"What's the big fucking deal bitch? It doesn't hurt anybody. Fuck fuckity fuck fuck fuck."
I mean what is anyone expected to do about it? Filter every instance of Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker and Tits, and you just have people typing in a spammier manner than before. You get Sh1t, P1ss, Fu(k, etc., and the only people who get filtered are those who are either unaware of the filters or don't realize they're swearing. You also get collateral damage, such as references to **** Cheney, or ****tail waitresses. It's fucking stupid.
Why is this so doubtful? Security firms have used mirrors on sticks for peering under cars for as long as I have paid attention to such things. Why couldn't they use a webcam on a stick instead? If the computer receiving the data has an idea how fast the cam is being waved around under there, it should be able to put together a pretty good 3D image, even if the webcam's resolution is fairly low. Even better if you just put cameras on some sort of crawler cart you roll under the car. Sure you could mount the cameras and roll the car over them but this doesn't work real well when you have multiple cars waiting in line to use a fixed scanner. Better to be able to take the cameras to the car, wherever it may be.
What would be more disturbing to most people -- three or four guys poring over their car with mirrors and/or cameras on sticks, or a little tray with skateboard wheels being rolled under the car for a couple seconds? (Never mind which one SHOULD disturb them more... which one actually WILL?)
I have to wonder if some of that isn't due to the fact that in the middle of nowhere, it takes a lot longer for help to arrive, if they come at all. This could easily be the difference between living and dying, if the victim is unconscious, bleeding, and/or trapped.
I am reminded of something a doctor said to me about car accidents (paraphrased): "No seat belt goes to the morgue, seat belt goes to the hospital, and air bag goes home in a taxi." He did note that it's mostly the driver that is impacted by an air bag or lack thereof, though passengers can be saved a lot of injuries as well.
Let's face it, most any new tool is going to have military implications. Airplanes got co-opted into war quite soon after they were proven practical, but the world is a better place for having them. Conversely, rockets were developed as weapons of war, but have been essential in the (mostly peaceful) exploration of space, not to mention putting up satellites. Satellites themselves come in distinct varieties for reconnaisance use and civilian (mostly communications) use.
Most every sword has two edges. It all comes down to who is swinging it.
MP3s *can* sound bad, but that is almost always due to over-compression, bad settings (such as mismatched sample rates), encoders that can't handle certain conversions well, etc. I'm quite certain you can make an AAC or WMA suck just as bad. Any lossy format (audio or otherwise) can turn an input file to mush if it's set up to do that. The problem is that computers aren't smart enough to say "These settings will sound like shit. Continue? Y/N". Then the person hosting the file either has a tin ear, or has never listened to it, or perhaps just can't find any better rip, and it propagates.
Your brain probably doesn't have separate circuits for red and green, considering the eyes weren't separating that data, and your wiring is just a bit fossilized by now. I'm not sure fixing the receptors would fix the perception issue at this point.
I know everyone seems to recommend LCDs over CRTs, but I would like to point out a couple observations of my own.
1. After some time with a 17" LCD (my first), even just an hour or two, I see color fringes around printed text and other things that I know full well should be dead sharp. I have to guess this is because of the three-pixels-in-one nature of the LCD display. I get used to mentally superimposing the R, G, and B, and it's difficult to switch that off for a while. This effect does seem to be decreasing considerably as I get used to the monitor, but it has not completely vanished after a month. Turning on ClearType (it's work, I have to use Windows) does seem to help, possibly because everything looks better at a distance with ClearType enabled and I don't lean in as much. Then the angular difference of the color sub-pixels stays smaller.
2. If the default resolution of an LCD is too small for your comfort, you may be better off sticking with a flat CRT. While LCDs are wonderful at the resolution they're built to do, they don't rescale all that well and (unless the rescaling is in a neat integral ratio) will have to "fake it" in some manner. The upshot of that is that you may well find a CRT to be clearer, since it has no fixed pixel size. Also, if you aren't running the maximum resolution, you can usually crank the refresh rate up to 100 Hz, which helps eliminate a lot of the eyestrain problems induced by CRTs.
I tell people considering new monitors to go check out their LCD choice first-hand. If it turns out they don't like the native resolution for whatever reason, DON'T BUY IT! Either find one that does suit them, or stick with a CRT and its completely variable pixel size. If you DO like the native resolution, then you will probably enjoy working with that display. LCDs definitely have their advantages, if you use them as designed. They just aren't very good at doing things "out of spec", where CRTs don't really care.
