If you're tired of the same old ideas, here's a one I don't think I've seen before that I've been planning on trying. Feel free to give it a shot and tell me how it works: 1.) go to Homedepot/lowes & buy tub of mastic sealant from the HVAC isle. 2.) take out motherboard, disks, and power supply 3.) apply mastic liberally to all internal surfaces (making sure to not hide any mounting holes you'll need) 4.) when dry, reassemble computer 5.) apply mastic to external surfaces (metal ones at least)
Mastic dries but retains elasticicty and should provide very good sound dampening. You can apply it with your bare hands and it rinses easily with water as long as you don't let it dry.
I've tried that acoustic foam stuff, and for the results I got I consider it a complete rip off. A small tub of mastic I think costs something shy of 10 dollars.
If you want to take things a step further you could get additional dampening by increasing the mass of the sheet metal case. To do this you could use the wet mastic as glue to attach whatever suitable dense/heavy objects you have lying around. Spare flooring tiles, plywood, drywall, dinner plates. Something acoustically dead would be preferred but probably anything would be helpful. Do not make the mistake of confusing acoustically dead with just plain dead.
You've done a good job of explaining how instant runoffs would ensure the election of the most popular candidate. How can you not consider this an improvement to the current system that allows a spoiler to cause the election of the 2nd most popular candidate?
I also disgree with your contention that with instant runoffs it would be as though the 3rd candidate had never run. Sure that's true with regards to who actually gets elected in the current cycle (and again this would be an improvement). But instant runoffs would make it a lot easier for 3rd party condidates to reach the 5% popular vote level and qualify for federal campaign money. I think this would be a big deal. To borrow a phrase recently applied to Kerry, it would change the 3rd party from loser status to underdog status and america loves an underdog.
Maybe with some momentum after a few election cycles a 3rd party candidate could actually get into the presidential debates. Again this would be huge. Having someone like nader to call bullshit or to bring up issues that Kerry/Bush (or whoever) refuse to touch would have made the 4 debates way more informative/honest. Someone who successfully did this in a debate could really catch the imagination of the voting public and the media. And then all of the sudden the 3rd party wouldn't seem so silly to joe voter.
I've only started paying close attention to politics since bush came up for reelection, but it seems to be that if the libertarian and green candidates want this reform then there's probably some real benefits.
Re:Nader is Nader, not a Democrat...
on
The Nader Factor
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Here's an article that raises the possibility that in some close states like Nevada and New Mexico Badnarik could be a spoiler who hands victory to Kerry.
http://www.nysun.com/article/2672
third party could be very influential in evenl
on
The Nader Factor
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· Score: 1
You're thinking only in terms of presidential poltics. The senate and house have a lot of power too. There are also a lot of bills that squeeze thru by just one or two votes. So a 3rd party with 5 or so Senators could actually be disproportionately powerful.
Justice O'Conner is considered particularly influential because the other justices tend to vote in blocs and she is often the deciding swing vote.
The 2 party duopoly is what allows the "spoiler" effect.
If we had instant runoff elections where instead of voting for only 1 candidate you could list them in order of preference then there would be no concerns about throwing your vote away or spoiler candidates. People would just say who they most wanted to be president and if that person(e.g. Nader) isn't elected who is your second choice (Kerry). I think this is a reform that Nader wants and if he may very well think that costing Kerry the presedency may be his best chance of getting people to consider such a reform.
I had never thought about this until I saw the green and libertarian candidates discuss it on Now with Bill Moyers. It makes a lot of sense to me.
The article just says "blocks"
If the glass blocks by absorbing IR then this would be a problem in double pane windows. The outer pane (or is it lite?) would become dramatically hotter and would expand more than inner one. This could break the seal between the two sheets and release any enclosed gas (argon fill is commonly used to reduce convective currents that transfer heat) as well as allow moisture in causing fogging. This was apparently a problem with some do it some do-it-yourself window tints.
I don't know much chemistry but they say it's metal-like above transition temp so maybe that means it reflects.
