We can start saying things like "Start out with GNOME, but if you feel like a little more control, just check the KDE box when you log in."
The above is the wisest comment yet.
I've driven my wife nuts with switching her between gnome and kde. She really doesn't want to deal with the deskktop as anything more than a mechanism to access her necessary tools (email, open office tools, the web and our library of pictures. I use kde mostly but find myself not liking how cluttered and noisy the environment feels yet when I use gnome I find myself annoyed by what I can't easily do. I don't know what the answer is but I'm begining to suspect more and more that the answer is NOT a desktop metaphor with icons and menus all over the place. I tried (and liked) the xfce/rox/zeroinstall combination for a while but ran into trouble with large (100's of files) directories and afs. Sorry for rambling. Coffee just hitting brain now...
QCAD is nice. But for those wishing to fully parameterize their designs take a look at Varkon, http://www.tech.oru.se/cad/varkon/. Not as easy or slick as Qcad but designed to be scriptable from the ground up.
Re:Seriously : you *can* eat chicken meat.
on
A Flu Pandemic?
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· Score: 1
Also - the word you are looking for is viruses. It has always been "viruses".
Government or private sector what difference? Historical evidence suggests to me that neither is trustworthy. Now, if there was a 50% cut to me every time $$ were made on selling my data I probably wouldn't care anymore about who else profits.
Re:A good reason to stop reading Slashdot tonight
on
Slacker or Sick
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· Score: 1
Similarly I've had Shiasu (accupressure) massage done on my hands with dramatic (i.e. if it's a placebo then I'll take the placebo thanks) results. I don't know if it was the massaging of the muscles/tendons or the pressure but I was able to go right back to my normal, and aparently self-destructive, 8-10 hrs/day of typing.
You don't have to be working for big oil to call bull on this one. Metals (in this case they mention zinc, magnesium and alumnium) probably don't make for cheap fuel. The dumbest thing to me is that making hydrogen from the metal seems like a step backwards. The metals can be used directly make electricity, for example look up a zinc-air battery on google. This approach is well researched and last I heard there is potential for a good solution (puns intended). Here is one link I found in a quick search: http://www.zyn.com/flcfw/fwtproj/ZincAirB.htm
Hmm... you indirectly answered my question: is there enough oxygen to burn all those fossil fuels? I guess there is. As for the atmospheric CO2 levels one solution is to grow crops and increase population - each adult human being must tie up a kilo or so of carbon. 20 billion of us should keep CO2 levels down.
So at what point is it a squatter versus a "legitimate" website?
So instead of trying to come up with a definition I say make it so all domains go up for auction every year and the proceeds get distributed to charity or something. That would quickly filter out the squatters (i.e. not serious) users of domain names from the legitimate users. I'd bid $50 on microsoft.com, think I'd get it?
Bill Gates donating a million bucks is like me donating $10. It's hard to be impressed with a donation when the sacrifice is so slight. Of couse it is great that the donation was made, but as the song goes, "It don't impress me much". Measured in terms of impact on myself and my family I donate more than Bill Gates does. He gave up nothing (and arguably gains hugh tax writeoffs) by his pittance donations. Do a google search to gain perspective.
Minor nitpick: the water comes out as vapor which has large amounts of latent heat you must extract before the gas (water vapor) can become a liquid. It just means an expensive and large heat exchanger would need to be added to your already expensive hydrogen car.
I suspect that the water vapor is a non-issue in most places. Of course here in Phoenix, AZ where once upon a time it WAS a dry heat, some of us might beg to differ.
Thinking further, what about heat polution? Is the heat generated by all these human activities just noise in the context of the kw/m^2 solar energy or does the 800MW of heat from a 100MW nuclear plant have an impact (assumably negative) on the environment?
From paper bags to bottle caps to different types of paper cups. It's silly.
I would argue that a lot of those "silly" patents did some societal good. Why spend money on turning a good idea into a product when you know that someone with deeper pockets (probably a corporation) can turn around and copy your design and then undercut you. Without patents there are probably lots of ideas that would either be long delayed in being developed into a product or perhaps never see the light of day at all. The problem (IMHO) is that the current patent system no longer does what it was originally intended to do. My solution: make the patent office buy back patents that lose in court and adjust the definition of what can be patented to include the concept of "impediment to implementation". If an idea is at risk of being kept secret and unpublished then a patent is in societies best interest. Otherwise why prevent others from implementing the idea? One click is a good example. The development cost of implementing the idea is very small. The likelyhood of someone else coming up with the idea is, uh, like about 100%. There doesn't appear to be anything gained by allowing the idea to be monopolized. Does knowing that the one click idea was patentable give you an incentive to sit down and think up other good ideas? I doubt it.
