I don't think that, given all the other issues facing the country, putting together a space station or another manned mission are really priorities.
When will it be a priority? When China lands on Mars? When the EU, China or Russia colonize the Moon? When we detect an incoming asteroid?
This is shortsighted policy at it's finest. How much additional funding did NASA require to make Constellation viable? As I recall it was only a few billion. We spend hundreds of billions to force people into a broken health insurance market, hundreds of billions bailing out companies that deserved to fail and hundreds of billions invading countries that never attacked us. We can't find a few billion to keep a manned space program? Pathetic.
The dinosaurs died out because they didn't have a space program.....
Fox did enough wrong with Firefly to obscure the real problems with the show, which was that it was a space-opera-cum-western with pro-Confederacy overtones with little appeal outside of a small cadre of "science fiction nerds who like that kind of thing."
Pro-Confederacy overtones? Did you watch the same show that I did? I know it was based on the experiences of Confederate veterans but the underlying theme seemed to be one of individualism and mistrust of Government. That could just as easily have applied to any number of independence movements in human history.
with little appeal outside of a small cadre of "science fiction nerds who like that kind of thing."
Hard to argue with that. I love Firefly but if you look at the Nielsen ratings there was no way it was going to survive on network television. More's the pity.
Actually, I think Joss would have been an ideal candidate for remaking the UK Avengers. Summer Glau for the female sidekick? (More of a Purdy than a Mrs Peel, I think, but she can do a good bad English accent and beat people up, so what's not to like).
I have no idea what the Avengers are but you had me at Summer Glau;)
Other than being pro-healthcare reform I don't think Stewart's pushed any particular political viewpoint this year.
I seem to remember him pushing some other viewpoints in the past but I honestly haven't watched the show lately. Even if that's all he's doing though it irks me. He did a skit once upon a time about celebrities and political endorsements, the crux of which was "Why is your opinion more important than John Q. Public?" Now he's pushing his own political opinions.
I like him when he goes back to his roots of digging out absurdity and broadcasting it in the most comedic fashion possible.
I enjoyed his original works back in the day when he primarily pointed out the absurdities of our political system and the leaders thereof. Then he started actively pushing his own political viewpoint and ceased being funny. Jon Stewart has done much the same thing in the last year or so, though he still has occasional moments of genius. I forgive him for his political proselytizing when he roasts the media, particularly the cable media and it's 24 hour news cycle.
You see, in theory socialism means that everyone owns the means of production. In practice it means that the state controls/owns the means of production.
So what do you call it when the Government props up failing business models (*cough* GM *cough*), gives tax incentives/cash donations to specific industries (*cough* agriculture *cough*) and buys shit that it doesn't need (*cough* military-industrial complex *cough*) from politically connected companies?
Pretty much what we have in this country, when most of the congress critters admit to not reading the bill they're sponsoring (or voting on), but just passing along whatever some lobbyist handed over with a sack of cash.
Actually the lobbyist is usually a step removed from the individuals on the floor of Congress. They do whatever the leadership tells them to do. The leadership in turn does whatever the (D/R)NC tells them to do. The (D/R)NC does whatever their biggest donors tell them to do.
I heard a great quote once upon a time that I've kicked myself for not bookmarking. It went along the lines of "Political parties exist to subvert the separation of powers embodied in our system of government."
I'm not sure what criteria they used. The standard rule of thumb that I learned says your body will eliminate approximately 0.02 per hour. For most males that corresponds neatly to the amount you wind up with from a single drink -- a drink being 12oz of beer (5%), 5oz of wine (12%) or 1.5oz of spirits (40%). Females will usually get a higher BAC increase out of each drink, owing to less body mass and a greater percentage of body fat.
As in: You're stopped at a red light, passenger in your back seat had a couple drinks, and some douche talking on their cell phone rear-ends you. That counts as an alcohol-related accident.
I had an old girlfriend who got out of a hefty insurance hike and traffic ticket because of a similar scenario. She was blabbering on her cell phone and rear ended someone at a stop light. Said someone turned out to be drunk and got a DWI. My GF got off without so much as a ticket because of this, even though she was 100% at fault for the accident.
It's usually a matter of tolerance. I asked a police officer what the highest BAC he had ever seen was. He told a story about pulling someone over for a broken taillight, she wasn't driving badly and he had no indication that she was intoxicated. When he reached the car he smelled booze and went through the process. She passed all of the field sobriety checks but failed the breath test -- with a 0.61!