BTW I have now idea why Argon would reduce convective currents. Anyone know? I just know that lower convection is a property of heavy gasses
I once added the following to a cronjob
rm -rf $foo/* My intention was to wipe contents of a directory that I was reusing. Unfortunately "foo" was unset. The cronjob ran overnight with rm -rf traversing every NFS mounted drive in the company. I remember coming in at 10 the next morning and thinking "christ what kind of idiot deleted all of my files?", and then "shit! that idiot deleted everyone's files" and then "shit that idiot is me!".
Ever since then I usually do something like
rm -rf ${foo:?}
mkdir $foo
Later as I recovered my composure I started thinking "Now why can't those idiots set their umask correctly?".
The only positive aspect of what happened was that it revealed a weakness in the backup procedures being following by the IS department.
Personally I count my self lucky to have had the benefit of such a humbling experience w/out loosing my job.
What if you fast every other day and eat to make up on the days in between? The article says the protective effect wears off after two days but if it kicks in after one day then it may be possible eat a time averaged normal amount while still getting the life prolonging effect.
The interesting thing about this research is that once the exact mechanism by which this effect works is found it may be possible to extend life by taking a pill that tricks your body into thinking its on a restricted diet when it's not. That'd have some interesting consequences.
In a letter to this same magazine someone raised the point that at 11% efficiency that leaves 89% of sunlight converted to heat. This means a solar panel will convert more sunlight to heat than the surface it is covering and could have a net effect of contributing to global warming.
I wonder if there's anything to this?
A similar point was raised by some researcher that planting trees in places like Siberia to serve as a carbon sink could backfire by reducing the surface covered by highly reflective snow.
I suspect that most of the hiccup cures out there work to the extent that they induce a somewhat meditative state of mind.
My cure is fast and inconspicuous: 1.) focus your eyes on any fixed object. Hold your eyes steady. 2.) ignore your focal point and (w/out moving your eyes) "stare" at everything in your peripheral vision.
Usually works w/in 10 seconds. I don't think it's ever failed me except when I've been drinking.
The average "bizarre" hiccup cure probably requires or induces the same kind of concentration that my technique does. Some cures undoubtedly work only by virtue of being a novel experience and these you would expect to only work a few times (just long enough for you to tell someone else about them).
Slashdot Mirror
Python is skiing and ruby is snow boarding. One's more fun than the other but they are more similar than different.
If you're tired of the same old ideas, here's a one I don't think I've seen before that I've been planning on trying. Feel free to give it a shot and tell me how it works:
1.) go to Homedepot/lowes & buy tub of mastic sealant from the HVAC isle.
2.) take out motherboard, disks, and power supply
3.) apply mastic liberally to all internal surfaces (making sure to not hide any mounting holes you'll need)
4.) when dry, reassemble computer
5.) apply mastic to external surfaces (metal ones at least)
Mastic dries but retains elasticicty and should provide very good sound dampening. You can apply it with your bare hands and it rinses easily with water as long as you don't let it dry.
I've tried that acoustic foam stuff, and for the results I got I consider it a complete rip off. A small tub of mastic I think costs something shy of 10 dollars.
If you want to take things a step further you could get additional dampening by increasing the mass of the sheet metal case. To do this you could use the wet mastic as glue to attach whatever suitable dense/heavy objects you have lying around. Spare flooring tiles, plywood, drywall, dinner plates. Something acoustically dead would be preferred but probably anything would be helpful. Do not make the mistake of confusing acoustically dead with just plain dead.
You've done a good job of explaining how instant runoffs would ensure the election of the most popular candidate. How can you not consider this an improvement to the current system that allows a spoiler to cause the election of the 2nd most popular candidate?
I also disgree with your contention that with instant runoffs it would be as though the 3rd candidate had never run. Sure that's true with regards to who actually gets elected in the current cycle (and again this would be an improvement). But instant runoffs would make it a lot easier for 3rd party condidates to reach the 5% popular vote level and qualify for federal campaign money. I think this would be a big deal. To borrow a phrase recently applied to Kerry, it would change the 3rd party from loser status to underdog status and america loves an underdog.
Maybe with some momentum after a few election cycles a 3rd party candidate could actually get into the presidential debates. Again this would be huge. Having someone like nader to call bullshit or to bring up issues that Kerry/Bush (or whoever) refuse to touch would have made the 4 debates way more informative/honest. Someone who successfully did this in a debate could really catch the imagination of the voting public and the media. And then all of the sudden the 3rd party wouldn't seem so silly to joe voter.
