The problem is that for firearms you need metal for the part that handles the bullet and the hot gasses in exess of 2000 degress K. So the idea that one can print ALL the components needed for a firearm is ridiculous. You can print the composite parts that do not see much heat but where the bullet goes will need machining not printing.
If that will help you sleep at night go on believing it. In reality, though, other than a barrel, which is not controlled by the ATF, you don't need any machining. It is the barrel which is subject to heat and needs cooling, not the receiver which contains the loading and firing mechanism.
Don't get me wrong, this is a really bad idea. Until now, most at home users could make zip guns which weren't accurate past a few feet. These receivers, however, are fitted with real barrels and are every bit as lethal as commercial made guns. For a two to three thousand dollar investment, you can start cranking out all the receivers you want. Just add your own stock and barrells and nobody is the wiser.
I hope he has a lot of liability insurance. Just think if somebody uses his 3D plot and builds their gun and their is a flaw and it causes bodily harm. Even the real manufacturers worry about that and figure it into the price of their firearms.
What TW is actually saying is that there is no consumer demand for gigabit internet at the price they want to charge for it. And, since cable companies are effective monopolies in the communities they serve, that means there is no consumer demand, because nobody else can step in to provide it.
Writing programs to serve biologists is cool as far as it goes, but our collaboration should cut much deeper. The genetic code is a programming language, and we should help biologists figure out the structure of the programs written in the alphabet of the bases. What I really want is the Emacs mode to edit the genome, so I can give myself a prehensile tail.
Of course, if he is correct and the genetic code is a programming language, then genome is merely various algorithms combined to express various desired traits. And as we have been told over and over again, algorithms cannot be patented, so this would be doomed to fail because there is no money to be made.
No, Google is not a utility, nor is facebook or bing or any other internet service. On the other hand, your ISP is and should be treated like a utility. They provide a communication service just like the telephone company does and should have the same consumer safeguards. In the internet age, your connection/access to the internet is every bit as vital your connection/access to the power grid and communication grid and should be treated accordingly.
However, just like the utility company doesn't have a say as to what you do with their electricity, they only supply it, the ISP shouldn't either. If you want to use Google's services, that is up to you. If you want to use somebody else's that is up to you, too.
Now an interesting thing about ISPs being a utility is that both you and Google are using that utility. Just like I can choose my long distance provider separate from my local phone company, both come across the same connection provided by the local company and the long distance provider pays the local company for that access. Of course, the LD provider charges me for that and includes it in the fee. So both ends of the line (me, the consumer and the LD provider) pay for access.
Google, OTOH, doesn't charge me direct, but sells my information to others. That is their prerogative, but doesn't mean they should pay for their use of the access to defray the cost to the consumer.
Treating the ISP as a utility won't cost consumers anything extra. It may mean that Google's costs go up, which means what they charge others for my information goes up, but that is just the true cost of what they are doing.
If the auditor's report shows that illegal activity took place in the awarding of the contract then the AG's office should charge somebody and fine Cisco. Otherwise, it sounds like the findings are more about political gain versus illegal activity.
People forget what it was like prior to the internet when you went to your neighbors for dinner and they brought out the slide projector or 8mm projector to show vacation pictures or their child's play or recitle, etc. We all sat through those dreadful slide shows and movies, being polite, but face it, nobody really cares about your life, at least not as much as you think they do. They may care about you, but not every detail of what you do. Your grandparents understood this. They had a picture or two of key events to hold the memory. Memories are important, not documentaries.
Your criticism is for something that was built 70 years ago, was the first of it type, when they had no idea what they were doing?
No, my criticsm is to point out to the OP that his "tested technology like nuclear" has its own share of problems and isn't without cost, the biggest being what to do with the spent fuel rods. The OP was opining that these "new technologies" like wind farms don't pan out and just waste his tax dollars.
As for them not knowing what they were doing, well, these were the guys from the Manhattan project, the top scientists in their field. I'm pretty sure they knew what they were doing, even with the storage tanks. At least I hope so, because it is the same basic method used today and if it is faulty, well, then there are a lot bigger problems to worry about.
