It was a government loan administered by RBC, who isn't my normal bank. I think I could have made subsequent payments online, but would have had to come in to a branch to set up an account.
That's crazy. What has it come to when you have to fight for them to take your money =)
Tell me about it. When I tried to pay off my student loan, they wouldn't accept any form of payment by internet, phone, fax, or even the mail. They wanted me to personally deliver the money. Since I had moved from Canada to New Zealand, the only way I could pay it off was to give someone a power of attorney and have them hand-deliver payment.
I've yet to see any one of these projects that have use or did use taxpayer money. I have service from my city, and no tax dollars were spent on the project. None. Nor do they take any income from taxes.
Agreed. Last year, the Saskatchewan government-owned telecommunications company made a $121 M profit, most of which was paid back to the government in dividends.
But a government-run business charging break-even prices is not fair competition for any business. I would certainly be complaining if it looked like my taxes dollars were being used to compete with me !
Which is it? Are they operating at a break-even point, or using your tax dollars?
a large proportion of that 3.35 Terawatts/year is not converted into heat. It is converted into mechanical work (machinery, etc) and other things (televisions, computers, communications and so on).
That leads to a really interesting question. How much of our electrical use is *not* converted to heat in the medium- to long-term. I'd suggest very little. Most of the work done by machines and transportation is actually overcoming friction. Same with computers, televisions, etc, which convert very nearly approximately 100% of the energy input to heat. The only reasonable process that the energy isn't converted into heat in the medium term is to put it into long-lived storage, e.g. reduction of aluminum ore to aluminum. I wonder if anyone has stats on this?
Thanks for the thoughtful answer. I wouldn't expect a huge problem either, except that extra cheap energy could lead to massive heat pollution from inefficient electronics, toasters, and manufacturing plants.
I don't think this is a problem because if you didn't harvest the wind's energy, it would all be converted to heat via friction. The opposite may have a very small effect; if some of the energy harvested is stored, it will not be converted to heat (in the near future), and would lead to cooling. Of course, both effects may lead to movement of energy from one area to another (e.g. heating in a city due to the toasters whereas the wind energy would have been dissipated in the country).
If I were to say Linux sucks because it doesn't have X or Y, most Linux users/developers would just reply that I should code it myself or shut up.
On the other hand most of the same people would consider it acceptable to criticize Windows in the same manner just because it's closed source.
If I were to tell my wife that her birthday present to me sucks because it doesn't have X or Y, most people would just reply that I should fix it myself or shut up. On the other hand most of the same people would consider it acceptable to criticize a store that sold me a faulty item in the same manner just because I paid for it.
If you're paying someone to develop something for you, you can expect results. Otherwise, it might help to say please.
In Korea, you are 1 year old the minute you are born. In most other countries you are considered 0 years old until your first birthday.
It's a different way of counting.
I prefer rounding my age to the nearest integer. Thus, I celebrate my half-birthdays (six months from my birthday) when my (integer) age changes. People like parties so I also celebrate my regular birthday. And Fridays, too.
I don't share their enthusiasm - why is self-teaching so amazing? Am I really that cool for doing the simplest thing ever - teaching myself. Or are the other people I'm being judged against too fucking retarded to teach themselves?
No, I think it has a lot more to do with actually getting off your ass and learning or doing something.
I don't know where this refrain started, but I'm sick of people attacking new technologies because they're not 100% perfect. I'd say reducing 90% of mine-to-powerline CO2 emissions is something to applaud and support. Add to that the ability to almost totally eliminate SO2, NOx and mercury emissions, even if it takes a couple years to get it running, it's still worth pursuing.
I think it's misguided to invite users just for the sake of market share. Market share is irrelevant to Linux. Or at least it is to me.
Right on the money. I don't understand why there are so many articles saying, "if Linux developers want to attract users they should..." It was developed by the developers for the developers. Why would they want to attract more novice users? So they can spend all their time explaining about apt and its moo powers?
And if they did start requiring IDs and assigning seats, well, let's just say movie theatres won't be getting my business anyway.
Last night I saw "Watchmen" and they did both. In Auckland, a lot of the theaters are assigned seating, and, since it was a restricted movie, they were ID-ing people at the entrance. Mind you, they weren't correlating the seats with the ID (or ID-ing everyone), but it wouldn't be a very large step.
In both ATMs and gambling machines, the operator is a trusted entity. In voting he is not. Big difference.
ATMs, yes. But I think that a lot of gambling machines have to be certified by some governmental authority, which requires that the user/owner can't tamper with it without losing certification.
Maybe we should make the tubes owned by a public company that leases lines to ISPs rather than letting Rogers, Bell and all these other companies do it.
Saskatchewan has Sasktel, which is a government owned utility, providing phone and internet to both retail and wholesale providers. I've never had better rates, service or polices with any other telco and I would be very surprised if they tried to pull any of these tactics. But we should probably privatize them and let the market work it out.
For the record, you can be subject to both the laws of the country where you live and where you were born simultaneously, even if the two are not the same.;P American paedophilia and tax laws come to mind...