Also remember that you may be used to seeing every single dot on the screen, but you're really not supposed to. You don't see every dot in print, and you can read that just fine, right? As monitor resolution increases, software will just have to accommodate the fact that locked-down pixel-based fonts have to go the way of the dodo. There are already LCD displays in excess of 150 dpi, although they're horrendously expensive, and they're only going to continue to improve (and get cheaper). The black borders between pixels on LCD panels also continue to get smaller, and there are certain optics that can be used (and eventually will be widely used) to make them disappear entirely.
This is/. and most of the people here are technically competent and of at least average intelligence. Many of them cannot spell their way out of a paper bag. What makes you think the general populace can spell? How do you decide what a voter MEANT if they misspell a name? Further, what if they are physically incapable of typing?
Making every vote a write-in has serious issues, which is why it hasn't been done. I fully believe that write-ins should be allowed for every office, but it should not be mandatory to write in every name. If every office allowed write-ins, we wouldn't even need "none of the above" on ballots -- just encourage people to vote for THEMSELVES if they don't like any of the candidates on the ballot. Then you have millions of people getting one vote apiece, and the point has been made.
Seems to me those in power place the value of the spectrum they will be able to re-sell at more than the cost of upgrading everyone. My questions are:
1. Are they right? Who gets to keep the money if they are? If it's going back into the same General Fund that the voucher money came out of, I can hardly oppose this.
2. Whose pockets are being lined? Will these vouchers only be good for buying officially sanctioned equipment from companies that paid their protection money? Given the ethics of the current administration, I would be very surprised if someone connected isn't getting a large proportion of this "free money".
Fact is, analog broadcasts are spectrum-inefficient. Digital has its drawbacks as well, namely that it does not degrade gracefully and (like commercial music) is usually compressed within an inch of its life. I see MPEG artifacting on rapid movements quite often, and it grows more annoying every time. This is not inherent to the medium, but it is the trade made by broadcasters who wish to cram three or four separate channels into their frequency band. Quantity, not quality, seems to be the American Way. We have become a nation of Coneheads -- you can argue how long ago we crossed that threshold, but it's undeniable that we did so some time ago. No longer satisfied with our 13 channels of shit on the TV to choose from, we get 500 channels of shit instead 100 well-encoded, sharp channels carrying actual content.
I sort of disagree here. I think what is most important is that we are on the outside of a black box trying to control what is within by sending in effectors and observing changes. Using this method, no matter how precise, we will never know what is in the box, and so will never know of all the possibilities that we are missing.
Is this a case where we should be thinking INSIDE the box? I suppose, like the state of Schroedinger's cat, we shall never know until we open the box, which we all know belongs to some Greek gal named Pandora...
Has anyone else noticed these look a lot like prefabricated cruise ship cabins? They too run about 3 meters on a side and contain a functional, if spartan, bathroom. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if these are just a bunch of prefab cubes stuck in a building by crane, then plastered in. At least they don't automatically come with a roommate, like crew quarters...
I've been told (by people who have had both) that the Foster's that is exported is of considerably higher quality than that which is kept within Australia. If this is the case, I feel extra sorry for the Aussies, as the exported stuff isn't all that great either.:) If I had to take a guess as to why this might be, I'd reckon that the higher quality beer has a somewhat better shelf life, which is useful when shipping a product globally, and the fact that it's improved is just a happy accident. Another beer I've been told tastes better exported than in its home country is Molson.
Another reason might be that it is relatively easy to blanket the homeland with advertising, but overseas they either provide a reasonably good product or nobody will choose it over the Bud and Miller and Coors. I mean why drink exotic piss beer if the local variety is easier to find and tastes about the same? I wonder what their market penetration is in places where good beer is popular.
Full disclosure notice: currently toasting New Year's with a Guinness.
Flash should be used sparingly, for specific purposes. If it's used for (*gasp*) FLASH to spice up presentation, and not as a means of presenting primary content, anything presented in the Flash section can be gleaned from the body text that is rendered in a standard manner. There are some things that really do work well as Flash presentations, and I'm not slamming it. I am just dissatisfied with the uses some people put it to. It's like writing letters to Grandma in a spreadsheet. Sure, you can do it, but it's still the wrong tool for the job.