... and pretty soon you've got some trust-fund asshole in dreadlocks screaming that you must be a plant from Big Oil.
I don't know if Keith is owned by big oil, but he is president of Carbon Engineering which has ties to the oil industry on the green house gas side of the equation. As to whether that makes his opinion biased or not, that is up to the reader, but he has been an outspoken climate scientist for a long time and has the respect of the scientific community.
Some lessons are just best learned the hard way. I just wish they could be learned without wasting my tax dollars on more unrealistic schemes that are going to amount to little, if anything, useful in the end. I'd rather see at least some tax money going to tested technology, like nuclear, that really DOES have great unrealized potential.
Here's a thought. If having Microsoft being in charge of providing the key as to who gets to boot or not is such a good idea, then it would make just as much sense to have Apple be in charge of the key or even Redhat. Would Microsoft be willing to put Redhat in control of key signing into their kernel? Probably not. Then why should the linux kernel be subjected to Microsoft's control?
Torvalds is correct on this. It is unfortunate in the way he articulated it, because instead of reasoned argument, it comes across as a flaming rant.
If we can't stop the meteor, then what is the point? I mean - it is like being told you'll be shot in the face the second before it happens.
Because all of the money being poured into defense contractors by the government that is being forced to cut defense spending can now be poured into the same companies to protect us from meteors. Since there is no longer a geo-political threat to sustain cold war spending, we now need a new threat.
In other words, until a proper study is conducted, you cannot claim the bags are the source of the transmission, nor can you claim the bags are not the source of the transmission.
And how many more people have to die while you do your studies to determine what is quite obviously caused by re-usable bags. Did we have the problems before these bans? No. Do we have the problems after the bans? Yes.
At the very least, we should lift the bans while we perform these studies.
After all, some of the people who are dying are CHILDREN! Or they could be! We have to do something!
(This is not meant to be a troll, this is meant to be humorous)
As many have pointed out, there are places that have these bans and do not have the problem. Surely you are not suggesting implementing a solution for a problem that we don't actually know what the cause is, are you? It could very well be the bags. It could also very well be transmitted through a packing house. There were outbreaks of food born illnesses long before there were bans on plastic bags.
In the midwest part of the US, last year, there was a salmonella outbreak and none of those states have bans on plastic bags. It turns out it came in on produce from another state. Likewise, what if the bags themself aren't the problem but the conveyer belt system at the grocery store? It wouldn't matter what type of bag is used as the contamination is occurring before it is place in the bag. However, since disposable bags are banned, it would appear that the problem is the reusable bag and the costly endeavor to return to disposable would be ineffective.
So, instead of assuming that the cause is from the bags and the fix is to get rid of the bags, would it not make more sense to find out what the real cause is? Then, even if the cause turns out to be the reusable bags, simple periodic washing of them (by hand or machine) reduces the bacterial load by 99.9% virtually eliminating the possibility of cross-contamination, so the solution may be as simple as throwing the bag into the laundry versus going back to plastic.
Yes. The study only counted cultures that were grown from swabs of the bag. They were viable, transferable bacteria.
You misunderstand my post. I am basically agreeing with you except that in this specific case, the bacteria that seems to be causing the illness is C. difficile enterocolitis and the study quoted didn't test for that so based on the study one cannot say that the bags are the source of the C. difficile enterocolitis bacteria.
That said, given the results of the study, it is likely to hypothesize that C. difficile enterocolitis would be transmitted in the same manner as the bacteria found in the bags. It is also likely to come to the same conclusion that washing the bags (either machine or hand) would reduce the bacteria load by >99.9% as it did for the samples studied.
So, the study you presented shows that cross-contamination occurs quite easily in re-usable bags. It also shows that it can be prevented by simply washing the bags. It does not, however, show that re-usable bags are the cause of the C. difficile enterocolitis outbreak as it wasn't designed to detect that. It does imply, however, that if C. difficile enterocolitis is present, it will cross-contaminate other items in the bag as that process is really dependent on the type of bacteria.
If that's the case, there are several ways for bacteria to end up on the packaging regardless of how they are bagged at the register.
