new ACH helmets, and some eye protection has instructions. Ear plugs have no instructions. T-10D parachutes have no instructions. MREs have the infamous "place on rock or something" instructions.
That's off the top of my head. I will point out, though, that the military has hundreds of field manuals, technical manuals, pamphlets, training guides, &c. Any active duty soldier looking to get promoted spends a lot of time hitting the books in addition to training his unit does.
Bandwidth seems to be _far_ more expensive in the US, both for residential lines, and for servers. (I could be wrong on this, as I haven't bought bandwidth in a US datacenter in a couple years.)
The problem comparing the US and any particular European country for anything relating to infrastructure is that the US has much more varied population densities than most European countries, and even more varied laws than any given European country.
A Main Battle Tank is characterized by overwhelming offensive power and survivability, which generally translates into big gun, big optics, heavy armor and powerful engine. I am in an armor MOS, incidentally, though I'm not a tanker.
The MULE looks like it complements counter-insurgency measures. A necessity of counter-insurgency is patrolling, and having a robot help haul gear in places where vehicles can't go allows for more extensive patrols.
The bulk of successful attacks against Windows, at least until very recently, have resulted from OS flaws.
And now the bulk of attacks against Apache are due to admin misconfigurations. So while MS fixed the underlying problems, the Apache crew needs to improve the user interface for administration.
There is commercial software that provides a GUI for Apache (hit your favorite search engine) and it ought to be a priority to bring such functionality into the core.
Because humans (well, most of us) have a thing called a brain that enables them to correct the imperfections, or at least to recognise them and ask for clarification.
but until you can nail 110% correct recognition, in a crowded area
People frequently repeat themselves to each other in noisy areas. Further, if you've worked in military or law enforcement and have experience with talking on a radio, radios frequently drop out and force people to repeat themselves, yet radios are considered a fundamental tool. Why is it that speech recognition done by computers needs to be absolutely perfect, when it isn't in any other field?
It is easy to dismiss someone else's work then to appreciate the effort that someone put into it.
I'm not dismissing the idea of 3D graphics on Excel, I'm dismissing the article's fluffy and hyped coverage of the subject that, in obsessing about a "revolution", missed all the interesting math.
That's how we get people on planes in the military all the time. (Technical term: reverse chalk order) Of course, we also have an even quicker way of getting off the plane.
Slashdot Mirror
This might amaze you, but you're not the first person on Slashdot to run into this problem!
It turns out that the editors devised a "moderation" system whereby moderators assign a "score" to individual posts.
But it gets better! See the slider floating at the top of the page? If you drag it to the left, Slashdot will filter out the lower scored posts and you don't have to read the irrelevant and stupid stuff.
Or is it my lack of knowledge of American politics? In Australia, if a member of a party distanced themselves by saying this, they would not last too long in that party.
I'm somewhat familiar with politics in Oz, so I know where you're coming from. The Republicans ever since Regan have been a "big tent" party. If you look at voting records, most republicans vote the party line about 70%-90% of the time; this is supported by numbers from both the right-wing American Conservative Union and the leftist Americans for Democratic Action. This is very much a matter of extent of course, but entire blocks of Democratic voters are influenced by extremely powerful union interests that have no counterpart in the Republican party. I can hand in my NRA card any time I like, but to get out of the union you have to quit your job. No Democratic candidate will last long opposing the unions.
The downside is, as you've observed, that there is little party discipline which is a major reason why, for example, the Republican leadership has often promised fiscal responsibility and failed to deliver. The upside is that they can quickly co-opt would be third-party challengers by stealing their ideas and talent, which is a main reason the Libertarian party has never taken off.
Regarding McCain, although has a reputation for holding controversial views, he's actually a fairly mainstream conservative by his voting record; I believe he gets a score of 75 with the ACU. Many conservatives are upset with him about a few key issues like campaign finance reform (due to free speech implications) and illegal immigration, but those are only a few issues out of many.
They're quite useful inside pubs and other establishments where everyone inside is already known to be drinking age.
In America, if you're capable of learning, you're supposed to hide the fact. Demonstrating the capacity to learn is guaranteed to get to ridiculed for being a "flip-flopper".
Hmm... from the sound of the whine, you must be a Obama supporter. Here's the problem with your analysis: to learn something, you have to actually *do* something and see how it turns out. Obama hasn't been around long enough and done anything significant enough to have a good reason to change his mind.
Except on one issue: Iraq. He voiced opposition to the surge early on and he could go to Iraq and see first hand how it is. But he won't go. How can you have "capacity to learn" if you won't go and see what is happening?
Instead we have the spectacle of him saying he wants an undivided Jerusalem in front of AIPAC and backpedaling in front of other audiences. Sorry, that's either rank opportunism or naivete, not a "capacity to learn."
We have him pledging to take public funds and then changing his mind when it's inconvenient. I don't even like public funds and I'd even support a politician who was honest and said that he'd make his decision based on what would get the most money. But to just break a pledge indicates that you have no principles.
And there are cases where he ought to have simply admitted he was wrong, like when he said during the primaries that he'd speak to Ahmadinejad without preconditions. Instead he's turned an unscripted answer borne of ignorance into his foreign policy, or in some cases tried to deny that he said it.
Further, when another candidate admits he has limited knowledge, as when McCain acknowledged he didn't have all the answers on economic issues, Obama ridiculed him. Obama has presented himself as having all the answers and has thus put himself into the position of being unable to change his mind. So when he gets the flip-flopper label, its his own hubris coming back to bite him.
Until now I thought that ouside the real of mathematics (where things can be proven and no further revision is possible, save for attacking the logic of the proof), there is no such thing as "an experiment that removes all doubt"?
