This is the kind of crap that has been going on for the last 5 years or longer.
If you don't believe him, all you have to do is to look back at ANY Slashdot article on global warming in the last 5 years to see an incredible amount of vitriol and hate directed at those like myself who are highly skeptical of "Global Warming" as a man-made phenomena.
We are called "Deniers", fools, idiots, trolls, tools, apologists for "big oil", ignorant, and any number of insults that you can imagine. Our intelligence is derided, our ability to research and think critically is questioned and our honesty is doubted. We are treated much like those who "insult Islam" are treated by Muslims. With disrespect, derision, and hatred. That some of the eco-religious would choose to "take it to the next level" with death threats is NOT SURPRISING AT ALL.
There are many many scientists, not funded by big-oil, who seriously doubt or outright disagree with the conclusion reached by a few high-profile scientists in regards to the veracity of man-made global warming. Many of them have signed on to a petition that states:
There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.
Their science is sound, and after doing my due-diligence I agree with them. I will not be shouted down by eco-religious fanatics or ideological thugs, and neither will these scientists.
All Dell hardware will work "out of the box" with Ubuntu Linux.
The only exceptions are the Dell Proprietary wireless cards, and the ATI video cards.
Wireless: Dell also carries Intel wireless cards which use chipsets that are fully supported by Linux. It could simply include them rather than the Dell cards in a Linux certified box.
Video: Dell could easily get a contract with Nvidia to supply desktop video cards since Nvidia already supplies Dell with mobile video for workstation class laptops.
So that solves the hardware issue. What about support? Well, if Dell decides on Ubuntu Linux, they could also offer their customers support contracts through Canonical. I'm sure Canonical and Dell could come up with an agreement to have a "Dell Unit" that simply answers the phone differently. Canonical offers both Enterprise class and End-user class support contracts, and they already have the infrastructure set up to handle a large call volume. It's a perfect match.
Any other issues? Didn't think so. Let the Linux boxes begin shipping!
That's the POINT of a "Dirt Cheap" PC setup. You want dirt cheap, you get second, third, or 4th generation old parts. Frankly I don't think there is anything wrong with using older generation parts, provided you don't expect them to perform like cutting edge stuff. Honestly, any machine with at least a 1Ghz Processor, 1 GIG RAM, and a 2 generation old video card should be able to run XP or Ubuntu with no trouble at all. Vista, No.
But then isn't that the POINT of this article anyway? To get off the expensive upgrade treadmill by moving to an OS that doesn't waste your CPU and RAM by being full of bloatware and unnecessary services and processes? (I won't even go into the benefits from a computing experience free of virus and spyware worries.)
Methinks that you missed the spirit of the OP's post.
having a forward moon base would be useful for launching expeditions deeper into our solar system. The reduced escape velocity of the moon's gravity should prove helpful in conserving fuel. Additionally, the reduced gravity also makes the Moon an excellent place to locate spaceship construction facilities, as there are fewer issues with the weight of a ship causing structural deformation.
Those are just a couple ideas, and I haven't even touched on mining, metallurgy and fuel production.
AND having gone to the site and read through the ENTIRE thread on their forums;
What we have here is a random number/letter guesser. It's basically a VB Script that guesses random numbers and letters in a string that is the same length as a Vista Key, then inserts it into the registry, overwriting the existing Vista key. You use Magic Jellybean to check when the key has changed, and then manually check it against MS's activation service. Really this is little more than a person manually sitting down and making key guesses. This is why it's called a "Brute Force" attack. There is no intelligence (ie: an algorithm) behind the key guesses at all.
That said, because it IS so simple, it's almost impossible for MS to defend against, since they can't just "ban" any keys made by it like they would a traditional algorithmic keygen. Also, there is an improved version of it posted as source on the boards there, so if you want to take a peek at the code you can.
The idea that people are motivated exclusively by selfish motives (whether turning a buck, going to heaven, or feeling warm and fuzzy inside) is difficult to disprove, but equally difficult to prove.
On the contrary. I would say it's quite easy to prove. Now, I'm not going to cite any scientific study, because I don't know if there has been one on this subject. However, that does not make the inherent selfishness of all human beings something that is not easy to prove.
