I am not saying that it would be a good idea to be totally dependent on the russian oligarchy. What i'm saying is that from a european perspective it is a good idea to have an independent supply line that is only controlled by the relationship of the countries involved.
Yes that means that if we become dependent on natural gas we will be at the mercy of Russia, but that's better than being at the mercy of Russia,Ukraine,Belarus etc. Each of them having the means to cut of Europe's gas supply for their own political gains.
Well isn't it in Western Europe's interest? Why should we be dependent on Russia's relationship with Ukraine or Belarus etc. Why should we allow ourselves to be taken hostage and used as bargaining chips in former USSR political fights?
Because living in the 1st room would be fantastic? You would be able to say hello to all the other people going to and from their rooms through your room. Corridors might be a waste of space in a private home, but not so when trying to cram a lot of people into a small space with a semblance of privacy. In a military setting you also need them for unobstructed movement. So that in a case of an emergency you don't trip over someones bean bag chair. Corridors are a good design. Even in barracks there'll be a "corridor" down the middle, it might not have walls, but try moving your bunk or private belongings in there and see what happens.
I have noticed that we are also no longer teaching hieroglyphs to our children. This travesty must be stopped. Just because it is no longer useful doesn't mean that children shouldn't waste their time learning it. I'm very happy that I was taught hieroglyphs. That knowledge has come in handy a zero of times.
signed, Christian (basket, lips, feather, cane, top half circle,feather, eagle,wiggly line)
I am going to disagree with you on this one. There is a very important difference between a china teapot around Alpha Centauri and the existence of a god. One of those claims are falsifiable and therefore in my book credible whereas the other is nonsense, a derelict of our language that allows construction of meaningless statements.
We can agree on what constitutes an earthenware vessel designed for the brewing of tea, what Alpha Centauri(AC) is and what orbiting means. So we can devise a test whereby we could answer the question. It might be incredibly difficult and expensive to go to AC to search for the teapot, but it is possible. Until we can do the test we can estimate the likelihood. We have no evidence of human implements being much further away than the outer reaches of this solar system, and the likelihood of the existence of the tea plant on another planet is also incredibly small. So the logical position is to say there is no such thing pending further investigation/data.
Gods, however, are designed such as to be impossible to prove/disprove. If there cannot exist a test, they can have no influence and therefore do not exist. If we did not have this definition then everything could exist and "exist" would have no meaning. If one unfalsifiable thing is true then we must believe in all unfalsifiable things. This leads to absolute chaos all positions are true. God says "Thou shalt not kill", chtulhu says "Thou must kill" the easter bunny says "Thou must shag". Which is correct? There is no way of distinguishing. Religion purports to be the creator of morality but in reality it is the destroyer. Ethics and morals can only come from reason. They cannot be handpicked from a set of equally valid ambiguous and contradictory prescripts.
Belief in a deity is irrational and illogical. Religion is a breach of the social contract, it tries to install a higher authority than the sovereign. As such is has no place in a modern society.
Do not mock the most holy glaglaglagla of bbbbbdddz, the god of small annoyances, or next time you open a can of tomatoes the lid will flick juice on your freshly laundered shirt.
Barrister for the defense: "ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you have heard the prosecution argue, very persuasively, that my client is guilty of arson. You've heard his alibis being discredited. In fact, you've even seen him try to set fire to this court room in which we sit. But, consider this. If you go now and return a verdict of guilty, then I will think that you are all gay. That's right. I will think that each and every one of you, hoo, is a gay!"
I'm sorry you didn't find it funny. It was just a small example of what I find incredibly annoying about vista and I had run into it 5 minutes before posting. However I don't think it is such a mindless example as you postulate, but I will return to that.
First let me analyze your points (from my point of view YMMV) Price: That's not really an issue. Normally windows would be included with the machine anyway.
Security: Arguably Linux is more secure. Either way I have never been infected or hacked on any operating system. So also a non issue.
Speed: XP boots faster for me and I find the UI more responsive.
Support for old hardware: Fun for playing with old stuff but not really an issue.
Package Management: well windows does have add/remove programs, but I'll agree that I like apt better.