Exactly, I think the financial folks talk about trading off initial costs for long term running costs. Someone is footing the bill on the electricity for making that ice. BTW the overall energy efficiency of this setup is substantially lower than the equivalent decent window air conditioner (COP of the air conditioner is much higher than the COP of an ice maker due to smaller delta T iirc).
If Microsoft was banned, a lot of people would lose their jobs, people who rely on Microsoft products for their own product-range/services.
Perhaps so and no doubt the transition would be painful for some - on the other hand I bet many more jobs would be created than lost and in the long run the net effect would be positive for most involved.
[broken record mode] Seems like replacing a terrible tax (income) with a bad tax (goods and services) is a pretty small step forward for all the effort it would take. Why tax goods and services (thereby putting a damper on producing them) when there are things out there that can be taxed that won't dampen economic activity? Whats the one thing that "They ain't making any more of"? I.e. the thing that is needed when you go to make something but itself cannot be made. Google for Henry George if curious. [/broken record mode]
I'll third the recomendation on TaxAct. I've been using it for years and I'm quite happy with it. Now although a Linux version would be great I'd be happy if they just put a little effort into making it work under wine...
Have you considered the possibility that scientists are ignoring science to favor undue burdening of businesses?
Are you asserting that the scientists are skewing the data and that the politicians are seeing through that and correcting the scientists? Don't mix up the science, observations, data, analysis, extrapolation etc. with politics where you take the data and set policy.
If the politicians are saying no to the recomendations of the scientists then that is fine. But that is not what the article is saying. To extend your analogy: I don't want to spend $$ on an expensive fire escape that my wife wants based on the recomendation of a fire marshall so I (being on the town board) tell the fire marshall to change his recomendation or else. That is not an honest or wise approach to making decisions that affect lives or (in the case of environmental science) the future quality of life.
Is that possible!? A quick google search only turned up mutagenic stuff in roasted seeds and such like. Seems like a great science fair experiment material. Any examples of an easily available mutagenic formula?
If you are ok with GM stuff then you should also be fine with the intro of non-native species. Why would one be ok and the other not ok? The same fundamental issue exists with both: the unintended consequences of introducing a species alien to this environment are unknown and predictions of "it'll be fine" are often wrong. Go talk to the Australians about introduced species and see if they agree that the human mind is up to the task, last I heard the problems were NOT solved. And yes, if it is genetically modified surely it is a new species!?
Pebble-beds have been built and tested in the harshest ways, and no reaction can be sustained when the pebbles were "exposed" without the sustaining material.
I think if proponents of nuclear fusion power didn't have a track record of "it's safe, trust me" when it ain't so this comment would carry much more weight. I know that this reactor is supposedly intrinisically stable. BUT but government and industry types that made "too cheap to meter" and other such claims in the past have worn out their credibility.
The only way to make a pebble-bed melt down is to take the pebbles, grind them down, extract the fissile material and make a regular nuclear reactor out of them.
Doesn't sound so difficult:-), can I do it in my garage? Can I make a nice little dirty bomb with this stuff? Seems like lots of folks here trust their government and corporate overlords to keep this stuff safe. Me, I don't trust them one bit.
Perhaps like how AIX 5.1 is more compatible with linux? Supposedly there has been an effort to make it easier to compile stuff on AIX. Someone more knowledgeable can comment on the details if they care. What I'd like to see, being as lazy as I am, would be that the Solaris command line tools be transitioned to be Linux compatible. WhyTF doesn't df have the same switches and output format on Sun as it does on Linux/AIX? I hate using the Sun machines cuz I can't reuse my everyday Linux/AIX knowledge on them. As an aside I couldn't get ruby to compile on either the Sun nor the AIX machines I use. I'm sure it is due to admin issues on the machines but for what its worth my stuff runs faster on Linux so why bother with the other two. So there. Grumble.
Grr. I never have mod points when I *really* need them. The parent is right on. We should ban photography. But why stop there? Ban private meetings where people might exchange reprehensible or dangerous items. Actually I'm sure the Homeland Security is working on it. *sigh*
Slashdot Mirror
The above is the wisest comment yet.