Try this exercise: Get permission to visit your local preschool or Kindergarten over the course of a week. While there just sit quietly and record the number of times the children are reminded to share, versus the number of times they are instructed that they don't have to share. (Examples, "Billy, share the finger paints with Sally." vs "Billy, it's Ok, you don't have to share the finger paints, Sally has her own." I GUARANTEE you that the children will be reminded to share FAR more times than they will be stopped from sharing.
Selfishness is a basic Human trait. It's part of our nature to think of ourselves first, and it is very rare indeed when people will honestly do something for others out of no desire for themselves at all. At the very least they will be looking for the "Warm Fuzzy". People are motivated almost exclusively by selfish motives. This is why Communism and Socialism don't work. They try and go against human selfishness.
This is why Capitalism DOES work, it harnesses human selfishness (we call it Enlightened Self Interest) for the greater good of all. This is also why Open Source works so well. It is a very pure form of Capitalism, almost a meritocracy. It's also why so many big companies are involved. It's in their own selfish best interests to improve the Linux code base, so they volunteer (IE: Don't charge anyone) their programmer's time to improve it so they can improve their own bottom lines down the road. Think of it as Investment Volunteerism.
Enlightened Self Interest: Good for you, me, and Linux.
OK, and here's an injection of Sanity into the rampant Christian/right wing bashing that's certain to occur. Here's a post by the Admin of the site clarifying a few things:
Wow. Thanks for everyone's lively comments. We appreciate it and think the discussion is great.
It might be important to point out that we are Wii fans. We have the console and love it. The release certainly got the conversation going but our aim was to be more educational than confrontational. Obviously, the latter seemed to come across:) Also we are technology fans. Not haters. That's why we use the web.
We also want to point out that this site is to help parents be informed about the issue of porn and the internet. Our goal is to help parents talk to their kids about these issues. Sadly to say we come across a lot of parents who simply dont understand technology and are not engaging with their kids period. This site is to help them. Turn the light on for them.
Finally, we would like to direct you to the page on the site that talks about parental controls that seems to have gone unnoticed on our site. We should of been more clear on the homepage Wii banner. Again, our point is to help parents, not attack Nintendo. For goodness sake, we love the thing.
So thanks for the great discussion, feedback, and comments.
PS: In regards to this being some Christian Right Wing Republican site, I'm afraid that is way off. Unfortunately, Kotaku.com has really misrepresented that point. But all is forgiven and no worries. I can just assure you were not Republican and were not Christian right wing. Those who know us have actually got a good chuckle today out of that one:)
Posted by Porn Talk Admin 2/27/2007 @ 6:24 PM
We all cool now? Breathe deeply, allow the hatred of all things religious to wash out of you.
They are simply trying to inform parents about the need to use the Parental controls and to engage their kids in an active discussion on the topic of pornography. In other words, they are trying to foster GOOD PARENTING. They just erred in selecting an ad-campaign by picking one that was a tad too combative in presentation.
I inherited an all Dell shop when I started my Network Admin gig.
While I have had some issues with them, they have generally been good to work with. Their Gold Tech Support is great. You get a tech who's first language is English (unless you choose an option for another language, of course) and the techs are knowledgeable, friendly, and prompt about scheduling repairs. I actually scheduled a repair for one of our PC's that blew a capacitor, and the tech should be out within the hour today with a brand new motherboard.
They aren't perfect, but I have been generally very happy with their service.
As to what happened to the high point of Arabic culture, thats easy, we destroyed it in The Crusades.
Except for one fact: Europe LOST the crusades. Yes, they held an area of land approximately equivalent to modern day Israel for a short period of time, but most of Arabia was still dominated by Islam. Yes, "The Caliphate" as Mohammad's original empire was known was gone, but it had been in serious decline for some time due to internal strife, the slow march towards religious extremism and traditional tribalism for years by that point.
The only real "advanced" Islam was the one destroyed years earlier in the Grenada area. The only reason they were advanced was their rejection of Fundamentalist Islam, and the creation of a more modern more egalitarian society that viewed Christians and Jews as, if not equals, valuable citizens. Most of the advances IN that society were brought to it by the Jews and Christians living within it. Not the Muslims themselves. Of course, all that was gone by the time of the crusades due to the destruction of that society by greedy Kings using Christianity as an excuse to take land.
