OK, but having no notice that Flash is required is poor design - I don't have it installed at work.
Second, my statement about "not degrading down to HTML" stands - what is wrong with filling in my song titles into a standard HTML form if I don't have Flash installed?
The problem is that Kansas is the center of the US - so when Google maps shows the US, it is centered on Kansas.
It would seem that their algorithm for determining the search area limits it to some maximum radius around the center of the map, even if that radius is much smaller than the displayed area.
Consider this: The credit card companies were getting reamed by people getting a boatload of credit cards, running them up to the limit, then filing for bankruptcy.
Now, the real solution to this would have been for the credit card companies to have done their jobs and really examined the credit ratings of the people to whom they gave these cards, and to have given people reasonable credit limits (I shall use myself for an example - I have a single credit card which has a limit of well over one-half of my yearly salary - there is NO REASON for me to have that much unsecured credit - and no, I did NOT request that limit, they gave it to me on their own).
However, that would require the credit card companies to actually do work and would impair their ability to take people almost to bankruptcy and make lots of money on revolving credit interest.
So, what did the credit card companines do? They took their enourmous profits and paid for immense lobbying to get a law passed to insure they get their money even if you file for bankruptcy.
Now, what is another word for "credit card company"? I'll give you a hint - it starts with "B", ends in "K", and has 4 letters. Wanna buy a vowel (at 15% APR)?
Making banks actually take responsibility for phishing means banks would have to do work on their online banking and credit applications. It would mean they would have to make it harder for people to buy things online (read: go into debt). It would CUT INTO THEIR PROFITS!
So what is a good, responsible banker to do? Call 1-800-RENT-A-SENATOR.
Google Minion #1: "Boy, this new partnership will really kill Microsoft." Google Leader #2: "Now, now! Let's not use the "K" word!" Google Leader #1: "No. We will do far worse than kill Microsoft. We will hurt them. And we wish to go on hurting them. We shall leave them as they have left others, as they would leave us - marooned for all eternity in the center of a crashed system, buried alive. Buried alive"
First of all, a coil only generates current when the magnetic flux through the coil is changing. Having 2 coils embedded in a static magnetic field and switching between them will get you nothing. The field has to be changing.
Second of all, the background magnetic field is low enough that a coil you could implant, moving at speeds that a human body could withstand would generate far less than the 0.2V needed to forward bias a Schottky diode, so you have no way to rectify the current. If you tried to use active commutation, using FETs to switch, then you a) need to know when the current is going to reverse, which for a random field like the background you don't, and b) you need power to drive the FETs, which for a low power source like this would mean a net power loss.
First of all: you don't use tomato juice as it is ineffective. The best way to neutralize mercaptan is to use a mix of baking soda and hydrogen peroxide solution, which will oxidize the mercaptan and destroy it, without staining whatever you are cleaning.
Now, as for the explosive detector: I have a real problem with this, as if it is so sensitive as to be able to detect explosives after M. Random Terrorist has carefully cleaned up, it is probably sensitive enough to trigger on the residue left on me if I have done some home construction with my powder activated nail driver - which uses a.22 blank to drive nails into concrete.
It will probably also trigger on any heart patient using, or even carrying, medical nitroglycerin. So, obviously, the next bunch of Al Qeidea terrorists will all have very convincing papers indicating they are heart patients.
I'd like to see Cahokia push *somebody* into making a trip planning/mapping client for this. Yes, *if* you have WiFi or a phone with GPRS|EDGE, you could use Google Maps.
If.
You.
Like.
To.
Wait.
But a local mapping client on this would be great. Granted, I somehow doubt that Cahokia could get Streets and Trips or Street Atlas, but if they partnered with Rand McNally or somebody like that they could get a 1G flash drive with the map data on it.
Actually, your example would be the worst possible way to do things, as the words and phrases are unusual enough to alert anybody listening that something is up.