Faster Release Cycles: So I have to do more updating, more reinstalls.
Better consumer rights: I wouldn't have any running Linux, because I haven't bought anything.
To get back to my example. It was a case of the UI working against what I was trying to achieve. That is not a well-designed UI. The points above affects me every once in a while, but I'm interacting with the UI almost every hour of the day. I want the OS to help me achieve my goals not work against me.
ps. this "fanboy" is running linux on his servers (where file manipulation, scripting and package management is an issue) and XP on his desktop machines.
Have you tried doing that? Because it doesn't work, at least not on my machine. It never gives me the allow/cancel option. It just fails with a wrong permissions error.
To put another angle on your point. Saying "God did it" explains nothing, because it is just a level of indirection. What is God? How did he do it? Why did he do it?
Arguments like "The universe and life is too complex to have arisen of itself. God must have done it." have a huge hole in it. If the universe is complex and magnificent then certainly a being that can create such a thing must be more complex and magnificent. Where did he come from? Is he magically exactly that more complex so he can spontaneously exists whereas a universe could not?
There is no way that you can be absolutely sure that every atom always decays at the same rate.
There is actually beginning evidence that they do not. The decay rate seems to be periodically changing. The first evidence suggests that it is linked to solar activity. My bet is that it is linked to weak force decays and it is the difference in neutrino flux from the sun. The emission of an anti-neutrino is indistinguishable from the absorption of a neutrino.
The problem is that it is very hard to measure, there are not many elements that has the right half-life (too short and we cannot measure it across time, too long and the rate is so low the uncertainty becomes bigger than the effect(the change in decay rate)). It would also be necessary to distinguish the decays, so that you can see whether weak force decays and other decays are affected similarly or not.
Speaking of which as a so-called lazy, fat American, it's time to get into my raingear (gortex jacket, rainpaints, galoshes, pack cover over my laptop backpack, and of course the Ubuntu hat), get on my ULEV bicycle and get to work!
Well then you can add wuss to fat and lazy. I am about to bike home from work wearing only shorts and t-shirt in the rain and 60F, and it's going to be bleeding terrific. Come visit Scandinavia it's a wonderful place, if it wasn't for the bacon we'd have killed ourselves a long time ago.
You have to pass a special technical driving course in Denmark too. This consists of emergency maneuvers in dry and icy conditions.
It is basically too short(1 day) to teach you any skills unless you have a knack for it. However, it demonstrates very effectively how important it is to adapt your driving and speed to the conditions. You drive a simulated icy bend at 70 km/h and you do not even notice there is a problem. You do the same bend at 75 km/h and it starts getting hairy, but you'll probably learn to keep the car under control after a few tries. Then you drive it at 80 km/h and there is no one who can keep it under control and you end up 20 meters into a field.
Have you really tried all these different cars or are you dismissing them out of hand? I'm also close to two meters tall and ~275 pounds and i have found that car size is not a predictor of how comfortable it will be. I cannot fit in basically all SUV and pickups, but will fit in very small cars. I've been perfectly comfortable in a smart car or my parents cars over the years a Toyota Yaris Verso, a Volkswagen Golf(mk2 and mk3) and a Volkswagen Passat. I've driven all of them for at least six hours in one sitting and have been perfectly comfortable. I have also driven a citroen zx for 14 hours, but I shared the driving with a friend and we had short stops.
My advice is don't be too prejudiced. I've found that some of the smallest cars are the roomiest on the inside.
It has less agility and the ability to control it precisely; that is why it is to be respected.
Respected yes, but also held to a higher standard. He is taking a more powerful more dangerous tool into the public space. That he is also less maneuverable just increases the danger he poses.
As for your "self defense should result in a murder charge" argument, you're completely batty. It's no wonder the UK is crumbling faster than the US. (And I have no idea where you found your info for crime statistics, because they're similarly off the wall.)
Similarly I think your laws are short-sighted and catering to basest of animalistic urges.
I have no idea of whether the UK is crumbling faster than the US or what their laws state. I'm not from the UK.