A BAC of 0.4 is the LD50 for alcohol. Most people will pass out at BACs exceeding 0.2. Yet this woman was "sober" enough at 0.61 to pass the sobriety checks and operate a motor vehicle. Turns out she had a number of previous DWIs and a bit of a drinking problem. She had consumed alcohol for so long that her body built up a near super-human tolerance for it.
That's not entirely fair. The platform is tailored for a more specific purpose than most tablet computers. It's being designed from the ground up to run Linux. Both of those facts should make it newsworthy, News for Nerds, remember?
Sorry to reply twice, but your friend would also have a fairly decent BAC after four shots of 80 proof spirits. If he did them all within an hour his BAC would be 0.068 according to this site. That's enough to get you a "driving while ability impaired" in NYS. Some people can handle it better than others though.
you have obviously never driven with a passenger who was whacked out of their gourd.
The criteria for the study was a BAC of >=0.05. I don't know what your friends are like when they drink, but mine have to drink considerably more than that to get "whacked out of their gourd".
More likely the RIAA/MPAA/BSA/TLA took a sampling of total users connected to a popular torrent and compared that to the total people downloading pirated material from BitTorrent and then extrapolated that to the entire US population to show that everyone's a pirate.
Sounds like the Federal "study" that was done by the NHTSA. Ever heard the claim that ~50% of all fatal crash accidents involved alcohol? Guess how they arrived at that number? They included accidents wherein passengers had alcohol in their systems, even though the drivers were completely sober.
Slashdot Mirror
...but manned space flight really hasn't done much for us.
You realize the computer you typed that message on was built using parts originally designed for the manned space program, right?
I don't think that, given all the other issues facing the country, putting together a space station or another manned mission are really priorities.
When will it be a priority? When China lands on Mars? When the EU, China or Russia colonize the Moon? When we detect an incoming asteroid?
This is shortsighted policy at it's finest. How much additional funding did NASA require to make Constellation viable? As I recall it was only a few billion. We spend hundreds of billions to force people into a broken health insurance market, hundreds of billions bailing out companies that deserved to fail and hundreds of billions invading countries that never attacked us. We can't find a few billion to keep a manned space program? Pathetic.
The dinosaurs died out because they didn't have a space program.....
Whoever killed Firefly, should rot in hell or an equivalent place.
The Nielsen ratings killed Firefly. You think Fox would have canceled it if it was popular and making them money? Not bloody likely.
Fox did enough wrong with Firefly to obscure the real problems with the show, which was that it was a space-opera-cum-western with pro-Confederacy overtones with little appeal outside of a small cadre of "science fiction nerds who like that kind of thing."
Pro-Confederacy overtones? Did you watch the same show that I did? I know it was based on the experiences of Confederate veterans but the underlying theme seemed to be one of individualism and mistrust of Government. That could just as easily have applied to any number of independence movements in human history.
with little appeal outside of a small cadre of "science fiction nerds who like that kind of thing."
Hard to argue with that. I love Firefly but if you look at the Nielsen ratings there was no way it was going to survive on network television. More's the pity.
Actually, I think Joss would have been an ideal candidate for remaking the UK Avengers. Summer Glau for the female sidekick? (More of a Purdy than a Mrs Peel, I think, but she can do a good bad English accent and beat people up, so what's not to like).
I have no idea what the Avengers are but you had me at Summer Glau ;)
Other than being pro-healthcare reform I don't think Stewart's pushed any particular political viewpoint this year.
I seem to remember him pushing some other viewpoints in the past but I honestly haven't watched the show lately. Even if that's all he's doing though it irks me. He did a skit once upon a time about celebrities and political endorsements, the crux of which was "Why is your opinion more important than John Q. Public?" Now he's pushing his own political opinions.
I like him when he goes back to his roots of digging out absurdity and broadcasting it in the most comedic fashion possible.
I enjoy Fiore's work
I enjoyed his original works back in the day when he primarily pointed out the absurdities of our political system and the leaders thereof. Then he started actively pushing his own political viewpoint and ceased being funny. Jon Stewart has done much the same thing in the last year or so, though he still has occasional moments of genius. I forgive him for his political proselytizing when he roasts the media, particularly the cable media and it's 24 hour news cycle.