A far better way is to pick normal sounding expressions:
Terrorist A: Hello? Terrorist B: Hey Joe! Me and the guys were going to go to the movies tonight? (translation: our terrorist cell has been activated - had the intent been to arrange a movie night the phrase "go to a show" would have been used) Terrorist A: OK, what and when? Terrorist B: That new Wallace and Grommit flick, at, say 7 oclock? (translation: target #2, 07:00 UTC) Terrorist A: Sure - meet you there!
An open comment to the "Don't give them a computer - feed them first" crowd:
Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, he eats for life.
However, the problem is that it takes WORK to teach a man to fish - usually much more work than to catch a fish and give it to him. So, since most folks are stupid-lazy (minimizing work right now) rather than smart-lazy (minimizing over-all work), they give him a fish today because that takes less work today than teaching him to fish today does - even though he'll just be right back tomorrow demanding his free fish.
So, think about it like this: you spend $100 to feed somebody for, what, 100 days? Then what?
Or you give them the ability to learn to feed themselves, and you feed them for life.
Yep. You are right - I was misremembering a bit of CSS magic I'd seen, and I thought he was using IDs rather than classes.
Still, the basic idea stands - annotate the comments with class info so that they can be manipulated client side.
In the extreme, it would allow you to do away with a server access to change your comment threshold - you could have different stylesheets to show +5 through -1 comments, and then just select the stylesheet rather than doing a POST to the server.
Prevents the annoying cell phone user next to you.
Prevents the screaming baby problem.
Prevents the annoying kid kicking your seat.
Stops the assholes who, when the plane lands, jump up and block the aisle for five minutes recovering their stuff from the overhead rather than letting those of us who already have our stuff get off the plane first.
Prevents crappy in-flight movies.
Allows the airlines to increase the number of people on the plane.
Prevents the fat guy next to you from overflowing onto your seat.
How can such a wonder be accomplished? Simple - anesthetize the passengers, then load them up like cordwood on the plane, and bring them out on the other side. You don't have to fully knock them out - just dope them up so much they cannot do anything meaningful.
NOTE TO CLUELESS SLASHBOTS:
The above post was HUMOR. It was in no way a suggestion of a real course of action. The poster is well aware of the risks of anesthesia.
PS: Hallelujah! Slashdot that actually fixes the damn bug where adding a </li> tag to a list did not work!
Microsoft contacts small company and says "We are interested in your product - tell us more."
Small company gives Microsoft information on product.
Microsoft says "We'll sign an NDA - please tell us all about your product, including all the secret bits."
Small company, drooling over the prospect of partnering with Microsoft, hands over all the information about their product.
Microsoft says "Well, now that we've considered it, we aren't interested in your product - BYE!"
Microsoft (or a company working with Microsoft) releases a product astonishingly similar to the first companies product, right down to the information provided to Microsoft under NDA.
Orange telephone. Stack. Now these guys.
Except that at least Orange and Stack were SOFTWARE - as in Microsoft's main focus.
This is PACKAGING for crying out loud! This is NOT Microsoft's core competency!
Are they just screwing companies over just to see if they can get away with it?
Right, That's it, I'm revoking all your geek licenses.
Why? Because, here we are, discussing how they are running out of letters for hurricane names, and there's not ONE COMMENT 3 or above saying "Destructive force of nature - we should be using KLINGON names!"
COME ON! What kind of nerds do you think you are!
DROP AND GIVE ME TWO! (we are talking nerds here.)
Hey/crew - how about having Slash automatically put a [PDF] after a PDF link - so we know we are about to download a huge PDF rather than going to a link?
I say, let the registrars wildcard the domains. Just make them pay for the domains in the same way WE would - force them to pay US$15 (or whatever they charge) a year to a non-profit organization for the advancement of the Internet.
Let's see - they are wildcarding the domains, so what is the maximum length of any domain element, times the maximum number of domain elements in a domain request - then take the number of valid characters in a domain name to that power, and multiply by $15.
DaY-UM! We could buy a REALLY NICE next generation for that!