The point is, Islam as we know it today has brought nothing to the table to advance society. While I am all for giving people their due, Modern Islam is owed no credit for any discoveries (unless you consider suicide bombers a discovery), and trying to credit them for this smacks of Political Correctness gone awry.
More socialism. And don't mistake, what you are suggesting IS a form of socialism. While the doctors won't be directly employed by the government, the fact that the government would be the only payee is socialism and a serious mistake. Why? Because the government has a limited pot from which to draw funds to pay out for citizen's medical bills. What happens when the money runs out? There are only two choices at that point. Ration the health care, or raise taxes. Historically, the Canadian government has chosen to do BOTH.
The U.S. system relies more on a capitalistic system to fund health care. It works quite well. It isn't perfect, but it is one of the best, if not the best systems around. Why? The national economy, via MULTIPLE payees, has a nearly unlimited pot of money to pay for health care. Thusly people are able to get the health treatment they need at prices they can afford. The only problem our system is having is a LACK of competition due to the government mandated health insurance, and government "price controls" (which always drive UP prices rather than hold them down.)
I always hear liberals and socialists talk up Canada's socialized Health Care as if it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. As an Ex-Canadian now living in the Buffalo NY area, I can tell you it's not all that it's cracked up to be. It works just as badly as I described in my first paragraph, if not worse.
One of the things that I hear about all the time from my doctor acquaintances is how more and more Canadians are coming to the Buffalo area for surgery. Why? Because they are getting rationed in Canada and are having to wait insanely long times to get lifesaving surgery. So long, in fact, that MANY people are dying before they can get the surgery they need! Many Canadians are now coming to Buffalo (and other border cities) and paying CASH to get their surgery done so they can live! If we end up getting socialized medicine here in the U.S. I don't know where they will go. I guess many more people on both sides of the border will just die waiting for surgery. Gee, that just makes me want socialism even more! NOT!
He was trying to say that often people believe that those who say they have Augsberger's Syndrome (or Tourette's) are simply lying, claiming to have that syndrome so that they can be an ass in public.
He then goes on to make the point that this assumption is silly, based on the conclusion that it is socially more comfortable to simply be an ass, than to live with the stigma of a mental disorder. Thusly, if someone is an ass, but then claims that they have a mental disorder, it is more appropriate to take them at their word than to disbelieve them.
For general social interaction I would say that he is mostly correct. Obviously there are exceptions, but as a general rule his hypothesis seems solid.
You are also correct in that some people are just asses. However that is only tangentially related to what he was speaking on, and not really the point.
Except that this mutation does NOT add new information to the genome.
If you had RTFA you would have seen that the mutation occurs when the gene that is responsible for producing the chemical Myostatin is NOT present in the genome. So, not only is your post rude, inflammatory and trollish, but it's just plain WRONG.
I'm sick of seeing these chips at outrageous prices. Who other than the most rabid gamer is going to be willing to fork over $500 - $1000 (US) for the latest processor? The worst part of it is, the processors are starting out so overpriced, that when they start to drop, it takes over two YEARS before they become reasonable. I don't know about the rest of Slashdot, but I'd like to be able to get something less than 4 generations old at a decent price point.
It used to be that you would spend, AT MOST, about $100 - $200 (US) for the latest AMD offering (usually much less, under $75.00 US). Intel was never considered for gamers or home-builders because they were overpriced and underpowered. Lately AMD has been pulling the same crap that Intel was pulling back in the 90's. End result? We now have two chip makers, both with overpriced CPU's, trying to compete. It's about time there was a price war! They are using smaller and smaller die sizes, and are thusly getting more and more out of each silicon wafer. The damn things should be getting CHEAPER not exorbitantly more expensive!
Bring back the sub-$200.00 bleeding edge CPU. It's well past time.
Scientific concensus does not mean truth. However, when a layperson who doesn't understand the issue needs to, it is by far their best bet to go with where the overwhelming majority of scientific viewpoints lie.
Two issues with this, and the rest of your post, actually.
