why are you quoting someone famous for his FICTION on the very real very scientific issue of climate change? Is the guy a closet proffessor of climatology? Maybe we should hear what MC Hammer thinks about climate change too huh?
Yeah right, the only people who buy organic are luddites. except hold on, I'm a computer programmer and I buy organic. why? Because I can tell the difference between real food and processed slop like you find on most supermarket shelves. And to suggest organic food is three times the price is nonsense, your unlucky if you have to pay 25% more for organic food (except chicken for some reason... hmmmm).
Well said. Sadly you will encounter a myriad of slashdot geeks who will rail against you for being a hippy just because your toast isn't bluetooth-enabled.
The difference between selective breeding and GM is that selective breeding doesnt cross a major species barrier. I'd like to see you crossbreed a jellyfish and a tomato without using GM. Selective breeding si using methods that already occur in a more haphazard way in nature. Its the difference between changing a few lines of code and pasting a big chunk of code from another program entirely.
agreed. the thing about a national rail system is that its a natural monopoly, we have to sue the same guage track, the same rules, the same operating procedures, it wouldnt work for everyone to do their own thing. So the choice is a private monopoly or a public one, and clearly a public one is in our best interests. Train services arent just about profit, in fact they could be justifiably run at a loss, as there are social and environmental benefits to be gained from rail traffic as opposed to road. Rail traffic is also (despite recent accidents) the safest way for a countries citizens to get around.
the sooner they computerise the rest the better. The underground drivers only real job seems to be to go on strike when they get bored. It might also interest US programmers to hear that an underground train driver in the UK earns £31k which is about the same as a C++ programmer with 3-5 years experience. They should fire the lot of them and replace them black boxes.
Of all the products I purchase food is the ONLY one that actually becomes part of my body, so excuse me if I'm a bit fussy over what goes in.
Some stuff is so vital and important, that the maxim 'if it aint broke dont fix it' really makes sense. I just don't trust mankind to mess with the food supply at this level. Its not a risk worth taking, especially as its politics and trade tarrifs making people starve, NOT a lack of food.
well said. here in the UK out of maybe 10 major industries that got privatised, the ONLY one whose share price has tanked was nuclear energy. British Gas and Telecom went through the roof. On top of that the UK govt recently bailed out nuclear to the tune of 400 million pounds (thats a LOT for the UK) and agreed that the govt would write off the decommissioning cost for old reactors (which are HUGE). The reason nuclear UK is in this trouble? Even WITh these handouts it cannot compete with other forms of energy. The economics might be vastly different in the US, but I doubt it, its way more likely that nuclear industry people have expensive lobbyists and you have a whole slew of corrupt senators.
no it doesnt help because its bullshit. the local army base has to have guns. the local power station can have solar/wind turbines or radioactive waste. i know which I'd pick, you obviously would pick radioactive waste.
how about a solar or wind farm? I'd MUCH rather live closer to one of those. Especially if it was my land that I was renting out(as many farmers in the UK do) to the power company for the turbine, with zero cost to the farmer but superb extra income.
Geeks always gravitate to the most high tech and 'cool' form of power. Sometimes that's not the best solution. I'd still like a wind-up attachment to charge my laptop battery. i guess that's not *cool*.
informative? gimme a break! Since when does trying to improve on the fuel efficiency of the latest hummer (worse than the model T ford) equate to going back to horse drawn cars? Its like some people are so stuck up their anti-environemnt ass they have never seen a SMART car, or a hybrid like the Honda insight. Try 'listening' to the green lobby for a change, nobody is trying to make you abandon tech or go back in time, just to use non-renewable fuels mroe efficiently.
nothing to do with the fuel consumption of hummers then? The latest hummer actually has WORSe fuel consumption than the original Ford model T. Is this what americans call progress?
not true at all. The chances of a terrorist related nuclear incident are extremely small, i admit that. but over the time period of waste storage the chances are more noticeable, and given the catastrophic implications of the risk, the negative becomes much larger. think about how much the world was thrown into chaos by september 11th. Now multiply the death toll and the economic impact by the scale associated witha dirty bomb in manhattan. The chances are very small, but the risk is true nightmare levels. Remember how unlikely it was that terrorists would hijack 4 airplanes?