A vacuum - like a ShopVac - with a GOOD dust filter bag, and a GROUNDED, conductive intake nozzle - normal plastic nozzles are TERRIBLE ESD generators. A grounded nozzle to prevent zappage is a must. This way, instead of blowing OUT the dust bunnies and getting them all over, you can suck them up. You can also use this if you need to use a cut-off wheel to suck up the dust generated.
An electric (but NOT cordless - they always have just enough charge for all but three of the screws) electric screwdriver with torque control - that way you won't be stripping the screws out when you put them back in.
Ground mats, ground straps. wrist straps, a wrist strap checker (a little box you touch and it beeps if you have a proper 10Mohm resistance to ground - no beep, no ground. A red light turns on if you have too little resistance to ground to be safe.) A static discharging air blower (blows alternately positive and negatively charged air to dissipate charges on surfaces within a couple of seconds).
Dry shop air supply (i.e. NOT with oil in it) with GROUNDED blow-off nozzle. Use this ONLY IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE VACUUM!
ESD jackets - it does no good to be grounded if your shirt charges up to 50kV!
Network drop to a LOCAL server with updates for all the operating systems you will be using. Spare network cards and driver disks for systems which do not have network cards already.
Ice cube tray - for putting case screws and other small parts in as you remove them. If you get in the habit of always starting with one cup, putting all the screws from one stage of disassembly in that cup, then moving to the next, you will have a great deal easier time reassembling.
Are you saying that the sand is radiating all the time, in the spectrum we see as its color (and other bands we can't see)?
It had BETTER NOT be radiating in the bands we see - then it would be over a couple of thousand degrees! It is reflecting in the visible light band. It is radiating in the infrared bands.
But that during the day, the incoming radiation and kinetic bouncing from hot air are greater energy input than its radiation output, so it heats up?
Correct. The sand is getting about a kilowatt per square meter of power input from the sunlight hitting it, plus convective and conductive transfer from the air.
And that at night, with the energy inputs removed, the sand's constant radiation output is so much greater than its negligible input (from surrounding air) that its temperature drops? Did I get that right?
By George I think he's got it!
Even so, what good does the reflector do? Does it just send energy from the underside of the radiating object away into space, instead of heating nearby objects (e.g. sand underneath and to the sides), which would trap the energy in the material in every direction but more or less straight up? Have I got that right?
Not quite. The object you want to cool is radiating energy in all directions. The sand beneath it is also radiating energy in all directions (but of course, the energy the sand radiates downward is just absorbed by the sand below it.) Now, if the object you wish to cool were exposed to the radiated energy from the sand, it would be receiving more energy than if it were only exposed to the energy from the cold sky, and thus would not cool down as much.
Even so, what good does the reflector do?
The reflector keeps the energy from the sand from reaching the object being cooled. Again, think of the reflector as a shield - in this context the reflector is shielding the object to be cooled from the sand.
Further, is the H2O in non-desert climates just a trap for the sand-radiated energy, which then is radiated back towards the sand?
Yes. Water is a very good absorber of infrared energy. So, the ground radiates the energy, but the water absorbs it before it gets to space, and re-radiates it in all directions. Half of that goes back to the ground. The other half goes up, but then hits the water vapor above that - and gets absorbed, re-radiated, and so on.
Your model doesn't indicate that the sand's (or any object's) radiation is impeded by the energy or radiation content of space nearby the object.
I'm not sure what you are trying to say here, so let me see if I can state it a bit more clearly.
Everything is radiating. Everything is absorbing radiation. Whether the net yield from radiation emitted and radiation absorbed is positive or negative will depend upon the object's temperature relative to the other objects around it. If the only thing the object is absorbing radiation from is the cold sky, it will be losing more energy to radiation than it will be absorbing. If the object is absorbing radiation from the hot sand below it, it will lose a whole lot LESS energy, and so it will cool down a whole lot less.
Slashdot Mirror
OK, but having no notice that Flash is required is poor design - I don't have it installed at work.
Second, my statement about "not degrading down to HTML" stands - what is wrong with filling in my song titles into a standard HTML form if I don't have Flash installed?
