I think you're missing the point. Index funds follow the market which has always trended upward at that rate over time -- even including the great depression. It's considered a safe bet to earn 10% per year in an index fund (like the S&P 500) on average over at least a period of 10 years (gives time for full recovery of any economic downturn).
I don't know what polls and sales figures you were looking at, but Win95, WinXP, and Win7 were all winners from the get-go. Win98, Win98SE were OK, WinME was crap, Vista was crap (SPs fixed that, so it's basically Win7 now)... and Win8 is crap without a start menu shell utility. (Win2000 was also loved in businesses, but XP added much needed media features while increasing some bugginess. XP SP2 and SP3 were welcome upgrades).
The fact is that touch-tech is useful on small devices that lack keyboards but is mostly useless on a desktop, projector, or TV, so it was asinine for Microsoft to make it the primary interface for Windows 8. The Start Screen is also poorly designed for he same setting, so equally asinine to have it replace the start menu. These are real problems that need to be addressed for usability - including workplace safety and disabled user's ease of workflow.
That said, Win 8 has some great tech under the hood & I like using it with Classic Shell as my start menu w/ the charms crap turned off.
Makes me wonder why they don't have a test for how many on/off cycles one can handle. Incandescent bulbs can go for nearly 100 years if their power source isn't disrupted or turned off. It's always the power spikes that blow a bulb -- usually when you turn one on.
I don't disagree with any of your points save for the "End of Facebook" bit.
I use Facebook for a lot more than what you describe. Perhaps it would be the end of twitter - assuming there was an easy way for others to subscribe to your posts?
Obviously, there are gravitational distortions in space-time that current theories cannot explain. The idea that there is some sort of exotic matter creating those gravitational distortions is an untestable hypothesis (unless you know of a way to go out and collect the dark matter which may exist in these regions to run experiments on it).
It is equally likely that those regions of space are experiencing distortions due to some unknown natural distortion in space-time's structure itself or are caused by an interaction with another universe in the multiverse. It's also possible that our current model of how gravity works is incorrect at large scales due to other factors we don't yet understand. In any case, the distortions are at such a large scale and at such great distance from us that any hypothesis will be difficult to test.
"Dark Matter" is just a word for "something out there we can't see is causing gravitational distortions we can't account for." There's no reason the cause has to be some form of matter we haven't seen yet. Particle physicists haven't a clue what kind of a particle would have mass, but no interaction with light. People assume the distortions are caused by mass because all known distortions our theories work for are caused by mass, but all known normal mass particles also interact with light or emit light. So, people simply make up hypothetical particles with mass, but no interaction with light -- because they NEED for them to exist to fit their assumption that mass in our universe is causing the distortion.
I think it's far more likely we don't yet understand some aspect of gravity on galactic scales than there is some sort of magic form of matter that makes our current equations make sense in the areas that currently make no sense to us whatsoever.
Exactly where do firefox devs get their marketing research from that tells them what features their users would like to keep and which they'd like to remove or change? I'm sincerely curious because I never voted for this, never got a pop-up questionnaire even on a beta version that does marketing research and has Feedback capabilities (What you like and don't like), and yet the status bar was simply GONE with an update. Who makes these decisions and based on what data? The devs personal feelings or actual responses from users?!?!?
I now have an extension to replace the status bar (status4ever or some such thing) and another extension to replace the capability to set my minimum tab width -- which was also removed unceremoniously so one couldn't go to about:config and set it anymore. The devs received this as a BUG and replied with "It was never a feature... just a setting we removed and don't intend to put back." So, if there weren't an extension for me, I'd be scrolling forever to see my 40+ tabs open (on just one set of Tab Panorama tabs on a wide-screen monitor).
Why are features removed rather than made optional??? Extensions to get old functionality back are inferior b/c they aren't maintained by FF and could contain buggy or insecure code -- or end development suddenly.
Honestly, it's changes like these that send loyal users to Chrome. Chrome is minimalist + extensions to do what you want. Firefox has always been defaults for most users + lots of customizations + extensions if you need/want them. Firefox and Chrome target different market segments. If you strip out features and require people to get an extension to add the utility back... those people may as well switch to Chrome.
I'm already running Chrome half the time -- I'm testing it out preparing for what may be an inevitable transition to it from Firefox. Most of my friends, family, and co-workers use Chrome exclusively now.
In my opinion, Firefox can't hope to compete head-to-head with Chrome on speed, bug fixes, release dates, etc. etc. Google has far more resources. Firefox should instead target features (especially for power users), flexibility, and security while Google targets the average person that rarely has more than a few tabs open at a time. I'm not saying Firefox shouldn't stay competitive... but when someone asks "Why should I use Firefox instead of Chrome," one of my answers used to be that Firefox was very customizable... with lots of options and you could do about anything in about:config... it's just not true now. I'm still using an about:config option to let my "close tab" button remain on the far right rather than on each individual tab. When that option goes away forever (as I'm sure it will at this rate), I'll switch to Chrome -- unless I find another extension to add that back, too.
Why not simply state, "The dog should have been walked." or "The dog should have been walked by now." with the implication that it has not been done, it should be done immediately -- if that was the intended meaning?
science fiction
n.
