Good observation. Intra-urban interstate segments tend to be brilliantly illuminated, but in fairness a lot of those are just swarms of interchanges with a few miles of straight freeway sprinkled between.
Were Interstates lit up end-to-end back in the pre-energy crisis days?
Well, as long as I've been aware of (> 40 years), the "country" segments of Interstates were as dark as unrelieved night could be. So far as I know, it's just been the cities and their through-ways/expressways/freeways/beltways that were brilliantly lit. Of course, 40 years isn't the entire lifetime of the Interstate System, but it's a lot of it, and some of it during the halcyon days of "all the energy you could use" (i.e., pre-OPEC).
All cynicism aside, we as a People need to find a way to allow the government to prosecute real criminals but also protect John Q. Citizen.
There's a name for people who set all cynicism aside: "victim". The government which can be trusted to prosecute "real criminals" but protect "John Q. Citizen" would be presupposed on being able to absolutely reliably distinguish between to two. That government does not exist, and as long as human beings are human, never will.
But feel free to keep postulating spherical unicorns if you wish. We here in the real world will continue to defend checks and balances, and fight for government that rules by the consent of the governed, and insist on the rule of law rather than rule from above the law.
I always thought I could set up an outstanding and wildly profitable "All you can eat" place. Suckers ^w Customers would get their first plateful, and then I'd throw them out, telling them "That's all you can eat. Beat it."
And if they get uppity, I'd prove that they are no longer capable of eating by breaking their jaws.
But, alas, you can't do things like that in the real world. Just services and software.
Actually, calling out the miscreants doesn't necessarily help future potential customers at all. An Android dev account is $25 bucks. For $25 bucks, I can publish a passingly interesting app or two, crank down the screws when the suckers are caught up by their short-n-curlies, and then walk away from that particular identity... and register a new one for another $25. Now I'm fresh and my reputation is righteous, and the suckas are just lined up waiting to be fleeced by the new me. Meanwhile the former suckas are impotently fuming and raging at the old abandoned me like a dog snapping at a discarded gecko tail.
It's a great business model for the douchebag set, and terrific lulz too.
Your suggestion is a really nice idea, but Google isn't running a bunco squad looking for fast-moving fraudsters, so I don't see it helping any.
If that's the case, bringing it to the attention of people three or four levels up in the chain of command may have an interesting effect, and perhaps a detailed letter to a state representative would bring uncomfortable attention to those mismanaging the funds.
That's dangerous, unless you are absolutely sure of the lines of patronage and corruption, and you're sure you're not complaining to a decision-maker about one of their pet cronies.
Yeah. I would normally concur with the general guidance of "use the chain of command" (or, more accurately, "go over his head"), but you need to be sure you're not narcing out to the wrong player.
Maybe anonymous muckraking whistleblowing? I can think of any number of TV station newsrooms with investigative reporters salivating at the prospect of misappropriation, gross negligence, and the unwillingness to THINK OF THE CHILDREN!
Oh, c'mon. In the mind of a PHB, any kind of rational argument about capabilities and feasibility is refuted immediately by "I don't care how, just make it work." When a PHB says that, all laws of causality and physics and economics and common sense are instantly banished. The PHB has made the impossibility YOUR problem. If you can't do it, it's your fault.
And to the previous commenter who said something about use fear of PEDOS or HACKERS or TERRORISTS to bend the PHB to your will... HAHAHAHAHA! Use that argument, and all you've done is that you've just admitting to KNOWING the risks and FAILING to stop them! Because the PHB said "GET IT DONE" and you didn't. You're now a pedo-facilitator or terrorist-supporter because YOU DIDN'T DO ANYTHING to STOP THEM.
Read up on Cassandra some day. Don't be Cassandra.
If it's literally as bad as you describe, your intended function is to fail as spectacularly as possible in order to be the fall guy. You can't gather meaningful evidence to convince or refute the decision-makers, and no one is going to believe you when you claim you're being asked to do the impossible by the unreasonable.
Leave. The only reason they want you there is that they want you on the bridge when the ship runs aground.
When failure's not an options (because it's mandatory), you're under no obligation to remain involved with that fiasco, and short of blackmail-level evidence, you have no way to change course anyway.
Gold-plate? Feh. Superluminal quantum-virgin oxygen-free copper fiber cables with interior rhodium-platinum-plutonium plating. Guaranteed to make your music more pure, rounded, warm, and soul-enhancing than even live performance, and to make all your subatomic particles blast through the lightspeed barrier. As endorsed by Han Solo, the only man in the Republic to have made the entire Kessel run in less than 15 parsecs!
Actually, one facet of the case is overtly weirder than any fantasy scenario you could cook up (pun intended):
Accuser: "You owe us $100,000"
Defendant: "Now what did we do?"
Accuser: " We patented making candy with sugar. You're making candy with sugar. That's one violation. Furthermore, our candy cookbook says you're not allowed to use our recipes to create any candy which would compete with our candy,, because you'd be violating our patent, and we withdraw your permission to read our cookbook if you violate our patent. You admitted your candy is based on reading our cookbook. You violated our copyright TOO! YOU OWES US BEEG MONEYZ!!!111"
For those who don't want to absorb the entire groklaw article: Oracle's Java specification license attempts to assert its copyright over any work written to implement the specification. If you write a "competing" implementation of the Java API based on the specification, you're retroactively violating the copyright license on the specification you read. That's right, you dirty retroactively violating pirate.