Which is true, however, one does not intentionally swim in a sewer just because there are numerous ways for E. coli to end up on the packaging, either. The whole idea behind food safety is to try and eliminate the common causes of transmission to minimize the risk.
Of course, let's add to the federal deficit some more by funding another useless study. Never mind that it makes perfect sense that reusable bags could harbor and spread of germs. The fact that in neighboring counties there is no jump in disease, where there is no plastic bag prohibition, is indicative that there is truth to this germ spreading allegation of reusable shopping bags. Common sense will tell most people that, but then common sense isn't all that common anymore.
But in Europe, where reusable bags are in use, there has also been an increase in C.difficle enterocolitis. The facts in this case are a 46% jump in food born disease, which has been fatal in infants and the elderly. What hasn't been established and only hypothesized is the source of contamination is reusable bags. It is the 46% jump in the disease that warrants the study as it is a health concern. As part of that study, one would look at the source of transmission.
As the epidemiologists have been saying without a proper study you cannot point to the bags as the source of contamination nor can you rule them out. Common sense would tell most people that, too.
The rest of Europe too. Bags are mostly banned there but the population isn't dropping like flies.
This study is flawed, methinks.
Actually, most of Europe has a big problem with C. difficile enterocolitis, so it is quite possible that reusable bags could be a common source of transmission. Read carefully what the epidemiologists are saying. They are not saying that the bags are not the cause of this. They are saying that there isn't the proper data to determine if the bags are the cause of it. In other words, until a proper study is conducted, you cannot claim the bags are the source of the transmission, nor can you claim the bags are not the source of the transmission.
To paraphrase Schrodinger "Until a valid study is done, the bag is and is not the source of the transmission."
In Ireland that didn't happen when they introduced a levy on plastic bags years ago and their usage plummeted. Might I humbly suggest the cause lies elsewhere? Such as the original food quality. [insert nauseating overused quote about correlation!=causality]
That is true, but then C. difficile enterocolitis wasn't spreading through Europe and the US until relatively recently. So, Ireland might not have had the problem because C. difficile enterocolitis wasn't a problem, not because it wasn't possible to transmit it via reusable bags.
Aren't most products individually packaged, anyway? Even if you're using reusable bags to carry your groceries, even your produce is likely in individual plastic bags found all over the produce aisles. I don't think I've seen any actual food directly touch any grocery bags (plastic or otherwise) in MANY years. What the hell?
If the bacteria is transferred to the packaging and from the packaging to you it doesn't really matter if the contents are sealed or not. Think of MRSA that spreads through hospitals. You don't have to come into direct contact with the patient, just something that came into contact with the patient.
This would be extremely easy to test. If the hypothesis is that the reusable bags are not being cleaned and carrying the bacteria, then the department of health can show up at various grocery stores and various days and randomly swab bags of people entering the store with reusable bags. If there is a statistically notable percentage of contaminated bags, then there is a link. If not, then there is not.
It matters not how the bacteria is first transmitted to the bag, just that the bag can then transmit it to the food. Of course, as a follow up, it would be interesting to find the transfer point, because if the food is already contaminated, then plastic/paper/reusable won't make a difference. That's probably why your mother always told you to wash your fruits and vegetables before using them.
There is almost no correlation between this story headline and the actual content Aaron wrote. Among other things Aaron wrote:
I want to make it crystal clear that I think Ubuntu Phone a great thing to see; more Free software mobile efforts, particularly ones using Qt/QML, warm my insides like a good bowl of soup on a cold winter's night
So then the question becomes "Why is this false story being posted on slashdot?" Is it that the OP wants to slander KDE or Ubuntu or maybe slashdot itself? We all regularly complain about mainstream media and yellow journalism, so how come slashdot isn't doing something about this story?
Slashdot Mirror
The problem is that for firearms you need metal for the part that handles the bullet and the hot gasses in exess of 2000 degress K . So the idea that one can print ALL the components needed for a firearm is ridiculous. You can print the composite parts that do not see much heat but where the bullet goes will need machining not printing.