If they could project a constant impression that they are spinning, they could explain away the "gravity" as centripetal acceleration. Assuming the "ship" is big enough that you wouldn't feel a difference between the forces at your head versus the forces at your feet, I think even clueful applicants might fall for it. The question then would be if they can make a believable projection that will hold up for days or weeks, but this is certainly a doable proposition (eventually, if not now).
This works for considerably longer if you use a bit of soap and water and a brush. Then try painting circles around the critters and watch them really freak out. Eventually they'll get so agitated they just cross the circle in random directions and continue darting about at double speed for a considerable time afterward.
Sure, one day it'll stop working because you're reaching the end of its service life, but you generally get fair warning of impending failure -- lots of smoke, burning oil, stalling, loss of power, whatever. Allocate $800 for the car, $800 to keep it duct taped together for a year or maybe more (which you don't need to have up front), and build up some money in that time. Then the next time, you either find a better cheap car (by having time to be selective) or just buy one not so old -- one you might actually be able to sell some day rather than run into the ground.
You do need to be somewhat selective, but I have bought cars for under $1000 that ran for up to two years without anything beyond basic maintenance (tires, oil changes, brakes, the things all cars use up). If you find your finances improving, you may even choose to rehabilitate your car rather than replacing it, if you think it's fundamentally sound enough. After all, why trade your (known) problems for someone else's (unknown) problems if yours aren't that bad? Besides, if you can't fix your car this week, then don't. You have to make other arrangements, but at least nobody is going to repo the car.
If you opt for the cheap car, it's probably wise to select not only on price and condition, but on pricing and availability of parts. My current car is a 1989 Subaru XT6 -- a great car to drive, and parts aren't particularly expensive, but they are hard to get (usually special order) and the engine is essentially unserviceable without being pulled. If you want to keep your $800 daily driver running without having to plan ahead, you'd be better off with a Camry or Corolla or Civic. The parts aren't any cheaper, but at least they're ubiquitous. You'd also get better mileage than I do (18/24), but I knew that going in. That's the price to be paid for the 4WD system of the day (current AWD is much less wasteful). I didn't get this car to be just another disposable item and have dumped far more money into repairs than I did into the initial purchase, so I guess I'm finally breaking out of the cycle of cheap cars at the ends of their lives.
All that said, if you just want something you don't have to worry about, you probably want a "pre-owned" car with some sort of warranty remaining. If you can't afford a new car, or don't want any of the new cars you can actually afford, this is the next best thing. Let someone else take the steepest part of the depreciation.
No, the reviewed item is only $100 or slightly under. It is the Oakley Thump that pops up in the ads at the bottom that is $500. This makes sense given the cost of Oakley sunglasses alone (hence the booming market in "Foakleys", cheap knock-offs), but for $500 you think you'd get at least 1 GB of space.
$100 for decent sunglasses and an MP3 player really isn't bad. Too bad they're ugly. Shouldn't stop poker players from adopting them, however...
Personally I really only wear sunglasses while driving or as a passenger in someone else's car, and just about every car's stereo system sounds better than earbuds. Plus, it's not legal to drive with headphones on (not that anyone would notice) and as a passenger it would make it difficult to communicate with the driver. I suppose they would be nice on a trip with a lot of people, where you may not be able to stand each other's taste in music, and as pointed out above, they would be nice at the poker table (at least until you want to take them off but still listen to the music).
Lead is a common byproduct of the mining of other metals. Tin and gold come to mind first. Sometimes it's even the dominant (by mass, not value) product. We're not going to stop needing gold or tin, so why not find a safe and effective use for that lead that comes out of the ground at the same time?
While this is obviously a joke, I have to wonder if there could be any consequence (positive or negative) if we were to paint all parallel-to-ground surfaces (that don't need to be a particular color) white, or perhaps use paint that doesn't re-radiate in the IR band? It might not be pretty, but if painting roofs, parking lots, and sidewalks white caused a significant reduction in trapped heat, shouldn't it at least be considered? Painting roads probably would be a disaster the first time it rains, but even there could we not use "white" concrete for the upper couple of inches instead of black asphalt?