You cannot use the Pandora site AT ALL unless you allow popups and Javascript.
No, thank you. If you cannot make your site degrade gracefully and use normal HTML for this, then I guess I won't be using your site.
The problem is that Kansas is the center of the US - so when Google maps shows the US, it is centered on Kansas.
It would seem that their algorithm for determining the search area limits it to some maximum radius around the center of the map, even if that radius is much smaller than the displayed area.
And so, all searches lead to Kansas.
Which rocks for those of us who live there.
It will never happen.
Consider this: The credit card companies were getting reamed by people getting a boatload of credit cards, running them up to the limit, then filing for bankruptcy.
Now, the real solution to this would have been for the credit card companies to have done their jobs and really examined the credit ratings of the people to whom they gave these cards, and to have given people reasonable credit limits (I shall use myself for an example - I have a single credit card which has a limit of well over one-half of my yearly salary - there is NO REASON for me to have that much unsecured credit - and no, I did NOT request that limit, they gave it to me on their own).
However, that would require the credit card companies to actually do work and would impair their ability to take people almost to bankruptcy and make lots of money on revolving credit interest.
So, what did the credit card companines do? They took their enourmous profits and paid for immense lobbying to get a law passed to insure they get their money even if you file for bankruptcy.
Now, what is another word for "credit card company"? I'll give you a hint - it starts with "B", ends in "K", and has 4 letters. Wanna buy a vowel (at 15% APR)?
Making banks actually take responsibility for phishing means banks would have to do work on their online banking and credit applications. It would mean they would have to make it harder for people to buy things online (read: go into debt). It would CUT INTO THEIR PROFITS!
So what is a good, responsible banker to do? Call 1-800-RENT-A-SENATOR.
I am sure what happens is more like this:
Google Minion #1: "Boy, this new partnership will really kill Microsoft."
Google Leader #2: "Now, now! Let's not use the "K" word!"
Google Leader #1: "No. We will do far worse than kill Microsoft. We will hurt them. And we wish to go on hurting them. We shall leave them as they have left others, as they would leave us - marooned for all eternity in the center of a crashed system, buried alive. Buried alive"
No, this won't work for a couple reasons:
First of all, a coil only generates current when the magnetic flux through the coil is changing. Having 2 coils embedded in a static magnetic field and switching between them will get you nothing. The field has to be changing.
Second of all, the background magnetic field is low enough that a coil you could implant, moving at speeds that a human body could withstand would generate far less than the 0.2V needed to forward bias a Schottky diode, so you have no way to rectify the current. If you tried to use active commutation, using FETs to switch, then you a) need to know when the current is going to reverse, which for a random field like the background you don't, and b) you need power to drive the FETs, which for a low power source like this would mean a net power loss.
First of all: you don't use tomato juice as it is ineffective. The best way to neutralize mercaptan is to use a mix of baking soda and hydrogen peroxide solution, which will oxidize the mercaptan and destroy it, without staining whatever you are cleaning.
.22 blank to drive nails into concrete.
Now, as for the explosive detector: I have a real problem with this, as if it is so sensitive as to be able to detect explosives after M. Random Terrorist has carefully cleaned up, it is probably sensitive enough to trigger on the residue left on me if I have done some home construction with my powder activated nail driver - which uses a
It will probably also trigger on any heart patient using, or even carrying, medical nitroglycerin. So, obviously, the next bunch of Al Qeidea terrorists will all have very convincing papers indicating they are heart patients.
I'd like to see Cahokia push *somebody* into making a trip planning/mapping client for this. Yes, *if* you have WiFi or a phone with GPRS|EDGE, you could use Google Maps.
If.
You.
Like.
To.
Wait.
But a local mapping client on this would be great. Granted, I somehow doubt that Cahokia could get Streets and Trips or Street Atlas, but if they partnered with Rand McNally or somebody like that they could get a 1G flash drive with the map data on it.
Actually, your example would be the worst possible way to do things, as the words and phrases are unusual enough to alert anybody listening that something is up.
A far better way is to pick normal sounding expressions:
Terrorist A: Hello?
