"...The mattress vibrates and bulges strategically under your upper and lower back,
stretching your spine to its limits"...
Stretching your spine to its limits?! JFC! Sounds like a bed designed by Count Rugen. Are they sure these poor Matsushita employees are sleeping...or just "mostly dead"?
Your language is obscuring your logic. A car is "safe" or "unsafe".
No. The conditions, "safe" and "unsafe", are not constants. Any given car has a relative degree of safety, when compared against other similiarly configured cars, in similiar situations, based upon a constantly evolving definition of the word "safe".
Re:WiFi overkill for cow collars
on
WiFi Gone Wild
·
· Score: 1
"-- you won't need to strap that large solar panel to the cow's back either."
My GOD! It's all so SIMPLE!
1) Selectively breed cows with serious vitamin D deficiencies (so they love sunlight)
2) Strap large solar panels to the cow's backs
3) ??????????
4) PROFIT!!!
Eat mor chikin! -Elsie
Re:Whats your favourite cow exploit?
on
WiFi Gone Wild
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· Score: 1
"I can't wait for the first time a hurd of wirelessly controlled cows get hacked. Imagine the fun you could have with a hurd of cows at your command."
Sorry, but you'll simply HAVE to wait. Non-monolithic cows take decades to develop. -RMS
"Sometimes I scare myself with just how much ungliness and malevolence I discover in myself."
Well, as the old song says:
"Brother, you can't go to jail for what you're thinkin'..."
It's when you make A CHOICE to physically inflict that ugliness and malevolence upon another member of our society or...God help you...a member of my immediate social group, that either:
A. The society itself, in accordance with the law, will negatively reinforce your antisocial behavior or...
B. I'll be dumping your weighted body into the lake.
Choice "A", while not as personally satisfying as choice "B", will have a better deterrent effect as long as the punishment is speedy, harsh, and public.
"I think he would be refering to a little-obeyed portion of the U.S. Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights..."
Unless you're speaking of a very different Bill of Rights than the one I'm familiar with, you aren't granted the right to commit crimes.
If a person does commit crimes, we as a collective, have the right (actually the obligation) to lock them up or pop a cap in their sorry asses or whatever-the-hell-else we want to do to them until they acknowledge that every society has RULES that allow that society to exist.
First of all...Thanks for actually taking the time to post a reply that was informative, interesting, relevant and didn't really even get negative until the last couple of sentences. I almost checked my URL to make sure I was still on Slashdot.
"Ummm... name another?...[valid tool besides logic]...deduction and inference are the only tools available to any and all humans for the gathering of knowledge of any sort."
Well, certainly there are other available tools...intuition, for example, and other "sorts" of knowledge. They simply might not meet your personal standards of "validity". Many, many people believe there is more to life than can be quantified or even independently observed. These people are not all flat-earthers. Isn't it just possible, Roger, that there are more things in Heaven and on Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy?
"Logic isn't the best way, it's the only way."
It's obvious that logic has proven to be a very effective way of understanding and manipulating our experience of physical reality but...the ONLY way? See, that's where your argument starts to sound less like logic and more like religion.
"...since the existence of a loving creator is, at a glance, inconsistent [with] dozens of natural phenomena, from disasters to disease,..."
How come everytime we fuck up paradise, it's proof that God doesn't exist or doesn't love us?
God loved us enough to give us free will and the perfect creative environment in which to make that will manifest. There is no greater gift. Or would you give up your ability to create so that you don't have to bear responsibility for the results of your creations? Why would you do that?
"...It's much simpler to believe that God is either indifferent or sadistic..."
The simplest answer is not always the correct one. God does not show his compassion by not allowing us to show ours.
"If you can't use logic as a base, then I don't see how it is possible to know anything."
Perhaps the absolute insistence that "logic" must always be the ONLY valid tool for knowing anything is the limiting assumption?
Logical deduction of the "this is so, therefore this must be so" classical variety works great at the macro physical level, but fails pretty miserably when you start trying to apply it at the subatomic physical level, much less the level of human spiritual experience (whatever that might be).
As effective a tool as logic is, it's clear that it's so far been incapable of adequately describing our experience of existence. Otherwise, faith-based religions would not be so ubiquitous in every culture we've ever created. Arguments like "Religion is the opiate of the masses" are really just another way of saying, "If you don't arrive at the same conclusions that I have, using only those tools that I deem appropriate, then you must be delusional" which, face it, is a pretty religious point of view.
Logic and Faith are not now, nor have they ever been, mutually exclusive. Used independently, they're both blinders.
In related news, the French army is said to be working on a squadron of giant robot ostriches.