A literary or cinematic genre in which fantasy, typically based on speculative scientific discoveries or developments, environmental changes, space travel, or life on other planets, forms part of the plot or background.
Science fiction is FANTASY -- by definition! Your statement : "if every single aspect of the movie is scientifically impossible it's FANTASY not science fiction." has no merit for the examples you listed.
Starwars -- space travel, life on other planets, robots with sophisticated AI (all science fiction)
WALL-E -- robots with sophisticated AI, life aboard a space ship, ecological disaster due to human pollution (ditto)
The Thing -- intelligent alien life (ditto)
Back to the Future -- time travel with paradoxes, ripple effects, etc., hoverboards, flying cars, fusion powered vehicles, etc. etc.
The Iron Giant -- giant alien robot
If this were the 1800's, you'd probably complain the works of Jules Verne weren't sci-fi either.
You make an excellent point. The impending energy crisis will not be caused by a shortage of energy, but by our infrastructure which currently lacks the ability to harness, store, and distribute existing sources of energy to sustain our current use. Heat, light, mechanical energy (wind, running water), chemical energy (burning fossil fuels, biodiesel) , nuclear energy (from fusion or fission.... uranium or thorium), etc. are abundant. Fossil fuels may be dwindling, and it may take some time to replace such energy-dense matter -- particularly oil and natural gas which can be easily transported to refuel vehicles and/or heat homes. We will invest in research & expensive new infrastructure when the time comes and the expense can be shown to be economical.
I've rated about 3600 titles... but honestly, you don't have to watch an entire movie all the way through to give it a one star "I Hated it" or two star "I didn't like it". Sometimes I'll play a low rated movie for 15-20 minutes or so just to see if it's an under-appreciated gem -- or I'll play a 3 star movie and skip around waiting for it to pick up, then close out and rate it w/ 2 stars because I didn't enjoy it.
5,000 titles isn't that impressive when you consider every TV show, documentary, and movie you've ever seen in your whole life. I rated over 2,000 titles my first day or two of Netflix just to seed the algorithm with my preferences. If I had rated every children's show (Barney for example) with one star instead of simply clicking "not interested", I would easily have over 4,000 rated by now & it's only my second month of Netflix.
My guess is most people just don't bother to rate things b/c of the time involved in clicking the ratings for each one. I swear, rating over 2,000 titles was like playing whack-a-mole for hours.
First, thank you for an interesting theory that is worth researching. I had not thought about the possibility of enzymes being included in the product. It would be interesting to know what portion of enzymes survives the process, packaging, storage, temperature fluctuations, and human ingestion to be able to affect the digestion of other foods. My educated guess would be very little, but it would be interesting to find out. It would also be interesting to know if the types of enzymes used could even function at human body temperatures if they arrived unharmed in the digestive tract.
There is no doubt that ingesting sugar could lead to a "sugar spike" in the bloodstream, but it's unlikely to cause any harm in a healthy individual. Your post implies sugar spikes cause Type II Diabetes. While sugar spikes can be a symptom of Type II Diabetes, there is no evidence that they are a cause of the disease. In fact, there is quite a lot of evidence suggesting sugars do not contribute directly in any way. They do, however, contribute to obesity which is a considerable factor. One could ingest large quantities of fruits for a quick fructose rush immediately followed by sucking down pixie stix for their sucrose topped off with several spoonfuls of honey (which is similar to HFCS) daily and not develop diabetes from it.... unless they got fat from it & lack of exercise.
It's a bit odd that you attribute Type II Diabetes as being caused by a sugar spike b/c the body couldn't produce enough insulin -- when type II diabetes is generally caused by insulin resistance. The pancreas pumps out enough insulin just fine -- just not enough relatively b/c the body resists using it. It's the body's cells that resist absorbing the sugar with the help of the insulin that is the culprit.
The most prescribed treatment for type II diabetics is to avoid fatty foods and start exercising regularly b/c more than half the cases are caused, at least in part, by being overweight. People generally know that diabetes is a sugar-related disorder, so it's easy for people to get confused and mistakenly link the intake of sugar with being one of the many contributing factors that causes the disorder.
There's only one person I know who even uses the word "tweet." Everyone else I know thinks it's stupid. Most people I know that use twitter still say "sent a twitter alert", "sent a twitter update", "posted to twitter", or "follow me on twitter" because "sent a tweet" and "follow my tweets" both sound about as stupid as Steve Ballmer sounded when he talked about "sending a squirt" or "squirting" data between devices.
No one can say for sure, but my money is on "tweet" becoming as archaic as it is juvenile & it will be largely forgotten.
Cut your arrogance, sir. "Not Yet" implies that it's something that is believed to be possible to achieve... which it isn't.
Any physicist will tell you that super-conduction depends on keeping atoms in a specific tight arrangement. At room temperature, there is too much movement of atoms and space between them even in crystalline structures to allow for superconductivity. Superconductivity is a state of matter. There are no super-conducting gasses or liquids (and there never will be!) and there will very likely never be any super-conducting solids at room temperature -- ever. The hottest temperature known for any material to super-conduct is 133 kelvin = -220.27 degrees Fahrenheit. That's not much warmer than liquid nitrogen at around 77 K.
It's not arrogance to say that superconductors will NEVER work at room temperature... at least according to the laws of physics as we understand them.
