I'm not the least bit surprised. What else to expect from the same Bill Gates that has done so much to privatize and monopolize the commons that was computer software.
My view is that BP's positioning is just a big PR stunt.
The money amounts are fairly modest, BP is still drilling for more oil, and they seem to spend an inordinate amount of resources trumpeting themselves.
It's called flip flopping and indicates a probable lie. A few days ago their PR image was hurting, so they said whatever was needed to make it look good again. When they revise it so soon after adopting it, it certainly makes one wonder if they ever intended to go through with it in the first place.
Then stay out of the stock market. Countries are much easier to rank, so they could buy the public debt of countries. There's also municipal debt that can be purchased.
"I've never heard of naked eye reliable observation that Venus changes size, so thanks for the tip (I teach a conceptual astro course, this would be an interesting tidbit)."
I have no idea if people knew it was anything more than a dot before the telescope was invented. It is possible to make out the shape with the naked eye (usually a thin crescent, at least when it's visible and not obscured by the sun's glare), but I'm not sure if people realized it before the telescope was invented. It isn't exactly a large object and is around the limit of what the eye can resolve.
"Consider that a federal judge recently ruled that virtual porn is not the same thing as real porn and even extended that down to child porn!"
Considering that the only reason child porn is illegal is because some child had to be violated to produce it, virtual child porn definitely should be legal. At the very least it will make breathing room for more mainstream porn as all the attention gets drawn there.
Violence against humans is far rarer in real life than in video games.
In real life, you die once (hopefully many years from now) and most people kill exactly zero other people. In some video games (pretty much any FPS game), you kill a person or creature every few seconds.
I'm against this law, but only on 1st Amendment grounds.
Why shouldn't they be seeing that movie? In my book, it's a pretty good movie and I certainly would rather my kids watch that then a movie like Road Trip that glorifies immoral behavior.
Who gets a $525 gift card? The biggest I've ever seen is a $50 and the biggest I've ever been given is a $10 one (which I refused to use since I was and still am boycotting the store it was for).
"Streaming divx/mpeg1/2 just isn't viable and none of those are technicially open source anyhow!"
They might not be free, but they are open source (well, DIVX isn't, but XVID is as is MPEG1 and MPEG2). In countries that don't recognize software patents (like in Europe?), the formats are free too.
The results from computer models show that it just isn't true. The effect of global warming will be larger than any effect from the disruption of the warm water current.
"No, it is the opposite (which may seem counterintutive, since many things dissolve better in hot water)."
It seems highly intuitive to me. Gases have more entropy than liquids, while solids have less entropy than liquids, so it seems common sense to me that they will usually respond in the opposite way to heating the liquid.
It does seem that many people make this mistake, but I fail to see why.
Gasses become less soluble in warmer water. That's why you get bubbles when heating a pot of water even before the water reaches boiling. Those bubbles are O2, N2, and CO2 (among other gases) that were dissolved in the water.
It still doesn't fit in with the observed motions of the other planets. Why would Mercury never stray far from the Sun if it's going around the Earth? Why does Venus get larger and smaller as it moves around?
A good theory fits all data, not just a little bit of cherry picked data.
"All that Kyoto buys is more coal-powered plants for third world nations."
Those coal plants being built in China are going to be built Kyoto or no Kyoto. If anything, if Kyoto reductions are achieved by reducing fossil fuel usage, it will make gas and oil cheaper and will help make renewable energy more mainstream, so China might be a little less inclined to burn coal when it realizes its citizens are choking in the exhaust.
So sad yet so true. I still remember seeing the replicator on Star Trek: TNG as a kid and thinking about how it could solve all of the world's material problems. That was before I was old enough to know that things like copyrights and trademarks existed, no less DRM.
Well, Flash never plays on my system, while WMV might or might not depending on how old a version it is (usually doesn't). I haven't even been able to download a video from You Tube, no less actually manage to play it.
Now if it could be released in MPEG1, MPEG2, xvid/divx, or some other format that I can easily get an open source decoder for, then I might be able to view it.
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I'm not the least bit surprised. What else to expect from the same Bill Gates that has done so much to privatize and monopolize the commons that was computer software.
My view is that BP's positioning is just a big PR stunt.
The money amounts are fairly modest, BP is still drilling for more oil, and they seem to spend an inordinate amount of resources trumpeting themselves.
It's called flip flopping and indicates a probable lie. A few days ago their PR image was hurting, so they said whatever was needed to make it look good again. When they revise it so soon after adopting it, it certainly makes one wonder if they ever intended to go through with it in the first place.