One: Michael Chrichton is not exactly a lay person. He is a certified MD, and a medical scientist. He does not currently practice, but he IS a scientist, and more than capable of studying the data on his own and coming up with a trustworthy conclusion, or to make comments on what he perceives as misconduct in the scientific community.
Two: You are jumping to some pretty ridiculous conclusions about what I would have our society become. As I stated, consensus in the scientific community is bad, especially when not all the data is there. Again, Science must be independently verifiable. Using magic to travel to Mars is not independently verifiable. Nor are ANY of the other ludicrous statements you make. I clearly stated this in my post above. Apparently it's much more fun to troll by making baseless accusations than actually READING WHAT I WROTE.
Currently, the concept of "Solely Man-Made Global Warming" is not independently verifiable! The entire discussion smacks of politics, and that's what's got a bee in Mr. Chrichton's bonnet. This is NOT an outrageous request to make. We simply want All the data available, and have it put to a totally open, and independently verifiable test. Are you aware that Michael Mann, the scientist that came up with the famous "Hockey Stick" graph, has YET to release his data and methods for peer review? What kind of science is that? No review? Community consensus without discussion? THIS IS NOT SCIENCE, IT IS POLITICS. Clear and simple.
All I and Mr. Chrichton want is clean science. No consensus, no politics. Capice?
Have you actually read the transcripts of his speeches or his books relating to Science? Chrichton wasn't atacking Science with Politics, he was attacking the Politics that has entered Science! Chrichton himself argues for a more pure scientific approach! Here is a relevant quote from Mr. Chrichton:
Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results.
Chrichton's main point is one I have also argued: Environmental science has been invaded by politicians and people with a specific political agenda to push, and that has colored and damaged almost all scientific study in that field since then. It as gotten so bad that "consensus" (something antithetical to the scientific method) is now being pushed as a reason why we should all believe that man and man alone is responsible for Global warming!
This is not science, it is politics. I, like Chrichton, am not interested in someone's political agenda when science is involved. I was science for science' sake. I realize that it isn't always possible, but it is something we should strive for. Chrichton merely pushes this, and as "nerds" we should be behind him on this point.
I have been thinking that maybe the government should sponsor ( foot part of the bill )in high sunlight zones ( like southern Florida, southern Texas, maybe even in California ) road pavement that is a light shade of gray instead of black.
They already have this. It's called concrete.
And there is no need to have big socialistic central government programs. Many communities are switching to concrete in urban areas because it lasts longer and is cheaper to maintain than asphalt. Unfortunately, the initial investment is rather high, but with the higher costs of the petroleum that goes into asphalt, it's becoming cheaper and cheaper (relative to asphalt) to use. Very warm areas especially benefit from concrete as a paving material due to it's lack of flow characteristics once set.
I can agree with a public awareness campaign, but not with a law.
Laws like this are part of creeping nannystateism. At some point we as humans just have to accept that we cannot possibly account for every stupid thing that people do or every unintended consequence or every random event. We will have to accept that into every life a little chaos falls and sometimes life just sucks. You can't legislate this stuff into non-existence and it's not worth the effort and expense trying.
I also wonder about the Deaf. Are we saying that it should be illegal to cross the street if you can't hear the traffic? I wonder if this law could somehow be twisted into a discrimination lawsuit? Not saying it should be, just saying that lawyers can be very creative when money is involved.
I'd also like to see the studies involved in this. The politician is saying that it's "Practically an epidemic". Where is he getting his figures from? Has a study been done that tracks the reasons for people getting hit while crossing the street? Somehow I think this guy is just blowing hot air out his ass on this one.
Developers will (or should) have an MSDN license. The MSDN versions of Vista do not have the VM restrictions that the regular versions of Vista have. So it's not really an issue for Developers. Of course, if you want to spend a few thousand for an MSDN license, you too can have the right to create multiple VM versions of any Vista flavor you want!
Having said that, I wonder if the issue is more one of licensing and less one of technical restrictions. If the VMWare drivers work in one version of Vista, what's to stop them from working in another, unless MS has instituted some kind of Kernel-level block? Unless there is a specific ban-list of drivers integrated into the kernel, what is to stop someone from just buying a copy of Vista Home Basic and running the install in VMWare? I supposed MS could put in a ban-list during the hardware detection routine that would cause the install to fail out if it detects virtualized hardware, but one should be able to get around that by using VMWare converter and just converting a live install of Vista on another machine, and then just changing the key.
