Please don't let Bush plunge the world into the Realm of $200 a barrel oil prices by attacking Iran.
Why not? Oil crises are good for you. The 1973 oil crise made us think about using oil more efficiently for the first time since WWII. Higher oil prices will make alternative fuels more viable. If it is a result of politics rather than that the oil wells really have dried up (as they surely will sooner or later) it means that we will still have oil for making funky plastics that are difficult to make from etanol.
And remember that this guy actually believes he is to here to prepare for the return of the Mahdi -- the islamic Messiah.
I'll gladly pay $200 a barrel to keep him from getting the bomb.
You're telling me that veganism is 'unworkable in reality'? What reality do you inhabit? You're ignoring the millions of vegans in the Indian subconinent, who have lived that way for thousands of years. Now don't start on about how they are all malnurished -- if you do, you are ignoring the fact that you were wrong in that veganism can't exist, and that there are plenty of meat eaters around the world who are starving.
While there are of course plenty of vegans in India, since there are plenty of just about anything that exists at all in India, the vast majority of Indians are not vegans but vegetarians. That is, they do not eat meat, but they do eat eggs and dairy products. They don't have the cows just to worship them, you know.
I prefer laptops with a stick in the middle of the keyboard (Dell and Thinkpads have these). Moving the arm out from the keyboard to move a mouse gives me "mouse arm" after a while. I find trackpads to clumsy, and these "mouse trap" devices that some swear by, they ain't for me.
Now, the stick isn't perfect. It keeps recalibrating all the time, and when it does, you have to let it go for half a minute or more (so that it can find the center position). And sometimes the recalibration gets wrong and it is as if it gets stuck in a "low gear". There doesn't really seem to be any way to adjust this recalibration behaviour. Also, since the stick is in the keyboard, I am always looking down on the screen. Colleagues of mine put their laptops in a frame that it gets them up from the desk a bit, but then they have to use external keyboards and mice, and since I haven't found any external keyboards with sticks I am... stuck.
Einstein did not practice the Jewish religion but maintained a strong secular Jewish identity. He was a card carrying zionist. Among other things, he went on fundraising tours for the establishment of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem with Chaim Weizmann, president of the World Zionist Organization and later the first president of Israel.
And, no, unlike so many of his generation, he is no martyr.
Study the Inquisition (which still exists), the Crusades (including my favorite, the Children's Crusade), and the Reformation (with particular focus on the 30 years war, and a brief look at Bloody Mary, queen of England)....and then put them in the context of the demise of feudalism and the emergence of nationalism, which led to many bloody secular wars as well as many religious ones. Think here of the Hundred-Year's War, of Phillip II's assault on the Templars, of the French Revolution, and of the Spanish Armada.
The point is that just because people who (nominally) held religious beliefs committed violence, does not therefore prove that their religious beliefs caused violence. In some cases, no doubt the beliefs led to violence. That is certainly the case in the sorry Kingdom of Muenster incident. But in many cases, the religious beliefs were a convenient cover for a power grab.
It is of course not that easy that one is the cause and one is the cover. The religion and the social conditions at the end of the middle ages were both necessary conditions for the crusades. Making social conditions the cause of wars is like make humans a cause for war. Humans are indeed a necessary condition for wars, but there are humans that don't go to war, and there are people in miserable social conditions that don't go to war. Something else is needed.
However, christianity in itself has a number of characteristics that makes it prone to be a cause or cover for wars. For one, it is universalistic: That is, it claims it is the only path to salvation. Hence it is a good deed to bring another human to the belief. The degree to which the aims sanctify the means have varied through the centuries, but the basic principle has lasted into modern days (today, many churches aren't as absolutist in their views of this principle, but this is a fairly recent development).
you can't use paypal to buy porn either. (it's part of their user agreement, there's an article online somewhere that claims, that this was a compromise with the govt. If paypal couldn't be used for 'morally offensive purposes' then the govt. wouldn't come down on paypal acting similar to a bank, but not following all the laws banks have to follow )
Alternative theory: Serving porn companies would generate too much overhead when people try to repudiate their buys.
How certain are people about the age of this device? The consensus seems to be 80 BC, but what dating methods have been employed to reach that conclusion?
The hands stopped at five past six, March 3 80 BC.
According to the Swedish government sponsored tv channel SVT...
This statement is misleading. SVT is funded by the people, more specifically every household with a TV reciever, which must pay 5 SEK each day (~70 cent) to SVT. There is no money flow from the swedish government to SVT.