They may indeed not have problems with their degree of consanguinity, and I can imagine that it does happen (unbeknownst to anyone) from time to time. But even a 1/8 common genetic consanguinity (first cousins) can lead to some very serious recessives being expressed, which would be unlikely to pair up with two random people. Even among first cousin marriages, the risk is about double that of two distantly related or unrelated people (4-6%, as opposed to 2-3%). This is not unreasonable, but with a 1/4 commonality, the risk is going to go up considerably more than that -- not sure if it doubles, or squares, or what exactly, but it's going to be northward of 10%, and you just might want to be paying attention at that point. I'm not arguing that it just SHOULDN'T BE DONE, but it certainly should not be dismissed as completely irrelevant either.
In California, we have had the "no smoking in bars" law for some time now, but it has a significant exemption -- if there are no "employees", only "owners", then they may choose to allow smoking. The theory is that you are protecting the workers, but the owners are on their own lookout.
I have seen this resolved in a few ways, as follows:
1. Ignore it. This doesn't fly, because I have also encountered cops just sitting and waiting for someone to light up so they can fine both them and the bar.
2. Send them all outside. This works some places, especially if they have (or can build) a fenced-in patio, or if they have an open-air inner atrium. Sometimes they even honor the spirit of the law and make sure the door stays closed when there isn't someone actively passing through it.
3. Downsize and FIRE THE EMPLOYEES. Real good move there don't you think? GRANDMA IS PROTECTED AT THE BOTTOM OF THE STAIRS. Or in one case, I saw a bar that had been a double-wide strip mall place become two single-wide places with a connecting door in between, each run by its "owners". Now if one of them allowed smoking and the other did not, I'd think this a rather elegant solution, but they BOTH allowed it.
4. Form a corporation and make the employees take some portion of their pay in shares. Now they're all owners! If they quit, the real owners buy it all back.
I think method #4 may have been eliminated by defining what stake constitutes valid ownership, and of course #1 is eliminated (eventually) by strict enforcement and large fines. Option #2 I feel to be perfectly acceptable, especially if it's a completely enclosed atrium. It keeps the "real inside" smoke-free and also lets people both drink and smoke at the same time (which you can't do without an enclosed area). It does mean the smokers are temporarily socially disconnected from the non-smokers, but that is just a necessary price to be paid. I play at several clubs that use this method and I have absolutely NO problems with smoke getting indoors. However, I have to imagine places that do this now would continue to do so without it being mandatory, because for large clubs it really does work. The smokers accept it, and the non-smokers barely even notice it's going on.
The problem is option #3, and many smaller places decide to go exactly this route. Now we've protected the workers right out of their jobs! Please tell me how this is progress. I think it would be perfectly fair to let people smoke inside buildings in specially-designated rooms that are designed for the purpose and have their own dedicated ventilation systems -- they would have to meet clean-air standards when nobody is presently smoking. This probably means hard, uncomfortable furniture and no drapes, but it still beats having to go outside in the snow (on top of Grandma).
> Now all we need is to drop the taboo with marijuana on space missions...
But not smoked (they can make brownies by the ton), for a few reasons:
1. Smoke gets everywhere, no matter what it's from. Ever cleaned a smoker's computer? Pot smoke isn't as thick and hopefully there wouldn't be as much of it as there would be with tobacco, but you will still have particulates attaching to everything in sight.
2. Secondhand smoke, and the smell. Not everyone likes these.
3. Fires on a ship in general. You're not going to set your bed on fire if you fall asleep with a brownie.
Oxygen consumption from a burning bowl or joint may or may not be a factor, if everyone is doing it. Even without this, I think the three reasons above are adequate for banning smoking, period, on board the mission.
Now if they have some sort of plans to colonize, as opposed to just visit, hemp seems like a very likely candidate to grow in a colony. It likes growing in a hydroponic environment, it can be grown to a more or less arbitrary size, and it's easy to control whether it's growing or flowering (continuous light, or 12 on and 12 off -- that's all it takes). Why not let it be THC-bearing so the crew can consume the byproducts?
Slashdot Mirror
"What's the big fucking deal bitch? It doesn't hurt anybody. Fuck fuckity fuck fuck fuck."
I mean what is anyone expected to do about it? Filter every instance of Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker and Tits, and you just have people typing in a spammier manner than before. You get Sh1t, P1ss, Fu(k, etc., and the only people who get filtered are those who are either unaware of the filters or don't realize they're swearing. You also get collateral damage, such as references to **** Cheney, or ****tail waitresses. It's fucking stupid.
