The RFID encryption in the not-yet-released Dutch passport has also been broken a couple of months ago. Why don't they just put a regular, actual physical contact-requiring chip in those passports? That'd really save a lot of privacy and security headaches.
M:tG never really recovered from this debacle and Hasbro, Inc. finally bought them out.
Never really recover? They got fucking huge. Before MtG, WotC was a tiny company making cute games and supplements for other people's games. Because of the continuing success of MtG, they bought Carta Mundi (the biggest playing cards printer in the world) and TSR (makers of the biggest RPG), before they finally got noticed and acquired by Hasbro.
It's possible some people got in trouble, but WotC certainly didn't.
A recent study even told that (this is crazy) more alcohol you drink, not just red wine as you point, better it is to your hearth.
As far as I know, alcohol is good for you as long as you don't drink more than 2 glasses a day. Drink more, and it quickly becomes very unhealthy. For neither effect does it matter what kind of alcohol it is, although I believe red wine does contain a lot of anti-oxidants (just like tea, if you prefer cafeine over alcohol) which protects a bit against cancer.
I can't say anything about Ep3 because I haven't seen it and don't plan to.
A shame. It could have been the best SF movie ever, had it been made by a competent script writer and a decent director. Unfortunately it was made by George Lucas.
None of those, but I do get offered the services of a medium, a pizza delivery and The Economist through snail mail. And occasionally I win something, apparently.
(New to me is the automated telephone spam I found on my equally automated anwering machine.)
At least as far as I understand it, the $4500 aren't wages. The participants weren't on Google's payroll, and if you didn't finish, you didn't get anything.
The guy at my work who participated (and finished) still got his regular wages from our employer, as far as I know.
It's not quite clear from the article where Java is failing. Well, there are some things, like applets, that people once thought were cool, and are now completely ignored. For building complex websites, however, there are lots of really useful Java frameworks that can help you out.
That, however is also the problem with Java: there is too much stuff. Do you need EJB? JDO? JSP? Struts? Spring? Something else? (Answers: No, yes, no, no and yes!) Java used to be powerful and easy, but it's grown overweight and complex. It doesn't have to be that way, however. The Java world is starting to realise that it needs to go back to Plain Old Java Objects (like Spring does) and do away with all the overly complicated J2EE junk (especially EJB2!).
Personally I wouldn't dream of building big websites in JSP or PHP (although PHP is probably fine for small ones), while something like Cocoon (mostly Java components, with bits of other stuff whenever that's more useful) is great for rapid deployment of complex sites (although I'm sure others will disagree; it suits my needs, however).
The article also says that Java is losing ground to Javascript and AJAX. I don't see how. The only Java they might possibly be competing with are applets, and those have been dead for quite some time now. There are plans to include AJAX support in Cocoon, which makes a lot of sense. Using different tools for different tasks and all. And that's how it's meant to be: everything has its place, including Java and PHP.
Tom Baker's characterization didn't totally revolve around the curly hair. Captain Jack, on the other hand, had very, very few scenes that weren't heavily sexualized.
Oh come on! Tom Baker was just as much about his curly hair as Captain Jack was about his amazing charm.
You could forget, sometimes, that Tom Baker had curly hair.
I certainly couldn't.
By contrast, the way Captain Jack was written, it was pretty hard to forget, even for a moment, that he was continuously randy for anything vaguely warm and moving.
Warm and moving? Remember that scene where he charmed those two robots? (I think they were stationary, even.)
A large portion of the world wants the US to tear up our constitution and remake ourselves in the image of the EU.
I really don't think so. The EU in its current form is an awful construction. Had it been a country, it would not be allowed to become a member of the EU because it's simply far too undemocratic.
Also, I don't think anyone objects to the US constitution. It may not be the best constitution in the world, but it's certainly not the worst.
More importantly, this figure is only the US box office. The film has also been released in quite a number of other countries.
Incidentally, does anyone else find it funny that the worst Star Wars film has the second best box office revenue, while the best Star Wars film has the worst revenue?
You're probably right in this case, but there are other space related issues where the US does seem to be alienating its allies. Do you remember their response to Galileo, the European version of the GPS satelites?