Has anyone actually tried to do an install of Vista Home basic or Premium on a VM?
You may find that many consumer grade routers have this problem. (I've run through at least 5 different models in the recent past that would lock up periodically) In some a firmware upgrade helped, but only partly. In others I could never get it fixed.
I ended up going with a smoothwall (http://www.smoothwall.org) to resolve the issue. It's worked great, and I get a really fine grain control over my system. Check them out! </blatantslashvertizement>
Slashdot Mirror
If you don't believe him, all you have to do is to look back at ANY Slashdot article on global warming in the last 5 years to see an incredible amount of vitriol and hate directed at those like myself who are highly skeptical of "Global Warming" as a man-made phenomena.
We are called "Deniers", fools, idiots, trolls, tools, apologists for "big oil", ignorant, and any number of insults that you can imagine. Our intelligence is derided, our ability to research and think critically is questioned and our honesty is doubted. We are treated much like those who "insult Islam" are treated by Muslims. With disrespect, derision, and hatred. That some of the eco-religious would choose to "take it to the next level" with death threats is NOT SURPRISING AT ALL.
There are many many scientists, not funded by big-oil, who seriously doubt or outright disagree with the conclusion reached by a few high-profile scientists in regards to the veracity of man-made global warming. Many of them have signed on to a petition that states:
You can see the petition online here: http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p37.htm
and a scientific abstract that further explains their position here: http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htm
Their science is sound, and after doing my due-diligence I agree with them. I will not be shouted down by eco-religious fanatics or ideological thugs, and neither will these scientists.
All Dell hardware will work "out of the box" with Ubuntu Linux.
The only exceptions are the Dell Proprietary wireless cards, and the ATI video cards.
Wireless: Dell also carries Intel wireless cards which use chipsets that are fully supported by Linux. It could simply include them rather than the Dell cards in a Linux certified box.
Video: Dell could easily get a contract with Nvidia to supply desktop video cards since Nvidia already supplies Dell with mobile video for workstation class laptops.
So that solves the hardware issue. What about support? Well, if Dell decides on Ubuntu Linux, they could also offer their customers support contracts through Canonical. I'm sure Canonical and Dell could come up with an agreement to have a "Dell Unit" that simply answers the phone differently. Canonical offers both Enterprise class and End-user class support contracts, and they already have the infrastructure set up to handle a large call volume. It's a perfect match.
Any other issues? Didn't think so. Let the Linux boxes begin shipping!
Um...
That's the POINT of a "Dirt Cheap" PC setup. You want dirt cheap, you get second, third, or 4th generation old parts. Frankly I don't think there is anything wrong with using older generation parts, provided you don't expect them to perform like cutting edge stuff. Honestly, any machine with at least a 1Ghz Processor, 1 GIG RAM, and a 2 generation old video card should be able to run XP or Ubuntu with no trouble at all. Vista, No.
But then isn't that the POINT of this article anyway? To get off the expensive upgrade treadmill by moving to an OS that doesn't waste your CPU and RAM by being full of bloatware and unnecessary services and processes? (I won't even go into the benefits from a computing experience free of virus and spyware worries.)
Methinks that you missed the spirit of the OP's post.
Well,
having a forward moon base would be useful for launching expeditions deeper into our solar system. The reduced escape velocity of the moon's gravity should prove helpful in conserving fuel. Additionally, the reduced gravity also makes the Moon an excellent place to locate spaceship construction facilities, as there are fewer issues with the weight of a ship causing structural deformation.
Those are just a couple ideas, and I haven't even touched on mining, metallurgy and fuel production.
AND having gone to the site and read through the ENTIRE thread on their forums;
What we have here is a random number/letter guesser. It's basically a VB Script that guesses random numbers and letters in a string that is the same length as a Vista Key, then inserts it into the registry, overwriting the existing Vista key. You use Magic Jellybean to check when the key has changed, and then manually check it against MS's activation service. Really this is little more than a person manually sitting down and making key guesses. This is why it's called a "Brute Force" attack. There is no intelligence (ie: an algorithm) behind the key guesses at all.