I hope the court realizes what flaming arrogant idiots Oracle is coming across as. And punishes them for it, rather than rewarding them for it, as often happens.
Oh, yeah, antimatter "bullets" used by ARM (human, United Nations) warships. Presumably, railgun or some other kind of non-exotic kinetic acceleration.
It appeared in that case the antimatter was in the form of anti-particle analog for conventional solid baryonic matter (i.e., antiproton/neutron nucleus, positron shells). Mined from the antimatter world from "Flatlander".
And if you remember, one ship missed its target and blew a sizeable hole right through Ringworld's ring. This emphasizes the enduring risk of using unguided kinetic energy weapons in a universe dominated by Newton's First Law. Of course, humanity's pretty bad at considering that kind of risk, as proven by the mere existence of the phrase "collateral damage" as a standard part of our military vocabulary.
And, in good Slashdot form, replying to myself (explain again why don't we have an "edit" button?), I read on the very Oracle web page I cited earlier:
Options that are specified with -XX are not stable and are not recommended for casual use. These options are subject to change without notice.
So, the "-XX" options are unstable and are subject to change without notice, which is why we have to commit them to a $25 to $35 pile of dead trees.
It seems this kind of volatile deep non-documented black magic might change radically from JVM revision to revision. Although the Oracle "documentation" page seems to contain a lot of "legacy" options, there still seems a risk that this book would be outdated as soon as the next JVM release.
Oh, well, the tech publishing industry seems to be doing pretty well, even if the rate of technology change means that a tech fact is OBE before it's committed to ink.
Given the opportunity, marketers will be more observant of the goings-on in a household than, say, the father of the house.
Hell, I am the father of the house, and most stuff that happens catches me by surprise. So I can sympathize with the father mentioned at the end of TFS.
Slashdot Mirror
Good observation. Intra-urban interstate segments tend to be brilliantly illuminated, but in fairness a lot of those are just swarms of interchanges with a few miles of straight freeway sprinkled between.
Were Interstates lit up end-to-end back in the pre-energy crisis days?
Well, as long as I've been aware of (> 40 years), the "country" segments of Interstates were as dark as unrelieved night could be. So far as I know, it's just been the cities and their through-ways/expressways/freeways/beltways that were brilliantly lit. Of course, 40 years isn't the entire lifetime of the Interstate System, but it's a lot of it, and some of it during the halcyon days of "all the energy you could use" (i.e., pre-OPEC).
<sniff>Hipster... how mainstream.
Yes, I'm sure you saw what I did there.
Smarmy Smarmoset. Set to be released the 13th minute of the 13th hour of the 13th day of the 13th month, Smarch.
Good news is that it will be a Ubuntu LTE release. Bad news is that it will still feature Unity.
All cynicism aside, we as a People need to find a way to allow the government to prosecute real criminals but also protect John Q. Citizen.
There's a name for people who set all cynicism aside: "victim". The government which can be trusted to prosecute "real criminals" but protect "John Q. Citizen" would be presupposed on being able to absolutely reliably distinguish between to two. That government does not exist, and as long as human beings are human, never will.
But feel free to keep postulating spherical unicorns if you wish. We here in the real world will continue to defend checks and balances, and fight for government that rules by the consent of the governed, and insist on the rule of law rather than rule from above the law.
I always thought I could set up an outstanding and wildly profitable "All you can eat" place. Suckers ^w Customers would get their first plateful, and then I'd throw them out, telling them "That's all you can eat. Beat it."
And if they get uppity, I'd prove that they are no longer capable of eating by breaking their jaws.
But, alas, you can't do things like that in the real world. Just services and software.
--Voltaire, if Voltaire had worked for the modern media mob
Actually, calling out the miscreants doesn't necessarily help future potential customers at all. An Android dev account is $25 bucks. For $25 bucks, I can publish a passingly interesting app or two, crank down the screws when the suckers are caught up by their short-n-curlies, and then walk away from that particular identity... and register a new one for another $25. Now I'm fresh and my reputation is righteous, and the suckas are just lined up waiting to be fleeced by the new me. Meanwhile the former suckas are impotently fuming and raging at the old abandoned me like a dog snapping at a discarded gecko tail.
It's a great business model for the douchebag set, and terrific lulz too.
Your suggestion is a really nice idea, but Google isn't running a bunco squad looking for fast-moving fraudsters, so I don't see it helping any.
If that's the case, bringing it to the attention of people three or four levels up in the chain of command may have an interesting effect, and perhaps a detailed letter to a state representative would bring uncomfortable attention to those mismanaging the funds.
That's dangerous, unless you are absolutely sure of the lines of patronage and corruption, and you're sure you're not complaining to a decision-maker about one of their pet cronies.
Yeah. I would normally concur with the general guidance of "use the chain of command" (or, more accurately, "go over his head"), but you need to be sure you're not narcing out to the wrong player.