You are correct. Indeed it is the Swedish parliament that sponsors the Swedish television by passing a law that taxes television receivers. It is a tax by any standard, even though it is peculiar one in that it is collected by a private entity and that it is earmarked for a specific purpose. It can be changed at the parliament's whim, making the so called "free television" wholly dependent on the good will of the parliament. And it is not freer than that the board is populated with old apparatchiks.
It might also be worth to mention that by Swedish law it is highly illegal for a politician in the government to give orders to the police or other institution in specific matters such as this. It is called "ministerstyre" (minister's ruling?), and the law is in place as a means to stop corruption.
No, it is the Swedish take on rule of law. Sweden does not have separation of powers. The parliament makes the laws and appoints the government (or rather, the prime minister, who appoints his ministers). The government appoints all government officials, including judges. To ensure that everybody are treated equal under the law, the constitution forbids politicians and political officials to make decisions or influence decisions about how a law should be applied in specific cases.
It has very little to do with corruption, this instrument doesn't stop anyone from buying (or otherwise influencing) a government official, or a politician to make a decision or pass a law in his favour.
Fatal epidemic zoonoses, that is animal originated diseases that have a fair chance to kill you and that spread, almost exclusively originate with domesticated animals (cattle, pig, chicken, ducks and the like).
The reason for this is that it takes a long time for the zoonoses to evolve into forms that spread to humans or between humans and to do that there needs to be large concentrations of humans and the originating animals in contact for a long time.
This is the reason that most epidemic diseases developped in Eurasia (most of the domesticable animals originated "here").
Common sense dictates that they can only sanction you for what you do/say in school. If they feel their image has been affected they can sue you. If they feel threatened they can notify the authorities. However, they should not be able to unilaterally act as judge and jury of your actions outside the school.
Yes and no. An employer can sanction you for what you say or do outside of your working hours. You have a loyalty duty, by virtue of contract or the law (depending on your local legislation). You can't slur your employer and have the protection of the law. Normally an employer doesn't have to go through court to terminate you for disloyalty (but you can go to court to challenge termination if you feel it is unfair).
However, a school kid cannot enter contracts, so they cannot be held responsible for what they do in breach of a contract (real or implied).
All that's going to happen is the manufacturers will provide a facility for you to return the device so they can remove the battery. I don't think the bill says batteries have to be user-removable, just removable.
You can probably do it yourself. If you can remove a battery by breaking the gadget, then it is user-removable. All Apple has to do is to ship a slip of paper with the iPod with instructions to break it open to remove the battery.
You can build the safest car in the world but there is always a need to be able to take a very quick decision to avoid some other idiot who might be breaking the rules of the road and not be in an automated car... still, if we all had them...
SO call me a paranoid nut, but I am convinved that thousands of cancers per year that are being blamed on second hand smoke or UV exposure are really due to spark plug radiation.
No, no, no. It is from watching tv. The electrons from the cathod ray tube are absorbed in the screen emitting hard gamma. If you spent time sitting in front of a CRT computer screen it is a lot worse, of course, since you get sit a lot closer and you typically spend eight hours a day in front of the screen.
It has been done. A couple of japanese researchers "built" a remote controlled cockroach a couple of years back. The idea was to search for earthquake victims trapped in rubble. Rescue? Doubt it.
For the slowwitted, exactly how would a treaty on reducing the emission of greenhouse gasses have any effect on the export of toxic waste? (Ok, transport costs would rise somewhat, but would that really change anything here?)
I thought the goal was to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Reducing the combustion of fossil fuels would address that goal, switching to another combustible fuel - not so much. I think you're missing the point.
I think you are missing the point. I am not specifically advocating the use of hydrogen (which in itself does not contribute to carbon dioxide emission). I had in mind several non-fossil energy sources (of which hydrogen is not one, it is not a source of energy), which are becoming more economically viable as the oil prices rise. Unfortunately liquified coal is also becoming more economically viable.
But I agree that there are a lot of similarities between the Bush administration and the strong federal leadership of Germany during the 30s & 40s.
It is possible that you agree, but that is only because you are confused. The German Reich was not a federal entity, hence it is not that leadership I was referring to. And if Hitler had had it his way, there would have been no shortage of oil in Germany. However, an act of federal leadership, that of Roosevelt, intervened (as did the British, of course).