Ostriches are an ideal match for the elite french frying...er, I mean fighting...forces.
They have brains smaller than their own eyeballs and can run away from conflict at over 45 mph.
Well...(brace yourselves - here comes another car engine vs. human body analogy)...it's kinda like asking, "Will running nitrous oxide blow my car engine's head gasket?" It really depends on what shape your head gasket is in and how often you hit the N20 button.
Your body is a sugar burning engine. Metabolism is responsible for converting many of the fuels you consume (primarily starches/carbs and fat) into sugars that your body can then readily use as fuel (proteins are used more for building and repairing the engine). Complex Carbs have to go through more processing before being available as fuel (think crude oil to gasoline). Refined sugar and simple carbohydrates OTOH are almost instantly available as high-octane fuel - like N20 for your body. This is not necessarily a bad thing. It's very useful for outrunning predators or other cars.
But just like you wouldn't run your engine on nitrous constantly (think KABOOM), you shouldn't run your body on simple sugars and carbs constantly. It's too damaging to constantly be set at 11. In fact, if your body detects too much sugar (glucose), your pancreas will do it's best to remove the excess sugar by dumping insulin into your bloodstream to help convert the sugar for storage...as glycogen (in your liver) and fat (on your body).
Unfortunately for big sugar consumers, your body is also a self-tuning homeostatic engine. If kept at a particular level long enough, it will attempt to establish that level as the new baseline. Eat tons of sugar and your pancreas will dump tons of insulin. Eat tons of sugar long enough and your pancreas will dump tons of insulin everytime it detects ANY amount of simple sugar. This will lead to blood sugar cratering and is called hypoglycemia (or pre-diabetic). Keep eating tons of sugar and eventually your pancreas will essentially "wear out" and become incapable of producing sufficient insulin to control your blood sugar (diabetes) or quit producing insulin entirely (insulin-dependent diabetes).
Of course, the type of sugar-burning engine you inherited from your parents will play a part in this process. If you have a history of diabetes in your family, then odds are you have been "gifted" with a genetically inferior pancreatic function (congrats!) and will be much more likely to develop diabetes from sugar misuse. However, anyone (genetic markers or not) can give themselves Type II diabetes if they abuse sugar long enough.
"Powerpoint makes you dumb"?!
C'mon, get serious. If a piece of software, ANY piece of software, can 'make you dumb", odds are you were already there or well on your way. The fact is ANY visual aid, used ineffectively, can and will detract from your presentation and the accomplishment of your learning objectives.
OTOH, slides can be extremely effective when they're USED effectively i.e.
Not AS the presentation, but to SUPPORT the presentation.
Not AS the content, but as an INDEX to the main points of the content.
Not as a REPLACEMENT for a good presenter, but as a focusing tool and contextual backdrop for a good presenter.
The following is excerpted from a Novell publication entitled "Teaching Effectively for Novell"
"Learning and retention increase dramatically when learning aids appeal to more than one sense. Students absorb more than 75 percent of information through sight. The combination of hearing and seeing is six and one-half times more effective than just hearing. Therefore, when you talk and show a visual aid, the chances of your students understanding and remembering the material are substantially increased."
Nope. Nerds are smart enough to only steal things of value.
They're mimicking what they percieve our culture (or lack thereof) to be because we're the media's flavor of the week.
Do you really think these nerd-wannabes are going to wannabe anymore once they realize that true nerds actually respect traits like intelligence and critical thinking? Or that real hackers don't really look like Neo or Trinity, or wear cool black trenchcoats filled with submachine guns.
To appreciate and absorb our culture...they'd have to enjoy learning.
To appreciate and absorb their culture...we'd need a head wound.
(wow...that sounded kinda bitter, huh? Sorry, I need more caffeine.)
BTW, I like your SIG. I've been flying stuntkites since the early 80's...nice to run into a fellow kiter. peace.
"Where I work, we use Lotus Notes, which harasses everybody to change their password regularly, and it's a well known fact -- joke even -- that what you do is append a number at the end that you increment. Everybody does it, instead of picking a decent password to begin with..."
It's been a good long while since I taught Lotus Notes (pre-Domino), but it seems to me like I recall a pretty effective password anti-spoofing mechanism involving non-remotely-reproduceable glyphs generated in the login box as you type in your password.
"Communication works when it can be attributed to a known individual or institution."
Yeah, unfortunately that's how persecution works too.
"Judgments can then be made by past direct or indirect involvement with those parties."
Why can't we just judge the current communication on its OWN merits or lack thereof? Why must we resort to the mental laziness of "past direct or indirect involvement with those parties" ? Piercing the veil of anonymity is not about judgement, it's about pre-judgement. If you care enough about an issue to make a decision about it; you should care enough to make an informed decision about it.
