Why would your employer want to keep track of you at home? If you show up for work on time, don't take the pi$$ with well - pi$$ breaks/lunch breaks, and don't skip off home early, why would they care what time you had your shower in the morning? Are employers in the states that paranoid? Granted, if you work from home, that I guess that's one thing but the vast majority don't.
Better yet use a commercially available "leisure battery", which are designed to hold more power, but release it more slowly than a car battery. And pay for it with cash so they don't spot what you're doing on your credit card.
Personally I think this is a little crazy and tin foil hat, but there is a serious point here. The power grid would be more efficient if you could even out a lot of the power spikes that occur. I still remember when I was a small child visiting a small lake that was at the top of a mountain (I think in Wales), which was discharged through some turbines when the commercial breaks came on the TV in the local area to cope with thousands of people turning their kettles on to boil water for tea. After the water was discharged, and the power grid had returned to a more normal state the water would be pumped back up the mountain ready for the next commercial break.
Caprica also shot itself in the foot by trying to appeal to a group who loved the space combat - but not having any space combat in it. They attempted to appeal to a group who loved the BSG franchise, but veering away from it. I enjoyed Caprica, but they tried to make it too tween.
As a Brit currently living in Canada, yes that's exactly how most people in England view America. Indeed, it seems to me that's how most Canadians I've talked to view America.
I don't think you understand how much land is actually needed to grow the amount of food American (and other places in the first world) actually consumes. Food would still be grown in the middle of nowhere, but the prices would increase substantially if there weren't subsidies. It won't be economically efficient to use that amount of land in the middle of a town because land prices in towns is more expensive. I think you would find that people do grow things efficiently already because that's how they make their money
Because I don't want to live in a city where crime and cost of living is so much higher. I would prefer the peace and tranquility of not having to live next door to idiots like you. Or at least if I do have to live next door to an idiot like you - you're half a mile away and I don't have to hear you whine.
Why is it that Americans as so paranoid about their government's motives? No other country in the first world has this level of paranoia about their government.
What *really* confuses me about sanitary pipes is that a 3" pipe is 3.5" wide. Errr.... what? Its not even that the internal diameter is 3 inches either, although I supposed it is possible that the internal diameter used to be 3" back in the day when they used steel pipes instead of ABS
Actually, the UK has a weird mix of Imperial and metric. Road speed is recorded in miles per hour, but petrol is measured in litres. The distance on all the road signs is in miles, but anything related to building is done in metric.
As for height clearance above a car, the signs that measure headroom are often in both. Clarkson was probably educated under the imperial system, and being a journalist not an engineer sees little reason to change.
Some of this comes from a generalised resistance to change - particularly when it feels like its been dictated to by Brussels.
Perhaps we should ask Boeing why they haven't gone over to the metric system - and never will
I disagree with your analogy of black and white to color TVs. Color has an obvious and immediate difference.
The same was true of DVDs over VHS 1) No need to rewind 2) No chance of the tape getting chewed 3) No overall degradation of image quality over time which we saw with VHS. 4) No chance of you accidentally over writing a DVD by mistake. (Aside from vindictive siblings, which happened to me once)
What do you get on BluRay that you don't get on DVD? Sure it's higher definition - which is only any good if you've spent the money on an HDTV. Sure it's got extra features on the disk - but how often do you actually watch the additional features? Once, maybe twice?
Personally, I'm happy with my CRT TVs. When they finally break, I'll buy an HDTV. Until then I have better things to spend my money on.
This kind of future has already been imagined in SLA Industries. While some of the fiction in the manual is rather dubious - as most 90s roleplaying games seem to be - it is one vision of the way the world is going.
I've worked in similar organisations where everything goes on the server for backup purposes. I got called to someone's office once because the hard drive had failed. When I told him what had happened, he said "Take it away! I don't want anything that's unreliable!" I asked him if he had AA cover on his car, and he said of course he did. I then pointed out that the only reason he had AA cover was because he believed that at some point his car might fail - and asked why he had a car that was so unreliable. He didn't have an answer for me - and I bet he saved everything to the server from then on in.
I suspect he was just trying to vent his frustration on me because he'd lost all his work when his drive failed.
These days with sub-$100 NAS on the market, there really is no reason to save work on local hard drives in a SMB.
This reads like Interpol want more funding. Global ID cards will not effect illegal immigrants - they'll still be brought over to wherever in container ships etc.