"The Clipper would allow Russia and Europe to collaborate with the Americans on lunar exploration, allowing six astronauts to orbit the Moon and to act as a back-up rescue craft, if needed." I'd be happy if we collaborated, but I think it's a bit premature considering that Russia never landed anyone on the moon.
I don't think Russia has tried to put anyone on the moon in ages, because that space race is finished. But I have little doubt that Russia and ESA together can get to the moon if they really want to. The Soyuz, for which the Clipper is going to be the replacement, has been an incredibly reliable vehicle, and like the article says, some European high tech certainly won't hurt.
Ofcourse the real question is: why would they want to go to the moon at all?
It's shared through iTunes' sharing feature. No files are permanently copied, and the company is not really doing anything. The employees are using a standard iTunes feature to listen to each other's music.
People entering the building can only hear the music if somebody decides to hook his iPod to a set of speakers, which only happens on fridays after 5 pm, which is the accepted time to play music loud and drink beer.
All in all I'd say the legality of this arrangement is a lot better than that of a pub playing a CD.
True. My employer used to have a whole bunch of mp3s on a server for employees to listen to, but they removed it because it's illegal. Instead, they gave all employees (who didn't have one already) an iPod, and encouraged them to use iTunes to share their music with each other.
The problem with this arrangement is that iPods connected to the PC don't play music anymore so you have to listen through the PC, but the standard iPod phones' cord is too short for that if the PC is standing on the floor.
I agree. It is very important to me that I feel at home, that I can respect my employer and that I can feel some sort of pride in what I do, and I'm fortunate enough to have a job that fits all of those requirements. I'm probably slightly underpaid for my abilities (I rejected two better-paying jobs to get this one), but I'm happy and relaxed, I have great and very competent coworkers, and we're working in a very laid-back yet productive atmosphere, so I don't regret my decision. Oh, and we're working with and developing Open Source software.
And yes, we're hiring. In fact, I get a bonus for bringing in more employees, so if you have experience in HTML, XML, XSLT, Java, javascript, Webdav/DASL, and/or Apache/Cocoon, and you live near Amsterdam (or are willing to relocate there) by all means, contact me.
(And did I mention the iPods or other gadgets we get for christmas?)
If I'm not entirely mistaken, the upcoming Serenity movie (and the TV series Firefly it's based on) tends to show space scenes with a deafening silence, which actually works very well for dramatic impact.
Being stoned all the time is obviously a stupid idea. I sometimes get the impression that American potheads smoke it all day long. In Netherland (where it's legal) most people I know only smoke pot on parties or in weekends. I assume Carl Sagan didn't smoke it 24/7 either.
The point is to use it in moderation. Too much of anything is always bad. Compare with alcohol: a single glass of alcohol per day is actually good for your health. Being drunk all the time certainly isn't.
Robots are indeed excellent for doing the initial exploration, but they do have their limitations. The 20-40 minute lag makes current robot explorers on Mars really slow, for example. Humans are more versatile and more creative.
For all the reasons you mention, robots are by far the better explorers as long as they are good enough, but there will always be things that robots can't do (unless we manage to make ourselves obsolete, but I kinda hope we don't), and at some point, you will want to send humans. Just not right now and not to the moon.
Re:The Moon for 100 Billion, Mars for 20 Billion?
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NASA's New Shuttle
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· Score: 1
The only possible reason to go to the moon is to build an industry to mine the moon and transport its products to, I don't know, outer space somewhere. If you want to send stuff to Mars, why not just build the industry there right away?
One other use for the moon is to mine its He3 and use it for fusion reactors, but it'll be a couple of decades before that's going to be of any use at all.
The Moon for 100 Billion, Mars for 20 Billion?
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NASA's New Shuttle
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· Score: 1
What I'd like to know is how a trip to the moon can cost $100 Billion when Robert Zubrin can take us directly to Mars for only $20 Billion.
Atheist (A): "Do you believe there are herds of invisble pink unicorns somewhere unnoticed on the planet?" Believer (B): "No, of course not." A: "So this would be an absolute religious conviction, would it?" B: "I suppose so. At least until I see any evidence to the contrary." A: "Er..."
I can't really see how B could answer "Well, no, not really".