Anonymity is not a crime.
"The advertising rules in England are simple. Don't lie. Apple lied."
It's funny how this sparkling code of ethics does not appear to have been adopted by your press or Royal Fucking Family, huh?
"Less intrusive, less obnoxious, less in-your-face."
Yeah, I'll bet Prince "Bendover and take it for the Crown" Charles (who BTW, is so fucking butt-ugly, he makes Keith Richards look human) has PLENTY of aides who wish they could have taken "less-in-their-face".
Shut your gob, get off the dole, and get to work, fuckin' Brit!
First, the site would have to quiz you on your beliefs, your attitudes toward the world, and your mental model of the world. Thus equipped, it could easily tell you "the truth".
Now see, this is exactly the sort of short-sighted obstructionist attitude that is going to stifle creativity in bringing these devices to market.
WHO CARES if the device accurately measures something so indefinable as "objective truth", as if such a thing exists.
AFAIC, if the good old polygraph is proof enough for the courts and "Meet my Parents", by God it's good enough for White House press releases.
Make it a condition that every politician that says anything on TV must be constantly connected to a polygraph, whose results are updated in realtime on an on-screen sidebar.
Re:Because it's not illegal if you have permission
on
Get Paid To Crack?
·
· Score: 1
Having been a certified CPR Instructor for the American Heart Association, I can assure that CPR done properly, frequently breaks ribs.
You're externally compressing the ribcage forcefully enough to squeeze the heart between the sternum and spinal column. That's well outside of the normal range of motion for your ribcage. The fact is, on older subjects (with more bone porosity), if you don't break any ribs you probably aren't pressing hard enough for effective cardiac compression anyway.
"This is an obvious and sophomoric flamebait troll."
This was clearly NOT an obvious and sophomoric flamebait troll.
This was a subtle and post-grad-level flamebait troll. (props to the OP, btw)
If watching all you super-villain-steve types 'correcting' this guy is not +5 Fuckin' Hysterical, I don't know what is...
Oh man, I'm STILL lmao!
Re:Wow, you ate lead paint as a child, didn't you?
on
Knoppix 3.3 Is Out
·
· Score: 1
Because you can't burn to an already-burned CD, you horrific cuntsore.
Horrific Cuntsore.
You know sometimes...all too rarely...words can transcend simple meaning and become truly poetic.
You, Sir, have been touched by Clio.
Slashdot Mirror
John Merlin Taylor
Thomas McIlvane
Patrick Sherill
Wow...kinda sucks to be them, huh?
Hmmm...this calls to mind another defensive system of similiar effectiveness...
The X15 Cruise Basselope
Are they sure these poor Matsushita employees are sleeping...or just "mostly dead"?
1) Selectively breed cows with serious vitamin D deficiencies (so they love sunlight)
2) Strap large solar panels to the cow's backs
3) ??????????
4) PROFIT!!!
Eat mor chikin! -Elsie
It's when you make A CHOICE to physically inflict that ugliness and malevolence upon another member of our society or...God help you...a member of my immediate social group, that either:
A. The society itself, in accordance with the law, will negatively reinforce your antisocial behavior or...
B. I'll be dumping your weighted body into the lake.
Choice "A", while not as personally satisfying as choice "B", will have a better deterrent effect as long as the punishment is speedy, harsh, and public.
If a person does commit crimes, we as a collective, have the right (actually the obligation) to lock them up or pop a cap in their sorry asses or whatever-the-hell-else we want to do to them until they acknowledge that every society has RULES that allow that society to exist.
God loved us enough to give us free will and the perfect creative environment in which to make that will manifest. There is no greater gift. Or would you give up your ability to create so that you don't have to bear responsibility for the results of your creations? Why would you do that? The simplest answer is not always the correct one. God does not show his compassion by not allowing us to show ours.
Logical deduction of the "this is so, therefore this must be so" classical variety works great at the macro physical level, but fails pretty miserably when you start trying to apply it at the subatomic physical level, much less the level of human spiritual experience (whatever that might be).
As effective a tool as logic is, it's clear that it's so far been incapable of adequately describing our experience of existence. Otherwise, faith-based religions would not be so ubiquitous in every culture we've ever created. Arguments like "Religion is the opiate of the masses" are really just another way of saying, "If you don't arrive at the same conclusions that I have, using only those tools that I deem appropriate, then you must be delusional" which, face it, is a pretty religious point of view.
Logic and Faith are not now, nor have they ever been, mutually exclusive. Used independently, they're both blinders.
They have brains smaller than their own eyeballs and can run away from conflict at over 45 mph.
