"Skilling also faces a possible $18 million dollar fine - still less than he bilked investors and workers out of though..."
Now compare this to the punishment for shoplifting. If the punishment were proportional, shoplifting a can of soda would get you a millisecond or seconds of jail time (not long enough for the cops to even get handcuffs on you) and a fine of perhaps ten cents - and you get to keep the soda.
Sounds like it can get very expensive very fast. 200 GB of storage (about what the sweet spot is in the HDD market these days) will run you $30/month at those rates, and I would still have to pay to store and access that data ($80 for a full save and restore of 200 GB).
If your needs are large enough to merit a dedicated file serving computer, you'll be far better off having your own system than paying through the nose monthly for this service.
"And a big bonus, you don't have to store coal byproducts for 10,000 years."
Instead, the coal and power industries spew the byproducts (such as CO2 and N2O) into the air, so that everyone can breathe them in and the CO2 can fry the planet.
I believe it's disposable for cost reasons. You could have perfectly safe reusable equipment, but you would have to properly sterilize it using hydrogen peroxide, heat, or some other thorough method after every use.
Perhaps the parent is using union labor that has to be paid a living wage? I certainly would never bid $10,000 for a modern wiring job of a huge house (2,400 sq. ft. is huge in my book) if I'm paying my employees $20/hour + medical + taxes.
If it's in new construction it's maybe doable, but as a retrofit job (which I'm assuming is the case as this is being conpared to a solar panel retrofit) it will be extremely labor intensive as old plaster has to be removed and then new plaster put over wherever you have to go into the wall.
If it's 'and', then that hedge isn't going to cut it, as it wouldn't be enclosed.
That's what I hate about and/or. What exactly does that / mean, and how do you compound logic operators. And, or, xor, biconditional, conditional, and negation are plenty enough logic operators (and plenty more than strictly necessary) in my book, unless you're just trying to confuse people.
"Well, for the sake of argument, if you say that the solar panel is still worth what you originally paid for it 5 years ago"
The problem is that it is now worth a small fraction of what it was worth when you bought it. Just like a car (which also has about a 20 year lifespan), it loses value quite rapidly as it becomes less efficient and closer to being a pile of junk that you have to pay to get rid of.
Teaching kids to look both ways before crossing might reduce impacts by 25%, but it won't eliminate them. There are still vehicles that will jump the curb onto the sidewalk, or do 40 mph before pulling a hard turn around a blind corner, or hit a person while going into a driveway (often the car owner's own kids).
Extra safety features can only help reduce the pedestrian death and injury toll further.
"It's not a centimeter, millimeter, or even nanometer different." For the sake of accuracy, melting ice will raise the sea level by a tiny amount. Probably a few micrometers, but definitely more than a nanometer. The effect comes about because ice has a lower salt content than sea water. When the ice melts, it dilutes the sea water and ever so slightly raises sea levels.
The effect is tiny enough that it is usually ignored, but when you're interested in nanometer-scale effects, it is not to be ignored.
I'm always left puzzled by why such moralists go after fairly harmless or beneficial stuff like sex, drugs, and contraception when there's far worse to get upset about, such as consumerism (ie., all advertisements and much content on the mainstream media), racism, and sexism.
I consider myself a moralist, but I don't even want to be put in the same company as your average evangelical censor.
Since when has there been an extreme left candidate? Eugene Debs would be far left (not even extreme left), and he was far more liberal than any candidate the Democrats nominate, even George McGovern.
My complaint is that the Democrats never nominate a decent candidate. I always wind up voting Green because the Democratic candidate is just too far to the right, especially on issues such as copyrights/patents and the war on [some] drugs.
If the neoconservatives' campaign promises mean gutting environmental protections, ballooning the our war/military budget, and handing out tax giveaways to the rich, I would say the right has delivered what they promised.
I used to do that back when I was using P2P heavily. The power bill (20 cents/kW*h here) is reason enough to turn my computer off when it won't be in use for a half hour or more.
The problem is network infrastructure. In California, it's pretty cheap to connect to the internet backbone and your latency will be slightly lower to boot. Not so in North Dakota.