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The RFID encryption in the not-yet-released Dutch passport has also been broken a couple of months ago. Why don't they just put a regular, actual physical contact-requiring chip in those passports? That'd really save a lot of privacy and security headaches.
M:tG never really recovered from this debacle and Hasbro, Inc. finally bought them out.
Never really recover? They got fucking huge. Before MtG, WotC was a tiny company making cute games and supplements for other people's games. Because of the continuing success of MtG, they bought Carta Mundi (the biggest playing cards printer in the world) and TSR (makers of the biggest RPG), before they finally got noticed and acquired by Hasbro.
It's possible some people got in trouble, but WotC certainly didn't.
A recent study even told that (this is crazy) more alcohol you drink, not just red wine as you point, better it is to your hearth.
As far as I know, alcohol is good for you as long as you don't drink more than 2 glasses a day. Drink more, and it quickly becomes very unhealthy. For neither effect does it matter what kind of alcohol it is, although I believe red wine does contain a lot of anti-oxidants (just like tea, if you prefer cafeine over alcohol) which protects a bit against cancer.
I can't say anything about Ep3 because I haven't seen it and don't plan to.
A shame. It could have been the best SF movie ever, had it been made by a competent script writer and a decent director. Unfortunately it was made by George Lucas.
So Darwin and Einstein handled paper mail like we handle electronic mail. Guess what? I handle paper mail that way too.
I don't. I do reply to email.
None of those, but I do get offered the services of a medium, a pizza delivery and The Economist through snail mail. And occasionally I win something, apparently.
(New to me is the automated telephone spam I found on my equally automated anwering machine.)
At least as far as I understand it, the $4500 aren't wages. The participants weren't on Google's payroll, and if you didn't finish, you didn't get anything.
The guy at my work who participated (and finished) still got his regular wages from our employer, as far as I know.
Isn't this the same administration that passes laws to protect big corporations against all sorts of lawsuits?
It's not quite clear from the article where Java is failing. Well, there are some things, like applets, that people once thought were cool, and are now completely ignored. For building complex websites, however, there are lots of really useful Java frameworks that can help you out.
That, however is also the problem with Java: there is too much stuff. Do you need EJB? JDO? JSP? Struts? Spring? Something else? (Answers: No, yes, no, no and yes!) Java used to be powerful and easy, but it's grown overweight and complex. It doesn't have to be that way, however. The Java world is starting to realise that it needs to go back to Plain Old Java Objects (like Spring does) and do away with all the overly complicated J2EE junk (especially EJB2!).
Personally I wouldn't dream of building big websites in JSP or PHP (although PHP is probably fine for small ones), while something like Cocoon (mostly Java components, with bits of other stuff whenever that's more useful) is great for rapid deployment of complex sites (although I'm sure others will disagree; it suits my needs, however).
The article also says that Java is losing ground to Javascript and AJAX. I don't see how. The only Java they might possibly be competing with are applets, and those have been dead for quite some time now. There are plans to include AJAX support in Cocoon, which makes a lot of sense. Using different tools for different tasks and all. And that's how it's meant to be: everything has its place, including Java and PHP.
Tom Baker's characterization didn't totally revolve around the curly hair. Captain Jack, on the other hand, had very, very few scenes that weren't heavily sexualized.
Oh come on! Tom Baker was just as much about his curly hair as Captain Jack was about his amazing charm.
You could forget, sometimes, that Tom Baker had curly hair.
I certainly couldn't.
By contrast, the way Captain Jack was written, it was pretty hard to forget, even for a moment, that he was continuously randy for anything vaguely warm and moving.
Warm and moving? Remember that scene where he charmed those two robots? (I think they were stationary, even.)
A large portion of the world wants the US to tear up our constitution and remake ourselves in the image of the EU.
I really don't think so. The EU in its current form is an awful construction. Had it been a country, it would not be allowed to become a member of the EU because it's simply far too undemocratic.
Also, I don't think anyone objects to the US constitution. It may not be the best constitution in the world, but it's certainly not the worst.
More importantly, this figure is only the US box office. The film has also been released in quite a number of other countries.
Incidentally, does anyone else find it funny that the worst Star Wars film has the second best box office revenue, while the best Star Wars film has the worst revenue?
You're probably right in this case, but there are other space related issues where the US does seem to be alienating its allies. Do you remember their response to Galileo, the European version of the GPS satelites?