If that will help you sleep at night go on believing it. In reality, though, other than a barrel, which is not controlled by the ATF, you don't need any machining. It is the barrel which is subject to heat and needs cooling, not the receiver which contains the loading and firing mechanism.
Don't get me wrong, this is a really bad idea. Until now, most at home users could make zip guns which weren't accurate past a few feet. These receivers, however, are fitted with real barrels and are every bit as lethal as commercial made guns. For a two to three thousand dollar investment, you can start cranking out all the receivers you want. Just add your own stock and barrells and nobody is the wiser.
I hope he has a lot of liability insurance. Just think if somebody uses his 3D plot and builds their gun and their is a flaw and it causes bodily harm. Even the real manufacturers worry about that and figure it into the price of their firearms.
We don't want speed (it's already quite fast), we want higher monthly consummation limits.
My wife and I consummate all the time, without limit. Maybe you need a different partner.
What TW is actually saying is that there is no consumer demand for gigabit internet at the price they want to charge for it. And, since cable companies are effective monopolies in the communities they serve, that means there is no consumer demand, because nobody else can step in to provide it.
Writing programs to serve biologists is cool as far as it goes, but our collaboration should cut much deeper. The genetic code is a programming language, and we should help biologists figure out the structure of the programs written in the alphabet of the bases. What I really want is the Emacs mode to edit the genome, so I can give myself a prehensile tail.
Of course, if he is correct and the genetic code is a programming language, then genome is merely various algorithms combined to express various desired traits. And as we have been told over and over again, algorithms cannot be patented, so this would be doomed to fail because there is no money to be made.
No, Google is not a utility, nor is facebook or bing or any other internet service. On the other hand, your ISP is and should be treated like a utility. They provide a communication service just like the telephone company does and should have the same consumer safeguards. In the internet age, your connection/access to the internet is every bit as vital your connection/access to the power grid and communication grid and should be treated accordingly.
However, just like the utility company doesn't have a say as to what you do with their electricity, they only supply it, the ISP shouldn't either. If you want to use Google's services, that is up to you. If you want to use somebody else's that is up to you, too.
Now an interesting thing about ISPs being a utility is that both you and Google are using that utility. Just like I can choose my long distance provider separate from my local phone company, both come across the same connection provided by the local company and the long distance provider pays the local company for that access. Of course, the LD provider charges me for that and includes it in the fee. So both ends of the line (me, the consumer and the LD provider) pay for access.
Google, OTOH, doesn't charge me direct, but sells my information to others. That is their prerogative, but doesn't mean they should pay for their use of the access to defray the cost to the consumer.
Treating the ISP as a utility won't cost consumers anything extra. It may mean that Google's costs go up, which means what they charge others for my information goes up, but that is just the true cost of what they are doing.
If the auditor's report shows that illegal activity took place in the awarding of the contract then the AG's office should charge somebody and fine Cisco. Otherwise, it sounds like the findings are more about political gain versus illegal activity.
People forget what it was like prior to the internet when you went to your neighbors for dinner and they brought out the slide projector or 8mm projector to show vacation pictures or their child's play or recitle, etc. We all sat through those dreadful slide shows and movies, being polite, but face it, nobody really cares about your life, at least not as much as you think they do. They may care about you, but not every detail of what you do. Your grandparents understood this. They had a picture or two of key events to hold the memory. Memories are important, not documentaries.
Your criticism is for something that was built 70 years ago, was the first of it type, when they had no idea what they were doing?
No, my criticsm is to point out to the OP that his "tested technology like nuclear" has its own share of problems and isn't without cost, the biggest being what to do with the spent fuel rods. The OP was opining that these "new technologies" like wind farms don't pan out and just waste his tax dollars.
As for them not knowing what they were doing, well, these were the guys from the Manhattan project, the top scientists in their field. I'm pretty sure they knew what they were doing, even with the storage tanks. At least I hope so, because it is the same basic method used today and if it is faulty, well, then there are a lot bigger problems to worry about.
... and pretty soon you've got some trust-fund asshole in dreadlocks screaming that you must be a plant from Big Oil.
