Is it the fact that a very private mafia-like committee are running it? Or the fact that their modus operandi is bribe? Or their tolerance (bordering on ass-kissing) of cash-rich oppressive regimes? Or the commercialization of sport they re-invented to the level where, for example, the advantage of the swimsuit is more important than the skill of the swimmer?
The Olympics have become such a blatant PR act, they are a pain to watch. And a shame to participate in or support.
i understand the drive to rationalize and simplify genetics and turn it fast into applied technology, but is it useful at all to discuss the issue in this context at all at this point, where our knowledge about genetics is still in its infancy?
my (lay and lame) understanding of the issue is that even if a gene is present, it is by no means certain that it is involved only in a single phenotype manifestation, or that a particular manifestation will occur for a single organism.
if even the best geneticists cannot give more than a statistical estimate about the development of certain phenotype traints, if a gene that is "harmful" in one situation could be "beneficial" in another, and if a person is considered to be more than their genotype, why not focus on treating a disease if such develops, instead of eliminating a remote _possibility_ by trying to remove a supposedly "harmful" gene from the gene pool (which appears to be the end goal here, even if that is not stated directly)?
since genetic variation is the basis of evolution, "curing" by eliminating variation could in the long term bring more problems that it will solve. it could be a bit like throwing out a bunch of "legacy code", and finding out you threw out your business model along with it;)
Investing in development is a complex undertaking which is very risky, so even a huge potential payout may have a low expectation at the planning stage.
Bribing your government to setup the market rules your way, and passing enforcement costs onto the taxpayer on the other hand is simpler to execute, guaranteed to last (legislation doesn't change as quickly as the market), and without cost to you even if it fails, so it could look like a much better deal to the prospective investor.
How so? I read only the executive summaries, but they seem to say that children with low grade made bigger gain than children with top grades.
It seems normal that starting from a low grade it is easy to move up; and that starting from already high grade takes a lot of effort to move even higher.
Never does the executive summary say top graders performed worse.
There is the slight geopolitical difference of China bordering North Korea. I believe it is a slightly more important factor than Kim maybe having one under-kiloton nuke.
Well, I have heard differently. You need special, super-expensive precision equipment to make the parts needed for the bombs. You also need special, even more expensive facilities to deploy this equipment so that it works properly.
Most importantly, you need the people who are capable of reading the stolen designs, validating them (i.e. practically re-designing the thing), wirting the simulation software and operating that equipment properly so that a bomb is developed.
The legend that Russia lost some huge amount of fissile material is popular, but I have yet to see a single respectable reference that supports it. If you have one, please share.
The story of "poor-man" WMDs is plainly ridiculous. The "dirty nukes" you refer to (actually they are "dirty bombs", as "dirty nuke" is just a kind of nuke, and so beyond terrorist access) will require a significant amount of radioactive material to pollute a crowded area of any significant size (e.g. one street block). Getting access to it is about as hard as getting bomb-grade material.
Effective, WMD-scale bio-warfare capability requires the same sophistication as nuclear warfare capability, and is, thus, out of reach of all terrorist groups, and most countries.
The only amateur-feasible mass weapons are explosives and maybe chemical weapons, although the latter still require significant sophistication, probably beyond reach of virtually all terrorist groups.
Sorry, but these stories are just legends that are fed to the populace to justify the enormous military spending, nothing else.
That is not really true. There are countries (e.g. South Africa) which had nuclear weapons for a short time, but got rid of them, partly due to pressure, partly due to the high costs of maintaining such program.
Even the UK gave up their development program rather early on because of the high costs.
"The bomb stays" only if your economy can support it. India's economy can probably sustain a bomb program. With Pakistan it remains to be seen.
And your point is? Most of the population in both India and Pakistan still live in poverty despite each of them having the odd atomic bomb, and both countries suffered heavy economic penalties because of their decision to pursue nukes.
That is an often-repeated statement, however there is very little in terms of facts that support it.
Building nukes, especially advanced ones in quantities over a single test weapon still requires (in addition to the plans) a large and relatively modern industrial base -- for the components, for the various explosives, for the wealth of rare materials necessary etc. etc.
Having such an industry USSR style -- for the purpose of nukes only -- is quite expensive, and out of reach of almost any country. Hence you don't see many succeeding, especially when there is resolute opposition from the superpowers to such efforts.
So, no, the nuclear cat isn't quite out of the bag yet, the weapons are out of reach of mostly every state, and those countries who make them profit very little from having them per se.
And, thankfully, nuke-building capability tom-clancy style is so far quite out of reach of any kind of terrorist group.