That said, because it IS so simple, it's almost impossible for MS to defend against, since they can't just "ban" any keys made by it like they would a traditional algorithmic keygen. Also, there is an improved version of it posted as source on the boards there, so if you want to take a peek at the code you can.
Here is a link to the forum post in question: http://keznews.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2634
On the contrary. I would say it's quite easy to prove. Now, I'm not going to cite any scientific study, because I don't know if there has been one on this subject. However, that does not make the inherent selfishness of all human beings something that is not easy to prove.
Try this exercise: Get permission to visit your local preschool or Kindergarten over the course of a week. While there just sit quietly and record the number of times the children are reminded to share, versus the number of times they are instructed that they don't have to share. (Examples, "Billy, share the finger paints with Sally." vs "Billy, it's Ok, you don't have to share the finger paints, Sally has her own." I GUARANTEE you that the children will be reminded to share FAR more times than they will be stopped from sharing.
Selfishness is a basic Human trait. It's part of our nature to think of ourselves first, and it is very rare indeed when people will honestly do something for others out of no desire for themselves at all. At the very least they will be looking for the "Warm Fuzzy". People are motivated almost exclusively by selfish motives. This is why Communism and Socialism don't work. They try and go against human selfishness.
This is why Capitalism DOES work, it harnesses human selfishness (we call it Enlightened Self Interest) for the greater good of all. This is also why Open Source works so well. It is a very pure form of Capitalism, almost a meritocracy. It's also why so many big companies are involved. It's in their own selfish best interests to improve the Linux code base, so they volunteer (IE: Don't charge anyone) their programmer's time to improve it so they can improve their own bottom lines down the road. Think of it as Investment Volunteerism.
Enlightened Self Interest: Good for you, me, and Linux.
I think they designed that website with a wok! It's been a while since I've seen a website that hard to read.
Hey dumbass,
MUSLIM IS NOT A RACE
and the rest of your post is about as intelligent and wrong.
We all cool now? Breathe deeply, allow the hatred of all things religious to wash out of you.
They are simply trying to inform parents about the need to use the Parental controls and to engage their kids in an active discussion on the topic of pornography. In other words, they are trying to foster GOOD PARENTING. They just erred in selecting an ad-campaign by picking one that was a tad too combative in presentation.
I inherited an all Dell shop when I started my Network Admin gig.
While I have had some issues with them, they have generally been good to work with. Their Gold Tech Support is great. You get a tech who's first language is English (unless you choose an option for another language, of course) and the techs are knowledgeable, friendly, and prompt about scheduling repairs. I actually scheduled a repair for one of our PC's that blew a capacitor, and the tech should be out within the hour today with a brand new motherboard.
They aren't perfect, but I have been generally very happy with their service.
GAH!
MUSLIM IS NOT A RACE!
Muslim is an affiliation with the religion of Islam.
Ugh. If we are going to throw around insults, we could at least get it right.
Except for one fact: Europe LOST the crusades. Yes, they held an area of land approximately equivalent to modern day Israel for a short period of time, but most of Arabia was still dominated by Islam. Yes, "The Caliphate" as Mohammad's original empire was known was gone, but it had been in serious decline for some time due to internal strife, the slow march towards religious extremism and traditional tribalism for years by that point.
The only real "advanced" Islam was the one destroyed years earlier in the Grenada area. The only reason they were advanced was their rejection of Fundamentalist Islam, and the creation of a more modern more egalitarian society that viewed Christians and Jews as, if not equals, valuable citizens. Most of the advances IN that society were brought to it by the Jews and Christians living within it. Not the Muslims themselves. Of course, all that was gone by the time of the crusades due to the destruction of that society by greedy Kings using Christianity as an excuse to take land.
The point is, Islam as we know it today has brought nothing to the table to advance society. While I am all for giving people their due, Modern Islam is owed no credit for any discoveries (unless you consider suicide bombers a discovery), and trying to credit them for this smacks of Political Correctness gone awry.
Ugh.