I don't know if Keith is owned by big oil, but he is president of Carbon Engineering which has ties to the oil industry on the green house gas side of the equation. As to whether that makes his opinion biased or not, that is up to the reader, but he has been an outspoken climate scientist for a long time and has the respect of the scientific community.
Some lessons are just best learned the hard way. I just wish they could be learned without wasting my tax dollars on more unrealistic schemes that are going to amount to little, if anything, useful in the end. I'd rather see at least some tax money going to tested technology, like nuclear, that really DOES have great unrealized potential.
It appears that you got your wish and a lot of your tax money is going to be going towards nuclear after all: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/23/us/underground-nuclear-tanks-leaking-in-washington-state.html
Here's a thought. If having Microsoft being in charge of providing the key as to who gets to boot or not is such a good idea, then it would make just as much sense to have Apple be in charge of the key or even Redhat. Would Microsoft be willing to put Redhat in control of key signing into their kernel? Probably not. Then why should the linux kernel be subjected to Microsoft's control?
Torvalds is correct on this. It is unfortunate in the way he articulated it, because instead of reasoned argument, it comes across as a flaming rant.
If we can't stop the meteor, then what is the point? I mean - it is like being told you'll be shot in the face the second before it happens.
Because all of the money being poured into defense contractors by the government that is being forced to cut defense spending can now be poured into the same companies to protect us from meteors. Since there is no longer a geo-political threat to sustain cold war spending, we now need a new threat.
Wouldn't that really be the largest exoplutoid found?
And how many more people have to die while you do your studies to determine what is quite obviously caused by re-usable bags. Did we have the problems before these bans? No. Do we have the problems after the bans? Yes.
At the very least, we should lift the bans while we perform these studies.
After all, some of the people who are dying are CHILDREN! Or they could be! We have to do something!
(This is not meant to be a troll, this is meant to be humorous)
As many have pointed out, there are places that have these bans and do not have the problem. Surely you are not suggesting implementing a solution for a problem that we don't actually know what the cause is, are you? It could very well be the bags. It could also very well be transmitted through a packing house. There were outbreaks of food born illnesses long before there were bans on plastic bags.
In the midwest part of the US, last year, there was a salmonella outbreak and none of those states have bans on plastic bags. It turns out it came in on produce from another state. Likewise, what if the bags themself aren't the problem but the conveyer belt system at the grocery store? It wouldn't matter what type of bag is used as the contamination is occurring before it is place in the bag. However, since disposable bags are banned, it would appear that the problem is the reusable bag and the costly endeavor to return to disposable would be ineffective.
So, instead of assuming that the cause is from the bags and the fix is to get rid of the bags, would it not make more sense to find out what the real cause is? Then, even if the cause turns out to be the reusable bags, simple periodic washing of them (by hand or machine) reduces the bacterial load by 99.9% virtually eliminating the possibility of cross-contamination, so the solution may be as simple as throwing the bag into the laundry versus going back to plastic.
PS. The actual bacteria in question is C. difficile. It is causing an outbreak of enterocolitis, thus being called C. difficile enterocolitis.
Yes. The study only counted cultures that were grown from swabs of the bag. They were viable, transferable bacteria.
You misunderstand my post. I am basically agreeing with you except that in this specific case, the bacteria that seems to be causing the illness is C. difficile enterocolitis and the study quoted didn't test for that so based on the study one cannot say that the bags are the source of the C. difficile enterocolitis bacteria.
That said, given the results of the study, it is likely to hypothesize that C. difficile enterocolitis would be transmitted in the same manner as the bacteria found in the bags. It is also likely to come to the same conclusion that washing the bags (either machine or hand) would reduce the bacteria load by >99.9% as it did for the samples studied.
So, the study you presented shows that cross-contamination occurs quite easily in re-usable bags. It also shows that it can be prevented by simply washing the bags. It does not, however, show that re-usable bags are the cause of the C. difficile enterocolitis outbreak as it wasn't designed to detect that. It does imply, however, that if C. difficile enterocolitis is present, it will cross-contaminate other items in the bag as that process is really dependent on the type of bacteria.