Maybe if the insane sums that are spent on nuclear got spent on tidal research the efficiency would slide up a few notches. US investment in non nuclear renewables is pitiful, you arent in a position (yet) to say you've given such tech a decent try. Europe is decades ahead of you there. If we accept that oil and gas will run out and that nuclear has security risks, we surely must make full sue of the air wind and wave power currently available.
or US car makers could churn out more stuff like the SMART car than the stupid Hummer. Of course, americans would have to start giving a toss about the environment for that to happen...
plus even if you have a *safe* place to put it, you need to trasnport this stuff and store it, for thousands of years. To safeguard this stuff you have to be lucky every day for maybe ten thousand years. Al Queada need to get lukcy once with a group of guys with RPGs stopping a waste train. Your next headline is a dirty bomb that irradiates manhatten, goodbye american economy. Is it REALLY worth this much risk just for you people to stop driving goddammed SUVS?
the danger of a meltdown is only one reason to be against nuclear power in its current form. The waste has to be stroed somewhere safe AND secure for thousands of years, inlcuding a bill for amred guards for that period (you dont want dirty bombs right?) plus the security involved in transportation. Then there is the security risk of an attack on the plant itself, plenty of material for a dirty bomb there, so you need some serious armed gaurds there too. Plus nuclear plants are big huge things, not a decentralised and mutiply redundant system like a solar wind or tidal farm. Also every country that you encourage to develop nuclear power tech implicitly has nuclear weapons tech which should scare the crap out of you (thats why americans wanna bomb iran right?)
This would all be moot if it was the only viable power source, but its not, there is plenty of scope for solar, wind tidal and geothermal not to mention burnable crops, and the scariest tech of all: Energy efficiency.
I understand why geeks fall in love with the geeky tech of nuclear, I just don't see why they cant develop the same passion for less dodgy, and equally proven tech like solar and tidal.
I disagree, they can still make that very same game, it just has an 18+ sticker on it. When people make a TV sitcom they are effectivly struggling with the same dilemma, you cant put a drug-crazed naked axe murderer in an afternoon kids TV show. This is perfectly normal, and nobody would suggest that you should be able to incldue hardcore sex in sesame street. So what's the difference here?
There are clearly limits. If you got bonus points in GTA for having sex with children, everyone would be up in arms, so the principle is not an absolute one, we are merely arguing as to where to draw the line. People tend to think violence and prostituion and sex is fine, child abuse is not fine. Now I'm not even arguing that it should be ILLEGAL to make an adult game, I'm simply saying (if you read my post) that IF *IF* *I-F* you want to sell to the mass market including kids, then dont put gun toting crack-whores in your game. You can still make an 18-over game, but dont whine that the alw prevents under 18s buying it. If your making an argument that there should be NO age restrictions on anything because *thats censorship* then you are basically saying that a 5yo girl should have free access to whiskey machineguns and hardcore porn. I think most people would disagree.
I agree this makes sense. If you make a game like GTA 3 where as the protaginist you are killing people and dealing with prostitutes, you shouldnt be suprised when peopl try and stop 8 yo kids playing it. If you don't want people to restrict your game to over 18s, try toning down the over-the-top violence and sexuality, although that requires some decent game design which is where most big develoeprs fail.
you dont even mention the speed the plane is travelling at here, or the chance that its a fireball from a bungled attempt to shoot the thing donw. Seriously dude, you dont even get anything like these problems with tidal power. Your country has a coastline yes?
wow ive read some horseshit before but this takes the biscuit., Im sure you think that nuclear power is 100% safe (err nope) has no waste storage issues (err nope) and isnt a terrorist target (wrong again) and its economical (absolutely no way, been bailed out to the tune of 400 million in the UK at taxpayers expense). So you think we should just sit on our asses like americans do when their govt makes srerious fucked up mistakes. If it wasnt for people protesting peacefully against govt stupidity women wouldnt have the vote and we would have no right to strike, maybe youd prefer that?
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why are you quoting someone famous for his FICTION on the very real very scientific issue of climate change? Is the guy a closet proffessor of climatology?
Maybe we should hear what MC Hammer thinks about climate change too huh?
