Yeah. I live in the San Francisco area. One of the unanticipated consequences of the AIDS "cocktail" has been a surge in unprotected sex among gay men. From an economists point of view, it's probably a rational decision, but actually eradicating the disease without a vaccine is pretty much a pipe dream.
The US is not in a position to attack Iran. Bush hasn't done what he needs to do either diplomatically or militarily. We'll know months ahead of time, as the right assets have to be moved to the right place for any kind of non-trivial attack, even an air-only attack. The belligerant talk over the last couple years is just the bad cop to the European good cop in the enrichment talks. It's a bluff, and everybody (including Iran) seems to realize that except for the American left.
Furthermore, the US doesn't have any need to cut cables to Egypt and Qatar to start bombing Iran. If we attack Iran we'll bomb the telco infrastructure (along with power and transportation) in Iran - there's really nothing they can do to stop it. What purpose would pissing off everyone else in the region serve?
I still think this may be just a big fuck-up on someone's part, but if it's not (and I agree there are too many coincidences here, assuming the reporting is accurate), the US government isn't the most likely culprit. More likely to be Iran, Syria, Israel, or some European commercial interest. The most plausable theory I've heard for US involvement is the cable is cut in two places, and listening equipment has been installed in one of them, with the other break left as the proximate cause of the outage. The problem with this scenario is we have techniques to tap into fiber without cutting it - there would be no raise everyone's suspicions like this.
Fortunately this is one of those times where we'll know which one of us is right within a short period of time. If the cable is due to be repaired within ten days, and the cut was a prelude to an attack, that means if your logic is correct the attack will occur by the 13th of this month.
Jeez, so much wrong crap here. The projectile will, of course, be guided. As others have pointed out, line-of-sight warfare is passe, mostly because the battle is long over by the time combatants get that close. Leyte Gulf was the last time it was tried in any serious fashion, and then only because the Japanese were out of carrier aircraft. And they got slaughtered.
The problem with modern naval warships is, save for the super-expensive carriers, they don't do much besides protect the carrier. Sure, you have SLAM and Tomahawk to attack land targets, but those missiles are really expensive - you can't carry enough for an old-fashioned bombardment, and even if you could you'd go broke blowing up dirt fortifications with million-dollar missiles. Naval artillery is generally short range, so you'd better hope your opponents like the beach, because if they move inland about 30 miles or so you'll only be able to hit them with very expensive and finicky rocket assisted shells.
The railgun would sort of bring us back to the age of guns. The projectiles, which are GPS-guided depleted uranium or tungsten "darts", are supposed to cost less than 20k, are very compact (you'd be able to carry 40,000 or so), and will be able to reach land targets within 250 miles or so. They don't have explosives, but they come back into the atmosphere with such energy that they'll leave a nice big crater anyway. They'll have a mode for direct fire as well as ballistic when engaging other ships. In theory they could be used to attack air targets as well.
Last I checked there were some pretty large problems, though. For one thing, the enormous magnetic stresses will literally tear the gun apart after a few shots. Another problem is there's so much current going through the projectile you get plasma deposition on the rails, so there's a limit to the number of rounds you can fire before the rails need to be re-lined or serviced. And then there's the problem of getting all that power where it needs to be. The Navy originally wanted something that could fire every ten seconds or so, but busing all those electrons around was presenting more of a challenge than originally envisioned.
Yes. In theory that's half of NASA's charter. And, to be fair, they do still have the odd high-speed wind tunnel project. Scramjets, too, which you could argue may benefit the military someday. Maybe.
But the shuttle is the Monster that Ate the Budget. Most of the aeronautic work has been defunded, and important scientific work like interplanetary probes and high altitude astronomy is hanging on a thread. This will only get worse. CEV's configuration was, in large part, chosen to ensure nobody who works on the shuttle will be put out of work. Since the 20,000+ people doing shuttle work comprise most of the shuttle's cost that's bad news for the agency's orphan children.
The idea NASA's budget is primarily spent on "planes and missiles" is laughable.