Terrorist B: Hey Joe! Me and the guys were going to go to the movies tonight?
(translation: our terrorist cell has been activated - had the intent been to arrange a movie night the phrase "go to a show" would have been used)
Terrorist A: OK, what and when?
Terrorist B: That new Wallace and Grommit flick, at, say 7 oclock?
(translation: target #2, 07:00 UTC)
Terrorist A: Sure - meet you there!
An open comment to the "Don't give them a computer - feed them first" crowd:
Give a man a fish, he eats for a day.
Teach a man to fish, he eats for life.
However, the problem is that it takes WORK to teach a man to fish - usually much more work than to catch a fish and give it to him. So, since most folks are stupid-lazy (minimizing work right now) rather than smart-lazy (minimizing over-all work), they give him a fish today because that takes less work today than teaching him to fish today does - even though he'll just be right back tomorrow demanding his free fish.
So, think about it like this: you spend $100 to feed somebody for, what, 100 days? Then what?
Or you give them the ability to learn to feed themselves, and you feed them for life.
Yep. You are right - I was misremembering a bit of CSS magic I'd seen, and I thought he was using IDs rather than classes.
Still, the basic idea stands - annotate the comments with class info so that they can be manipulated client side.
In the extreme, it would allow you to do away with a server access to change your comment threshold - you could have different stylesheets to show +5 through -1 comments, and then just select the stylesheet rather than doing a POST to the server.
However, if you want to create a real "Hack Slashdot" opportunity, how about adding IDs to the comments reflecting:
For example:That way, we could (on client side) have CSS to highlight friends, or block trolls, or make +5 comments show up in bigger fonts, or whatever.
How can such a wonder be accomplished? Simple - anesthetize the passengers, then load them up like cordwood on the plane, and bring them out on the other side. You don't have to fully knock them out - just dope them up so much they cannot do anything meaningful.
NOTE TO CLUELESS SLASHBOTS:
The above post was HUMOR. It was in no way a suggestion of a real course of action. The poster is well aware of the risks of anesthesia.
PS: Hallelujah! Slashdot that actually fixes the damn bug where adding a </li> tag to a list did not work!
Orange telephone. Stack. Now these guys.
Except that at least Orange and Stack were SOFTWARE - as in Microsoft's main focus.
This is PACKAGING for crying out loud! This is NOT Microsoft's core competency!
Are they just screwing companies over just to see if they can get away with it?
Or does some buddy of Bill's own Viva?
Right, That's it, I'm revoking all your geek licenses.
Why? Because, here we are, discussing how they are running out of letters for hurricane names, and there's not ONE COMMENT 3 or above saying "Destructive force of nature - we should be using KLINGON names!"
COME ON! What kind of nerds do you think you are!
DROP AND GIVE ME TWO! (we are talking nerds here.)
OK, I don't normally do this, but -
Mod Parent Up!
Thanks!
Hey /crew - how about having Slash automatically put a [PDF] after a PDF link - so we know we are about to download a huge PDF rather than going to a link?
This sounds to me a bit like "All I Have Is A Hammer, So Everything Is A Nail".
You want to update large files over the 'net, Files which have changes in the middle of the file.
Why use Subversion? Why not use rsync?
Yot are we gonna do tonight, Brain? Try to take over the world?
No, Pinky. We are going to try to find a pharmacy and cure this <hack> damn cough!
NEW! Straight from the German Autobahns! High-octane Soylent Green! Add some whorespower to your engine with new Soylent Green!
And as an added benefit, you get to use the HOV lane!
OK, slashmods - are you so terminally dense that I have to put a pseudotag on a comment in order for you to understand that it is a JOKE?
The last line was insufficient for you?
I say, let the registrars wildcard the domains. Just make them pay for the domains in the same way WE would - force them to pay US$15 (or whatever they charge) a year to a non-profit organization for the advancement of the Internet.
Let's see - they are wildcarding the domains, so what is the maximum length of any domain element, times the maximum number of domain elements in a domain request - then take the number of valid characters in a domain name to that power, and multiply by $15.