Yeah right, the only people who buy organic are luddites. except hold on, I'm a computer programmer and I buy organic. why? Because I can tell the difference between real food and processed slop like you find on most supermarket shelves.
And to suggest organic food is three times the price is nonsense, your unlucky if you have to pay 25% more for organic food (except chicken for some reason... hmmmm).
Well said. Sadly you will encounter a myriad of slashdot geeks who will rail against you for being a hippy just because your toast isn't bluetooth-enabled.
The difference between selective breeding and GM is that selective breeding doesnt cross a major species barrier. I'd like to see you crossbreed a jellyfish and a tomato without using GM.
Selective breeding si using methods that already occur in a more haphazard way in nature.
Its the difference between changing a few lines of code and pasting a big chunk of code from another program entirely.
agreed.
the thing about a national rail system is that its a natural monopoly, we have to sue the same guage track, the same rules, the same operating procedures, it wouldnt work for everyone to do their own thing.
So the choice is a private monopoly or a public one, and clearly a public one is in our best interests.
Train services arent just about profit, in fact they could be justifiably run at a loss, as there are social and environmental benefits to be gained from rail traffic as opposed to road. Rail traffic is also (despite recent accidents) the safest way for a countries citizens to get around.
the sooner they computerise the rest the better. The underground drivers only real job seems to be to go on strike when they get bored. It might also interest US programmers to hear that an underground train driver in the UK earns £31k which is about the same as a C++ programmer with 3-5 years experience.
They should fire the lot of them and replace them black boxes.
sentimental???
Of all the products I purchase food is the ONLY one that actually becomes part of my body, so excuse me if I'm a bit fussy over what goes in.
Some stuff is so vital and important, that the maxim 'if it aint broke dont fix it' really makes sense.
I just don't trust mankind to mess with the food supply at this level. Its not a risk worth taking, especially as its politics and trade tarrifs making people starve, NOT a lack of food.
well said. here in the UK out of maybe 10 major industries that got privatised, the ONLY one whose share price has tanked was nuclear energy. British Gas and Telecom went through the roof. On top of that the UK govt recently bailed out nuclear to the tune of 400 million pounds (thats a LOT for the UK) and agreed that the govt would write off the decommissioning cost for old reactors (which are HUGE). The reason nuclear UK is in this trouble?
Even WITh these handouts it cannot compete with other forms of energy.
The economics might be vastly different in the US, but I doubt it, its way more likely that nuclear industry people have expensive lobbyists and you have a whole slew of corrupt senators.
good point lets switch to nuclear then, that has no waste problems right?
sheesh.
eh?
once you hijack a shipment you can drive your truck full of waste wherever you like, or is every truck searched on the entrance to new york?
no it doesnt help because its bullshit.
the local army base has to have guns. the local power station can have solar/wind turbines or radioactive waste. i know which I'd pick, you obviously would pick radioactive waste.
how about a solar or wind farm? I'd MUCH rather live closer to one of those. Especially if it was my land that I was renting out(as many farmers in the UK do) to the power company for the turbine, with zero cost to the farmer but superb extra income.
Geeks always gravitate to the most high tech and 'cool' form of power. Sometimes that's not the best solution. I'd still like a wind-up attachment to charge my laptop battery. i guess that's not *cool*.
informative? gimme a break!
Since when does trying to improve on the fuel efficiency of the latest hummer (worse than the model T ford) equate to going back to horse drawn cars?
Its like some people are so stuck up their anti-environemnt ass they have never seen a SMART car, or a hybrid like the Honda insight.
Try 'listening' to the green lobby for a change, nobody is trying to make you abandon tech or go back in time, just to use non-renewable fuels mroe efficiently.
nothing to do with the fuel consumption of hummers then? The latest hummer actually has WORSe fuel consumption than the original Ford model T. Is this what americans call progress?
not true at all.
The chances of a terrorist related nuclear incident are extremely small, i admit that.
but over the time period of waste storage the chances are more noticeable, and given the catastrophic implications of the risk, the negative becomes much larger.
think about how much the world was thrown into chaos by september 11th. Now multiply the death toll and the economic impact by the scale associated witha dirty bomb in manhattan.