More socialism. And don't mistake, what you are suggesting IS a form of socialism. While the doctors won't be directly employed by the government, the fact that the government would be the only payee is socialism and a serious mistake. Why? Because the government has a limited pot from which to draw funds to pay out for citizen's medical bills. What happens when the money runs out? There are only two choices at that point. Ration the health care, or raise taxes. Historically, the Canadian government has chosen to do BOTH.
The U.S. system relies more on a capitalistic system to fund health care. It works quite well. It isn't perfect, but it is one of the best, if not the best systems around. Why? The national economy, via MULTIPLE payees, has a nearly unlimited pot of money to pay for health care. Thusly people are able to get the health treatment they need at prices they can afford. The only problem our system is having is a LACK of competition due to the government mandated health insurance, and government "price controls" (which always drive UP prices rather than hold them down.)
I always hear liberals and socialists talk up Canada's socialized Health Care as if it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. As an Ex-Canadian now living in the Buffalo NY area, I can tell you it's not all that it's cracked up to be. It works just as badly as I described in my first paragraph, if not worse.
One of the things that I hear about all the time from my doctor acquaintances is how more and more Canadians are coming to the Buffalo area for surgery. Why? Because they are getting rationed in Canada and are having to wait insanely long times to get lifesaving surgery. So long, in fact, that MANY people are dying before they can get the surgery they need! Many Canadians are now coming to Buffalo (and other border cities) and paying CASH to get their surgery done so they can live! If we end up getting socialized medicine here in the U.S. I don't know where they will go. I guess many more people on both sides of the border will just die waiting for surgery. Gee, that just makes me want socialism even more! NOT!
You can if you dip it in Liquid Nitrogen first.
Of course, all you end up with is a cold shiny turd instead of a steaming hot one...
Can we pick a new analogy please?
And you missed his point,
He was trying to say that often people believe that those who say they have Augsberger's Syndrome (or Tourette's) are simply lying, claiming to have that syndrome so that they can be an ass in public.
He then goes on to make the point that this assumption is silly, based on the conclusion that it is socially more comfortable to simply be an ass, than to live with the stigma of a mental disorder. Thusly, if someone is an ass, but then claims that they have a mental disorder, it is more appropriate to take them at their word than to disbelieve them.
For general social interaction I would say that he is mostly correct. Obviously there are exceptions, but as a general rule his hypothesis seems solid.
You are also correct in that some people are just asses. However that is only tangentially related to what he was speaking on, and not really the point.
Except that this mutation does NOT add new information to the genome.
If you had RTFA you would have seen that the mutation occurs when the gene that is responsible for producing the chemical Myostatin is NOT present in the genome. So, not only is your post rude, inflammatory and trollish, but it's just plain WRONG.
I'm sick of seeing these chips at outrageous prices. Who other than the most rabid gamer is going to be willing to fork over $500 - $1000 (US) for the latest processor? The worst part of it is, the processors are starting out so overpriced, that when they start to drop, it takes over two YEARS before they become reasonable. I don't know about the rest of Slashdot, but I'd like to be able to get something less than 4 generations old at a decent price point.
It used to be that you would spend, AT MOST, about $100 - $200 (US) for the latest AMD offering (usually much less, under $75.00 US). Intel was never considered for gamers or home-builders because they were overpriced and underpowered. Lately AMD has been pulling the same crap that Intel was pulling back in the 90's. End result? We now have two chip makers, both with overpriced CPU's, trying to compete. It's about time there was a price war! They are using smaller and smaller die sizes, and are thusly getting more and more out of each silicon wafer. The damn things should be getting CHEAPER not exorbitantly more expensive!
Bring back the sub-$200.00 bleeding edge CPU. It's well past time.
Two issues with this, and the rest of your post, actually.
One: Michael Chrichton is not exactly a lay person. He is a certified MD, and a medical scientist. He does not currently practice, but he IS a scientist, and more than capable of studying the data on his own and coming up with a trustworthy conclusion, or to make comments on what he perceives as misconduct in the scientific community.
Two: You are jumping to some pretty ridiculous conclusions about what I would have our society become. As I stated, consensus in the scientific community is bad, especially when not all the data is there. Again, Science must be independently verifiable. Using magic to travel to Mars is not independently verifiable. Nor are ANY of the other ludicrous statements you make. I clearly stated this in my post above. Apparently it's much more fun to troll by making baseless accusations than actually READING WHAT I WROTE.