I've driven my wife nuts with switching her between gnome and kde. She really doesn't want to deal with the deskktop as anything more than a mechanism to access her necessary tools (email, open office tools, the web and our library of pictures. I use kde mostly but find myself not liking how cluttered and noisy the environment feels yet when I use gnome I find myself annoyed by what I can't easily do. I don't know what the answer is but I'm begining to suspect more and more that the answer is NOT a desktop metaphor with icons and menus all over the place. I tried (and liked) the xfce/rox/zeroinstall combination for a while but ran into trouble with large (100's of files) directories and afs. Sorry for rambling. Coffee just hitting brain now...
Taskjuggler looks very good also: http://www.taskjuggler.org/
QCAD is nice. But for those wishing to fully parameterize their designs take a look at Varkon, http://www.tech.oru.se/cad/varkon/. Not as easy or slick as Qcad but designed to be scriptable from the ground up.
Also - the word you are looking for is viruses. It has always been "viruses".
Keep everybody happy - use viriises
Government or private sector what difference? Historical evidence suggests to me that neither is trustworthy. Now, if there was a 50% cut to me every time $$ were made on selling my data I probably wouldn't care anymore about who else profits.
Similarly I've had Shiasu (accupressure) massage done on my hands with dramatic (i.e. if it's a placebo then I'll take the placebo thanks) results. I don't know if it was the massaging of the muscles/tendons or the pressure but I was able to go right back to my normal, and aparently self-destructive, 8-10 hrs/day of typing.
You don't have to be working for big oil to call bull on this one. Metals (in this case they mention zinc, magnesium and alumnium) probably don't make for cheap fuel. The dumbest thing to me is that making hydrogen from the metal seems like a step backwards. The metals can be used directly make electricity, for example look up a zinc-air battery on google. This approach is well researched and last I heard there is potential for a good solution (puns intended). Here is one link I found in a quick search: http://www.zyn.com/flcfw/fwtproj/ZincAirB.htm
Hmm... you indirectly answered my question: is there enough oxygen to burn all those fossil fuels? I guess there is. As for the atmospheric CO2 levels one solution is to grow crops and increase population - each adult human being must tie up a kilo or so of carbon. 20 billion of us should keep CO2 levels down.
Just kidding, in a dismal way.
So at what point is it a squatter versus a "legitimate" website?
So instead of trying to come up with a definition I say make it so all domains go up for auction every year and the proceeds get distributed to charity or something. That would quickly filter out the squatters (i.e. not serious) users of domain names from the legitimate users. I'd bid $50 on microsoft.com, think I'd get it?
Bill Gates donating a million bucks is like me donating $10. It's hard to be impressed with a donation when the sacrifice is so slight. Of couse it is great that the donation was made, but as the song goes, "It don't impress me much". Measured in terms of impact on myself and my family I donate more than Bill Gates does. He gave up nothing (and arguably gains hugh tax writeoffs) by his pittance donations. Do a google search to gain perspective.
Minor nitpick: the water comes out as vapor which has large amounts of latent heat you must extract before the gas (water vapor) can become a liquid. It just means an expensive and large heat exchanger would need to be added to your already expensive hydrogen car.
I suspect that the water vapor is a non-issue in most places. Of course here in Phoenix, AZ where once upon a time it WAS a dry heat, some of us might beg to differ.
Thinking further, what about heat polution? Is the heat generated by all these human activities just noise in the context of the kw/m^2 solar energy or does the 800MW of heat from a 100MW nuclear plant have an impact (assumably negative) on the environment?
I would argue that a lot of those "silly" patents did some societal good. Why spend money on turning a good idea into a product when you know that someone with deeper pockets (probably a corporation) can turn around and copy your design and then undercut you. Without patents there are probably lots of ideas that would either be long delayed in being developed into a product or perhaps never see the light of day at all. The problem (IMHO) is that the current patent system no longer does what it was originally intended to do. My solution: make the patent office buy back patents that lose in court and adjust the definition of what can be patented to include the concept of "impediment to implementation". If an idea is at risk of being kept secret and unpublished then a patent is in societies best interest. Otherwise why prevent others from implementing the idea? One click is a good example. The development cost of implementing the idea is very small. The likelyhood of someone else coming up with the idea is, uh, like about 100%. There doesn't appear to be anything gained by allowing the idea to be monopolized. Does knowing that the one click idea was patentable give you an incentive to sit down and think up other good ideas? I doubt it.
