Living in cities under sea level? That went well for New Orleans didn't it?
Actually, it has. New Orleans was founded in 1718, almost three centuries ago, and it's mostly recovered by now from the worst civil engineering disaster in US history.
...the most damaging and deadly fires occur in the outer suburbs of major cities such as Melbourne, Athens, and Los Angeles.
It gets somewhat more complicated than that in Los Angeles. The Santa Monica Mountains run between the LA basin and the San Fernando Valley and are (mostly) covered with chaparral, which makes great fuel for brush fires. And, as the climate is semi-arid, fire season is any time that there hasn't been measurable rain for at least 90 days, which means that there can be brush fires visible from Central LA at any time of year and major traffic problems because one or another freeway has to be closed because there's a major fire on at least one side of it, if not both.
How accurate the gun has to be depends on the range. A gun that's only accurate within five feet of the aiming point at fifty yards is probably good enough if you're planning to be within ten feet of your target.
The 1911A has a number of safeties. One of them is in the grip so that if you're not holding it firmly, it won't fire. I've always been glad that nobody told that to Squeaky Fromme.
There's another major Japanese war crime that's getting more and more forgotten as time goes on: the Bataan Death March. Not only were American and Filipino POWs starved, they were beaten and killed simply because they couldn't march any more. And, when the local civilians turned out to help by offering them food, the guards refused to let them get close enough to do any good and often knocked the offerings onto the dirt and ground them in.
Your argument is predicated on the assumption that someone that works with a wrench or a shovel will be unable to do anything else valuable to society in the future.
I can't speak for the OP, but I, at least, understand that there are people who can be useful, productive members of society working with a wrench, a shovel or a pushbroom, but can only be useful that way. What are they going to do when all of those jobs are automated out of existence? That's not to say that we should stop all progress, or create make-work to keep them busy, but it is something that needs consideration. Back in the mid-1800s, the west was largely settled by people who either couldn't or wouldn't adapt to factory or office work and many of them built prosperous lives for themselves that way. Now, they end up as welfare mothers and/or gangbangers. I don't know about you, but I consider that the biggest problem the US faces today: the waste of all those lives. Sorry about getting up on that soapbox, but I worry about our future because nobody seems to be asking themselves how to make those people productive again as long as they can buy votes with handouts.
Am I really the only Slashdotter who thinks it's going to land in Alaska, killing a camper? And, if I'm not mistaken the casket's going to be really, really weird looking!
I could send you an email, and just by clicking on it, it shows in the preview pane and BAM you're owned.
And how many people do you know that still open emails from unrecognised strangers? Before you can get people to open a malicious email you have to get past their spam filters (or, at least the filters their mail server uses) and make the recipient think it's a valid email. (Yes, I know that there are people who just open everything that comes in, but I think you get my point.) However, from what I can tell, if you're running Windows and you open it, you're toast. I'm not saying that that Macs and Linux are safe because I don't know enough, but I'm fairly sure that this is not only Windows specific, it's aimed more at Outlook than anything else simply because of its market share.
Actually, if you RTFA, you'd find that the images were emailed to his Dad by various amateur observers so that he (and his family) could look for interesting things such as comets, asteroids, novas and/or supernovas. Not uncommon, actually, because that just shares the workload around.
If you read the story you'll see that in both cases, the kids spotted the candidate and their dad did the work to verify it. Without them spotting the change in brightness there wouldn't have been anything for him to do. Thus, they get credit for finding them and he gets credit for verifying the discovery.
I'm a boomer too. Unlike many, if not most of our generation, I actually did something for my country: I served in the US Navy during 'Nam. Now that I'm retired, I get all of my medical care from the VA, and am very happy with it. (Unlike many government agencies, almost all of the workers at the VA I meet understand that if it weren't for people like me, they wouldn't have a job, and if they don't give good service, they won't.) And, I've been assured by the VA that my coverage is such that I don't have to worry about ObamaCare, and I won't be forced to buy new health insurance that I can't afford. Not all of us are spoiled, self-centered and only interested in what our country can do for us, but I must agree that all too many are.
Some of us have life insurance, and most policies have a clause that denies payment if the insured commits suicide. Going out like this can be a way to avoid that. And, there are people who want to take as many others with them as they can for one reason or another, so they go on a killing spree and hope that the police won't be able to take them alive.
One of the most racist societies on earth that screens passengers based solely on their prejudice and racial/religious hatred.
I don't think it's prejudice when they focus most of their efforts on young men who either are, or look Arabic. After all, more than 99% of the people who have reasons to want to commit terrorist acts in Israel are, in fact, young Arabic males. Just because the USofA is currently unwilling to admit this and focus most of our security's attention on that kind of person doesn't mean that it's not a far more effective way of stopping terrorists than random searches of small children or old men in wheelchairs. The important thing here is to understand that what they have is security; what we get is mostly Security Kabuki Theater.
