I'm seeing the news in.au, and there are plenty of onsite reports from war zones. Try changing your news source. If you select the Sci/Tech news in Google news, you'll probably get more sci-tech-related stuff, that's how the filters work.
But journalists love that shit. Prancing around in the Green Zone wearing a flak jacket, looking badass, protected by a bunch of real soldiers. It's nice that we can get eyewitness news from these places, but we should remember that these journalists are not draftees like the forces in Vietnam were. These journalists *want* to be in war zones. They get paid more money and when they get home from Iraq they have a pocket full of danger money and a bunch of cool stories to impress the opposite sex. I'd love to be paid to go overseas, and be given a flak jacket and an expense account. All I have to do in return is file a few videos in front of something that's on fire. Sign me up!
Having done a lot of flying in the USA in recent years I can assure you there is no optimization of the airlines:
-Airports are usually a long way form the city center. -There's often not a decent shuttle into the city center (I'm looking at you, Denver!) -I have to be at the airport hours early so I can line up to have some jerk confiscate my chapstick.
Sure, the _flight_ may only take an hour, but if I add all the bullshit associated with getting to/from the airport, and the associated security theater, that time is easily tripled.
Note also that most of this time unproductive. I can't use a netbook in the security line, or while the plane is taxiing or climbing/descending. I can however use my electronics on the train or the bus. Train and bus services are also starting to provide wifi on their routes (Thanks Megabus!)
YMMV, but I personally do everything I can to avoid the Purgatory that flying in the USA* has become.
*Yes, I single out flying in the USA. In many other countries, a passenger is allowed to keep their bottle of water, keep their shoes on, and aren't body-scanned. Last time I checked there aren't aircraft raining from the sky in countries outside the USA.
I wish I had mod points. Search terms are, if anything, a way to find what people _don't_ browse frequently. I spend plenty of time on Slashdot, but I'm pretty sure I've never googled "news for nerds."
In my experience produce is tagged when it is packed at the farm. I grew up on an apple orchard and it was a pretty clever process that used humans for the tricky parts (like visually looking at the fruit for blemishes) and machines for the routine stuff like washing the fruit, packing it by weight (each individual apple was weighed on the conveyor, which I thought was pretty cool in 1991) While the fruit is on the conveyor those little stickers with the PLU and the name of the farm are also applied.
As I said, this was in 1991, things may have changed.
RFID is still pretty expensive, relative to a piece of produce that might be worth only a few cents per fruit. Maybe a "better" sticker could be used, one that has a very specific colour for each item, or a much simpler bar code that can be read more easily by a machine. IIRC produce codes are only about 4 digits, it has to be pretty easy to encode that into a 1cm square that can be read by a machine.
If you're.au you can buy kanagaroo meat at most supermarkets these days. Kangaroos are not farmed, but raised free-range (purely because it's cheaper to just cull the excess 'roos that are competing with sheep and cattle for grazing) and their metabolism inherently produces less methane than cattle.
Of course, a kangaroo steak is not the same as a nice piece of cow steak. But for other cooking, particularly dishes that use ground or minced meat, kangaroo is very difficult to tell apart in terms of taste. It also contains less fat than most beef mince, and high levels of protein and iron. Not to mention minced kangaroo is usually cheaper than minced cow!
I have no citation for this (lmgtfy.com?) but I remember reading in a reputable.au newspaper that the administration of the Melbourne [Australia] tram ticketing network cost almost exactly the same as the ticketing revenue - in other words, they could have just fired all the ticket inspectors, torn out the ticket vending machines, and made the tram network free!
Many large organisations seem to make their priority to simply give their staff work to do. The value of the tasks assigned is less important than simply keeping people busy.
According to the (in)famous alt.holiday.suicide files, the only way to overdose on LSD is to have a really big sack of it land on your head and crush you. Of course, as other have stated, if one does a large amount of LSD one may attempt to fly, or other unsafe behaviour.
I'm pretty sure a business can spend their own money on whatever field of R&D they choose. Just as you are free to invest _your_ money in that company, donate the money to starving orphans, or spend it on shiny toys for yourself.
ZOMG, but Finland has SNOW! How can you possibly drive in SNOW without a 3 tonne 4WD?/sarcasm. I'm living in Colorado and I wish the locals would realise you don't need an SUV, just decent tyres and moderate use of the right foot.
There were also some interesting tricks played by the automobile producers, which could certainly have been called "anti-competetive." Read the stories of how GM cried foul about the efficient tram network in Los Angeles and had it dismantled so that GM buses (and subsequently, cars) could take over.
yeah, I just looked at those screenshots, and all I could think was that I was glad i had an Amiga and could play platformers like Zool, Chuck Rock and Superfrog. Granted, those games didn't all come out in 1990, but they ran on 1990 hardware.