If anything it will create a market for illegal ID cards in countries with less scruples - INCREASING the level of corruption.
What's wrong with the passport system we have already?
The worse case scenario is one you've outlined above. Given how powerful Disney etc are I can see how this might progress:
1) Author A produces work B 2) Author A dies, and work B goes out of copyright 3) Disney produces some horrible primary colour "animated movie" (work C) which moralises in the worst possible way, but is a derivative of work B. 4) The idiots of the world go to see work C because it's produced by Disney, and Disney make a metric f*** ton of cash 5) Because Disney are now making money from C, they will press Congress and the Senate to make derivatives of out of copyright works now covered by their copy right 6) Author D re-writes some version of work B, perhaps adding a new twist or emphasis which is perfectly legal under the current copyright laws, but then gets sued by Disney because they are a bunch of asshats and now have essentially the copyright for work B.
I might suggest an MRI instead, but the scan time for an MRI is significantly longer than a CT. MRI services are pressed as it is.
Having said all that, full blood work up is not nearly so invasive, especially combined with some of the new blood tests that are coming out which look for specific proteins produced by tumours.
Probably because of the hundred+ year old system of referrals that doctors use. And in many cases with good reason - radiation exposure from CT/xrays being the one that immediately comes to mind.
Having said all that, I'm a big fan of people being able to check their own blood pressure levels. It saved one of my friends lives. He had chronic kidney failure, but had no idea. His blood pressure was through the roof as his body attempted to compensate. He visited his GP for an unrelated complaint and ended up on dialysis that same day.
Where was he? In the UK. To those who seem to think that they can't get immediate treatment for things - you don't know what you're talking about!
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps this is a Firefox problem, I too have the same issues with Firefox 4.0.1, but I'm running Win7 (again, fully patched)
If bin Laden were alive, he'd have been the first to discredit America. He'd have been all over the news with a dated newspaper in his hands.
But even Al-Quada have said he's dead.
Be distrustful all you like. Doesn't mean they aren't telling the truth.
Why would your employer want to keep track of you at home? If you show up for work on time, don't take the pi$$ with well - pi$$ breaks/lunch breaks, and don't skip off home early, why would they care what time you had your shower in the morning? Are employers in the states that paranoid? Granted, if you work from home, that I guess that's one thing but the vast majority don't.
Better yet use a commercially available "leisure battery", which are designed to hold more power, but release it more slowly than a car battery. And pay for it with cash so they don't spot what you're doing on your credit card.
Personally I think this is a little crazy and tin foil hat, but there is a serious point here. The power grid would be more efficient if you could even out a lot of the power spikes that occur. I still remember when I was a small child visiting a small lake that was at the top of a mountain (I think in Wales), which was discharged through some turbines when the commercial breaks came on the TV in the local area to cope with thousands of people turning their kettles on to boil water for tea. After the water was discharged, and the power grid had returned to a more normal state the water would be pumped back up the mountain ready for the next commercial break.
Caprica also shot itself in the foot by trying to appeal to a group who loved the space combat - but not having any space combat in it. They attempted to appeal to a group who loved the BSG franchise, but veering away from it. I enjoyed Caprica, but they tried to make it too tween.
YouTube (aka Google) could help Netflix.
This kind of situation is why a strong government (and agencies like the FCC) is needed.
Ack - sorry - forgot that Americans don't know what sarcasm is. Should have used the #sarcasm tag so you knew.
Mod up insightful
As a Brit currently living in Canada, yes that's exactly how most people in England view America. Indeed, it seems to me that's how most Canadians I've talked to view America.
I don't think you understand how much land is actually needed to grow the amount of food American (and other places in the first world) actually consumes. Food would still be grown in the middle of nowhere, but the prices would increase substantially if there weren't subsidies. It won't be economically efficient to use that amount of land in the middle of a town because land prices in towns is more expensive. I think you would find that people do grow things efficiently already because that's how they make their money
Because I don't want to live in a city where crime and cost of living is so much higher. I would prefer the peace and tranquility of not having to live next door to idiots like you. Or at least if I do have to live next door to an idiot like you - you're half a mile away and I don't have to hear you whine.
Are you suggesting that the founding fathers, in their infinite wisdom about so many other things, was wrong about the postal service?
Because it's part of the US constitution you all know and love so much.
Why is it that Americans as so paranoid about their government's motives? No other country in the first world has this level of paranoia about their government.