So Israel does have checkpoints where people are questioned.
I never said that they didn't. My point was that whatever it is they're doing looks far more effective than the Security Kabuki Theater that we're stuck with.
Another way to cool off in hot weather is to wet your arms down with cold water but not dry them off. The water will evaporate, drawing heat out of your arms in some natural air conditioning.
I realize that the Slashdot "editors" stopped doing any real editing years ago, but how did this story get all the way to the front page without anybody noticing that "thermoelectric" was misspelled?
The entire point of academia is what you seem to dislike: honing one particular skill to the very apex of its field...
You misunderstand me. Honing one particular skill can be a fine thing, but looking down your nose at anybody who's not interested in whatever it is you've specialized in, especially when whatever they're interested in has practical applications, is one of the uglier forms of snobbery.
Oh, I don't know. The first time you click on a goatse link can be an eye opening experience. Or, of course, if your tastes don't run that way, an eye closing experience. In either case, it will probably be an experience you'll never forget, even if you want to.
This is exactly the type of blather I'd expect from academics, especially from those who've never had to learn anything about science and/or math in a college-level class. They don't understand it, they don't see any reason why they should understand it and they don't think that anything outside of their narrow specialty is at all important to anybody in the world, but they look down at everybody who isn't fascinated by the the most minute aspects of whatever navel-gazing "discipline" they've decided to make their life's work. Most of them know little if anything that could possibly be of the slightest use to anybody who isn't part of academentia, and they think that this makes them better than everybody else. Some of the posters here have called him a troll, but he isn't; a troll takes an extreme position to get other people to over-react, but this man really believes that what he's writing is true.
Would be embarrashing, not to mention blow feds case out of water...
Just because somebody comes forward with that claim doesn't mean that the jury's going to believe them. The defense would have to provide enough supporting evidence to show that there's a good chance that they're telling the truth, and the prosecution would have the chance to cross examine them and tear holes in their story. The important word in this is "reasonable." Just because somebody's willing to give you an alibi in court doesn't mean that you walk; you still have to make the jury think there's a good chance that the story's true.
Slashdot Mirror
Living in cities under sea level? That went well for New Orleans didn't it?
Actually, it has. New Orleans was founded in 1718, almost three centuries ago, and it's mostly recovered by now from the worst civil engineering disaster in US history.
...the most damaging and deadly fires occur in the outer suburbs of major cities such as Melbourne, Athens, and Los Angeles.
It gets somewhat more complicated than that in Los Angeles. The Santa Monica Mountains run between the LA basin and the San Fernando Valley and are (mostly) covered with chaparral, which makes great fuel for brush fires. And, as the climate is semi-arid, fire season is any time that there hasn't been measurable rain for at least 90 days, which means that there can be brush fires visible from Central LA at any time of year and major traffic problems because one or another freeway has to be closed because there's a major fire on at least one side of it, if not both.
Really they should discover how their State's Attorney General works.
Either that, or the Feds if the company's in a different state. And, the proper charge isn't harassment, it's extortion.
How accurate the gun has to be depends on the range. A gun that's only accurate within five feet of the aiming point at fifty yards is probably good enough if you're planning to be within ten feet of your target.
The 1911A has a number of safeties. One of them is in the grip so that if you're not holding it firmly, it won't fire. I've always been glad that nobody told that to Squeaky Fromme.
A friend of mine recently came up with a term for that kind of thing: hentacle.
There's another major Japanese war crime that's getting more and more forgotten as time goes on: the Bataan Death March. Not only were American and Filipino POWs starved, they were beaten and killed simply because they couldn't march any more. And, when the local civilians turned out to help by offering them food, the guards refused to let them get close enough to do any good and often knocked the offerings onto the dirt and ground them in.
Your argument is predicated on the assumption that someone that works with a wrench or a shovel will be unable to do anything else valuable to society in the future.
I can't speak for the OP, but I, at least, understand that there are people who can be useful, productive members of society working with a wrench, a shovel or a pushbroom, but can only be useful that way. What are they going to do when all of those jobs are automated out of existence? That's not to say that we should stop all progress, or create make-work to keep them busy, but it is something that needs consideration. Back in the mid-1800s, the west was largely settled by people who either couldn't or wouldn't adapt to factory or office work and many of them built prosperous lives for themselves that way. Now, they end up as welfare mothers and/or gangbangers. I don't know about you, but I consider that the biggest problem the US faces today: the waste of all those lives. Sorry about getting up on that soapbox, but I worry about our future because nobody seems to be asking themselves how to make those people productive again as long as they can buy votes with handouts.
Am I really the only Slashdotter who thinks it's going to land in Alaska, killing a camper? And, if I'm not mistaken the casket's going to be really, really weird looking!