International forums and inspections as those that exist under the NPT regime are still the most important, effective and relevant way to keep your "nuclear cat" in the bag.
don't worry about your fingers. if someone has you where they can cut off your finger off, they'll probably just beat you a little before you give them access yourself.
regretfully, that extension doesn't remove the "awesome" bar, it just renders it differently. there is no way to have it work as it used to work, and the search logic that is applied is the new one.
i still can't wrap my head around the fact that searching in the address bar doesn't search in the address history, but searches in... err not exactly sure where.
i suppose this is search-engine friendly -- remove the site identity (URL and domain) from the user view; actually remove site identity importance, and have the user rely on search services instead.
Or, in slashdot terms:
1. have the user rely on visual clues provided by the search engines 2. give them a pre-configured search engine bookmar 3. profit
not sure what the situation in the UK is, but in Japan some mobile phone operators have been doing this for a while with some phones. since probably half of the internet usage here happens over phones, it doesn't look like a small market.
to make it even worse, my current provider not only injects ads while I browse, they also supply the advertiser with a unique ID, which I can't easily turn off. since the image is inserted on the server i also assume the phone is sending referer headers, so the advertiser can collect your browsing history (and, that being a phone, your URL session cookies too) for good measure.
when i complained, i was told to go away, because there was no such thing as "personal" information being disclosed to the advertiser. to me such arrogance calls for more encryption as a kind hint to the ISPs to go and do the job i'm paying em for.
unless, of course, that option is also defeated by the copyright cretins and the gubbermint, working hard together to prevent child pr0n and terrorists.
in which case, thicker tinfoil will also be necessary.
Slashdot Mirror
What is so special about the Olympics?
Is it the fact that a very private mafia-like committee are running it? Or the fact that their modus operandi is bribe? Or their tolerance (bordering on ass-kissing) of cash-rich oppressive regimes? Or the commercialization of sport they re-invented to the level where, for example, the advantage of the swimsuit is more important than the skill of the swimmer?
The Olympics have become such a blatant PR act, they are a pain to watch. And a shame to participate in or support.
on how to run Windows Vista preinstalled on a separate partition from VirtualBox (itself running on linux)?
I tried (not very hard) to follow the docs, and failed dismally.
tia
the wakeups been there from long time ago. at least since 2.6.23 or something, the bug's here:
http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=9489
you're DEAD wrong. the best is, of course cyan on magenta.
well, that or the reverse.
Yeah, indeed ;)
Or they could, like, ditch all their work done so far, fork wine and make the new OS run on top of linux+wine, possibly off a sqlite-based WinFS ;)
Then just port their platform libraries onto that, redo their visual tools as eclipse plugins -- and presto, you have best of both worlds.
And fast ;)
i understand the drive to rationalize and simplify genetics and turn it fast into applied technology, but is it useful at all to discuss the issue in this context at all at this point, where our knowledge about genetics is still in its infancy?
my (lay and lame) understanding of the issue is that even if a gene is present, it is by no means certain that it is involved only in a single phenotype manifestation, or that a particular manifestation will occur for a single organism.
if even the best geneticists cannot give more than a statistical estimate about the development of certain phenotype traints, if a gene that is "harmful" in one situation could be "beneficial" in another, and if a person is considered to be more than their genotype, why not focus on treating a disease if such develops, instead of eliminating a remote _possibility_ by trying to remove a supposedly "harmful" gene from the gene pool (which appears to be the end goal here, even if that is not stated directly)?
since genetic variation is the basis of evolution, "curing" by eliminating variation could in the long term bring more problems that it will solve. it could be a bit like throwing out a bunch of "legacy code", and finding out you threw out your business model along with it ;)
Not necessarily.
Investing in development is a complex undertaking which is very risky, so even a huge potential payout may have a low expectation at the planning stage.
Bribing your government to setup the market rules your way, and passing enforcement costs onto the taxpayer on the other hand is simpler to execute, guaranteed to last (legislation doesn't change as quickly as the market), and without cost to you even if it fails, so it could look like a much better deal to the prospective investor.
How so? I read only the executive summaries, but they seem to say that children with low grade made bigger gain than children with top grades.
It seems normal that starting from a low grade it is easy to move up; and that starting from already high grade takes a lot of effort to move even higher.
Never does the executive summary say top graders performed worse.
yep, it is probably somewhere in between.
come on now, genocide is something entirely different.
"road rage" is just bad manners, sorta like the tantrum a spoiled kid throws when pa and ma don't buy 'em candy.
fixing road rage is easy -- them overgrown brats need to be slapped more often, and they'll learn.
too bad traffic cops have easier ways of making money than doing that.
well, then i hereby authorize you to collect my royalties from the sticker publisher.