If that's the case, there are several ways for bacteria to end up on the packaging regardless of how they are bagged at the register.
Which is true, however, one does not intentionally swim in a sewer just because there are numerous ways for E. coli to end up on the packaging, either. The whole idea behind food safety is to try and eliminate the common causes of transmission to minimize the risk.
Already tested:
http://www.llu.edu/public-health/news/news-grocery-bags-bacteria.page
Surprise! The bags are filthy.
No doubt they are filthy. The question is are they transmitting the specific bacteria in question?
Of course, let's add to the federal deficit some more by funding another useless study. Never mind that it makes perfect sense that reusable bags could harbor and spread of germs. The fact that in neighboring counties there is no jump in disease, where there is no plastic bag prohibition, is indicative that there is truth to this germ spreading allegation of reusable shopping bags. Common sense will tell most people that, but then common sense isn't all that common anymore.
But in Europe, where reusable bags are in use, there has also been an increase in C.difficle enterocolitis. The facts in this case are a 46% jump in food born disease, which has been fatal in infants and the elderly. What hasn't been established and only hypothesized is the source of contamination is reusable bags. It is the 46% jump in the disease that warrants the study as it is a health concern. As part of that study, one would look at the source of transmission.
As the epidemiologists have been saying without a proper study you cannot point to the bags as the source of contamination nor can you rule them out. Common sense would tell most people that, too.
The rest of Europe too. Bags are mostly banned there but the population isn't dropping like flies.
This study is flawed, methinks.
Actually, most of Europe has a big problem with C. difficile enterocolitis, so it is quite possible that reusable bags could be a common source of transmission. Read carefully what the epidemiologists are saying. They are not saying that the bags are not the cause of this. They are saying that there isn't the proper data to determine if the bags are the cause of it. In other words, until a proper study is conducted, you cannot claim the bags are the source of the transmission, nor can you claim the bags are not the source of the transmission.
To paraphrase Schrodinger "Until a valid study is done, the bag is and is not the source of the transmission."
In Ireland that didn't happen when they introduced a levy on plastic bags years ago and their usage plummeted.
Might I humbly suggest the cause lies elsewhere? Such as the original food quality. [insert nauseating overused quote about correlation!=causality]
That is true, but then C. difficile enterocolitis wasn't spreading through Europe and the US until relatively recently. So, Ireland might not have had the problem because C. difficile enterocolitis wasn't a problem, not because it wasn't possible to transmit it via reusable bags.
Aren't most products individually packaged, anyway? Even if you're using reusable bags to carry your groceries, even your produce is likely in individual plastic bags found all over the produce aisles. I don't think I've seen any actual food directly touch any grocery bags (plastic or otherwise) in MANY years. What the hell?
If the bacteria is transferred to the packaging and from the packaging to you it doesn't really matter if the contents are sealed or not. Think of MRSA that spreads through hospitals. You don't have to come into direct contact with the patient, just something that came into contact with the patient.
This would be extremely easy to test. If the hypothesis is that the reusable bags are not being cleaned and carrying the bacteria, then the department of health can show up at various grocery stores and various days and randomly swab bags of people entering the store with reusable bags. If there is a statistically notable percentage of contaminated bags, then there is a link. If not, then there is not.
It matters not how the bacteria is first transmitted to the bag, just that the bag can then transmit it to the food. Of course, as a follow up, it would be interesting to find the transfer point, because if the food is already contaminated, then plastic/paper/reusable won't make a difference. That's probably why your mother always told you to wash your fruits and vegetables before using them.
So then the question becomes "Why is this false story being posted on slashdot?"
Well, if you took the trouble to do such an unorthodox thing as reading the article, you might find out. Try it, it's only a few paragraphs.
I did read it and that is why it begs the question. What is slashdot's motiviation in promoting this particular controversy?
There is almost no correlation between this story headline and the actual content Aaron wrote. Among other things Aaron wrote:
So then the question becomes "Why is this false story being posted on slashdot?" Is it that the OP wants to slander KDE or Ubuntu or maybe slashdot itself? We all regularly complain about mainstream media and yellow journalism, so how come slashdot isn't doing something about this story?