The real problem is, there are no limits on how much gasoline, electricity, or natural gas one person is allowed to use. Supplies are being wastefully depleted and turned into greenhouse gasses, and people are blaming the average consumer.
So when gas prices go up by 80%, this rich bastard probably won't even think twice.
It might be unfair, but if you are rich, it is almost physically impossible to use fuel in proportion to your richdom. So if the price of fuel doubles, the rich people perhaps still heat their ten pools each year-round, but they are a tiny fraction of the population, so it doesn't really make much difference.
let's make reduced fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions a reality by[...] - end the war in Iraq to free up the funds for the above initiatives
Apart from that there probably is no way to end the war in Iraq right now (it is perhaps possible to end the American involvement, but the Iraqis can probably keep the war going all by themselves), doing so would be bad for the stated goal. The single most important tool to reduce fossil fuel consumption is high prices on fossil fuel. As long as there is instability in the Middle East, the prices will stay high, and there will be economical incitament to move to alternative fuels.
From this perspective, a little bit of mess in Iran and Saudi Arabia would only be beneficial.
Of course, there are other perspectives too.
Germany during World War II switched to hydrogen for its cars when its petroleum supplies were cut off. Brazil has switched to domestically produced alcohol. It's all do-able with a strong federal leadership. This is clearly a situation where the market economy is going to favor lower prices, not (necessarily) environmentally desirable results. The federal government is the agent that can mandate the conditions necessary to make this stuff a reality.
It seems you agree to my point, then. The strong federal leadership that forced Germany to switch to hydrogen was an act of war (a blockade).
I don't claim to be an expert on the USian demos, but it should be noted that nation is not a government, or a set of borders. Nation is a synonym of people, and they do not necessarily correspond one-to-one. Nations are often a bit difficult to define, may be there is more than one American nation (one blue and one red, maybe...), but there sure is not 50.
No steel framed buildings have EVER collapsed due to fire before 9/11 even though much fiercer and hotter fires have occurred within them.
Not true. I doubt you heard of it, but in 1993 the tennis hall of SALK, a large tennis club in Stockholm, was destroyed in a fire. The hall collapses because the steel frame that span the roof is softened by the fire. The frame, which was curved in a semi-circular fashion, bends near the ground, exactly where you would expect from your solid mechanics course (if you took one).
Just because you never saw it before it doesn't mean it has never happened before.
Slashdot Mirror
Please don't let Bush plunge the world into the Realm of $200 a barrel oil prices by attacking Iran.
Why not? Oil crises are good for you. The 1973 oil crise made us think about using oil more efficiently for the first time since WWII. Higher oil prices will make alternative fuels more viable. If it is a result of politics rather than that the oil wells really have dried up (as they surely will sooner or later) it means that we will still have oil for making funky plastics that are difficult to make from etanol.
And remember that this guy actually believes he is to here to prepare for the return of the Mahdi -- the islamic Messiah.
I'll gladly pay $200 a barrel to keep him from getting the bomb.
You're telling me that veganism is 'unworkable in reality'? What reality do you inhabit? You're ignoring the millions of vegans in the Indian subconinent, who have lived that way for thousands of years. Now don't start on about how they are all malnurished -- if you do, you are ignoring the fact that you were wrong in that veganism can't exist, and that there are plenty of meat eaters around the world who are starving.
While there are of course plenty of vegans in India, since there are plenty of just about anything that exists at all in India, the vast majority of Indians are not vegans but vegetarians. That is, they do not eat meat, but they do eat eggs and dairy products. They don't have the cows just to worship them, you know.
I prefer laptops with a stick in the middle of the keyboard (Dell and Thinkpads have these). Moving the arm out from the keyboard to move a mouse gives me "mouse arm" after a while. I find trackpads to clumsy, and these "mouse trap" devices that some swear by, they ain't for me.
... stuck.
Now, the stick isn't perfect. It keeps recalibrating all the time, and when it does, you have to let it go for half a minute or more (so that it can find the center position). And sometimes the recalibration gets wrong and it is as if it gets stuck in a "low gear". There doesn't really seem to be any way to adjust this recalibration behaviour. Also, since the stick is in the keyboard, I am always looking down on the screen. Colleagues of mine put their laptops in a frame that it gets them up from the desk a bit, but then they have to use external keyboards and mice, and since I haven't found any external keyboards with sticks I am
This is a blatant lie.