The colder super conductors work because atoms mesh into a quantum state only possible at cold temperatures. The hotter ones appear to work by aligning electrical spin of electrons -- a completely different method, but it too stops working above a certain threshold of heat. Heat adds motion and disorder to the system causing a breakdown in the state of matter.
To clarify, there will NEVER be a room temperature superconductor. It's literally impossible at room temperature to achieve the state of organized matter necessary to provide superconduction. To say otherwise is as ridiculous as saying one day we'll have a super-conducting gas (duh... gasses can never super-conduct either... nor can liquids).
"Not Yet" implies that it's something that is believed to be possible... which it isn't.
Any physicist will tell you that super-conduction depends on keeping atoms in a specific tight arrangement. At room temperature, there is too much movement of atoms and space between them even in crystalline structures to allow for superconductivity. Superconductivity is a state of matter. There are no super-conducting gasses or liquids and there will very likely never be any super-conducting solids at room temperature -- ever. The hottest temperature known for any material to super-conduct is 133 kelvin = -220.27 degrees Fahrenheit. That's not much warmer than liquid nitrogen at around 77 K.
So, to clarify... superconductors will NEVER work at room temperature... at least according to the laws of physics as we understand them.
FTFY... anonymous coward with pie in the sky dreams and no understanding of the topic
Capitalism works, in theory, by survival of the fittest and is subject directly to consumers' support providing for their self-interests. It is the perfect solution for creating the fittest organizations to provide the goods and services people want at a price they want. It is fueled by people's selfish needs to grow and prosper by working hard as well as their selfish needs for goods, services, and the perception of wealth. It's really the only system that allows for a certain level of greed. Socialism is perfect in a perfect world with a benevolent, wise dictator where everyone agrees that we should all do equal work for equal pay and equal outcome... and the dictator tells us all what we should make, how much, and of what kind, shape, color, etc. etc.
The standards I use to say other systems do not work is that there hasn't been one yet that worked. The USSR tried and failed. Do you know that there was once a glass company that told its workers they would be paid by the hour, so they worked long hours and produced almost nothing? Then they were told they would be paid by the square inch produced, so they produced thin sheets of glass that would easily snap. Then they were told they'd be paid by the weight of the glass, so they added lead and other heavy metals to the glass and made it too thick to fit into standard window sizes. Eventually, they had to state every specification for the product and how much to be produced. It would've been so much easier if the company's income were based on the demand. Command Production and Quotas implemented by the USSR had detrimental consequences
USSR
All systems have flaws -- they just take time to surface. Even capitalism requires government interference to provide laws to prevent monopolies, price-fixing, fraud, etc... but I have yet to hear of a system that works better to allow the masses to prosper.
car is a general term for any conveyance for passengers or "cargo"... elevator cars, boxcars, cable cars, etc etc... and yes, it was a general term for a cart, chariot, carriage, etc as well. Basically any area for storage or passengers on a vehicle is the "car"
It's origin is the Latin word for a Celtic / Gallic 2 wheeled wagon which was generally pulled by an animal such as a horse.
While I agree with you that it could be argued that this vehicle is indeed a "car", it's a valid point that the unconventional design of the vehicle and its limited purpose make it border on becoming not what the average person would consider to be a car in terms of an automobile.
Keep in mind that streetcars, subway cars, monorail cars, and railroad cars are still "cars" because they also cross terrain, though they require tracks of some sort for their function. (even an elevator car is a "car") This new car requires nearly perfectly flat land, a rocket for propulsion, and very specific aerodynamics to adhere to the ground to reach its top speeds. It likely won't allow for much steering at those speeds, so it will have to mostly go perfectly straight as well.
At what point does such a specialized craft no longer qualify as a "car"? Technically, I could put a large rocket with a small compartment for a human being at the tip of the rocket on an elevated track and still call it a "car". If there were a requirement that it have wheels, I could put wheels on it that touch the ground, but they'd be rather unnecessary. Is there a rule against tracks? Possibly, but if so, it's arbitrary. At some point, someone defined the rules for qualifications for the fastest land speed record of this type, but I would argue that the spirit of the rules has been skirted long ago. This is really a rocket with wheels that has been crafted to hug the ground so as to stay within the letter of the rules of being a land vehicle.
You do realize that trade agreements, tariffs, bans, etc. are all bargaining chips in diplomacy & that when it comes to bargaining w/ China, we have to use these tools very delicately, right? Banning trade with China makes about as much sense as shooting your conjoined twin through the heart you both share. One ban in one area on one thing leads to retribution in another area and possibly escalation & so on. Trade barriers almost always lead to higher prices on goods, so there's another side-effect as well.
China has 1.3 billion people and zero care for the environment. That is not going to change anytime soon. They did a decent job cleaning up for the Olympics, but that was only temporary & for show for visiting countries (& to make the air clean enough for athletes).
Our options are limited & our bargaining power to force change in China is limited, so get used to the status quo or come up with a viable alternative. Do you know WHY we choose to buy our goods from China? It's because they have low wages, no benefits, and no environmental policies, so companies can afford to set prices low. It's cheaper to ship raw materials to the other side of the planet to be processed & then shipped BACK than to have them processed here in the US with US labor. I kid you not. We send wheat & flour to China to be processed into noodles & shipped back.