The crime statistics where taken from: "United Nations Survey of Crime Trends and Operations of Criminal Justice Systems".
I don't know a lot about how the law works in the UK. So I cannot comment on that.
I'm going to disagree on you about on the odiousness of our laws. I believe it's emminently sensible that you are liable to be charged with murder if you kill an intruder. I think it's perfectly reasonable that you will face the risk of 12 years in jail for killing another person in self-defense. That way you ensure that you only take another life if it is of the utmost neccessity.
Now that means i will have to suppress my urges for revenge or rightousness, but in return i get a much safer society. The risk of being murdered here, is about a 1/4 of that in the US, and the risk of dying(i.e. i'm counting all types of death where the burglary could be a contributing factor. For example an old lady who had a stroke shortly after a burglary possible caused by the stress) when being burgled is almost neglible, i only found 3 examples since 2000.
Now I'm glad you got my point with the pedestrian. It was exactly that because of the abilities you listed they are never going to force you to change your behaviour. Even if they are tailgaiting, the speed will be so low and the masses involved so small that you will not hesitate to slam the breaks. The pedestrian might scrape their knee or be slightly bruised and nothing will happen to your car. A truck, however, forces everyone in traffic to behave differently. It will block your view. It forces you to consider it's braking distance also etc. Exactly because it has a much bigger impact it must also be held to a much greater standard. It's basically spiderman's "with great power comes great responsibility". Again it might decrease my "rights", but it also decreases my risk of dying in traffic to a third of that in the US.
Slashdot Mirror
I am not saying that it would be a good idea to be totally dependent on the russian oligarchy. What i'm saying is that from a european perspective it is a good idea to have an independent supply line that is only controlled by the relationship of the countries involved.
Yes that means that if we become dependent on natural gas we will be at the mercy of Russia, but that's better than being at the mercy of Russia,Ukraine,Belarus etc. Each of them having the means to cut of Europe's gas supply for their own political gains.
Well isn't it in Western Europe's interest? Why should we be dependent on Russia's relationship with Ukraine or Belarus etc. Why should we allow ourselves to be taken hostage and used as bargaining chips in former USSR political fights?
a massive planet-wide economical crisis?
Because living in the 1st room would be fantastic? You would be able to say hello to all the other people going to and from their rooms through your room. Corridors might be a waste of space in a private home, but not so when trying to cram a lot of people into a small space with a semblance of privacy. In a military setting you also need them for unobstructed movement. So that in a case of an emergency you don't trip over someones bean bag chair. Corridors are a good design. Even in barracks there'll be a "corridor" down the middle, it might not have walls, but try moving your bunk or private belongings in there and see what happens.
Doen't it mean "Do you know why ...?"?
Sorry if my dutch is way off.
I have noticed that we are also no longer teaching hieroglyphs to our children.
This travesty must be stopped. Just because it is no longer useful doesn't
mean that children shouldn't waste their time learning it. I'm very happy that
I was taught hieroglyphs. That knowledge has come in handy a zero of times.
signed, ,wiggly line)
Christian (basket, lips, feather, cane, top half circle,feather, eagle
I am going to disagree with you on this one. There is a very important difference between a china teapot around Alpha Centauri and the existence of a god. One of those claims are falsifiable and therefore in my book credible whereas the other is nonsense, a derelict of our language that allows construction of meaningless statements.
We can agree on what constitutes an earthenware vessel designed for the brewing of tea, what Alpha Centauri(AC) is and what orbiting means. So we can devise a test whereby we could answer the question. It might be incredibly difficult and expensive to go to AC to search for the teapot, but it is possible. Until we can do the test we can estimate the likelihood. We have no evidence of human implements being much further away than the outer reaches of this solar system, and the likelihood of the existence of the tea plant on another planet is also incredibly small. So the logical position is to say there is no such thing pending further investigation/data.