Well...(brace yourselves - here comes another car engine vs. human body analogy)...it's kinda like asking, "Will running nitrous oxide blow my car engine's head gasket?" It really depends on what shape your head gasket is in and how often you hit the N20 button.
Your body is a sugar burning engine. Metabolism is responsible for converting many of the fuels you consume (primarily starches/carbs and fat) into sugars that your body can then readily use as fuel (proteins are used more for building and repairing the engine). Complex Carbs have to go through more processing before being available as fuel (think crude oil to gasoline). Refined sugar and simple carbohydrates OTOH are almost instantly available as high-octane fuel - like N20 for your body. This is not necessarily a bad thing. It's very useful for outrunning predators or other cars.
But just like you wouldn't run your engine on nitrous constantly (think KABOOM), you shouldn't run your body on simple sugars and carbs constantly. It's too damaging to constantly be set at 11. In fact, if your body detects too much sugar (glucose), your pancreas will do it's best to remove the excess sugar by dumping insulin into your bloodstream to help convert the sugar for storage...as glycogen (in your liver) and fat (on your body).
Unfortunately for big sugar consumers, your body is also a self-tuning homeostatic engine. If kept at a particular level long enough, it will attempt to establish that level as the new baseline. Eat tons of sugar and your pancreas will dump tons of insulin. Eat tons of sugar long enough and your pancreas will dump tons of insulin everytime it detects ANY amount of simple sugar. This will lead to blood sugar cratering and is called hypoglycemia (or pre-diabetic). Keep eating tons of sugar and eventually your pancreas will essentially "wear out" and become incapable of producing sufficient insulin to control your blood sugar (diabetes) or quit producing insulin entirely (insulin-dependent diabetes).
Of course, the type of sugar-burning engine you inherited from your parents will play a part in this process. If you have a history of diabetes in your family, then odds are you have been "gifted" with a genetically inferior pancreatic function (congrats!) and will be much more likely to develop diabetes from sugar misuse. However, anyone (genetic markers or not) can give themselves Type II diabetes if they abuse sugar long enough.
C'mon, get serious. If a piece of software, ANY piece of software, can 'make you dumb", odds are you were already there or well on your way.
The fact is ANY visual aid, used ineffectively, can and will detract from your presentation and the accomplishment of your learning objectives.
OTOH, slides can be extremely effective when they're USED effectively i.e.
Not AS the presentation, but to SUPPORT the presentation.
Not AS the content, but as an INDEX to the main points of the content.
Not as a REPLACEMENT for a good presenter, but as a focusing tool and contextual backdrop for a good presenter.
The following is excerpted from a Novell publication entitled "Teaching Effectively for Novell"
They're mimicking what they percieve our culture (or lack thereof) to be because we're the media's flavor of the week.
Do you really think these nerd-wannabes are going to wannabe anymore once they realize that true nerds actually respect traits like intelligence and critical thinking? Or that real hackers don't really look like Neo or Trinity, or wear cool black trenchcoats filled with submachine guns.
To appreciate and absorb our culture...they'd have to enjoy learning.
To appreciate and absorb their culture...we'd need a head wound.
(wow...that sounded kinda bitter, huh? Sorry, I need more caffeine.)
BTW, I like your SIG. I've been flying stuntkites since the early 80's...nice to run into a fellow kiter. peace.
Anonymity is not a crime.
Shut your gob, get off the dole, and get to work, fuckin' Brit!
WHO CARES if the device accurately measures something so indefinable as "objective truth", as if such a thing exists.
AFAIC, if the good old polygraph is proof enough for the courts and "Meet my Parents", by God it's good enough for White House press releases.
Make it a condition that every politician that says anything on TV must be constantly connected to a polygraph, whose results are updated in realtime on an on-screen sidebar.
Having been a certified CPR Instructor for the American Heart Association, I can assure that CPR done properly, frequently breaks ribs.
You're externally compressing the ribcage forcefully enough to squeeze the heart between the sternum and spinal column. That's well outside of the normal range of motion for your ribcage. The fact is, on older subjects (with more bone porosity), if you don't break any ribs you probably aren't pressing hard enough for effective cardiac compression anyway.
This was a subtle and post-grad-level flamebait troll. (props to the OP, btw)
If watching all you super-villain-steve types 'correcting' this guy is not +5 Fuckin' Hysterical, I don't know what is...
Oh man, I'm STILL lmao!
You know sometimes...all too rarely...words can transcend simple meaning and become truly poetic.
You, Sir, have been touched by Clio.
Well, the demand for change has got to come from someone who has the ability to make the bank listen and act.
That would be the bank's customers.