Why choose environmental policy as a stance for trade barriers? Why not human rights or worker conditions or even minimum wages? If you're going to get upset over subsidies, we subsidize food which we export & we and other countries subsidize banks, auto-manufacturers, etc. etc. It's much more blatant than lax environmental laws, too.
Why don't we just ban all trade w/ everyone but democratic 1st world countries with high environmental and working standards? -- Because the cost increase on goods will be astronomical, that's why!
If you're going to be all high minded and idealistic about our trading policies & threaten sanctions on our biggest trading partner and investor, you'd best be ready to back it up & have a backup plan for the consequences...
Unless you live in a mobile home where the mortgage company owns the title to your home until you complete the terms of your contract, your mortgage company does not own any part of your home. Your home is merely collateral which can be seized to repay any portion of the amount of your contract you are unable or unwilling to pay.
Nope... you and whomever modded this as +5 informative needs a course in business law. Owning 51% or more in a company gives you complete and unquestionable authority over what actions a company can take unless a signed contract says otherwise or your shares are specifically "non-voting" stock. If the Fed. govt. as 80% owner decided to release all documents or even liquidate the company, the owners of the other 20% would have no say at all and no legal recourse.
You do have a point about the apparent fragmented strategies of Microsoft and Google. (I say apparent b/c we truly do not know their master plans, so perhaps the pieces will all fall into place one day and amaze us.) However, not all big, expensive companies have such fragmented strategies and large R&D departments. Microsoft and Google are competing in areas with rapid change and innovation, so I can't blame them for trying to stay ahead of the game. Often, R&D leads nowhere... or failed products, but it's difficult to know which ones will succeed. Much like a venture capitalist, large R&D departments spend a chunk of change on lots of projects in the hopes that one out of 100 will become huge successes. In short, they have both the cash and the NEED for the spagetti gun approach. lol. Not to mention, they learn quite a bit from their failures as well.
I think Google's just beginning to coalesce its many projects into one service... phone and/or netbook with andriod/chromeOS running chrome and accessing gmail, google calendar, google docs, google maps with GPS-like capabilities, etc. etc. Microsoft is slowly but surely spreading its empire as well. I never would've dreamed they'd be so successful with the XBOX. They have plans for a multimedia set-top box as well. Perhaps we simply don't know the 5 to 10 year plans these companies are reaching for and their releases simply seem fragmented b/c we don't know the long term plans.
As for dividends, I'm not sure why you prize them so highly. You spend money to buy stock b/c you believe it to be a better investment than actual money in a savings or money market account, yet you'd rather get money in the form of dividends from the company stock than have the stock rise in value? Every publicly traded company has a duty to "maximize shareholder wealth." By giving out a dividend, a company is basically admitting that you could invest that money better than they could, so they're giving it to you. It's insane... especially since they assume that company stock is a good investment and you should turn around and spend that money on buying more stock... so why incur fees buying more stock instead of simply allowing your stock price to rise to reflect the cash/investments/whatever within the company? If you believe the stock isn't a better investment than you could find elsewhere, then why not simply sell your stock and collect the money from the sale?!?! Dividends often lead to trouble down the road b/c once you start paying one, people expect you to continue and will see a halt or lowering of dividends as a bad sign, thus lowering the value of the stock... so once a company begins paying them out, they have to continue forever -- through good times and bad... even when it hurts their bottom lines.
I really don't understand why you would want a dividend.... if you want a return on investment in the form of a check, then perhaps a money market fund would be better. The point of owning a stock is to own a piece of a company in the hopes that it will be successful and make your shares worth more for when you finally decide to cash out. Typically, one should invest with an intent not to sell the stock for at least 5 to 10 years -- perhaps many decades for retirement. (day traders should be shot imho) With this in mind, one would want a good company to re-invest its profits within itself to grow bigger and even more profitable over that time. If one doesn't have faith in an individual company, then probably an index fund would be best... but I digress.
Point being... a company's profits are the shareholders' profits... whether they are re-invested or distributed as dividends. If a company holds on to the money in the form of cash or equivalents, then the stock price will rise to reflect that... in which case, if you wanted cash, you could sell the stock at a higher price instead of getting a dividend... however, the company should invest the money into R&D or expansion, or some other strategy to yield even more profit down the road. You're really better off choosing to either keep the stock without the dividend or selling the stock and putting your money elsewhere where you believe you'll make money.
I think you're confusing the word "metabolize" with "atrophy." Unused muscle will atrophy, and unused muscle while your body is in starvation mode will atrophy even faster... but the body doesn't choose to metabolize it for fuel as it does fat from fat cells.
Body builders have an insane amount of muscle mass, so naturally that muscle will atrophy unless they continuously work out to prevent atrophy.
This is a different mechanism than metabolizing protein, which does not happen unless all fat reserves are depleted.
I'm not sure where you picked up this myth, but you don't lose muscle unless it atrophies from either age or not using it in general. What you lose first from cutting calories is water weight. Your body stores sugar water in the liver, and since the body generally prefers to burn sugars over fats, it'll deplete the sugar reserves first before moving to a more balanced mixture of sugar and fat burning... so before you lose fat, you lose that sugar, and the body expels the excess water that was holding the sugar. For some people, that can be several pounds.