DaY-UM! We could buy a REALLY NICE next generation for that!
A vacuum - like a ShopVac - with a GOOD dust filter bag, and a GROUNDED, conductive intake nozzle - normal plastic nozzles are TERRIBLE ESD generators. A grounded nozzle to prevent zappage is a must. This way, instead of blowing OUT the dust bunnies and getting them all over, you can suck them up. You can also use this if you need to use a cut-off wheel to suck up the dust generated.
An electric (but NOT cordless - they always have just enough charge for all but three of the screws) electric screwdriver with torque control - that way you won't be stripping the screws out when you put them back in.
Ground mats, ground straps. wrist straps, a wrist strap checker (a little box you touch and it beeps if you have a proper 10Mohm resistance to ground - no beep, no ground. A red light turns on if you have too little resistance to ground to be safe.) A static discharging air blower (blows alternately positive and negatively charged air to dissipate charges on surfaces within a couple of seconds).
Dry shop air supply (i.e. NOT with oil in it) with GROUNDED blow-off nozzle. Use this ONLY IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE VACUUM!
ESD jackets - it does no good to be grounded if your shirt charges up to 50kV!
Network drop to a LOCAL server with updates for all the operating systems you will be using. Spare network cards and driver disks for systems which do not have network cards already.
Ice cube tray - for putting case screws and other small parts in as you remove them. If you get in the habit of always starting with one cup, putting all the screws from one stage of disassembly in that cup, then moving to the next, you will have a great deal easier time reassembling.
Are you saying that the sand is radiating all the time, in the spectrum we see as its color (and other bands we can't see)?
It had BETTER NOT be radiating in the bands we see - then it would be over a couple of thousand degrees! It is reflecting in the visible light band. It is radiating in the infrared bands.
But that during the day, the incoming radiation and kinetic bouncing from hot air are greater energy input than its radiation output, so it heats up?
Correct. The sand is getting about a kilowatt per square meter of power input from the sunlight hitting it, plus convective and conductive transfer from the air.
And that at night, with the energy inputs removed, the sand's constant radiation output is so much greater than its negligible input (from surrounding air) that its temperature drops? Did I get that right?
By George I think he's got it!
Even so, what good does the reflector do? Does it just send energy from the underside of the radiating object away into space, instead of heating nearby objects (e.g. sand underneath and to the sides), which would trap the energy in the material in every direction but more or less straight up? Have I got that right?
Not quite. The object you want to cool is radiating energy in all directions. The sand beneath it is also radiating energy in all directions (but of course, the energy the sand radiates downward is just absorbed by the sand below it.) Now, if the object you wish to cool were exposed to the radiated energy from the sand, it would be receiving more energy than if it were only exposed to the energy from the cold sky, and thus would not cool down as much.
Even so, what good does the reflector do?
The reflector keeps the energy from the sand from reaching the object being cooled. Again, think of the reflector as a shield - in this context the reflector is shielding the object to be cooled from the sand.
Further, is the H2O in non-desert climates just a trap for the sand-radiated energy, which then is radiated back towards the sand?
Yes. Water is a very good absorber of infrared energy. So, the ground radiates the energy, but the water absorbs it before it gets to space, and re-radiates it in all directions. Half of that goes back to the ground. The other half goes up, but then hits the water vapor above that - and gets absorbed, re-radiated, and so on.
Your model doesn't indicate that the sand's (or any object's) radiation is impeded by the energy or radiation content of space nearby the object.
I'm not sure what you are trying to say here, so let me see if I can state it a bit more clearly.
Everything is radiating. Everything is absorbing radiation. Whether the net yield from radiation emitted and radiation absorbed is positive or negative will depend upon the object's temperature relative to the other objects around it. If the only thing the object is absorbing radiation from is the cold sky, it will be losing more energy to radiation than it will be absorbing. If the object is absorbing radiation from the hot sand below it, it will lose a whole lot LESS energy, and so it will cool down a whole lot less.