The author of the article was making a kernel-to-kernel comparison. If the Linux kernel contains more lines of code, it probably contains more bugs. But that doesn't mean it should contain more lines of code.
It still doesn't make sense. To me the whole thing looks like an FBI counterintelligence operation that's getting compromised because they didn't let the translator in on the joke.
Have any of you looked at what NASA conducts most of its research in? It ain't Velcro or Tang, boys. It's missiles and fighter jets. NASA was part of the Air Force, and that's largely still who it "works for". Ever looked at what most of the stuff the Shuttle was used to throw up into space? It ain't satellite TV. It's spy and military satellites...
Oh please. NASA has very little to do with the development of missiles or fighter jets. All that stuff is done by the Air Force under separate contracts. Virtually all of NASA's money goes to manned spaceflight these days. The Air Force would like nothing better than to be rid of NASA, since using disposable launchers is much cheaper than using the shuttle. But they're forced to use the shuttle (or at least they were) to help justify its enormous expense.
NASA doesn't "work for" the Air Force, unless you intend the quotes to show the statement is blatantly false. It's not a defense program or even a science program - it's a jobs program. The purpose of NASA is to steer money to specific congressional districts. And that's why, no matter how little it does, it will never be cut significantly.
I'm not convinced this is happening now. Her awareness of the program went from 1996 to 2002. So it started under Clinton and went for five years under Clinton. If it was really as heinous as you think, wouldn't the Bush people have exposed it in 2001 when they took over. Like I said, something doesn't add up here.
First, these kinds of studies are usually created for a purpose - to get money. I'm too lazy to follow the money trail back to its source, but I'm guessing there's a party that's gonna benefit from increased money - can't tell who until you look at the recommendations. I'm getting more and more cynical about these kinds of "reports", which are nothing more than advocacy research.
Second, the average student doesn't matter. Well, not in terms of science. It's the top 1% of students that actually matter in terms of bleeding edge science, so measuring the average is pointless. Sure, it's handy to have citizens who are somewhat conversant with the subject, but that's only important for policy-making, not the research itself. I'm not sure if the geniuses are getting more or less attention than they ever did. I suspect it's about the same once they get to college.
Third, as virtually every other commenter has pointed out, patents are a really lousy measure of scientific progress. Lumping one-click patents in with stuff that's truly innovative makes the raw numbers worthless for anything beyond chest-thumping.
And finally, I don't think there's a competitive advantage to doing basic science. Of course it's a benefit, in the long run, to the entire world. But purely in terms of competitiveness, it doesn't really do much for you. Basic science requires collaboration with scientists in other countries, since only people who understand the current body of knowlege can do any sort of peer review. So you don't derive much relative military or economic advantage from it.
That's true, but you can't get something from nothing. Fermenting the corn takes most of the energy out of it, so although you can use the mash as animal feed, it doesn't have much caloric density. If you take 90% of the energy out of the feed, you're going to need ten times as much per animal.
You're addressing a totally different point than the article. Of course representation in the Senate is unfair - it was designed to be unfair. The article is addressing representation in the House. The constitution invests congress with the vast bulk of government power - it doesn't make sense to ignore everything but the election of president.
I agreee. Besides any minisule difference in the House is completely swamped by the difference in the Senate, where Wyoming's.088% has the same power as California's 6.03%.
You're glossing over a huge problem here. Others have pointed out the mechanism at work, and if you need a concrete example, just look at Texas. Before the Republicans redrew the district boundaries 2003 you had a state where every statewide elected office was held by a Republican, and yet the congressional delegation was majority Democrat. The Democrats had controlled the redistricting process in 2000 and had drawn district lines to give themselves advantage.
After the 2003 redistricting the Texas Delegation switched to majority Republican, because the Republicans removed the advantage the Democrats had given themselves and tilted the playing field in the other direction.
But that's not the worst problem with gerrymandering. The worst problem is districts are redrawn to make them safe for incumbents. That's how we got a House of Representatives with a 98% reelection rate. Here in California out of our fifty-three congressional districts we have one (one!) that's competitive. How can you have a responsive government when members are virtually guarenteed reelection?