Einstein did not practice the Jewish religion but maintained a strong secular Jewish identity. He was a card carrying zionist. Among other things, he went on fundraising tours for the establishment of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem with Chaim Weizmann, president of the World Zionist Organization and later the first president of Israel.
And, no, unlike so many of his generation, he is no martyr.
It is of course not that easy that one is the cause and one is the cover. The religion and the social conditions at the end of the middle ages were both necessary conditions for the crusades. Making social conditions the cause of wars is like make humans a cause for war. Humans are indeed a necessary condition for wars, but there are humans that don't go to war, and there are people in miserable social conditions that don't go to war. Something else is needed.
However, christianity in itself has a number of characteristics that makes it prone to be a cause or cover for wars. For one, it is universalistic: That is, it claims it is the only path to salvation. Hence it is a good deed to bring another human to the belief. The degree to which the aims sanctify the means have varied through the centuries, but the basic principle has lasted into modern days (today, many churches aren't as absolutist in their views of this principle, but this is a fairly recent development).
you can't use paypal to buy porn either. (it's part of their user agreement, there's an article online somewhere that claims, that this was a compromise with the govt. If paypal couldn't be used for 'morally offensive purposes' then the govt. wouldn't come down on paypal acting similar to a bank, but not following all the laws banks have to follow )
Alternative theory: Serving porn companies would generate too much overhead when people try to repudiate their buys.
How certain are people about the age of this device? The consensus seems to be 80 BC, but what dating methods have been employed to reach that conclusion?
The hands stopped at five past six, March 3 80 BC.
According to the Swedish government sponsored tv channel SVT...
This statement is misleading. SVT is funded by the people, more specifically every household with a TV reciever, which must pay 5 SEK each day (~70 cent) to SVT. There is no money flow from the swedish government to SVT.
You are correct. Indeed it is the Swedish parliament that sponsors the Swedish television by passing a law that taxes television receivers. It is a tax by any standard, even though it is peculiar one in that it is collected by a private entity and that it is earmarked for a specific purpose. It can be changed at the parliament's whim, making the so called "free television" wholly dependent on the good will of the parliament. And it is not freer than that the board is populated with old apparatchiks.
It might also be worth to mention that by Swedish law it is highly illegal for a politician in the government to give orders to the police or other institution in specific matters such as this. It is called "ministerstyre" (minister's ruling?), and the law is in place as a means to stop corruption.
No, it is the Swedish take on rule of law. Sweden does not have separation of powers. The parliament makes the laws and appoints the government (or rather, the prime minister, who appoints his ministers). The government appoints all government officials, including judges. To ensure that everybody are treated equal under the law, the constitution forbids politicians and political officials to make decisions or influence decisions about how a law should be applied in specific cases.
It has very little to do with corruption, this instrument doesn't stop anyone from buying (or otherwise influencing) a government official, or a politician to make a decision or pass a law in his favour.
Fatal epidemic zoonoses, that is animal originated diseases that have a fair chance to kill you and that spread, almost exclusively originate with domesticated animals (cattle, pig, chicken, ducks and the like).
The reason for this is that it takes a long time for the zoonoses to evolve into forms that spread to humans or between humans and to do that there needs to be large concentrations of humans and the originating animals in contact for a long time.
This is the reason that most epidemic diseases developped in Eurasia (most of the domesticable animals originated "here").
They are treif, so they will be safe...
Common sense dictates that they can only sanction you for what you do/say in school. If they feel their image has been affected they can sue you. If they feel threatened they can notify the authorities.
However, they should not be able to unilaterally act as judge and jury of your actions outside the school.
Yes and no. An employer can sanction you for what you say or do outside of your working hours. You have a loyalty duty, by virtue of contract or the law (depending on your local legislation). You can't slur your employer and have the protection of the law. Normally an employer doesn't have to go through court to terminate you for disloyalty (but you can go to court to challenge termination if you feel it is unfair).
However, a school kid cannot enter contracts, so they cannot be held responsible for what they do in breach of a contract (real or implied).
n/t
You can be a dynamite engineer with a fantastic development group and a kick-ass product.
Dynamite engineers' products do a whole lot more than kicking ass!
All that's going to happen is the manufacturers will provide a facility for you to return the device so they can remove the battery. I don't think the bill says batteries have to be user-removable, just removable.
You can probably do it yourself. If you can remove a battery by breaking the gadget, then it is user-removable. All Apple has to do is to ship a slip of paper with the iPod with instructions to break it open to remove the battery.