So, typically what happens is people cut calories, watch a few pounds drop off over the course of a week, then get discouraged when the pounds don't keep coming off at that rate... thinking they lost fat when it was really just water weight
Perhaps this myth comes from the look of loose skin on people that don't replace muscle with fat.
Slashdot Mirror
I think you're missing the point. Index funds follow the market which has always trended upward at that rate over time -- even including the great depression. It's considered a safe bet to earn 10% per year in an index fund (like the S&P 500) on average over at least a period of 10 years (gives time for full recovery of any economic downturn).
"everyone says" -- really, Everyone?!?!?
I don't know what polls and sales figures you were looking at, but Win95, WinXP, and Win7 were all winners from the get-go. Win98, Win98SE were OK, WinME was crap, Vista was crap (SPs fixed that, so it's basically Win7 now)... and Win8 is crap without a start menu shell utility. (Win2000 was also loved in businesses, but XP added much needed media features while increasing some bugginess. XP SP2 and SP3 were welcome upgrades).
The fact is that touch-tech is useful on small devices that lack keyboards but is mostly useless on a desktop, projector, or TV, so it was asinine for Microsoft to make it the primary interface for Windows 8. The Start Screen is also poorly designed for he same setting, so equally asinine to have it replace the start menu. These are real problems that need to be addressed for usability - including workplace safety and disabled user's ease of workflow.
That said, Win 8 has some great tech under the hood & I like using it with Classic Shell as my start menu w/ the charms crap turned off.
Makes me wonder why they don't have a test for how many on/off cycles one can handle. Incandescent bulbs can go for nearly 100 years if their power source isn't disrupted or turned off. It's always the power spikes that blow a bulb -- usually when you turn one on.
I don't disagree with any of your points save for the "End of Facebook" bit.
I use Facebook for a lot more than what you describe. Perhaps it would be the end of twitter - assuming there was an easy way for others to subscribe to your posts?
Obviously, there are gravitational distortions in space-time that current theories cannot explain. The idea that there is some sort of exotic matter creating those gravitational distortions is an untestable hypothesis (unless you know of a way to go out and collect the dark matter which may exist in these regions to run experiments on it).
It is equally likely that those regions of space are experiencing distortions due to some unknown natural distortion in space-time's structure itself or are caused by an interaction with another universe in the multiverse. It's also possible that our current model of how gravity works is incorrect at large scales due to other factors we don't yet understand. In any case, the distortions are at such a large scale and at such great distance from us that any hypothesis will be difficult to test.
"Dark Matter" is just a word for "something out there we can't see is causing gravitational distortions we can't account for." There's no reason the cause has to be some form of matter we haven't seen yet. Particle physicists haven't a clue what kind of a particle would have mass, but no interaction with light. People assume the distortions are caused by mass because all known distortions our theories work for are caused by mass, but all known normal mass particles also interact with light or emit light. So, people simply make up hypothetical particles with mass, but no interaction with light -- because they NEED for them to exist to fit their assumption that mass in our universe is causing the distortion.
I think it's far more likely we don't yet understand some aspect of gravity on galactic scales than there is some sort of magic form of matter that makes our current equations make sense in the areas that currently make no sense to us whatsoever.
Maybe the area far from the center could carry luggage & cargo
Exactly where do firefox devs get their marketing research from that tells them what features their users would like to keep and which they'd like to remove or change? I'm sincerely curious because I never voted for this, never got a pop-up questionnaire even on a beta version that does marketing research and has Feedback capabilities (What you like and don't like), and yet the status bar was simply GONE with an update. Who makes these decisions and based on what data? The devs personal feelings or actual responses from users?!?!?
I now have an extension to replace the status bar (status4ever or some such thing) and another extension to replace the capability to set my minimum tab width -- which was also removed unceremoniously so one couldn't go to about:config and set it anymore. The devs received this as a BUG and replied with "It was never a feature... just a setting we removed and don't intend to put back." So, if there weren't an extension for me, I'd be scrolling forever to see my 40+ tabs open (on just one set of Tab Panorama tabs on a wide-screen monitor).
Why are features removed rather than made optional??? Extensions to get old functionality back are inferior b/c they aren't maintained by FF and could contain buggy or insecure code -- or end development suddenly.
Honestly, it's changes like these that send loyal users to Chrome. Chrome is minimalist + extensions to do what you want. Firefox has always been defaults for most users + lots of customizations + extensions if you need/want them. Firefox and Chrome target different market segments. If you strip out features and require people to get an extension to add the utility back... those people may as well switch to Chrome.
I'm already running Chrome half the time -- I'm testing it out preparing for what may be an inevitable transition to it from Firefox. Most of my friends, family, and co-workers use Chrome exclusively now.
In my opinion, Firefox can't hope to compete head-to-head with Chrome on speed, bug fixes, release dates, etc. etc. Google has far more resources. Firefox should instead target features (especially for power users), flexibility, and security while Google targets the average person that rarely has more than a few tabs open at a time. I'm not saying Firefox shouldn't stay competitive... but when someone asks "Why should I use Firefox instead of Chrome," one of my answers used to be that Firefox was very customizable... with lots of options and you could do about anything in about:config... it's just not true now. I'm still using an about:config option to let my "close tab" button remain on the far right rather than on each individual tab. When that option goes away forever (as I'm sure it will at this rate), I'll switch to Chrome -- unless I find another extension to add that back, too.