I see two problems with this scheme. The first is what mechanism ensures the boundary comission does its job impartially? My impression is "independent" or "nonpartisan" positions and groups are a figment of poly-sci theory. Never seen one in the real world. I don't see anything in your proposal that would eliminate gerrymandering.
In fact, it would be much worse. By allowing differences in district populations, you've created another degree of freedom for people who want to game the system. Off the top of my head I can't think of how to figure it out mathmatically, but I suspect you could essentially disenfranchise a large majority of the population by using that 15% and gerrymandering in concert.
p.s if you put a paragraph tag before your first paragraph you'll get normal spacing.
Yeah, but for this kind of thing efficiency doesn't matter, at least not by itself. What matters is cost. If I can make something to generate electicity from heat for only a few bucks, then it might make sense to wrap one around my muffler even if it's only 1% efficient.
Even assuming licensing is free, it still might not make sense. Apples's philosophy is to make devices that do one or a small number of things really, really well. The more features you add to a device, the more it complicates the device, both for the user and for the programmers who are trying to maintain it.
One thing that apple most definitely does not want is calls from users because some WMA file won't play correctly. It's not just the extra effort Apple would have to expend to support WMA - it's also the fact that expanding the iPod's feature set increases the likelyhood users will run into problems. Just like any other software.
Anyway, that's really a business decision on Apple's part, and it shouldn't be second-guessed by a court.
I was wondering when the Bush-bashing would start, this being slashdot and all. The reality is Putin doesn't need a next iteration of the KGB, since the FSB is the KGB with a new name. It's even run by the same people.
You aren't likely to find Polonium in your cornflakes if you piss Bush off. Hell, you'll be an honored guest on Larry King. Angering Putin, on the other hand...
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah. I live in the San Francisco area. One of the unanticipated consequences of the AIDS "cocktail" has been a surge in unprotected sex among gay men. From an economists point of view, it's probably a rational decision, but actually eradicating the disease without a vaccine is pretty much a pipe dream.
The US is not in a position to attack Iran. Bush hasn't done what he needs to do either diplomatically or militarily. We'll know months ahead of time, as the right assets have to be moved to the right place for any kind of non-trivial attack, even an air-only attack. The belligerant talk over the last couple years is just the bad cop to the European good cop in the enrichment talks. It's a bluff, and everybody (including Iran) seems to realize that except for the American left.
Furthermore, the US doesn't have any need to cut cables to Egypt and Qatar to start bombing Iran. If we attack Iran we'll bomb the telco infrastructure (along with power and transportation) in Iran - there's really nothing they can do to stop it. What purpose would pissing off everyone else in the region serve?
I still think this may be just a big fuck-up on someone's part, but if it's not (and I agree there are too many coincidences here, assuming the reporting is accurate), the US government isn't the most likely culprit. More likely to be Iran, Syria, Israel, or some European commercial interest. The most plausable theory I've heard for US involvement is the cable is cut in two places, and listening equipment has been installed in one of them, with the other break left as the proximate cause of the outage. The problem with this scenario is we have techniques to tap into fiber without cutting it - there would be no raise everyone's suspicions like this.
Fortunately this is one of those times where we'll know which one of us is right within a short period of time. If the cable is due to be repaired within ten days, and the cut was a prelude to an attack, that means if your logic is correct the attack will occur by the 13th of this month.
Jeez, so much wrong crap here. The projectile will, of course, be guided. As others have pointed out, line-of-sight warfare is passe, mostly because the battle is long over by the time combatants get that close. Leyte Gulf was the last time it was tried in any serious fashion, and then only because the Japanese were out of carrier aircraft. And they got slaughtered.
The problem with modern naval warships is, save for the super-expensive carriers, they don't do much besides protect the carrier. Sure, you have SLAM and Tomahawk to attack land targets, but those missiles are really expensive - you can't carry enough for an old-fashioned bombardment, and even if you could you'd go broke blowing up dirt fortifications with million-dollar missiles. Naval artillery is generally short range, so you'd better hope your opponents like the beach, because if they move inland about 30 miles or so you'll only be able to hit them with very expensive and finicky rocket assisted shells.