I've only started paying close attention to politics since bush came up for reelection, but it seems to be that if the libertarian and green candidates want this reform then there's probably some real benefits.
Here's an article that raises the possibility that in some close states like Nevada and New Mexico Badnarik could be a spoiler who hands victory to Kerry. http://www.nysun.com/article/2672
You're thinking only in terms of presidential poltics. The senate and house have a lot of power too. There are also a lot of bills that squeeze thru by just one or two votes. So a 3rd party with 5 or so Senators could actually be disproportionately powerful.
Justice O'Conner is considered particularly influential because the other justices tend to vote in blocs and she is often the deciding swing vote.
The 2 party duopoly is what allows the "spoiler" effect.
If we had instant runoff elections where instead of voting for only 1 candidate you could list them in order of preference then there would be no concerns about throwing your vote away or spoiler candidates. People would just say who they most wanted to be president and if that person(e.g. Nader) isn't elected who is your second choice (Kerry). I think this is a reform that Nader wants and if he may very well think that costing Kerry the presedency may be his best chance of getting people to consider such a reform.
I had never thought about this until I saw the green and libertarian candidates discuss it on Now with Bill Moyers. It makes a lot of sense to me.
But still -- please God don't let Bush win!
The article just says "blocks" If the glass blocks by absorbing IR then this would be a problem in double pane windows. The outer pane (or is it lite?) would become dramatically hotter and would expand more than inner one. This could break the seal between the two sheets and release any enclosed gas (argon fill is commonly used to reduce convective currents that transfer heat) as well as allow moisture in causing fogging. This was apparently a problem with some do it some do-it-yourself window tints. I don't know much chemistry but they say it's metal-like above transition temp so maybe that means it reflects. BTW I have now idea why Argon would reduce convective currents. Anyone know? I just know that lower convection is a property of heavy gasses
How about a cordless razor operating off of a battery? Woudn't that be direct current w/out an alternating magnetic field?
-Nick
rm -rf from the command line? Lucky bastards!
I once added the following to a cronjob
rm -rf $foo/*
My intention was to wipe contents of a directory that I was reusing. Unfortunately "foo" was unset. The cronjob ran overnight with rm -rf traversing every NFS mounted drive in the company. I remember coming in at 10 the next morning and thinking "christ what kind of idiot deleted all of my files?", and then "shit! that idiot deleted everyone's files" and then "shit that idiot is me!".
Ever since then I usually do something like
rm -rf ${foo:?}
mkdir $foo
Later as I recovered my composure I started thinking "Now why can't those idiots set their umask correctly?".
The only positive aspect of what happened was that it revealed a weakness in the backup procedures being following by the IS department.
Personally I count my self lucky to have had the benefit of such a humbling experience w/out loosing my job.
What if you fast every other day and eat to make up on the days in between? The article says the protective effect wears off after two days but if it kicks in after one day then it may be possible eat a time averaged normal amount while still getting the life prolonging effect.
The interesting thing about this research is that once the exact mechanism by which this effect works is found it may be possible to extend life by taking a pill that tricks your body into thinking its on a restricted diet when it's not. That'd have some interesting consequences.
In a letter to this same magazine someone raised the point that at 11% efficiency that leaves 89% of sunlight converted to heat. This means a solar panel will convert more sunlight to heat than the surface it is covering and could have a net effect of contributing to global warming.
I wonder if there's anything to this?
A similar point was raised by some researcher that planting trees in places like Siberia to serve as a carbon sink could backfire by reducing the surface covered by highly reflective snow.
I suspect that most of the hiccup cures out there work to the extent that they induce a somewhat meditative state of mind.
My cure is fast and inconspicuous:
1.) focus your eyes on any fixed object. Hold your eyes steady.
2.) ignore your focal point and (w/out moving your eyes) "stare" at everything in your peripheral vision.
Usually works w/in 10 seconds. I don't think it's ever failed me except when I've been drinking.
The average "bizarre" hiccup cure probably requires or induces the same kind of concentration that my technique does. Some cures undoubtedly work only by virtue of being a novel experience and these you would expect to only work a few times (just long enough for you to tell someone else about them).
-Nick