Do a cost/benefit analysis. If you're a small computer repair shop with 5 employees, then it's probably a waste of your limited funds to do a background check, especially if doing so delays the hiring process. You'll be keeping close enough supervision to catch any egregious acts anyway. If the employee is going to have root access to 10,000 computers, then maybe a thorough background check is in order.
Rental properties pay taxes just like any other property, and the rental income actually generates even more taxes assuming the landlord isn't a big tax cheat.
Fortunately social pressure is something that can be fixed. The media is probably the largest contributor, by constantly promoting crass individualism, competition, and materialism.
I wonder if kids would still be mocking each other over their clothes and insisting on wearing ridiculous outfits if kid and teen oriented tv shows had their actors dress up the way people are dressed on Barney, Dragon Tales, or Caillou instead of dressing them like prostitutes.
Beyond reinforcing a very corrupt and rotten patent system, this will just push scientists towards short term and marketable research. Real breakthroughs are unpredictable and usually hard to profit immediately from, so scientists under this system will just go for small incremental improvements (say, yet another patent relating to the MPEG format) that are sure to bring in some money, than major breakthroughs (say, discovering a new law of physics).
A much better idea is to raise the prestige and job security of scientists.
"Being respectful to your elders does not prevent you from inventing the next sliced-bread."
Why do elders automatically deserve respect? Some of the most racist and people-hating people I've ever met are elderly, and deserve about as much respect in my book as a self engrossed teenager.
The way I see it, respect has to be earned by setting a good example. A teenager who is a model citizen is just as deserving of respect as a 70 year old model citizen.
Slashdot Mirror
"Skilling also faces a possible $18 million dollar fine - still less than he bilked investors and workers out of though..."
Now compare this to the punishment for shoplifting. If the punishment were proportional, shoplifting a can of soda would get you a millisecond or seconds of jail time (not long enough for the cops to even get handcuffs on you) and a fine of perhaps ten cents - and you get to keep the soda.
They are dangerous. White collar criminals can strike twice just like blue collar criminals.
Sounds like it can get very expensive very fast. 200 GB of storage (about what the sweet spot is in the HDD market these days) will run you $30/month at those rates, and I would still have to pay to store and access that data ($80 for a full save and restore of 200 GB).
If your needs are large enough to merit a dedicated file serving computer, you'll be far better off having your own system than paying through the nose monthly for this service.
"And a big bonus, you don't have to store coal byproducts for 10,000 years."
Instead, the coal and power industries spew the byproducts (such as CO2 and N2O) into the air, so that everyone can breathe them in and the CO2 can fry the planet.
I believe it's disposable for cost reasons. You could have perfectly safe reusable equipment, but you would have to properly sterilize it using hydrogen peroxide, heat, or some other thorough method after every use.
Perhaps the parent is using union labor that has to be paid a living wage? I certainly would never bid $10,000 for a modern wiring job of a huge house (2,400 sq. ft. is huge in my book) if I'm paying my employees $20/hour + medical + taxes.
If it's in new construction it's maybe doable, but as a retrofit job (which I'm assuming is the case as this is being conpared to a solar panel retrofit) it will be extremely labor intensive as old plaster has to be removed and then new plaster put over wherever you have to go into the wall.
Is it 'and' xor 'or'?
If it's 'and', then that hedge isn't going to cut it, as it wouldn't be enclosed.
That's what I hate about and/or. What exactly does that / mean, and how do you compound logic operators. And, or, xor, biconditional, conditional, and negation are plenty enough logic operators (and plenty more than strictly necessary) in my book, unless you're just trying to confuse people.
"Well, for the sake of argument, if you say that the solar panel is still worth what you originally paid for it 5 years ago"
The problem is that it is now worth a small fraction of what it was worth when you bought it. Just like a car (which also has about a 20 year lifespan), it loses value quite rapidly as it becomes less efficient and closer to being a pile of junk that you have to pay to get rid of.
Have you ever heard of redundant safety systems?