Maybe anonymous muckraking whistleblowing? I can think of any number of TV station newsrooms with investigative reporters salivating at the prospect of misappropriation, gross negligence, and the unwillingness to THINK OF THE CHILDREN!
Oh, c'mon. In the mind of a PHB, any kind of rational argument about capabilities and feasibility is refuted immediately by "I don't care how, just make it work." When a PHB says that, all laws of causality and physics and economics and common sense are instantly banished. The PHB has made the impossibility YOUR problem. If you can't do it, it's your fault.
And to the previous commenter who said something about use fear of PEDOS or HACKERS or TERRORISTS to bend the PHB to your will... HAHAHAHAHA! Use that argument, and all you've done is that you've just admitting to KNOWING the risks and FAILING to stop them! Because the PHB said "GET IT DONE" and you didn't. You're now a pedo-facilitator or terrorist-supporter because YOU DIDN'T DO ANYTHING to STOP THEM.
Read up on Cassandra some day. Don't be Cassandra.
If it's literally as bad as you describe, your intended function is to fail as spectacularly as possible in order to be the fall guy. You can't gather meaningful evidence to convince or refute the decision-makers, and no one is going to believe you when you claim you're being asked to do the impossible by the unreasonable.
Leave. The only reason they want you there is that they want you on the bridge when the ship runs aground.
When failure's not an options (because it's mandatory), you're under no obligation to remain involved with that fiasco, and short of blackmail-level evidence, you have no way to change course anyway.
Gold-plate? Feh. Superluminal quantum-virgin oxygen-free copper fiber cables with interior rhodium-platinum-plutonium plating. Guaranteed to make your music more pure, rounded, warm, and soul-enhancing than even live performance, and to make all your subatomic particles blast through the lightspeed barrier. As endorsed by Han Solo, the only man in the Republic to have made the entire Kessel run in less than 15 parsecs!
"You're very clever, young man, very clever. But it's Sony all the way down!"
Anybody who uses Perl is probably already a hash buff,
Not just hash, in truth; hallucinogens and sedatives are also widely popular with Perl-heads.
+1 Ironically Unintentionally Insightful
- Dr. Nick Riviera
Actually, one facet of the case is overtly weirder than any fantasy scenario you could cook up (pun intended):
Accuser: "You owe us $100,000"
Defendant: "Now what did we do?"
Accuser: " We patented making candy with sugar. You're making candy with sugar. That's one violation. Furthermore, our candy cookbook says you're not allowed to use our recipes to create any candy which would compete with our candy,, because you'd be violating our patent, and we withdraw your permission to read our cookbook if you violate our patent. You admitted your candy is based on reading our cookbook. You violated our copyright TOO! YOU OWES US BEEG MONEYZ!!!111"
For those who don't want to absorb the entire groklaw article: Oracle's Java specification license attempts to assert its copyright over any work written to implement the specification. If you write a "competing" implementation of the Java API based on the specification, you're retroactively violating the copyright license on the specification you read. That's right, you dirty retroactively violating pirate.
I hope the court realizes what flaming arrogant idiots Oracle is coming across as. And punishes them for it, rather than rewarding them for it, as often happens.
"Shaka, when the nerds fell."
Even religion can change the model, once in a while.
Romanes eunt domus!
Oh, yeah, antimatter "bullets" used by ARM (human, United Nations) warships. Presumably, railgun or some other kind of non-exotic kinetic acceleration.
It appeared in that case the antimatter was in the form of anti-particle analog for conventional solid baryonic matter (i.e., antiproton/neutron nucleus, positron shells). Mined from the antimatter world from "Flatlander".
And if you remember, one ship missed its target and blew a sizeable hole right through Ringworld's ring. This emphasizes the enduring risk of using unguided kinetic energy weapons in a universe dominated by Newton's First Law. Of course, humanity's pretty bad at considering that kind of risk, as proven by the mere existence of the phrase "collateral damage" as a standard part of our military vocabulary.
That's very surreal, Google.
René Magritte would approve.
And then the celebratory candescence, and the rocket launchers, and the cute and cuddly gun turrets, and the neurotoxin gas...
This. This is why I oppose targeted advertising. It will end in tears, and being dragged back into the lab by robotic Party Associates.
And, in good Slashdot form, replying to myself (explain again why don't we have an "edit" button?), I read on the very Oracle web page I cited earlier:
So, the "-XX" options are unstable and are subject to change without notice, which is why we have to commit them to a $25 to $35 pile of dead trees.
It seems this kind of volatile deep non-documented black magic might change radically from JVM revision to revision. Although the Oracle "documentation" page seems to contain a lot of "legacy" options, there still seems a risk that this book would be outdated as soon as the next JVM release.
Oh, well, the tech publishing industry seems to be doing pretty well, even if the rate of technology change means that a tech fact is OBE before it's committed to ink.
But not terribly surprising.
Given the opportunity, marketers will be more observant of the goings-on in a household than, say, the father of the house.
Hell, I am the father of the house, and most stuff that happens catches me by surprise. So I can sympathize with the father mentioned at the end of TFS.