Why not simply state, "The dog should have been walked." or "The dog should have been walked by now." with the implication that it has not been done, it should be done immediately -- if that was the intended meaning?
science fiction
n.
A literary or cinematic genre in which fantasy, typically based on speculative scientific discoveries or developments, environmental changes, space travel, or life on other planets, forms part of the plot or background.
Science fiction is FANTASY -- by definition! Your statement : "if every single aspect of the movie is scientifically impossible it's FANTASY not science fiction." has no merit for the examples you listed.
Starwars -- space travel, life on other planets, robots with sophisticated AI (all science fiction)
WALL-E -- robots with sophisticated AI, life aboard a space ship, ecological disaster due to human pollution (ditto)
The Thing -- intelligent alien life (ditto)
Back to the Future -- time travel with paradoxes, ripple effects, etc., hoverboards, flying cars, fusion powered vehicles, etc. etc.
The Iron Giant -- giant alien robot
If this were the 1800's, you'd probably complain the works of Jules Verne weren't sci-fi either.
You make an excellent point. The impending energy crisis will not be caused by a shortage of energy, but by our infrastructure which currently lacks the ability to harness, store, and distribute existing sources of energy to sustain our current use. Heat, light, mechanical energy (wind, running water), chemical energy (burning fossil fuels, biodiesel) , nuclear energy (from fusion or fission.... uranium or thorium), etc. are abundant. Fossil fuels may be dwindling, and it may take some time to replace such energy-dense matter -- particularly oil and natural gas which can be easily transported to refuel vehicles and/or heat homes. We will invest in research & expensive new infrastructure when the time comes and the expense can be shown to be economical.
I've rated about 3600 titles... but honestly, you don't have to watch an entire movie all the way through to give it a one star "I Hated it" or two star "I didn't like it". Sometimes I'll play a low rated movie for 15-20 minutes or so just to see if it's an under-appreciated gem -- or I'll play a 3 star movie and skip around waiting for it to pick up, then close out and rate it w/ 2 stars because I didn't enjoy it.
5,000 titles isn't that impressive when you consider every TV show, documentary, and movie you've ever seen in your whole life. I rated over 2,000 titles my first day or two of Netflix just to seed the algorithm with my preferences. If I had rated every children's show (Barney for example) with one star instead of simply clicking "not interested", I would easily have over 4,000 rated by now & it's only my second month of Netflix.
My guess is most people just don't bother to rate things b/c of the time involved in clicking the ratings for each one. I swear, rating over 2,000 titles was like playing whack-a-mole for hours.
First, thank you for an interesting theory that is worth researching. I had not thought about the possibility of enzymes being included in the product. It would be interesting to know what portion of enzymes survives the process, packaging, storage, temperature fluctuations, and human ingestion to be able to affect the digestion of other foods. My educated guess would be very little, but it would be interesting to find out. It would also be interesting to know if the types of enzymes used could even function at human body temperatures if they arrived unharmed in the digestive tract.
There is no doubt that ingesting sugar could lead to a "sugar spike" in the bloodstream, but it's unlikely to cause any harm in a healthy individual. Your post implies sugar spikes cause Type II Diabetes. While sugar spikes can be a symptom of Type II Diabetes, there is no evidence that they are a cause of the disease. In fact, there is quite a lot of evidence suggesting sugars do not contribute directly in any way. They do, however, contribute to obesity which is a considerable factor. One could ingest large quantities of fruits for a quick fructose rush immediately followed by sucking down pixie stix for their sucrose topped off with several spoonfuls of honey (which is similar to HFCS) daily and not develop diabetes from it.... unless they got fat from it & lack of exercise.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diabetes_mellitus_type_2
It's a bit odd that you attribute Type II Diabetes as being caused by a sugar spike b/c the body couldn't produce enough insulin -- when type II diabetes is generally caused by insulin resistance. The pancreas pumps out enough insulin just fine -- just not enough relatively b/c the body resists using it. It's the body's cells that resist absorbing the sugar with the help of the insulin that is the culprit.
The most prescribed treatment for type II diabetics is to avoid fatty foods and start exercising regularly b/c more than half the cases are caused, at least in part, by being overweight. People generally know that diabetes is a sugar-related disorder, so it's easy for people to get confused and mistakenly link the intake of sugar with being one of the many contributing factors that causes the disorder.
I've found the "Shared Computer Toolkit for Windows XP" can be very helpful at locking down exactly what can be changed on an XP build... including allowing changes, but wiping them after a reboot.
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/newsroom/winxp/SharedToolkitFS.mspx
It's now called "Windows SteadyState 2.5"
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=d077a52d-93e9-4b02-bd95-9d770ccdb431&displaylang=en
Perhaps in your social circles, but not in mine.
There's only one person I know who even uses the word "tweet." Everyone else I know thinks it's stupid. Most people I know that use twitter still say "sent a twitter alert", "sent a twitter update", "posted to twitter", or "follow me on twitter" because "sent a tweet" and "follow my tweets" both sound about as stupid as Steve Ballmer sounded when he talked about "sending a squirt" or "squirting" data between devices.