Gods, however, are designed such as to be impossible to prove/disprove. If there cannot exist a test, they can have no influence and therefore do not exist. If we did not have this definition then everything could exist and "exist" would have no meaning. If one unfalsifiable thing is true then we must believe in all unfalsifiable things. This leads to absolute chaos all positions are true. God says "Thou shalt not kill", chtulhu says "Thou must kill" the easter bunny says "Thou must shag". Which is correct? There is no way of distinguishing. Religion purports to be the creator of morality but in reality it is the destroyer. Ethics and morals can only come from reason. They cannot be handpicked from a set of equally valid ambiguous and contradictory prescripts.
Belief in a deity is irrational and illogical. Religion is a breach of the social contract, it tries to install a higher authority than the sovereign. As such is has no place in a modern society.
Do not mock the most holy glaglaglagla of bbbbbdddz, the god of small annoyances, or next time you open a can of tomatoes the lid will flick juice on your freshly laundered shirt.
Barrister for the defense: "ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you have heard the prosecution argue, very persuasively, that my client is guilty of arson. You've heard his alibis being discredited. In fact, you've even seen him try to set fire to this court room in which we sit. But, consider this. If you go now and return a verdict of guilty, then I will think that you are all gay. That's right. I will think that each and every one of you, hoo, is a gay!"
I completely agree.
George W: scary as hell
Prince Philip: hilarious
disclaimer: I am neither from the US nor the UK.
I'm sorry you didn't find it funny. It was just a small example of what I find incredibly annoying about vista and I had run into it 5 minutes before posting. However I don't think it is such a mindless example as you postulate, but I will return to that.
First let me analyze your points (from my point of view YMMV)
Price: That's not really an issue. Normally windows would be included with the machine anyway.
Security: Arguably Linux is more secure. Either way I have never been infected or hacked on any operating system. So also a non issue.
Speed: XP boots faster for me and I find the UI more responsive.
Support for old hardware: Fun for playing with old stuff but not really an issue.
Package Management: well windows does have add/remove programs, but I'll agree that I like apt better.
Faster Release Cycles: So I have to do more updating, more reinstalls.
Better consumer rights: I wouldn't have any running Linux, because I haven't bought anything.
To get back to my example. It was a case of the UI working against what I was trying to achieve. That is not a well-designed UI. The points above affects me every once in a while, but I'm interacting with the UI almost every hour of the day. I want the OS to help me achieve my goals not work against me.
ps. this "fanboy" is running linux on his servers (where file manipulation, scripting and package management is an issue) and XP on his desktop machines.
Have you tried doing that? Because it doesn't work, at least not on my machine. It never gives me the allow/cancel option. It just fails with a wrong permissions error.
I love vista. There's a lot more hacking to do. What should be a quick fix is now a marathon hack session.
adding a line to the hosts file:
linux: 1 second
vista: 5 minutes of wondering what the UAC will allow you to do and figuring out how to bypass it.
I think it's obvious which OS is the best .
Wouldn't the fact that you believed something because it happened on TV be an indicator that you are, in fact, not a reasonable person?
This judge obviously fears exactly such a thing so is attempting to bypass the jury. The correct response is impeachment. .
Wouldn't the correct response be to throw a spear through the judge and declare RIAA innocent?
Not you again....
To put another angle on your point. Saying "God did it" explains nothing, because it is just a level of indirection. What is God? How did he do it? Why did he do it?
Arguments like "The universe and life is too complex to have arisen of itself. God must have done it." have a huge hole in it. If the universe is complex and magnificent then certainly a being that can create such a thing must be more complex and magnificent. Where did he come from? Is he magically exactly that more complex so he can spontaneously exists whereas a universe could not?
There is no way that you can be absolutely sure that every atom always decays at the same rate.
There is actually beginning evidence that they do not. The decay rate seems to be periodically changing. The first evidence suggests that it is linked to solar activity. My bet is that it is linked to weak force decays and it is the difference in neutrino flux from the sun. The emission of an anti-neutrino is indistinguishable from the absorption of a neutrino.
The problem is that it is very hard to measure, there are not many elements that has the right half-life (too short and we cannot measure it across time, too long and the rate is so low the uncertainty becomes bigger than the effect(the change in decay rate)). It would also be necessary to distinguish the decays, so that you can see whether weak force decays and other decays are affected similarly or not.