Bagdad. Unmanned Military Ground Vehicles. Primarily for supply runs, but could also be used to troll for IEDs.
Better still: Unmanned suicide bombers!
You can build the safest car in the world but there is always a need to be able to take a very quick decision to avoid some other idiot who might be breaking the rules of the road and not be in an automated car... still, if we all had them...
That's where the D in DARPA comes in.
SO call me a paranoid nut, but I am convinved that thousands of cancers per year that are being blamed on second hand smoke or UV exposure are really due to spark plug radiation.
No, no, no. It is from watching tv. The electrons from the cathod ray tube are absorbed in the screen emitting hard gamma. If you spent time sitting in front of a CRT computer screen it is a lot worse, of course, since you get sit a lot closer and you typically spend eight hours a day in front of the screen.
It has been done. A couple of japanese researchers "built" a remote controlled cockroach a couple of years back. The idea was to search for earthquake victims trapped in rubble. Rescue? Doubt it.
For the slowwitted, exactly how would a treaty on reducing the emission of greenhouse gasses have any effect on the export of toxic waste? (Ok, transport costs would rise somewhat, but would that really change anything here?)
I thought the goal was to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Reducing the combustion of fossil fuels would address that goal, switching to another combustible fuel - not so much. I think you're missing the point.
I think you are missing the point. I am not specifically advocating the use of hydrogen (which in itself does not contribute to carbon dioxide emission). I had in mind several non-fossil energy sources (of which hydrogen is not one, it is not a source of energy), which are becoming more economically viable as the oil prices rise. Unfortunately liquified coal is also becoming more economically viable.
But I agree that there are a lot of similarities between the Bush administration and the strong federal leadership of Germany during the 30s & 40s.
It is possible that you agree, but that is only because you are confused. The German Reich was not a federal entity, hence it is not that leadership I was referring to. And if Hitler had had it his way, there would have been no shortage of oil in Germany. However, an act of federal leadership, that of Roosevelt, intervened (as did the British, of course).
The real problem is, there are no limits on how much gasoline, electricity, or natural gas one person is allowed to use. Supplies are being wastefully depleted and turned into greenhouse gasses, and people are blaming the average consumer.
So when gas prices go up by 80%, this rich bastard probably won't even think twice.
It might be unfair, but if you are rich, it is almost physically impossible to use fuel in proportion to your richdom. So if the price of fuel doubles, the rich people perhaps still heat their ten pools each year-round, but they are a tiny fraction of the population, so it doesn't really make much difference.
Yes, it is unfair.
let's make reduced fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions a reality by[...]
- end the war in Iraq to free up the funds for the above initiatives
Apart from that there probably is no way to end the war in Iraq right now (it is perhaps possible to end the American involvement, but the Iraqis can probably keep the war going all by themselves), doing so would be bad for the stated goal. The single most important tool to reduce fossil fuel consumption is high prices on fossil fuel. As long as there is instability in the Middle East, the prices will stay high, and there will be economical incitament to move to alternative fuels.
From this perspective, a little bit of mess in Iran and Saudi Arabia would only be beneficial.
Of course, there are other perspectives too.
Germany during World War II switched to hydrogen for its cars when its petroleum supplies were cut off. Brazil has switched to domestically produced alcohol. It's all do-able with a strong federal leadership. This is clearly a situation where the market economy is going to favor lower prices, not (necessarily) environmentally desirable results. The federal government is the agent that can mandate the conditions necessary to make this stuff a reality.
It seems you agree to my point, then. The strong federal leadership that forced Germany to switch to hydrogen was an act of war (a blockade).
Each state is indeed its own nation.
I don't claim to be an expert on the USian demos, but it should be noted that nation is not a government, or a set of borders. Nation is a synonym of people, and they do not necessarily correspond one-to-one. Nations are often a bit difficult to define, may be there is more than one American nation (one blue and one red, maybe...), but there sure is not 50.
No steel framed buildings have EVER collapsed due to fire before 9/11 even though much fiercer and hotter fires have occurred within them.
Not true. I doubt you heard of it, but in 1993 the tennis hall of SALK, a large tennis club in Stockholm, was destroyed in a fire. The hall collapses because the steel frame that span the roof is softened by the fire. The frame, which was curved in a semi-circular fashion, bends near the ground, exactly where you would expect from your solid mechanics course (if you took one).
Just because you never saw it before it doesn't mean it has never happened before.