Mal-2
Why is this so doubtful? Security firms have used mirrors on sticks for peering under cars for as long as I have paid attention to such things. Why couldn't they use a webcam on a stick instead? If the computer receiving the data has an idea how fast the cam is being waved around under there, it should be able to put together a pretty good 3D image, even if the webcam's resolution is fairly low. Even better if you just put cameras on some sort of crawler cart you roll under the car. Sure you could mount the cameras and roll the car over them but this doesn't work real well when you have multiple cars waiting in line to use a fixed scanner. Better to be able to take the cameras to the car, wherever it may be.
What would be more disturbing to most people -- three or four guys poring over their car with mirrors and/or cameras on sticks, or a little tray with skateboard wheels being rolled under the car for a couple seconds? (Never mind which one SHOULD disturb them more... which one actually WILL?)
Mal-2
I have to wonder if some of that isn't due to the fact that in the middle of nowhere, it takes a lot longer for help to arrive, if they come at all. This could easily be the difference between living and dying, if the victim is unconscious, bleeding, and/or trapped.
I am reminded of something a doctor said to me about car accidents (paraphrased):
"No seat belt goes to the morgue, seat belt goes to the hospital, and air bag goes home in a taxi." He did note that it's mostly the driver that is impacted by an air bag or lack thereof, though passengers can be saved a lot of injuries as well.
Mal-2
Let's face it, most any new tool is going to have military implications. Airplanes got co-opted into war quite soon after they were proven practical, but the world is a better place for having them. Conversely, rockets were developed as weapons of war, but have been essential in the (mostly peaceful) exploration of space, not to mention putting up satellites. Satellites themselves come in distinct varieties for reconnaisance use and civilian (mostly communications) use.
Most every sword has two edges. It all comes down to who is swinging it.
Mal-2
MP3s *can* sound bad, but that is almost always due to over-compression, bad settings (such as mismatched sample rates), encoders that can't handle certain conversions well, etc. I'm quite certain you can make an AAC or WMA suck just as bad. Any lossy format (audio or otherwise) can turn an input file to mush if it's set up to do that. The problem is that computers aren't smart enough to say "These settings will sound like shit. Continue? Y/N". Then the person hosting the file either has a tin ear, or has never listened to it, or perhaps just can't find any better rip, and it propagates.
Mal-2
Your brain probably doesn't have separate circuits for red and green, considering the eyes weren't separating that data, and your wiring is just a bit fossilized by now. I'm not sure fixing the receptors would fix the perception issue at this point.
Mal-2
I know everyone seems to recommend LCDs over CRTs, but I would like to point out a couple observations of my own.
1. After some time with a 17" LCD (my first), even just an hour or two, I see color fringes around printed text and other things that I know full well should be dead sharp. I have to guess this is because of the three-pixels-in-one nature of the LCD display. I get used to mentally superimposing the R, G, and B, and it's difficult to switch that off for a while. This effect does seem to be decreasing considerably as I get used to the monitor, but it has not completely vanished after a month. Turning on ClearType (it's work, I have to use Windows) does seem to help, possibly because everything looks better at a distance with ClearType enabled and I don't lean in as much. Then the angular difference of the color sub-pixels stays smaller.
2. If the default resolution of an LCD is too small for your comfort, you may be better off sticking with a flat CRT. While LCDs are wonderful at the resolution they're built to do, they don't rescale all that well and (unless the rescaling is in a neat integral ratio) will have to "fake it" in some manner. The upshot of that is that you may well find a CRT to be clearer, since it has no fixed pixel size. Also, if you aren't running the maximum resolution, you can usually crank the refresh rate up to 100 Hz, which helps eliminate a lot of the eyestrain problems induced by CRTs.
I tell people considering new monitors to go check out their LCD choice first-hand. If it turns out they don't like the native resolution for whatever reason, DON'T BUY IT! Either find one that does suit them, or stick with a CRT and its completely variable pixel size. If you DO like the native resolution, then you will probably enjoy working with that display. LCDs definitely have their advantages, if you use them as designed. They just aren't very good at doing things "out of spec", where CRTs don't really care.