"The Clipper would allow Russia and Europe to collaborate with the Americans on lunar exploration, allowing six astronauts to orbit the Moon and to act as a back-up rescue craft, if needed." I'd be happy if we collaborated, but I think it's a bit premature considering that Russia never landed anyone on the moon.
I don't think Russia has tried to put anyone on the moon in ages, because that space race is finished. But I have little doubt that Russia and ESA together can get to the moon if they really want to. The Soyuz, for which the Clipper is going to be the replacement, has been an incredibly reliable vehicle, and like the article says, some European high tech certainly won't hurt.
Ofcourse the real question is: why would they want to go to the moon at all?
It's shared through iTunes' sharing feature. No files are permanently copied, and the company is not really doing anything. The employees are using a standard iTunes feature to listen to each other's music.
People entering the building can only hear the music if somebody decides to hook his iPod to a set of speakers, which only happens on fridays after 5 pm, which is the accepted time to play music loud and drink beer.
All in all I'd say the legality of this arrangement is a lot better than that of a pub playing a CD.
True. My employer used to have a whole bunch of mp3s on a server for employees to listen to, but they removed it because it's illegal. Instead, they gave all employees (who didn't have one already) an iPod, and encouraged them to use iTunes to share their music with each other.
The problem with this arrangement is that iPods connected to the PC don't play music anymore so you have to listen through the PC, but the standard iPod phones' cord is too short for that if the PC is standing on the floor.
I agree. It is very important to me that I feel at home, that I can respect my employer and that I can feel some sort of pride in what I do, and I'm fortunate enough to have a job that fits all of those requirements. I'm probably slightly underpaid for my abilities (I rejected two better-paying jobs to get this one), but I'm happy and relaxed, I have great and very competent coworkers, and we're working in a very laid-back yet productive atmosphere, so I don't regret my decision. Oh, and we're working with and developing Open Source software.
And yes, we're hiring. In fact, I get a bonus for bringing in more employees, so if you have experience in HTML, XML, XSLT, Java, javascript, Webdav/DASL, and/or Apache/Cocoon, and you live near Amsterdam (or are willing to relocate there) by all means, contact me.
(And did I mention the iPods or other gadgets we get for christmas?)
If I'm not entirely mistaken, the upcoming Serenity movie (and the TV series Firefly it's based on) tends to show space scenes with a deafening silence, which actually works very well for dramatic impact.
Being stoned all the time is obviously a stupid idea. I sometimes get the impression that American potheads smoke it all day long. In Netherland (where it's legal) most people I know only smoke pot on parties or in weekends. I assume Carl Sagan didn't smoke it 24/7 either.
The point is to use it in moderation. Too much of anything is always bad. Compare with alcohol: a single glass of alcohol per day is actually good for your health. Being drunk all the time certainly isn't.
Well, we've sent quite a lot of rovers up there by now.
Robots are indeed excellent for doing the initial exploration, but they do have their limitations. The 20-40 minute lag makes current robot explorers on Mars really slow, for example. Humans are more versatile and more creative.
For all the reasons you mention, robots are by far the better explorers as long as they are good enough, but there will always be things that robots can't do (unless we manage to make ourselves obsolete, but I kinda hope we don't), and at some point, you will want to send humans. Just not right now and not to the moon.
The only possible reason to go to the moon is to build an industry to mine the moon and transport its products to, I don't know, outer space somewhere. If you want to send stuff to Mars, why not just build the industry there right away?
One other use for the moon is to mine its He3 and use it for fusion reactors, but it'll be a couple of decades before that's going to be of any use at all.
What I'd like to know is how a trip to the moon can cost $100 Billion when Robert Zubrin can take us directly to Mars for only $20 Billion.
Hobbyists have been changing Lego's own designs for decades. This is just a natural progression along that path.
I don't really see how this would work.
Atheist (A): "Do you believe there are herds of invisble pink unicorns somewhere unnoticed on the planet?"
Believer (B): "No, of course not."
A: "So this would be an absolute religious conviction, would it?"
B: "I suppose so. At least until I see any evidence to the contrary."
A: "Er..."
I can't really see how B could answer "Well, no, not really".