I think there's an experiment you can do that involves removing most of the pre-frontal cortex...
Step 0: raise rather a lot of venture capital
Please explain how this "ownership" works. Why, exactly, can't the Congressman simply vote exactly as he pleases and pick up 2-3 million dollars from someone else the next time around, or retire?
I've actually tried, out of curiosity, to order something. I rarely get to a working web page, let alone an order form. Sometimes you'll see a 1800 number. Many times you'll just be redirected to a page full of ads.
I'd prefer a health system that is largely pay as you go. But given that we have to provide universal emergency coverage, it actually reduces the burden on individuals if we have a basic level of mandated preventative care. Yeah, the government is making you get your shots, checking your asshole, and it's violating the sanctity of your body. But if it means that you don't have to work as much to dump money into emergency rooms for people who don't take care of themselves, and if you spend less time sick (imprisoned in bed!) it's a net gain in actual freedom.
If it weren't for all the evil, /. would actually deliver "News for Nerds" instead of "News that Irritates the Shit out of Nerds."
In a follow on story, tech company employees behave rudely and unprofessionally in an Internet chat. The employees defended their actions stating that "what happens on the Internet, stays on the Internet."
At least Half (if not all) of the military's equipment has VERY explicit instructions written on it, to the point that if you had not been trained in its use, you could pick it up on the battlefield and make it work in a few minutes.
This is going to be Army centric; guessing my MOS probably won't be hard. No direct fire weapon I know of (M2HB, M4, M9, M16, M60, M203, M240, M249, Mk19) has instructions. Claymores do, sewn into the carrier. Neither hand grenades, M203 grenades nor Mk19 grenades have any instructions. Vehicles, generally no. The M2 BFV has a diagram showing how to load 25mm ammo, but that's about it. (You have to load the 25mm ammo just right or it will jam.) I can't think of any diagrams in the Abrams. HMMWVs, at least the common M998, have no instructions, nor do the Army trucks. There are no instructions on SINGCARS or ASIPS radios. PLGR (sp?) GPS units have no instructions that I can recall. Military compasses have no instructions. IBA has some instructions, but I can't recall what they are about. I've never seen any instructions on NVDs of any sort, nor PAC4s or other night gear. AT4s and Javelins both have some instructions. Neither the old FLC nor the new MOLLE gear has any instructions. The shelter halves have no instructions. There are no instructions on how to wear a beret, or any part of the uniform, though they are obviously labeled with washing instructions. There are some instructions that come with the old PASGT and new ACH helmets, and some eye protection has instructions. Ear plugs have no instructions. T-10D parachutes have no instructions. MREs have the infamous "place on rock or something" instructions.
That's off the top of my head. I will point out, though, that the military has hundreds of field manuals, technical manuals, pamphlets, training guides, &c. Any active duty soldier looking to get promoted spends a lot of time hitting the books in addition to training his unit does.
Bandwidth seems to be _far_ more expensive in the US, both for residential lines, and for servers. (I could be wrong on this, as I haven't bought bandwidth in a US datacenter in a couple years.)
The problem comparing the US and any particular European country for anything relating to infrastructure is that the US has much more varied population densities than most European countries, and even more varied laws than any given European country.
And the women even have a book of their own on that subject, so it's a bit hypocritical of them to complain about men "cheating"... ;)
Just one? Have you ever been to a supermarket checkout?
Unfortunately for him, a cheap, safe, mass-market flying car was announced an hour later.
Fortunately for him, the massive new air traffic control industry needed a route-finding algorithm.
Surely the best defense against a trap is to be able to not walk into it in the first place?
You've pretty much nailed the weakness of IEDs: they can very effectively cover a linear route, but are far less effective against an area.
Sounds like a tank.
A Main Battle Tank is characterized by overwhelming offensive power and survivability, which generally translates into big gun, big optics, heavy armor and powerful engine. I am in an armor MOS, incidentally, though I'm not a tanker.
The MULE looks like it complements counter-insurgency measures. A necessity of counter-insurgency is patrolling, and having a robot help haul gear in places where vehicles can't go allows for more extensive patrols.
The bulk of successful attacks against Windows, at least until very recently, have resulted from OS flaws.
And now the bulk of attacks against Apache are due to admin misconfigurations. So while MS fixed the underlying problems, the Apache crew needs to improve the user interface for administration.
There is commercial software that provides a GUI for Apache (hit your favorite search engine) and it ought to be a priority to bring such functionality into the core.
Because humans (well, most of us) have a thing called a brain that enables them to correct the imperfections, or at least to recognise them and ask for clarification.
Why can't a computer do that?
but until you can nail 110% correct recognition, in a crowded area
People frequently repeat themselves to each other in noisy areas. Further, if you've worked in military or law enforcement and have experience with talking on a radio, radios frequently drop out and force people to repeat themselves, yet radios are considered a fundamental tool. Why is it that speech recognition done by computers needs to be absolutely perfect, when it isn't in any other field?
It is easy to dismiss someone else's work then to appreciate the effort that someone put into it.
I'm not dismissing the idea of 3D graphics on Excel, I'm dismissing the article's fluffy and hyped coverage of the subject that, in obsessing about a "revolution", missed all the interesting math.
1. You have to do math to do 3D graphics
2. You can do math in Excel
3. Excel makes it possible to see your math as it happens
4. Excel can help prototype some ideas for 3D graphics engines
As far as we know, it could have already exploded
We do know one thing for sure. It's not a goddamned "ticking time bomb."
That's how we get people on planes in the military all the time. (Technical term: reverse chalk order) Of course, we also have an even quicker way of getting off the plane.