No one can say for sure, but my money is on "tweet" becoming as archaic as it is juvenile & it will be largely forgotten.
Cut your arrogance, sir. "Not Yet" implies that it's something that is believed to be possible to achieve... which it isn't.
Any physicist will tell you that super-conduction depends on keeping atoms in a specific tight arrangement. At room temperature, there is too much movement of atoms and space between them even in crystalline structures to allow for superconductivity. Superconductivity is a state of matter. There are no super-conducting gasses or liquids (and there never will be!) and there will very likely never be any super-conducting solids at room temperature -- ever. The hottest temperature known for any material to super-conduct is 133 kelvin = -220.27 degrees Fahrenheit. That's not much warmer than liquid nitrogen at around 77 K.
It's not arrogance to say that superconductors will NEVER work at room temperature... at least according to the laws of physics as we understand them.
The colder super conductors work because atoms mesh into a quantum state only possible at cold temperatures. The hotter ones appear to work by aligning electrical spin of electrons -- a completely different method, but it too stops working above a certain threshold of heat. Heat adds motion and disorder to the system causing a breakdown in the state of matter.
To clarify, there will NEVER be a room temperature superconductor. It's literally impossible at room temperature to achieve the state of organized matter necessary to provide superconduction. To say otherwise is as ridiculous as saying one day we'll have a super-conducting gas (duh... gasses can never super-conduct either... nor can liquids).
There, fixed that for ya...
"Not Yet" implies that it's something that is believed to be possible... which it isn't.
Any physicist will tell you that super-conduction depends on keeping atoms in a specific tight arrangement. At room temperature, there is too much movement of atoms and space between them even in crystalline structures to allow for superconductivity. Superconductivity is a state of matter. There are no super-conducting gasses or liquids and there will very likely never be any super-conducting solids at room temperature -- ever. The hottest temperature known for any material to super-conduct is 133 kelvin = -220.27 degrees Fahrenheit. That's not much warmer than liquid nitrogen at around 77 K.
So, to clarify... superconductors will NEVER work at room temperature... at least according to the laws of physics as we understand them.
FTFY... anonymous coward with pie in the sky dreams and no understanding of the topic
Capitalism works, in theory, by survival of the fittest and is subject directly to consumers' support providing for their self-interests. It is the perfect solution for creating the fittest organizations to provide the goods and services people want at a price they want. It is fueled by people's selfish needs to grow and prosper by working hard as well as their selfish needs for goods, services, and the perception of wealth. It's really the only system that allows for a certain level of greed. Socialism is perfect in a perfect world with a benevolent, wise dictator where everyone agrees that we should all do equal work for equal pay and equal outcome... and the dictator tells us all what we should make, how much, and of what kind, shape, color, etc. etc.
The standards I use to say other systems do not work is that there hasn't been one yet that worked. The USSR tried and failed. Do you know that there was once a glass company that told its workers they would be paid by the hour, so they worked long hours and produced almost nothing? Then they were told they would be paid by the square inch produced, so they produced thin sheets of glass that would easily snap. Then they were told they'd be paid by the weight of the glass, so they added lead and other heavy metals to the glass and made it too thick to fit into standard window sizes. Eventually, they had to state every specification for the product and how much to be produced. It would've been so much easier if the company's income were based on the demand. Command Production and Quotas implemented by the USSR had detrimental consequences USSR
All systems have flaws -- they just take time to surface. Even capitalism requires government interference to provide laws to prevent monopolies, price-fixing, fraud, etc... but I have yet to hear of a system that works better to allow the masses to prosper.
car is a general term for any conveyance for passengers or "cargo"... elevator cars, boxcars, cable cars, etc etc... and yes, it was a general term for a cart, chariot, carriage, etc as well. Basically any area for storage or passengers on a vehicle is the "car"
It's origin is the Latin word for a Celtic / Gallic 2 wheeled wagon which was generally pulled by an animal such as a horse.
http://www.tfd.com/car
While I agree with you that it could be argued that this vehicle is indeed a "car", it's a valid point that the unconventional design of the vehicle and its limited purpose make it border on becoming not what the average person would consider to be a car in terms of an automobile.
Keep in mind that streetcars, subway cars, monorail cars, and railroad cars are still "cars" because they also cross terrain, though they require tracks of some sort for their function. (even an elevator car is a "car") This new car requires nearly perfectly flat land, a rocket for propulsion, and very specific aerodynamics to adhere to the ground to reach its top speeds. It likely won't allow for much steering at those speeds, so it will have to mostly go perfectly straight as well.
At what point does such a specialized craft no longer qualify as a "car"? Technically, I could put a large rocket with a small compartment for a human being at the tip of the rocket on an elevated track and still call it a "car". If there were a requirement that it have wheels, I could put wheels on it that touch the ground, but they'd be rather unnecessary. Is there a rule against tracks? Possibly, but if so, it's arbitrary. At some point, someone defined the rules for qualifications for the fastest land speed record of this type, but I would argue that the spirit of the rules has been skirted long ago. This is really a rocket with wheels that has been crafted to hug the ground so as to stay within the letter of the rules of being a land vehicle.