Also remember that you may be used to seeing every single dot on the screen, but you're really not supposed to. You don't see every dot in print, and you can read that just fine, right? As monitor resolution increases, software will just have to accommodate the fact that locked-down pixel-based fonts have to go the way of the dodo. There are already LCD displays in excess of 150 dpi, although they're horrendously expensive, and they're only going to continue to improve (and get cheaper). The black borders between pixels on LCD panels also continue to get smaller, and there are certain optics that can be used (and eventually will be widely used) to make them disappear entirely.
Mal-2
This is /. and most of the people here are technically competent and of at least average intelligence. Many of them cannot spell their way out of a paper bag. What makes you think the general populace can spell? How do you decide what a voter MEANT if they misspell a name? Further, what if they are physically incapable of typing?
Making every vote a write-in has serious issues, which is why it hasn't been done. I fully believe that write-ins should be allowed for every office, but it should not be mandatory to write in every name. If every office allowed write-ins, we wouldn't even need "none of the above" on ballots -- just encourage people to vote for THEMSELVES if they don't like any of the candidates on the ballot. Then you have millions of people getting one vote apiece, and the point has been made.
Mal-2
Seems to me those in power place the value of the spectrum they will be able to re-sell at more than the cost of upgrading everyone. My questions are:
1. Are they right? Who gets to keep the money if they are? If it's going back into the same General Fund that the voucher money came out of, I can hardly oppose this.
2. Whose pockets are being lined? Will these vouchers only be good for buying officially sanctioned equipment from companies that paid their protection money? Given the ethics of the current administration, I would be very surprised if someone connected isn't getting a large proportion of this "free money".
Fact is, analog broadcasts are spectrum-inefficient. Digital has its drawbacks as well, namely that it does not degrade gracefully and (like commercial music) is usually compressed within an inch of its life. I see MPEG artifacting on rapid movements quite often, and it grows more annoying every time. This is not inherent to the medium, but it is the trade made by broadcasters who wish to cram three or four separate channels into their frequency band. Quantity, not quality, seems to be the American Way. We have become a nation of Coneheads -- you can argue how long ago we crossed that threshold, but it's undeniable that we did so some time ago. No longer satisfied with our 13 channels of shit on the TV to choose from, we get 500 channels of shit instead 100 well-encoded, sharp channels carrying actual content.
Mal-2
I sort of disagree here. I think what is most important is that we are on the outside of a black box trying to control what is within by sending in effectors and observing changes. Using this method, no matter how precise, we will never know what is in the box, and so will never know of all the possibilities that we are missing.
Is this a case where we should be thinking INSIDE the box? I suppose, like the state of Schroedinger's cat, we shall never know until we open the box, which we all know belongs to some Greek gal named Pandora...
Mal-2
Has anyone else noticed these look a lot like prefabricated cruise ship cabins? They too run about 3 meters on a side and contain a functional, if spartan, bathroom. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if these are just a bunch of prefab cubes stuck in a building by crane, then plastered in. At least they don't automatically come with a roommate, like crew quarters...
Mal-2
I've been told (by people who have had both) that the Foster's that is exported is of considerably higher quality than that which is kept within Australia. If this is the case, I feel extra sorry for the Aussies, as the exported stuff isn't all that great either. :) If I had to take a guess as to why this might be, I'd reckon that the higher quality beer has a somewhat better shelf life, which is useful when shipping a product globally, and the fact that it's improved is just a happy accident. Another beer I've been told tastes better exported than in its home country is Molson.
Another reason might be that it is relatively easy to blanket the homeland with advertising, but overseas they either provide a reasonably good product or nobody will choose it over the Bud and Miller and Coors. I mean why drink exotic piss beer if the local variety is easier to find and tastes about the same? I wonder what their market penetration is in places where good beer is popular.
Full disclosure notice: currently toasting New Year's with a Guinness.
Mal-2
"Quitting smoking is easy. I've done it a thousand times." -Mark Twain
If you don't know what the subject line refers to:
look no further.
Mal-2
Flash should be used sparingly, for specific purposes. If it's used for (*gasp*) FLASH to spice up presentation, and not as a means of presenting primary content, anything presented in the Flash section can be gleaned from the body text that is rendered in a standard manner. There are some things that really do work well as Flash presentations, and I'm not slamming it. I am just dissatisfied with the uses some people put it to. It's like writing letters to Grandma in a spreadsheet. Sure, you can do it, but it's still the wrong tool for the job.