I am a complete bastard, and I have never had road rage.
tasteless people behave in tasteless manner. still no cure for cancer though.
There is the slight geopolitical difference of China bordering North Korea. I believe it is a slightly more important factor than Kim maybe having one under-kiloton nuke.
Well, I have heard differently. You need special, super-expensive precision equipment to make the parts needed for the bombs. You also need special, even more expensive facilities to deploy this equipment so that it works properly.
Most importantly, you need the people who are capable of reading the stolen designs, validating them (i.e. practically re-designing the thing), wirting the simulation software and operating that equipment properly so that a bomb is developed.
It doesn't sound to me like a trivial capability.
The legend that Russia lost some huge amount of fissile material is popular, but I have yet to see a single respectable reference that supports it. If you have one, please share.
The story of "poor-man" WMDs is plainly ridiculous. The "dirty nukes" you refer to (actually they are "dirty bombs", as "dirty nuke" is just a kind of nuke, and so beyond terrorist access) will require a significant amount of radioactive material to pollute a crowded area of any significant size (e.g. one street block). Getting access to it is about as hard as getting bomb-grade material.
Effective, WMD-scale bio-warfare capability requires the same sophistication as nuclear warfare capability, and is, thus, out of reach of all terrorist groups, and most countries.
The only amateur-feasible mass weapons are explosives and maybe chemical weapons, although the latter still require significant sophistication, probably beyond reach of virtually all terrorist groups.
Sorry, but these stories are just legends that are fed to the populace to justify the enormous military spending, nothing else.
That is not really true. There are countries (e.g. South Africa) which had nuclear weapons for a short time, but got rid of them, partly due to pressure, partly due to the high costs of maintaining such program.
Even the UK gave up their development program rather early on because of the high costs.
"The bomb stays" only if your economy can support it. India's economy can probably sustain a bomb program. With Pakistan it remains to be seen.
And your point is? Most of the population in both India and Pakistan still live in poverty despite each of them having the odd atomic bomb, and both countries suffered heavy economic penalties because of their decision to pursue nukes.
That is an often-repeated statement, however there is very little in terms of facts that support it.
Building nukes, especially advanced ones in quantities over a single test weapon still requires (in addition to the plans) a large and relatively modern industrial base -- for the components, for the various explosives, for the wealth of rare materials necessary etc. etc.
Having such an industry USSR style -- for the purpose of nukes only -- is quite expensive, and out of reach of almost any country. Hence you don't see many succeeding, especially when there is resolute opposition from the superpowers to such efforts.
So, no, the nuclear cat isn't quite out of the bag yet, the weapons are out of reach of mostly every state, and those countries who make them profit very little from having them per se.
And, thankfully, nuke-building capability tom-clancy style is so far quite out of reach of any kind of terrorist group.
International forums and inspections as those that exist under the NPT regime are still the most important, effective and relevant way to keep your "nuclear cat" in the bag.
don't worry about your fingers. if someone has you where they can cut off your finger off, they'll probably just beat you a little before you give them access yourself.
thanks, i'll try it.
regretfully, that extension doesn't remove the "awesome" bar, it just renders it differently. there is no way to have it work as it used to work, and the search logic that is applied is the new one.
... err not exactly sure where.
i still can't wrap my head around the fact that searching in the address bar doesn't search in the address history, but searches in
i suppose this is search-engine friendly -- remove the site identity (URL and domain) from the user view; actually remove site identity importance, and have the user rely on search services instead.
Or, in slashdot terms:
1. have the user rely on visual clues provided by the search engines
2. give them a pre-configured search engine bookmar
3. profit
Aww, whatever.
not sure what the situation in the UK is, but in Japan some mobile phone operators have been doing this for a while with some phones. since probably half of the internet usage here happens over phones, it doesn't look like a small market.
to make it even worse, my current provider not only injects ads while I browse, they also supply the advertiser with a unique ID, which I can't easily turn off. since the image is inserted on the server i also assume the phone is sending referer headers, so the advertiser can collect your browsing history (and, that being a phone, your URL session cookies too) for good measure.
when i complained, i was told to go away, because there was no such thing as "personal" information being disclosed to the advertiser. to me such arrogance calls for more encryption as a kind hint to the ISPs to go and do the job i'm paying em for.
unless, of course, that option is also defeated by the copyright cretins and the gubbermint, working hard together to prevent child pr0n and terrorists.
in which case, thicker tinfoil will also be necessary.
yes, blocking google in noscript it is enough.
yor wish iz my komand