You see, in theory socialism means that everyone owns the means of production. In practice it means that the state controls/owns the means of production.
What, you mean like AIG or GM?
So what do you call it when the Government props up failing business models (*cough* GM *cough*), gives tax incentives/cash donations to specific industries (*cough* agriculture *cough*) and buys shit that it doesn't need (*cough* military-industrial complex *cough*) from politically connected companies?
Pretty much what we have in this country, when most of the congress critters admit to not reading the bill they're sponsoring (or voting on), but just passing along whatever some lobbyist handed over with a sack of cash.
Actually the lobbyist is usually a step removed from the individuals on the floor of Congress. They do whatever the leadership tells them to do. The leadership in turn does whatever the (D/R)NC tells them to do. The (D/R)NC does whatever their biggest donors tell them to do.
I heard a great quote once upon a time that I've kicked myself for not bookmarking. It went along the lines of "Political parties exist to subvert the separation of powers embodied in our system of government."
First post. Five digit UID. Awesome.
I'm not sure what criteria they used. The standard rule of thumb that I learned says your body will eliminate approximately 0.02 per hour. For most males that corresponds neatly to the amount you wind up with from a single drink -- a drink being 12oz of beer (5%), 5oz of wine (12%) or 1.5oz of spirits (40%). Females will usually get a higher BAC increase out of each drink, owing to less body mass and a greater percentage of body fat.
As in: You're stopped at a red light, passenger in your back seat had a couple drinks, and some douche talking on their cell phone rear-ends you. That counts as an alcohol-related accident.
I had an old girlfriend who got out of a hefty insurance hike and traffic ticket because of a similar scenario. She was blabbering on her cell phone and rear ended someone at a stop light. Said someone turned out to be drunk and got a DWI. My GF got off without so much as a ticket because of this, even though she was 100% at fault for the accident.
Hardly seems fair, does it?
It's usually a matter of tolerance. I asked a police officer what the highest BAC he had ever seen was. He told a story about pulling someone over for a broken taillight, she wasn't driving badly and he had no indication that she was intoxicated. When he reached the car he smelled booze and went through the process. She passed all of the field sobriety checks but failed the breath test -- with a 0.61!
A BAC of 0.4 is the LD50 for alcohol. Most people will pass out at BACs exceeding 0.2. Yet this woman was "sober" enough at 0.61 to pass the sobriety checks and operate a motor vehicle. Turns out she had a number of previous DWIs and a bit of a drinking problem. She had consumed alcohol for so long that her body built up a near super-human tolerance for it.
That's not entirely fair. The platform is tailored for a more specific purpose than most tablet computers. It's being designed from the ground up to run Linux. Both of those facts should make it newsworthy, News for Nerds, remember?
Sorry to reply twice, but your friend would also have a fairly decent BAC after four shots of 80 proof spirits. If he did them all within an hour his BAC would be 0.068 according to this site. That's enough to get you a "driving while ability impaired" in NYS. Some people can handle it better than others though.
The existence of such people as your friend does not justify the manipulation of statistics in the manner that I previously described.
you have obviously never driven with a passenger who was whacked out of their gourd.
The criteria for the study was a BAC of >=0.05. I don't know what your friends are like when they drink, but mine have to drink considerably more than that to get "whacked out of their gourd".
Get used to it. Capitalism is dead. Corporate socialism is alive and well [unrulymedia.com].
That's not entirely true. Profits are still privatized. We've only socialized failure.....
More likely the RIAA/MPAA/BSA/TLA took a sampling of total users connected to a popular torrent and compared that to the total people downloading pirated material from BitTorrent and then extrapolated that to the entire US population to show that everyone's a pirate.
Sounds like the Federal "study" that was done by the NHTSA. Ever heard the claim that ~50% of all fatal crash accidents involved alcohol? Guess how they arrived at that number? They included accidents wherein passengers had alcohol in their systems, even though the drivers were completely sober.
Lies, damn lies and statistics.
Don't feed the trolls.
Am I mistaken?
Please provide me with your social security number, birthday and mailing address so that I may answer your question.
I'm a little confused, "if" they deserve it???
11. Smack J. J. Abrams upside the head one time for each lens flare in the new Star Trek film.
Define "wet"
A female state that most /.'ers will never experience first hand ;)