Speaking of which as a so-called lazy, fat American, it's time to get into my raingear (gortex jacket, rainpaints, galoshes, pack cover over my laptop backpack, and of course the Ubuntu hat), get on my ULEV bicycle and get to work!
Well then you can add wuss to fat and lazy. I am about to bike home from work wearing only shorts and t-shirt in the rain and 60F, and it's going to be bleeding terrific.
Come visit Scandinavia it's a wonderful place, if it wasn't for the bacon we'd have killed ourselves a long time ago.
You have to pass a special technical driving course in Denmark too. This consists of emergency maneuvers in dry and icy conditions.
It is basically too short(1 day) to teach you any skills unless you have a knack for it. However, it demonstrates very effectively how important it is to adapt your driving and speed to the conditions.
You drive a simulated icy bend at 70 km/h and you do not even notice there is a problem. You do the same bend at 75 km/h and it starts getting hairy, but you'll probably learn to keep the car under control after a few tries. Then you drive it at 80 km/h and there is no one who can keep it under control and you end up 20 meters into a field.
Have you really tried all these different cars or are you dismissing them out of hand?
I'm also close to two meters tall and ~275 pounds and i have found that car size is not a predictor of how comfortable it will be. I cannot fit in basically all SUV and pickups, but will fit in very small cars. I've been perfectly comfortable in a smart car or my parents cars over the years a Toyota Yaris Verso, a Volkswagen Golf(mk2 and mk3) and a Volkswagen Passat. I've driven all of them for at least six hours in one sitting and have been perfectly comfortable. I have also driven a citroen zx for 14 hours, but I shared the driving with a friend and we had short stops.
My advice is don't be too prejudiced. I've found that some of the smallest cars are the roomiest on the inside.
Not to mention very bad form. One thing is taking someones stuff, but waking them in the middle of the night is terrible uncouth.
A truck doesn't have "more power".
Yes it does. It also has more energy.
It has less agility and the ability to control it precisely; that is why it is to be respected.
Respected yes, but also held to a higher standard. He is taking a more powerful more dangerous tool into the public space. That he is also less maneuverable just increases the danger he poses.
As for your "self defense should result in a murder charge" argument, you're completely batty. It's no wonder the UK is crumbling faster than the US. (And I have no idea where you found your info for crime statistics, because they're similarly off the wall.)
Similarly I think your laws are short-sighted and catering to basest of animalistic urges.
I have no idea of whether the UK is crumbling faster than the US or what their laws state. I'm not from the UK.
The crime statistics where taken from: "United Nations Survey of Crime Trends and Operations of Criminal Justice Systems".
I don't know a lot about how the law works in the UK. So I cannot comment on that.
I'm going to disagree on you about on the odiousness of our laws. I believe it's emminently sensible that you are liable to be charged with murder if you kill an intruder. I think it's perfectly reasonable that you will face the risk of 12 years in jail for killing another person in self-defense. That way you ensure that you only take another life if it is of the utmost neccessity.
Now that means i will have to suppress my urges for revenge or rightousness, but in return i get a much safer society. The risk of being murdered here, is about a 1/4 of that in the US, and the risk of dying(i.e. i'm counting all types of death where the burglary could be a contributing factor. For example an old lady who had a stroke shortly after a burglary possible caused by the stress) when being burgled is almost neglible, i only found 3 examples since 2000.
Now I'm glad you got my point with the pedestrian. It was exactly that because of the abilities you listed they are never going to force you to change your behaviour. Even if they are tailgaiting, the speed will be so low and the masses involved so small that you will not hesitate to slam the breaks. The pedestrian might scrape their knee or be slightly bruised and nothing will happen to your car. A truck, however, forces everyone in traffic to behave differently. It will block your view. It forces you to consider it's braking distance also etc. Exactly because it has a much bigger impact it must also be held to a much greater standard.
It's basically spiderman's "with great power comes great responsibility".
Again it might decrease my "rights", but it also decreases my risk of dying in traffic to a third of that in the US.
I think the two posters above are pretty cool guys. Teyh don't use grammar and doesn't afraid of anything.