Technically you DO need a TV license if you watching content in the UK - even if it's on a computer
Actually beer is still sold in pints in the UK
What *really* confuses me about sanitary pipes is that a 3" pipe is 3.5" wide. Errr .... what? Its not even that the internal diameter is 3 inches either, although I supposed it is possible that the internal diameter used to be 3" back in the day when they used steel pipes instead of ABS
Actually, the UK has a weird mix of Imperial and metric. Road speed is recorded in miles per hour, but petrol is measured in litres. The distance on all the road signs is in miles, but anything related to building is done in metric.
As for height clearance above a car, the signs that measure headroom are often in both. Clarkson was probably educated under the imperial system, and being a journalist not an engineer sees little reason to change.
Some of this comes from a generalised resistance to change - particularly when it feels like its been dictated to by Brussels.
Perhaps we should ask Boeing why they haven't gone over to the metric system - and never will
I disagree with your analogy of black and white to color TVs. Color has an obvious and immediate difference.
The same was true of DVDs over VHS
1) No need to rewind
2) No chance of the tape getting chewed
3) No overall degradation of image quality over time which we saw with VHS.
4) No chance of you accidentally over writing a DVD by mistake. (Aside from vindictive siblings, which happened to me once)
What do you get on BluRay that you don't get on DVD?
Sure it's higher definition - which is only any good if you've spent the money on an HDTV.
Sure it's got extra features on the disk - but how often do you actually watch the additional features? Once, maybe twice?
Personally, I'm happy with my CRT TVs. When they finally break, I'll buy an HDTV. Until then I have better things to spend my money on.
This kind of future has already been imagined in SLA Industries. While some of the fiction in the manual is rather dubious - as most 90s roleplaying games seem to be - it is one vision of the way the world is going.
I've worked in similar organisations where everything goes on the server for backup purposes. I got called to someone's office once because the hard drive had failed. When I told him what had happened, he said "Take it away! I don't want anything that's unreliable!"
I asked him if he had AA cover on his car, and he said of course he did.
I then pointed out that the only reason he had AA cover was because he believed that at some point his car might fail - and asked why he had a car that was so unreliable. He didn't have an answer for me - and I bet he saved everything to the server from then on in.
I suspect he was just trying to vent his frustration on me because he'd lost all his work when his drive failed.
These days with sub-$100 NAS on the market, there really is no reason to save work on local hard drives in a SMB.
Thankfully that idiot has just quit Fox News! *Phew* At last he's done something right.
But what will Jon Stewart base most of his programs on?
This reads like Interpol want more funding. Global ID cards will not effect illegal immigrants - they'll still be brought over to wherever in container ships etc.
If anything it will create a market for illegal ID cards in countries with less scruples - INCREASING the level of corruption.
What's wrong with the passport system we have already?
The worse case scenario is one you've outlined above. Given how powerful Disney etc are I can see how this might progress:
1) Author A produces work B
2) Author A dies, and work B goes out of copyright
3) Disney produces some horrible primary colour "animated movie" (work C) which moralises in the worst possible way, but is a derivative of work B.
4) The idiots of the world go to see work C because it's produced by Disney, and Disney make a metric f*** ton of cash
5) Because Disney are now making money from C, they will press Congress and the Senate to make derivatives of out of copyright works now covered by their copy right
6) Author D re-writes some version of work B, perhaps adding a new twist or emphasis which is perfectly legal under the current copyright laws, but then gets sued by Disney because they are a bunch of asshats and now have essentially the copyright for work B.
Don't say it won't happen, it will
You've clearly never had a CT scan. It's actually pretty invasive, and not a good idea. The could become a very serious issue. On top of that, you'd find out very quickly the number of people who are allergic to iodine.
I might suggest an MRI instead, but the scan time for an MRI is significantly longer than a CT. MRI services are pressed as it is.
Having said all that, full blood work up is not nearly so invasive, especially combined with some of the new blood tests that are coming out which look for specific proteins produced by tumours.
Probably because of the hundred+ year old system of referrals that doctors use. And in many cases with good reason - radiation exposure from CT/xrays being the one that immediately comes to mind.
Having said all that, I'm a big fan of people being able to check their own blood pressure levels. It saved one of my friends lives. He had chronic kidney failure, but had no idea. His blood pressure was through the roof as his body attempted to compensate. He visited his GP for an unrelated complaint and ended up on dialysis that same day.
Where was he? In the UK. To those who seem to think that they can't get immediate treatment for things - you don't know what you're talking about!