The railgun would sort of bring us back to the age of guns. The projectiles, which are GPS-guided depleted uranium or tungsten "darts", are supposed to cost less than 20k, are very compact (you'd be able to carry 40,000 or so), and will be able to reach land targets within 250 miles or so. They don't have explosives, but they come back into the atmosphere with such energy that they'll leave a nice big crater anyway. They'll have a mode for direct fire as well as ballistic when engaging other ships. In theory they could be used to attack air targets as well.
Last I checked there were some pretty large problems, though. For one thing, the enormous magnetic stresses will literally tear the gun apart after a few shots. Another problem is there's so much current going through the projectile you get plasma deposition on the rails, so there's a limit to the number of rounds you can fire before the rails need to be re-lined or serviced. And then there's the problem of getting all that power where it needs to be. The Navy originally wanted something that could fire every ten seconds or so, but busing all those electrons around was presenting more of a challenge than originally envisioned.
Yes. In theory that's half of NASA's charter. And, to be fair, they do still have the odd high-speed wind tunnel project. Scramjets, too, which you could argue may benefit the military someday. Maybe.
But the shuttle is the Monster that Ate the Budget. Most of the aeronautic work has been defunded, and important scientific work like interplanetary probes and high altitude astronomy is hanging on a thread. This will only get worse. CEV's configuration was, in large part, chosen to ensure nobody who works on the shuttle will be put out of work. Since the 20,000+ people doing shuttle work comprise most of the shuttle's cost that's bad news for the agency's orphan children.
The idea NASA's budget is primarily spent on "planes and missiles" is laughable.
The author of the article was making a kernel-to-kernel comparison. If the Linux kernel contains more lines of code, it probably contains more bugs. But that doesn't mean it should contain more lines of code.
That's true, but it's hardly a defense of Linux distros. More lines of code doesn't imply better by any means.
It still doesn't make sense. To me the whole thing looks like an FBI counterintelligence operation that's getting compromised because they didn't let the translator in on the joke.
Oh please. NASA has very little to do with the development of missiles or fighter jets. All that stuff is done by the Air Force under separate contracts. Virtually all of NASA's money goes to manned spaceflight these days. The Air Force would like nothing better than to be rid of NASA, since using disposable launchers is much cheaper than using the shuttle. But they're forced to use the shuttle (or at least they were) to help justify its enormous expense.
NASA doesn't "work for" the Air Force, unless you intend the quotes to show the statement is blatantly false. It's not a defense program or even a science program - it's a jobs program. The purpose of NASA is to steer money to specific congressional districts. And that's why, no matter how little it does, it will never be cut significantly.
I'm not convinced this is happening now. Her awareness of the program went from 1996 to 2002. So it started under Clinton and went for five years under Clinton. If it was really as heinous as you think, wouldn't the Bush people have exposed it in 2001 when they took over. Like I said, something doesn't add up here.
That's true, and it's why the Pakistanis felt they needed nukes in the first place.
Unless, of course, she's lying. You don't consider that to be a possibility?
Also, why would the Bush administration cover up something that happened under the Clintons? It doesn't make sense.
First, these kinds of studies are usually created for a purpose - to get money. I'm too lazy to follow the money trail back to its source, but I'm guessing there's a party that's gonna benefit from increased money - can't tell who until you look at the recommendations. I'm getting more and more cynical about these kinds of "reports", which are nothing more than advocacy research.
Second, the average student doesn't matter. Well, not in terms of science. It's the top 1% of students that actually matter in terms of bleeding edge science, so measuring the average is pointless. Sure, it's handy to have citizens who are somewhat conversant with the subject, but that's only important for policy-making, not the research itself. I'm not sure if the geniuses are getting more or less attention than they ever did. I suspect it's about the same once they get to college.