+1 this guy. I'd never thought of comparing the NBN to the baby bonus but it makes sense. Both are investments in the future, and if it's my taxes on the line, I'd rather invest in infrastructure that benefits the whole country and will help the country stay competetive internationally than pay some idiots to have a kid so they can buy a bigger TV.
The Amiga RAD: disk was the same... you could install the whole Amiga OS onto the RAD partition of your RAM and it would persist between resets for super-fast boots. Bonus points for dumping the contents of the ROMs onto there as well, for extra speed!
Dogs are useful and all, but bear in mind that your neighbours won't be very happy if the damn things bark all night, or whenever a pedestrian walks past your house. They will also be unimpressed if when you take the brutes for walkies you let them shit all over the sidewalk, nature strips, and their front lawns.
OK, so maybe everyone else in your street should stop being so whiny about your lovely, loyal pets. This is true, but it's also true that if I saw a burglar breaking into the house of the redneck with the big noisy dogs that bark the whole damn night and shit where I walk, I probably wouldn't report that burglar.
Social engineering. Make friends with the people next door, and look out for each other. That nosy neighbour who stays at home all day can be your greatest security asset if you're on good terms.
The DSO Nano's useful as a portable scope, especially for measuring automotive stuff on the road. It looks really cool and the screen is great but it's a single-channel scope and doesn't even have a trigger input which really reduces it functionality.
If you want a DIY kit there's this picaxe - powered scope : http://www.pdamusician.com/lcscope/ Which I'd only recommend if you're a picaxe hacker and want to tinker with the firmware yourself.
However the author of the above kit has now moved to the dsPIC30F2020 microcontroller and a much more powerful offering : http://www.pdamusician.com/dpscope/
Although I haven't built one yet, the specs look great (check the links) and the author seems quite active if you need support. Don't sweat that it doesn't have a screen - netbooks are cheap.
You already can. It's called a "bus." For a small fee one can be driven to one's destination without having to do any driving oneself. You are free to read your book, stare out the window, listen to music, whatever you please.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm seeing the news in .au, and there are plenty of onsite reports from war zones. Try changing your news source. If you select the Sci/Tech news in Google news, you'll probably get more sci-tech-related stuff, that's how the filters work.
But journalists love that shit. Prancing around in the Green Zone wearing a flak jacket, looking badass, protected by a bunch of real soldiers. It's nice that we can get eyewitness news from these places, but we should remember that these journalists are not draftees like the forces in Vietnam were. These journalists *want* to be in war zones. They get paid more money and when they get home from Iraq they have a pocket full of danger money and a bunch of cool stories to impress the opposite sex. I'd love to be paid to go overseas, and be given a flak jacket and an expense account. All I have to do in return is file a few videos in front of something that's on fire. Sign me up!
Having done a lot of flying in the USA in recent years I can assure you there is no optimization of the airlines:
-Airports are usually a long way form the city center.
-There's often not a decent shuttle into the city center (I'm looking at you, Denver!)
-I have to be at the airport hours early so I can line up to have some jerk confiscate my chapstick.
Sure, the _flight_ may only take an hour, but if I add all the bullshit associated with getting to/from the airport, and the associated security theater, that time is easily tripled.
Note also that most of this time unproductive. I can't use a netbook in the security line, or while the plane is taxiing or climbing/descending. I can however use my electronics on the train or the bus. Train and bus services are also starting to provide wifi on their routes (Thanks Megabus!)
YMMV, but I personally do everything I can to avoid the Purgatory that flying in the USA* has become.
*Yes, I single out flying in the USA. In many other countries, a passenger is allowed to keep their bottle of water, keep their shoes on, and aren't body-scanned. Last time I checked there aren't aircraft raining from the sky in countries outside the USA.
I couldn't afford a personalised vanity licence plate for my car, so I changed my name to suit the plate I already had.
Regards,
Mr RSW-824.
I wish I had mod points. Search terms are, if anything, a way to find what people _don't_ browse frequently. I spend plenty of time on Slashdot, but I'm pretty sure I've never googled "news for nerds."
Annoy a religious whack-job (it's not hard!) buy a Rapture T-shirt today!
Maybe I'll donate some of the proceeds to a charity for deluded religous morons.
http://www.cafepress.com/wellattired
"Hare We Go" on YouTube : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gD6Solpy4aQ
Switzerland to Belgium. So it wasn't just a hop across an adjacent border. And, as the summary says, they were in the air for almost 13 hours.
Bah. Young Einstein was _funny.
But we are truly sorry about Olivia Newton John. She's a bit like the Spice Girls many years later - enjoyable as long as you have a mute button.
And please don't dump any raw sewage on Sydney, there's enough shit there already.
In my experience produce is tagged when it is packed at the farm. I grew up on an apple orchard and it was a pretty clever process that used humans for the tricky parts (like visually looking at the fruit for blemishes) and machines for the routine stuff like washing the fruit, packing it by weight (each individual apple was weighed on the conveyor, which I thought was pretty cool in 1991) While the fruit is on the conveyor those little stickers with the PLU and the name of the farm are also applied.