Then stay out of the stock market. Countries are much easier to rank, so they could buy the public debt of countries. There's also municipal debt that can be purchased.
Since the parent says he reformatted to get rid of the crapware, I'm guessing it's a retail copy of MS Windows.
"I've never heard of naked eye reliable observation that Venus changes size, so thanks for the tip (I teach a conceptual astro course, this would be an interesting tidbit)."
I have no idea if people knew it was anything more than a dot before the telescope was invented. It is possible to make out the shape with the naked eye (usually a thin crescent, at least when it's visible and not obscured by the sun's glare), but I'm not sure if people realized it before the telescope was invented. It isn't exactly a large object and is around the limit of what the eye can resolve.
"Consider that a federal judge recently ruled that virtual porn is not the same thing as real porn and even extended that down to child porn!"
Considering that the only reason child porn is illegal is because some child had to be violated to produce it, virtual child porn definitely should be legal. At the very least it will make breathing room for more mainstream porn as all the attention gets drawn there.
Violence against humans is far rarer in real life than in video games.
In real life, you die once (hopefully many years from now) and most people kill exactly zero other people. In some video games (pretty much any FPS game), you kill a person or creature every few seconds.
I'm against this law, but only on 1st Amendment grounds.
Why shouldn't they be seeing that movie? In my book, it's a pretty good movie and I certainly would rather my kids watch that then a movie like Road Trip that glorifies immoral behavior.
You would think that would be illegal under the Sherman Antitrust Act?
PS: What ever happened to that law? I don't hear about it much these days.
I wouldn't care if there wasn't DRM and blanks were a buck a dozen, but that is not the case, so I do care about discs getting ruined.
Who gets a $525 gift card? The biggest I've ever seen is a $50 and the biggest I've ever been given is a $10 one (which I refused to use since I was and still am boycotting the store it was for).
For those of us who would rather do creative stuff without having to worry about feeding and clothing themselves, it would be a godsend.
Manual labor isn't the only thing people can do, and most would rather not do it.
"Streaming divx/mpeg1/2 just isn't viable and none of those are technicially open source anyhow!"
They might not be free, but they are open source (well, DIVX isn't, but XVID is as is MPEG1 and MPEG2). In countries that don't recognize software patents (like in Europe?), the formats are free too.
The results from computer models show that it just isn't true. The effect of global warming will be larger than any effect from the disruption of the warm water current.
"No, it is the opposite (which may seem counterintutive, since many things dissolve better in hot water)."
It seems highly intuitive to me. Gases have more entropy than liquids, while solids have less entropy than liquids, so it seems common sense to me that they will usually respond in the opposite way to heating the liquid.
It does seem that many people make this mistake, but I fail to see why.
Gasses become less soluble in warmer water. That's why you get bubbles when heating a pot of water even before the water reaches boiling. Those bubbles are O2, N2, and CO2 (among other gases) that were dissolved in the water.
It still doesn't fit in with the observed motions of the other planets. Why would Mercury never stray far from the Sun if it's going around the Earth? Why does Venus get larger and smaller as it moves around?
A good theory fits all data, not just a little bit of cherry picked data.
"All that Kyoto buys is more coal-powered plants for third world nations."
Those coal plants being built in China are going to be built Kyoto or no Kyoto. If anything, if Kyoto reductions are achieved by reducing fossil fuel usage, it will make gas and oil cheaper and will help make renewable energy more mainstream, so China might be a little less inclined to burn coal when it realizes its citizens are choking in the exhaust.
"China is said to be bringing one "city sized" coal fired plant online every three weeks"
I've been hearing that China built 117 licensed (and plenty more unapproved and not recorded) coal plants in 2006, or about one every 3 days.
And at $1.08 a pop, I'd rather just buy another cheap toy than put the effort needed to make my own.
However, it would be neat for things like plastic building blocks, where you could make just the piece you need.
So sad yet so true. I still remember seeing the replicator on Star Trek: TNG as a kid and thinking about how it could solve all of the world's material problems. That was before I was old enough to know that things like copyrights and trademarks existed, no less DRM.
Couldn't one use an 80386 emulator and run the 32 bit player using that and WINE?
Not that I would recommend that, as it would be very, very slow even.
Well, Flash never plays on my system, while WMV might or might not depending on how old a version it is (usually doesn't). I haven't even been able to download a video from You Tube, no less actually manage to play it.
Now if it could be released in MPEG1, MPEG2, xvid/divx, or some other format that I can easily get an open source decoder for, then I might be able to view it.
Well, on sealand land is not plentiful by any stretch of the imagination.