Third, as virtually every other commenter has pointed out, patents are a really lousy measure of scientific progress. Lumping one-click patents in with stuff that's truly innovative makes the raw numbers worthless for anything beyond chest-thumping.
And finally, I don't think there's a competitive advantage to doing basic science. Of course it's a benefit, in the long run, to the entire world. But purely in terms of competitiveness, it doesn't really do much for you. Basic science requires collaboration with scientists in other countries, since only people who understand the current body of knowlege can do any sort of peer review. So you don't derive much relative military or economic advantage from it.
No, but it may be a violation of Sarbanes-Oxley. So, do you have those emails?
That tingle is from the websites you're visiting.
As soon as I can get a reticle tied to my skull gun, we're in business!
Well, since he's correct it wouldn't be wise. Better to just stay silent and not appear ignorant.
Heh. There's no talking sense into people who'll pay $500 for a cable. Give it up.
That's true, but you can't get something from nothing. Fermenting the corn takes most of the energy out of it, so although you can use the mash as animal feed, it doesn't have much caloric density. If you take 90% of the energy out of the feed, you're going to need ten times as much per animal.
You're addressing a totally different point than the article. Of course representation in the Senate is unfair - it was designed to be unfair. The article is addressing representation in the House. The constitution invests congress with the vast bulk of government power - it doesn't make sense to ignore everything but the election of president.
I agreee. Besides any minisule difference in the House is completely swamped by the difference in the Senate, where Wyoming's .088% has the same power as California's 6.03%.
You're glossing over a huge problem here. Others have pointed out the mechanism at work, and if you need a concrete example, just look at Texas. Before the Republicans redrew the district boundaries 2003 you had a state where every statewide elected office was held by a Republican, and yet the congressional delegation was majority Democrat. The Democrats had controlled the redistricting process in 2000 and had drawn district lines to give themselves advantage.
After the 2003 redistricting the Texas Delegation switched to majority Republican, because the Republicans removed the advantage the Democrats had given themselves and tilted the playing field in the other direction.
But that's not the worst problem with gerrymandering. The worst problem is districts are redrawn to make them safe for incumbents. That's how we got a House of Representatives with a 98% reelection rate. Here in California out of our fifty-three congressional districts we have one (one!) that's competitive. How can you have a responsive government when members are virtually guarenteed reelection?
I see two problems with this scheme. The first is what mechanism ensures the boundary comission does its job impartially? My impression is "independent" or "nonpartisan" positions and groups are a figment of poly-sci theory. Never seen one in the real world. I don't see anything in your proposal that would eliminate gerrymandering.
In fact, it would be much worse. By allowing differences in district populations, you've created another degree of freedom for people who want to game the system. Off the top of my head I can't think of how to figure it out mathmatically, but I suspect you could essentially disenfranchise a large majority of the population by using that 15% and gerrymandering in concert.
p.s if you put a paragraph tag before your first paragraph you'll get normal spacing.
Yeah, but for this kind of thing efficiency doesn't matter, at least not by itself. What matters is cost. If I can make something to generate electicity from heat for only a few bucks, then it might make sense to wrap one around my muffler even if it's only 1% efficient.
Even assuming licensing is free, it still might not make sense. Apples's philosophy is to make devices that do one or a small number of things really, really well. The more features you add to a device, the more it complicates the device, both for the user and for the programmers who are trying to maintain it.
One thing that apple most definitely does not want is calls from users because some WMA file won't play correctly. It's not just the extra effort Apple would have to expend to support WMA - it's also the fact that expanding the iPod's feature set increases the likelyhood users will run into problems. Just like any other software.
Anyway, that's really a business decision on Apple's part, and it shouldn't be second-guessed by a court.
I was wondering when the Bush-bashing would start, this being slashdot and all. The reality is Putin doesn't need a next iteration of the KGB, since the FSB is the KGB with a new name. It's even run by the same people.
You aren't likely to find Polonium in your cornflakes if you piss Bush off. Hell, you'll be an honored guest on Larry King. Angering Putin, on the other hand...