Then, when someone was suspected of terrorism (or being an anti-war activist), they could just ask the computer who were the first, second and third level aquintances of that guy; which is plenty scary already.
And of course, that's just a simple, simple example: there is a whole science devoted to that kind of data anilysis.
But time and again I have encountered heavily customised word documents with tick boxes, mixed colum formatting, etc, etc, which Openoffice simply cannot display with fidelity. And by fidelity, I mean make sure the danm funding form fits on one page and not bleed it over onto the second.
This is true, but there are also times when the layout changes when you open a document with a different version of MS Word. Openoffice may not be fully compatible with Word, but neither is Word.
It was racism and racial profiling that got them kicked off the plane
Muslims are not a "race". You mean ethnic and religious profiling.
If they were white Muslims, would they have been kicked off the plane? Did anyone know if they were actually Muslim or did they just belong to a racial group that is often Muslim?
Slashdot Mirror
It was a government loan administered by RBC, who isn't my normal bank. I think I could have made subsequent payments online, but would have had to come in to a branch to set up an account.
Tell me about it. When I tried to pay off my student loan, they wouldn't accept any form of payment by internet, phone, fax, or even the mail. They wanted me to personally deliver the money. Since I had moved from Canada to New Zealand, the only way I could pay it off was to give someone a power of attorney and have them hand-deliver payment.
Agreed. Last year, the Saskatchewan government-owned telecommunications company made a $121 M profit, most of which was paid back to the government in dividends.
Which is it? Are they operating at a break-even point, or using your tax dollars?
In any case, in perfect competition, markets tend to the break-even point.
Doesn't matter. Electrons always go against the current anyway.
No, it's a guaranteed speed. It's guaranteed never to be better than 6Mbit.
Ludite.
That leads to a really interesting question. How much of our electrical use is *not* converted to heat in the medium- to long-term. I'd suggest very little. Most of the work done by machines and transportation is actually overcoming friction. Same with computers, televisions, etc, which convert very nearly approximately 100% of the energy input to heat. The only reasonable process that the energy isn't converted into heat in the medium term is to put it into long-lived storage, e.g. reduction of aluminum ore to aluminum. I wonder if anyone has stats on this?
I don't think this is a problem because if you didn't harvest the wind's energy, it would all be converted to heat via friction. The opposite may have a very small effect; if some of the energy harvested is stored, it will not be converted to heat (in the near future), and would lead to cooling. Of course, both effects may lead to movement of energy from one area to another (e.g. heating in a city due to the toasters whereas the wind energy would have been dissipated in the country).
If I were to tell my wife that her birthday present to me sucks because it doesn't have X or Y, most people would just reply that I should fix it myself or shut up. On the other hand most of the same people would consider it acceptable to criticize a store that sold me a faulty item in the same manner just because I paid for it.
If you're paying someone to develop something for you, you can expect results. Otherwise, it might help to say please.
They're also too small to mate with deer.
I think you'd be surprised in your culture's ability to change. Every other nation that metrified has said the same thing.
I prefer rounding my age to the nearest integer. Thus, I celebrate my half-birthdays (six months from my birthday) when my (integer) age changes. People like parties so I also celebrate my regular birthday. And Fridays, too.
My login details are username:tkw954 password:*********
Hey that's weird. Slashdot must automatically replace your pw with stars.
No, I think it has a lot more to do with actually getting off your ass and learning or doing something.
I don't know where this refrain started, but I'm sick of people attacking new technologies because they're not 100% perfect. I'd say reducing 90% of mine-to-powerline CO2 emissions is something to applaud and support. Add to that the ability to almost totally eliminate SO2, NOx and mercury emissions, even if it takes a couple years to get it running, it's still worth pursuing.
Right on the money. I don't understand why there are so many articles saying, "if Linux developers want to attract users they should..." It was developed by the developers for the developers. Why would they want to attract more novice users? So they can spend all their time explaining about apt and its moo powers?
Last night I saw "Watchmen" and they did both. In Auckland, a lot of the theaters are assigned seating, and, since it was a restricted movie, they were ID-ing people at the entrance. Mind you, they weren't correlating the seats with the ID (or ID-ing everyone), but it wouldn't be a very large step.
ATMs, yes. But I think that a lot of gambling machines have to be certified by some governmental authority, which requires that the user/owner can't tamper with it without losing certification.
Saskatchewan has Sasktel, which is a government owned utility, providing phone and internet to both retail and wholesale providers. I've never had better rates, service or polices with any other telco and I would be very surprised if they tried to pull any of these tactics. But we should probably privatize them and let the market work it out.
Or other countries entirely. Just ask Marc Emery.
Yeah, the book was first published in 1996 (according to wikipedia).
This is true, but there are also times when the layout changes when you open a document with a different version of MS Word. Openoffice may not be fully compatible with Word, but neither is Word.
If they were white Muslims, would they have been kicked off the plane? Did anyone know if they were actually Muslim or did they just belong to a racial group that is often Muslim?
I'd say it was racism.