I could send you an email, and just by clicking on it, it shows in the preview pane and BAM you're owned.
And how many people do you know that still open emails from unrecognised strangers? Before you can get people to open a malicious email you have to get past their spam filters (or, at least the filters their mail server uses) and make the recipient think it's a valid email. (Yes, I know that there are people who just open everything that comes in, but I think you get my point.) However, from what I can tell, if you're running Windows and you open it, you're toast. I'm not saying that that Macs and Linux are safe because I don't know enough, but I'm fairly sure that this is not only Windows specific, it's aimed more at Outlook than anything else simply because of its market share.
Actually, if you RTFA, you'd find that the images were emailed to his Dad by various amateur observers so that he (and his family) could look for interesting things such as comets, asteroids, novas and/or supernovas. Not uncommon, actually, because that just shares the workload around.
If you read the story you'll see that in both cases, the kids spotted the candidate and their dad did the work to verify it. Without them spotting the change in brightness there wouldn't have been anything for him to do. Thus, they get credit for finding them and he gets credit for verifying the discovery.
I'm a boomer too. Unlike many, if not most of our generation, I actually did something for my country: I served in the US Navy during 'Nam. Now that I'm retired, I get all of my medical care from the VA, and am very happy with it. (Unlike many government agencies, almost all of the workers at the VA I meet understand that if it weren't for people like me, they wouldn't have a job, and if they don't give good service, they won't.) And, I've been assured by the VA that my coverage is such that I don't have to worry about ObamaCare, and I won't be forced to buy new health insurance that I can't afford. Not all of us are spoiled, self-centered and only interested in what our country can do for us, but I must agree that all too many are.
Some of us have life insurance, and most policies have a clause that denies payment if the insured commits suicide. Going out like this can be a way to avoid that. And, there are people who want to take as many others with them as they can for one reason or another, so they go on a killing spree and hope that the police won't be able to take them alive.
No, I haven't been there, but I'd like to.
One of the most racist societies on earth that screens passengers based solely on their prejudice and racial/religious hatred.
I don't think it's prejudice when they focus most of their efforts on young men who either are, or look Arabic. After all, more than 99% of the people who have reasons to want to commit terrorist acts in Israel are, in fact, young Arabic males. Just because the USofA is currently unwilling to admit this and focus most of our security's attention on that kind of person doesn't mean that it's not a far more effective way of stopping terrorists than random searches of small children or old men in wheelchairs. The important thing here is to understand that what they have is security; what we get is mostly Security Kabuki Theater.
So Israel does have checkpoints where people are questioned.
I never said that they didn't. My point was that whatever it is they're doing looks far more effective than the Security Kabuki Theater that we're stuck with.
Actually, there are ways to deal with this effectively. For a start, just look how they do things in Israel.
Whenever something like this happens and the gunman is killed, I can't help but wondering whether the motive included "suicide by cop."
Another way to cool off in hot weather is to wet your arms down with cold water but not dry them off. The water will evaporate, drawing heat out of your arms in some natural air conditioning.
I realize that the Slashdot "editors" stopped doing any real editing years ago, but how did this story get all the way to the front page without anybody noticing that "thermoelectric" was misspelled?
The entire point of academia is what you seem to dislike: honing one particular skill to the very apex of its field...
You misunderstand me. Honing one particular skill can be a fine thing, but looking down your nose at anybody who's not interested in whatever it is you've specialized in, especially when whatever they're interested in has practical applications, is one of the uglier forms of snobbery.
Oh, I don't know. The first time you click on a goatse link can be an eye opening experience. Or, of course, if your tastes don't run that way, an eye closing experience. In either case, it will probably be an experience you'll never forget, even if you want to.
This is exactly the type of blather I'd expect from academics, especially from those who've never had to learn anything about science and/or math in a college-level class. They don't understand it, they don't see any reason why they should understand it and they don't think that anything outside of their narrow specialty is at all important to anybody in the world, but they look down at everybody who isn't fascinated by the the most minute aspects of whatever navel-gazing "discipline" they've decided to make their life's work. Most of them know little if anything that could possibly be of the slightest use to anybody who isn't part of academentia, and they think that this makes them better than everybody else. Some of the posters here have called him a troll, but he isn't; a troll takes an extreme position to get other people to over-react, but this man really believes that what he's writing is true.
The fact that something was done in a work of fiction has nothing to do with getting a patent for developing the idea in the Real World.
Would be embarrashing, not to mention blow feds case out of water...
Just because somebody comes forward with that claim doesn't mean that the jury's going to believe them. The defense would have to provide enough supporting evidence to show that there's a good chance that they're telling the truth, and the prosecution would have the chance to cross examine them and tear holes in their story. The important word in this is "reasonable." Just because somebody's willing to give you an alibi in court doesn't mean that you walk; you still have to make the jury think there's a good chance that the story's true.