Mal-2
If they could project a constant impression that they are spinning, they could explain away the "gravity" as centripetal acceleration. Assuming the "ship" is big enough that you wouldn't feel a difference between the forces at your head versus the forces at your feet, I think even clueful applicants might fall for it. The question then would be if they can make a believable projection that will hold up for days or weeks, but this is certainly a doable proposition (eventually, if not now).
Mal-2
Why, mr Officer, that's my hands-free telephone setup!
Legal in one ear, but not in both, at least in California.
Mal-2
This works for considerably longer if you use a bit of soap and water and a brush. Then try painting circles around the critters and watch them really freak out. Eventually they'll get so agitated they just cross the circle in random directions and continue darting about at double speed for a considerable time afterward.
Mal-2
Sure, one day it'll stop working because you're reaching the end of its service life, but you generally get fair warning of impending failure -- lots of smoke, burning oil, stalling, loss of power, whatever. Allocate $800 for the car, $800 to keep it duct taped together for a year or maybe more (which you don't need to have up front), and build up some money in that time. Then the next time, you either find a better cheap car (by having time to be selective) or just buy one not so old -- one you might actually be able to sell some day rather than run into the ground.
You do need to be somewhat selective, but I have bought cars for under $1000 that ran for up to two years without anything beyond basic maintenance (tires, oil changes, brakes, the things all cars use up). If you find your finances improving, you may even choose to rehabilitate your car rather than replacing it, if you think it's fundamentally sound enough. After all, why trade your (known) problems for someone else's (unknown) problems if yours aren't that bad? Besides, if you can't fix your car this week, then don't. You have to make other arrangements, but at least nobody is going to repo the car.
If you opt for the cheap car, it's probably wise to select not only on price and condition, but on pricing and availability of parts. My current car is a 1989 Subaru XT6 -- a great car to drive, and parts aren't particularly expensive, but they are hard to get (usually special order) and the engine is essentially unserviceable without being pulled. If you want to keep your $800 daily driver running without having to plan ahead, you'd be better off with a Camry or Corolla or Civic. The parts aren't any cheaper, but at least they're ubiquitous. You'd also get better mileage than I do (18/24), but I knew that going in. That's the price to be paid for the 4WD system of the day (current AWD is much less wasteful). I didn't get this car to be just another disposable item and have dumped far more money into repairs than I did into the initial purchase, so I guess I'm finally breaking out of the cycle of cheap cars at the ends of their lives.
All that said, if you just want something you don't have to worry about, you probably want a "pre-owned" car with some sort of warranty remaining. If you can't afford a new car, or don't want any of the new cars you can actually afford, this is the next best thing. Let someone else take the steepest part of the depreciation.
Mal-2
No, the reviewed item is only $100 or slightly under. It is the Oakley Thump that pops up in the ads at the bottom that is $500. This makes sense given the cost of Oakley sunglasses alone (hence the booming market in "Foakleys", cheap knock-offs), but for $500 you think you'd get at least 1 GB of space.
$100 for decent sunglasses and an MP3 player really isn't bad. Too bad they're ugly. Shouldn't stop poker players from adopting them, however...
Personally I really only wear sunglasses while driving or as a passenger in someone else's car, and just about every car's stereo system sounds better than earbuds. Plus, it's not legal to drive with headphones on (not that anyone would notice) and as a passenger it would make it difficult to communicate with the driver. I suppose they would be nice on a trip with a lot of people, where you may not be able to stand each other's taste in music, and as pointed out above, they would be nice at the poker table (at least until you want to take them off but still listen to the music).
Mal-2
Lead is a common byproduct of the mining of other metals. Tin and gold come to mind first. Sometimes it's even the dominant (by mass, not value) product. We're not going to stop needing gold or tin, so why not find a safe and effective use for that lead that comes out of the ground at the same time?
Mal-2
While this is obviously a joke, I have to wonder if there could be any consequence (positive or negative) if we were to paint all parallel-to-ground surfaces (that don't need to be a particular color) white, or perhaps use paint that doesn't re-radiate in the IR band? It might not be pretty, but if painting roofs, parking lots, and sidewalks white caused a significant reduction in trapped heat, shouldn't it at least be considered? Painting roads probably would be a disaster the first time it rains, but even there could we not use "white" concrete for the upper couple of inches instead of black asphalt?