Currently, the concept of "Solely Man-Made Global Warming" is not independently verifiable! The entire discussion smacks of politics, and that's what's got a bee in Mr. Chrichton's bonnet. This is NOT an outrageous request to make. We simply want All the data available, and have it put to a totally open, and independently verifiable test. Are you aware that Michael Mann, the scientist that came up with the famous "Hockey Stick" graph, has YET to release his data and methods for peer review? What kind of science is that? No review? Community consensus without discussion? THIS IS NOT SCIENCE, IT IS POLITICS. Clear and simple.
All I and Mr. Chrichton want is clean science. No consensus, no politics. Capice?
You can find more quotes from him (including audio, when appropriate) Here: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton
Chrichton's main point is one I have also argued: Environmental science has been invaded by politicians and people with a specific political agenda to push, and that has colored and damaged almost all scientific study in that field since then. It as gotten so bad that "consensus" (something antithetical to the scientific method) is now being pushed as a reason why we should all believe that man and man alone is responsible for Global warming!
This is not science, it is politics. I, like Chrichton, am not interested in someone's political agenda when science is involved. I was science for science' sake. I realize that it isn't always possible, but it is something we should strive for. Chrichton merely pushes this, and as "nerds" we should be behind him on this point.
They already have this. It's called concrete.
And there is no need to have big socialistic central government programs. Many communities are switching to concrete in urban areas because it lasts longer and is cheaper to maintain than asphalt. Unfortunately, the initial investment is rather high, but with the higher costs of the petroleum that goes into asphalt, it's becoming cheaper and cheaper (relative to asphalt) to use. Very warm areas especially benefit from concrete as a paving material due to it's lack of flow characteristics once set.
I can agree with a public awareness campaign, but not with a law.
Laws like this are part of creeping nannystateism. At some point we as humans just have to accept that we cannot possibly account for every stupid thing that people do or every unintended consequence or every random event. We will have to accept that into every life a little chaos falls and sometimes life just sucks. You can't legislate this stuff into non-existence and it's not worth the effort and expense trying.
I also wonder about the Deaf. Are we saying that it should be illegal to cross the street if you can't hear the traffic? I wonder if this law could somehow be twisted into a discrimination lawsuit? Not saying it should be, just saying that lawyers can be very creative when money is involved.
I'd also like to see the studies involved in this. The politician is saying that it's "Practically an epidemic". Where is he getting his figures from? Has a study been done that tracks the reasons for people getting hit while crossing the street? Somehow I think this guy is just blowing hot air out his ass on this one.
Developers are excused from this restriction.
Developers will (or should) have an MSDN license. The MSDN versions of Vista do not have the VM restrictions that the regular versions of Vista have. So it's not really an issue for Developers. Of course, if you want to spend a few thousand for an MSDN license, you too can have the right to create multiple VM versions of any Vista flavor you want!
Having said that, I wonder if the issue is more one of licensing and less one of technical restrictions. If the VMWare drivers work in one version of Vista, what's to stop them from working in another, unless MS has instituted some kind of Kernel-level block? Unless there is a specific ban-list of drivers integrated into the kernel, what is to stop someone from just buying a copy of Vista Home Basic and running the install in VMWare? I supposed MS could put in a ban-list during the hardware detection routine that would cause the install to fail out if it detects virtualized hardware, but one should be able to get around that by using VMWare converter and just converting a live install of Vista on another machine, and then just changing the key.
Has anyone actually tried to do an install of Vista Home basic or Premium on a VM?
I love that movie, but it always bothered me how he pronounced "gigawatt".
It's GIG, as in: "I have to go to a gig with my band". Not JIG, as in: "I feel like dancing a jig!" Ugh!
Now that would be funny to see as an add-on to the Explorer interface.
:)
Start -> Porn Explorer
You may find that many consumer grade routers have this problem. (I've run through at least 5 different models in the recent past that would lock up periodically) In some a firmware upgrade helped, but only partly. In others I could never get it fixed.
I ended up going with a smoothwall (http://www.smoothwall.org) to resolve the issue. It's worked great, and I get a really fine grain control over my system. Check them out! </blatantslashvertizement>