The chances are very small, but the risk is true nightmare levels.
Remember how unlikely it was that terrorists would hijack 4 airplanes?
Maybe if the insane sums that are spent on nuclear got spent on tidal research the efficiency would slide up a few notches. US investment in non nuclear renewables is pitiful, you arent in a position (yet) to say you've given such tech a decent try. Europe is decades ahead of you there. If we accept that oil and gas will run out and that nuclear has security risks, we surely must make full sue of the air wind and wave power currently available.
or US car makers could churn out more stuff like the SMART car than the stupid Hummer.
Of course, americans would have to start giving a toss about the environment for that to happen...
plus even if you have a *safe* place to put it, you need to trasnport this stuff and store it, for thousands of years. To safeguard this stuff you have to be lucky every day for maybe ten thousand years. Al Queada need to get lukcy once with a group of guys with RPGs stopping a waste train. Your next headline is a dirty bomb that irradiates manhatten, goodbye american economy.
Is it REALLY worth this much risk just for you people to stop driving goddammed SUVS?
the danger of a meltdown is only one reason to be against nuclear power in its current form.
The waste has to be stroed somewhere safe AND secure for thousands of years, inlcuding a bill for amred guards for that period (you dont want dirty bombs right?) plus the security involved in transportation.
Then there is the security risk of an attack on the plant itself, plenty of material for a dirty bomb there, so you need some serious armed gaurds there too.
Plus nuclear plants are big huge things, not a decentralised and mutiply redundant system like a solar wind or tidal farm.
Also every country that you encourage to develop nuclear power tech implicitly has nuclear weapons tech which should scare the crap out of you (thats why americans wanna bomb iran right?)
This would all be moot if it was the only viable power source, but its not, there is plenty of scope for solar, wind tidal and geothermal not to mention burnable crops, and the scariest tech of all:
Energy efficiency.
I understand why geeks fall in love with the geeky tech of nuclear, I just don't see why they cant develop the same passion for less dodgy, and equally proven tech like solar and tidal.
I disagree, they can still make that very same game, it just has an 18+ sticker on it.
When people make a TV sitcom they are effectivly struggling with the same dilemma, you cant put a drug-crazed naked axe murderer in an afternoon kids TV show. This is perfectly normal, and nobody would suggest that you should be able to incldue hardcore sex in sesame street. So what's the difference here?
There are clearly limits. If you got bonus points in GTA for having sex with children, everyone would be up in arms, so the principle is not an absolute one, we are merely arguing as to where to draw the line. People tend to think violence and prostituion and sex is fine, child abuse is not fine.
Now I'm not even arguing that it should be ILLEGAL to make an adult game, I'm simply saying (if you read my post) that IF *IF* *I-F* you want to sell to the mass market including kids, then dont put gun toting crack-whores in your game. You can still make an 18-over game, but dont whine that the alw prevents under 18s buying it.
If your making an argument that there should be NO age restrictions on anything because *thats censorship* then you are basically saying that a 5yo girl should have free access to whiskey machineguns and hardcore porn. I think most people would disagree.
I agree this makes sense. If you make a game like GTA 3 where as the protaginist you are killing people and dealing with prostitutes, you shouldnt be suprised when peopl try and stop 8 yo kids playing it.
If you don't want people to restrict your game to over 18s, try toning down the over-the-top violence and sexuality, although that requires some decent game design which is where most big develoeprs fail.
wow you managed that post without coming accross as an arrogant dick.
hang on, no you didnt.
you dont even mention the speed the plane is travelling at here, or the chance that its a fireball from a bungled attempt to shoot the thing donw.
Seriously dude, you dont even get anything like these problems with tidal power. Your country has a coastline yes?
wow ive read some horseshit before but this takes the biscuit., Im sure you think that nuclear power is 100% safe (err nope) has no waste storage issues (err nope) and isnt a terrorist target (wrong again) and its economical (absolutely no way, been bailed out to the tune of 400 million in the UK at taxpayers expense). So you think we should just sit on our asses like americans do when their govt makes srerious fucked up mistakes.
If it wasnt for people protesting peacefully against govt stupidity women wouldnt have the vote and we would have no right to strike, maybe youd prefer that?