Teaching kids to look both ways before crossing might reduce impacts by 25%, but it won't eliminate them. There are still vehicles that will jump the curb onto the sidewalk, or do 40 mph before pulling a hard turn around a blind corner, or hit a person while going into a driveway (often the car owner's own kids).
Extra safety features can only help reduce the pedestrian death and injury toll further.
"It's not a centimeter, millimeter, or even nanometer different." For the sake of accuracy, melting ice will raise the sea level by a tiny amount. Probably a few micrometers, but definitely more than a nanometer. The effect comes about because ice has a lower salt content than sea water. When the ice melts, it dilutes the sea water and ever so slightly raises sea levels.
The effect is tiny enough that it is usually ignored, but when you're interested in nanometer-scale effects, it is not to be ignored.
"- Every 90-second a car is colliding with a train due to lacking regulations if crossing."
That comes out to 350,400 collisions in a 365 day long year, which I find hard to believe. Could you cite a reference for that number?
I'm always left puzzled by why such moralists go after fairly harmless or beneficial stuff like sex, drugs, and contraception when there's far worse to get upset about, such as consumerism (ie., all advertisements and much content on the mainstream media), racism, and sexism.
I consider myself a moralist, but I don't even want to be put in the same company as your average evangelical censor.
Since when has there been an extreme left candidate? Eugene Debs would be far left (not even extreme left), and he was far more liberal than any candidate the Democrats nominate, even George McGovern.
My complaint is that the Democrats never nominate a decent candidate. I always wind up voting Green because the Democratic candidate is just too far to the right, especially on issues such as copyrights/patents and the war on [some] drugs.
If the neoconservatives' campaign promises mean gutting environmental protections, ballooning the our war/military budget, and handing out tax giveaways to the rich, I would say the right has delivered what they promised.
I used to do that back when I was using P2P heavily. The power bill (20 cents/kW*h here) is reason enough to turn my computer off when it won't be in use for a half hour or more.
Many of my apps (generally the KDE ones) remember where they were before I shut down and reopen whatever files were in use the next time I log on.
The problem is network infrastructure. In California, it's pretty cheap to connect to the internet backbone and your latency will be slightly lower to boot. Not so in North Dakota.
Public statues/monuments or naming public works for great US scientists such as Einstein would be a start and the cost would be negligible.
Do a cost/benefit analysis. If you're a small computer repair shop with 5 employees, then it's probably a waste of your limited funds to do a background check, especially if doing so delays the hiring process. You'll be keeping close enough supervision to catch any egregious acts anyway. If the employee is going to have root access to 10,000 computers, then maybe a thorough background check is in order.
Rental properties pay taxes just like any other property, and the rental income actually generates even more taxes assuming the landlord isn't a big tax cheat.
Fortunately social pressure is something that can be fixed. The media is probably the largest contributor, by constantly promoting crass individualism, competition, and materialism.
I wonder if kids would still be mocking each other over their clothes and insisting on wearing ridiculous outfits if kid and teen oriented tv shows had their actors dress up the way people are dressed on Barney, Dragon Tales, or Caillou instead of dressing them like prostitutes.
Beyond reinforcing a very corrupt and rotten patent system, this will just push scientists towards short term and marketable research. Real breakthroughs are unpredictable and usually hard to profit immediately from, so scientists under this system will just go for small incremental improvements (say, yet another patent relating to the MPEG format) that are sure to bring in some money, than major breakthroughs (say, discovering a new law of physics).
A much better idea is to raise the prestige and job security of scientists.
You left one out:
5: Religion attacking science. It's hard to train scientists when a large chunk of the population believes that the world is under 10,000 years old.
"Being respectful to your elders does not prevent you from inventing the next sliced-bread."
Why do elders automatically deserve respect? Some of the most racist and people-hating people I've ever met are elderly, and deserve about as much respect in my book as a self engrossed teenager.
The way I see it, respect has to be earned by setting a good example. A teenager who is a model citizen is just as deserving of respect as a 70 year old model citizen.
"Any ideas for how to effectively stop illegal downloads?"
Make all downloads legal, and there will be no more illegal downloads.