As I said, this was in 1991, things may have changed.
RFID is still pretty expensive, relative to a piece of produce that might be worth only a few cents per fruit. Maybe a "better" sticker could be used, one that has a very specific colour for each item, or a much simpler bar code that can be read more easily by a machine. IIRC produce codes are only about 4 digits, it has to be pretty easy to encode that into a 1cm square that can be read by a machine.
If you're .au you can buy kanagaroo meat at most supermarkets these days. Kangaroos are not farmed, but raised free-range (purely because it's cheaper to just cull the excess 'roos that are competing with sheep and cattle for grazing) and their metabolism inherently produces less methane than cattle.
Of course, a kangaroo steak is not the same as a nice piece of cow steak. But for other cooking, particularly dishes that use ground or minced meat, kangaroo is very difficult to tell apart in terms of taste. It also contains less fat than most beef mince, and high levels of protein and iron. Not to mention minced kangaroo is usually cheaper than minced cow!
I have no citation for this (lmgtfy.com?) but I remember reading in a reputable .au newspaper that the administration of the Melbourne [Australia] tram ticketing network cost almost exactly the same as the ticketing revenue - in other words, they could have just fired all the ticket inspectors, torn out the ticket vending machines, and made the tram network free!
Many large organisations seem to make their priority to simply give their staff work to do. The value of the tasks assigned is less important than simply keeping people busy.
According to the (in)famous alt.holiday.suicide files, the only way to overdose on LSD is to have a really big sack of it land on your head and crush you. Of course, as other have stated, if one does a large amount of LSD one may attempt to fly, or other unsafe behaviour.
I'm pretty sure a business can spend their own money on whatever field of R&D they choose. Just as you are free to invest _your_ money in that company, donate the money to starving orphans, or spend it on shiny toys for yourself.
Where? How long did it last? And is this one of the areas of NSW that is 35 degrees + today?
Hey, Australia has the best democracy mining billionaires can buy!
ZOMG, but Finland has SNOW! How can you possibly drive in SNOW without a 3 tonne 4WD? /sarcasm. I'm living in Colorado and I wish the locals would realise you don't need an SUV, just decent tyres and moderate use of the right foot.
There were also some interesting tricks played by the automobile producers, which could certainly have been called "anti-competetive." Read the stories of how GM cried foul about the efficient tram network in Los Angeles and had it dismantled so that GM buses (and subsequently, cars) could take over.
yeah, I just looked at those screenshots, and all I could think was that I was glad i had an Amiga and could play platformers like Zool, Chuck Rock and Superfrog. Granted, those games didn't all come out in 1990, but they ran on 1990 hardware.
+1 this guy. I'd never thought of comparing the NBN to the baby bonus but it makes sense. Both are investments in the future, and if it's my taxes on the line, I'd rather invest in infrastructure that benefits the whole country and will help the country stay competetive internationally than pay some idiots to have a kid so they can buy a bigger TV.
The Amiga RAD: disk was the same... you could install the whole Amiga OS onto the RAD partition of your RAM and it would persist between resets for super-fast boots. Bonus points for dumping the contents of the ROMs onto there as well, for extra speed!
Dogs are useful and all, but bear in mind that your neighbours won't be very happy if the damn things bark all night, or whenever a pedestrian walks past your house. They will also be unimpressed if when you take the brutes for walkies you let them shit all over the sidewalk, nature strips, and their front lawns.
OK, so maybe everyone else in your street should stop being so whiny about your lovely, loyal pets. This is true, but it's also true that if I saw a burglar breaking into the house of the redneck with the big noisy dogs that bark the whole damn night and shit where I walk, I probably wouldn't report that burglar.
Social engineering. Make friends with the people next door, and look out for each other. That nosy neighbour who stays at home all day can be your greatest security asset if you're on good terms.
The DSO Nano's useful as a portable scope, especially for measuring automotive stuff on the road. It looks really cool and the screen is great but it's a single-channel scope and doesn't even have a trigger input which really reduces it functionality.
If you want a DIY kit there's this picaxe - powered scope : http://www.pdamusician.com/lcscope/
Which I'd only recommend if you're a picaxe hacker and want to tinker with the firmware yourself.
However the author of the above kit has now moved to the dsPIC30F2020 microcontroller and a much more powerful offering : http://www.pdamusician.com/dpscope/
Although I haven't built one yet, the specs look great (check the links) and the author seems quite active if you need support. Don't sweat that it doesn't have a screen - netbooks are cheap.
Wow, Australia takes another step toward the digital third world. I am losing hope for my country.
You already can. It's called a "bus." For a small fee one can be driven to one's destination without having to do any driving oneself. You are free to read your book, stare out the window, listen to music, whatever you please.
I wish I had done something worthy of the front page of Slashdot when I was an undergrad.