Mal-2
They may indeed not have problems with their degree of consanguinity, and I can imagine that it does happen (unbeknownst to anyone) from time to time. But even a 1/8 common genetic consanguinity (first cousins) can lead to some very serious recessives being expressed, which would be unlikely to pair up with two random people. Even among first cousin marriages, the risk is about double that of two distantly related or unrelated people (4-6%, as opposed to 2-3%). This is not unreasonable, but with a 1/4 commonality, the risk is going to go up considerably more than that -- not sure if it doubles, or squares, or what exactly, but it's going to be northward of 10%, and you just might want to be paying attention at that point. I'm not arguing that it just SHOULDN'T BE DONE, but it certainly should not be dismissed as completely irrelevant either.
Mal-2
Would it really matter if you're biological father/mother was someone else instead of your real (ie the one who have raised you) father/mother?
Wouldn't you want to make sure you're not in love with your half-sister? In that sense, your biological parentage matters a great deal.
Mal-2
In California, we have had the "no smoking in bars" law for some time now, but it has a significant exemption -- if there are no "employees", only "owners", then they may choose to allow smoking. The theory is that you are protecting the workers, but the owners are on their own lookout.
I have seen this resolved in a few ways, as follows:
1. Ignore it. This doesn't fly, because I have also encountered cops just sitting and waiting for someone to light up so they can fine both them and the bar.
2. Send them all outside. This works some places, especially if they have (or can build) a fenced-in patio, or if they have an open-air inner atrium. Sometimes they even honor the spirit of the law and make sure the door stays closed when there isn't someone actively passing through it.
3. Downsize and FIRE THE EMPLOYEES. Real good move there don't you think? GRANDMA IS PROTECTED AT THE BOTTOM OF THE STAIRS. Or in one case, I saw a bar that had been a double-wide strip mall place become two single-wide places with a connecting door in between, each run by its "owners". Now if one of them allowed smoking and the other did not, I'd think this a rather elegant solution, but they BOTH allowed it.
4. Form a corporation and make the employees take some portion of their pay in shares. Now they're all owners! If they quit, the real owners buy it all back.
I think method #4 may have been eliminated by defining what stake constitutes valid ownership, and of course #1 is eliminated (eventually) by strict enforcement and large fines. Option #2 I feel to be perfectly acceptable, especially if it's a completely enclosed atrium. It keeps the "real inside" smoke-free and also lets people both drink and smoke at the same time (which you can't do without an enclosed area). It does mean the smokers are temporarily socially disconnected from the non-smokers, but that is just a necessary price to be paid. I play at several clubs that use this method and I have absolutely NO problems with smoke getting indoors. However, I have to imagine places that do this now would continue to do so without it being mandatory, because for large clubs it really does work. The smokers accept it, and the non-smokers barely even notice it's going on.
The problem is option #3, and many smaller places decide to go exactly this route. Now we've protected the workers right out of their jobs! Please tell me how this is progress. I think it would be perfectly fair to let people smoke inside buildings in specially-designated rooms that are designed for the purpose and have their own dedicated ventilation systems -- they would have to meet clean-air standards when nobody is presently smoking. This probably means hard, uncomfortable furniture and no drapes, but it still beats having to go outside in the snow (on top of Grandma).
Mal-2
> Now all we need is to drop the taboo with marijuana on space missions...
But not smoked (they can make brownies by the ton), for a few reasons:
1. Smoke gets everywhere, no matter what it's from. Ever cleaned a smoker's computer? Pot smoke isn't as thick and hopefully there wouldn't be as much of it as there would be with tobacco, but you will still have particulates attaching to everything in sight.
2. Secondhand smoke, and the smell. Not everyone likes these.
3. Fires on a ship in general. You're not going to set your bed on fire if you fall asleep with a brownie.
Oxygen consumption from a burning bowl or joint may or may not be a factor, if everyone is doing it. Even without this, I think the three reasons above are adequate for banning smoking, period, on board the mission.
Now if they have some sort of plans to colonize, as opposed to just visit, hemp seems like a very likely candidate to grow in a colony. It likes growing in a hydroponic environment, it can be grown to a more or less arbitrary size, and it's easy to control whether it's growing or flowering (continuous light, or 12 on and 12 off -- that's all it takes). Why not let it be THC-bearing so the crew can consume the byproducts?
Mal-2