You do realize that trade agreements, tariffs, bans, etc. are all bargaining chips in diplomacy & that when it comes to bargaining w/ China, we have to use these tools very delicately, right? Banning trade with China makes about as much sense as shooting your conjoined twin through the heart you both share. One ban in one area on one thing leads to retribution in another area and possibly escalation & so on. Trade barriers almost always lead to higher prices on goods, so there's another side-effect as well.
China has 1.3 billion people and zero care for the environment. That is not going to change anytime soon. They did a decent job cleaning up for the Olympics, but that was only temporary & for show for visiting countries (& to make the air clean enough for athletes).
Our options are limited & our bargaining power to force change in China is limited, so get used to the status quo or come up with a viable alternative. Do you know WHY we choose to buy our goods from China? It's because they have low wages, no benefits, and no environmental policies, so companies can afford to set prices low. It's cheaper to ship raw materials to the other side of the planet to be processed & then shipped BACK than to have them processed here in the US with US labor. I kid you not. We send wheat & flour to China to be processed into noodles & shipped back.
Why choose environmental policy as a stance for trade barriers? Why not human rights or worker conditions or even minimum wages? If you're going to get upset over subsidies, we subsidize food which we export & we and other countries subsidize banks, auto-manufacturers, etc. etc. It's much more blatant than lax environmental laws, too.
Why don't we just ban all trade w/ everyone but democratic 1st world countries with high environmental and working standards? -- Because the cost increase on goods will be astronomical, that's why!
If you're going to be all high minded and idealistic about our trading policies & threaten sanctions on our biggest trading partner and investor, you'd best be ready to back it up & have a backup plan for the consequences...
Unless you live in a mobile home where the mortgage company owns the title to your home until you complete the terms of your contract, your mortgage company does not own any part of your home. Your home is merely collateral which can be seized to repay any portion of the amount of your contract you are unable or unwilling to pay.
Nope... you and whomever modded this as +5 informative needs a course in business law. Owning 51% or more in a company gives you complete and unquestionable authority over what actions a company can take unless a signed contract says otherwise or your shares are specifically "non-voting" stock. If the Fed. govt. as 80% owner decided to release all documents or even liquidate the company, the owners of the other 20% would have no say at all and no legal recourse.
I think Google's just beginning to coalesce its many projects into one service... phone and/or netbook with andriod/chromeOS running chrome and accessing gmail, google calendar, google docs, google maps with GPS-like capabilities, etc. etc. Microsoft is slowly but surely spreading its empire as well. I never would've dreamed they'd be so successful with the XBOX. They have plans for a multimedia set-top box as well. Perhaps we simply don't know the 5 to 10 year plans these companies are reaching for and their releases simply seem fragmented b/c we don't know the long term plans.
As for dividends, I'm not sure why you prize them so highly. You spend money to buy stock b/c you believe it to be a better investment than actual money in a savings or money market account, yet you'd rather get money in the form of dividends from the company stock than have the stock rise in value? Every publicly traded company has a duty to "maximize shareholder wealth." By giving out a dividend, a company is basically admitting that you could invest that money better than they could, so they're giving it to you. It's insane... especially since they assume that company stock is a good investment and you should turn around and spend that money on buying more stock... so why incur fees buying more stock instead of simply allowing your stock price to rise to reflect the cash/investments/whatever within the company? If you believe the stock isn't a better investment than you could find elsewhere, then why not simply sell your stock and collect the money from the sale?!?! Dividends often lead to trouble down the road b/c once you start paying one, people expect you to continue and will see a halt or lowering of dividends as a bad sign, thus lowering the value of the stock... so once a company begins paying them out, they have to continue forever -- through good times and bad... even when it hurts their bottom lines.
I really don't understand why you would want a dividend.... if you want a return on investment in the form of a check, then perhaps a money market fund would be better. The point of owning a stock is to own a piece of a company in the hopes that it will be successful and make your shares worth more for when you finally decide to cash out. Typically, one should invest with an intent not to sell the stock for at least 5 to 10 years -- perhaps many decades for retirement. (day traders should be shot imho) With this in mind, one would want a good company to re-invest its profits within itself to grow bigger and even more profitable over that time. If one doesn't have faith in an individual company, then probably an index fund would be best... but I digress.
Point being... a company's profits are the shareholders' profits... whether they are re-invested or distributed as dividends. If a company holds on to the money in the form of cash or equivalents, then the stock price will rise to reflect that... in which case, if you wanted cash, you could sell the stock at a higher price instead of getting a dividend... however, the company should invest the money into R&D or expansion, or some other strategy to yield even more profit down the road. You're really better off choosing to either keep the stock without the dividend or selling the stock and putting your money elsewhere where you believe you'll make money.
I think you're confusing the word "metabolize" with "atrophy." Unused muscle will atrophy, and unused muscle while your body is in starvation mode will atrophy even faster... but the body doesn't choose to metabolize it for fuel as it does fat from fat cells. Body builders have an insane amount of muscle mass, so naturally that muscle will atrophy unless they continuously work out to prevent atrophy. This is a different mechanism than metabolizing protein, which does not happen unless all fat reserves are depleted.
So, typically what happens is people cut calories, watch a few pounds drop off over the course of a week, then get discouraged when the pounds don't keep coming off at that rate... thinking they lost fat when it was really just water weight
Perhaps this myth comes from the look of loose skin on people that don't replace muscle with fat.