Exactly, I think the financial folks talk about trading off initial costs for long term running costs. Someone is footing the bill on the electricity for making that ice. BTW the overall energy efficiency of this setup is substantially lower than the equivalent decent window air conditioner (COP of the air conditioner is much higher than the COP of an ice maker due to smaller delta T iirc).
One of the few contrarian yet thought through views written here, and yet a score of zero. Go figure.
I'd love to see an in depth analysis of protectionism and price controls in the US vs other countries. Any pointers or must I resort to google?
Use the words "mini-farm" to shut up the pendants.
Looks just about as silly too. Rendered pic of camel jocky
If Microsoft was banned, a lot of people would lose their jobs, people who rely on Microsoft products for their own product-range/services.
Perhaps so and no doubt the transition would be painful for some - on the other hand I bet many more jobs would be created than lost and in the long run the net effect would be positive for most involved.
[broken record mode]
Seems like replacing a terrible tax (income) with a bad tax (goods and services) is a pretty small step forward for all the effort it would take. Why tax goods and services (thereby putting a damper on producing them) when there are things out there that can be taxed that won't dampen economic activity? Whats the one thing that "They ain't making any more of"? I.e. the thing that is needed when you go to make something but itself cannot be made. Google for Henry George if curious.
[/broken record mode]
I'll third the recomendation on TaxAct. I've been using it for years and I'm quite happy with it.
Now although a Linux version would be great I'd be happy if they just put a little effort into making it work under wine...
Have you considered the possibility that scientists are ignoring science to favor undue burdening of businesses?
Are you asserting that the scientists are skewing the data and that the politicians are seeing through that and correcting the scientists? Don't mix up the science, observations, data, analysis, extrapolation etc. with politics where you take the data and set policy.
If the politicians are saying no to the recomendations of the scientists then that is fine. But that is not what the article is saying. To extend your analogy: I don't want to spend $$ on an expensive fire escape that my wife wants based on the recomendation of a fire marshall so I (being on the town board) tell the fire marshall to change his recomendation or else. That is not an honest or wise approach to making decisions that affect lives or (in the case of environmental science) the future quality of life.
Is that possible!? A quick google search only turned up mutagenic stuff in roasted seeds and such like. Seems like a great science fair experiment material. Any examples of an easily available mutagenic formula?
If you are ok with GM stuff then you should also be fine with the intro of non-native species. Why would one be ok and the other not ok? The same fundamental issue exists with both: the unintended consequences of introducing a species alien to this environment are unknown and predictions of "it'll be fine" are often wrong. Go talk to the Australians about introduced species and see if they agree that the human mind is up to the task, last I heard the problems were NOT solved. And yes, if it is genetically modified surely it is a new species!?
Pebble-beds have been built and tested in the harshest ways, and no reaction can be sustained when the pebbles were "exposed" without the sustaining material.
:-), can I do it in my garage? Can I make a nice little dirty bomb with this stuff? Seems like lots of folks here trust their government and corporate overlords to keep this stuff safe. Me, I don't trust them one bit.
I think if proponents of nuclear fusion power didn't have a track record of "it's safe, trust me" when it ain't so this comment would carry much more weight. I know that this reactor is supposedly intrinisically stable. BUT but government and industry types that made "too cheap to meter" and other such claims in the past have worn out their credibility.
The only way to make a pebble-bed melt down is to take the pebbles, grind them down, extract the fissile material and make a regular nuclear reactor out of them.
Doesn't sound so difficult
Perhaps like how AIX 5.1 is more compatible with linux? Supposedly there has been an effort to make it easier to compile stuff on AIX. Someone more knowledgeable can comment on the details if they care. What I'd like to see, being as lazy as I am, would be that the Solaris command line tools be transitioned to be Linux compatible. WhyTF doesn't df have the same switches and output format on Sun as it does on Linux/AIX? I hate using the Sun machines cuz I can't reuse my everyday Linux/AIX knowledge on them. As an aside I couldn't get ruby to compile on either the Sun nor the AIX machines I use. I'm sure it is due to admin issues on the machines but for what its worth my stuff runs faster on Linux so why bother with the other two. So there. Grumble.
Grr. I never have mod points when I *really* need them. The parent is right on. We should ban photography. But why stop there? Ban private meetings where people might exchange reprehensible or dangerous items. Actually I'm sure the Homeland Security is working on it. *sigh*