This is the usual set of fictional arguments against fluorescent bulbs, and it comes up on every Slashdot discussion. I don't know why it got modded-up this time.
1. CCFLs last longer. There's no research anywhere that says otherwise. I'm sorry you got some bad ones.
3. Never heard of this one before, and I can't find anything about it either way. It seems unlikely to be true since fluorescent lights put out more visible light and less "other" light than incandescent bulbs -- that's the very reason they are more efficient.
The mercury thing comes up on every Slashdot discussion of fluorescent lights, all because of one particularly overblown story. Fluorescent lights can be disposed of in normal trash.
I think it makes good sense for the government to step in and make regulations that makes the market more competitive.
For some reason, this statement is controversial because people mistakenly think that capitalism does not require regulation. in the US, regulation is characterized as either totally evil, or the savior of humanity.
The theory of capitalism is that the perfect consumer will pick the product that maximizes utility. Thus, they select the best producers. The problem is that consumers are not perfect, and even if they are, they need perfect knowledge to make good decisions.
To facilitate perfect knowledge requires accurate labeling, truth in advertising, etc. Suppose you have one product that is super tasty, but poisonous and another one that is mildly tasty but nutritious. The second one maximizes utility, but the consumer may not know that without proper labeling. If the first one is advertised as being totally health then the whole system falls apart.
In summary, regulation is necessary in Capitalism.
show me a democratic government in which, if N% of people say that other 100-N% should be enslaved,
One where the 100%-N are armed.
P.S. If they aren't armed, then it isn't democratic. In modern day, people assume that elections == democracy, and that isn't true. There are types of democracy that don't rely on elections. And election results can only be enforced if the people are willing.
Update: So that I don't appear to be trolling, let me point out that I just noticed this: Apple did approve that political app that I was just referring to.
offering pending patents special examiner status if the holder abandons another co-pending unexamined application.
So I need to file for two patents, then abandon one of them. Even if this kind of solution did result in less backlog, it trades quality for throughput. It is the same kind of bureaucratic solution that Baltimore city does with court cases. They are years behind, so if you offer to plead guilty they process you faster. Which results in people pleading guilty because the waiting is worse than the sentence. That gets the system unjammed, but at the expense of justice, which is the entire purpose.
One of those COPS TV shows covered an officer who would make jokes when he pulled someone over. He would say "Do you know any drugs, open alcohol containers, or dead hookers in the trunk?" He said that criminals would respond "No" while innocent people would smile and laugh.
It is that way here too. Rarely does anyone serve the entire sentence. It is like speed limits: The sign says 55 miles per hour, but probably 99% of the people read that and do 65. 10% do 75. The 1% who pass 85 ticketed. The number on the sign is nearly as meaningless as the length of a jail sentence.
The myth is not that tryptophan is involved. The myth is that tryptophan is the cause, and that Turkey causes sleepiness because of it. The fact that there is a small grain of truth in the myth does not make it any less of a myth. The common everyday belief is incorrect.
Seems like America keeps making the same mistake over and over again. Don't allow a regulated monopoly to be a distributor and the content provider. Failure to follow this inevitably results in corruption and anti-competitive behavior. This applies to:
- Power production and power distribution - Cellular network providers, cellular phone manufacturers, voice service providers - Phone companies and voice providers - Internet service providers and internet content providers - Cable television delivery and cable content providers - The Telegraph (recent Slashdot article on this)
The smoke has not yet cleared over Comcast illegally throttling connections. Why the heck would we consider allowing them to own a major content provider?
Factual reporting will still exist. It will remain in paid journals, newspapers, etc. Even today, people who pay attention to such reporting are actually in the minority. To most people it is really nerdy to read the Wall Street Journal or something like that.
Most Americans aren't interested in that: they want to hear someone loudly spew oversimplifications and accusations that they can rally behind. "The [other party] is a bunch of [insult]! Next up: Best and worst dressed celebrities!"
Plus, they aren't the same vehicles. The US safety standards require heavier cars. I know some Chinese car manufacturers can't export cars to the US because they are too lightweight.
The Prius is a larger car than a Ford Fiesta. It is pointless to say "look, car XYZ gets better mileage than a Prius, and it isn't a hybrid!" when that car is half the size.
Most laser printers in this person's price range do not support Postscript. Even those that claim to don't support it well enough that you can rely on it.
Yeah you'll find this with any language dynamically typed.
Yeah, I really don't like them for this reason. I'd like to see a nice statically-typed scripting language. It really doesn't make the code that much more difficult to write, and it can prevent so many bugs.
I worked on an app that used JSON and had this problem constantly. If someone changed the return of a web service, all the C#/Java code would get compile errors because they saw the change to the structure. But the Javascript would break at run time.
C# is introducing the "dynamic" keyword in.NET 4.0 which will introduce dynamically typed stuff. LINQ and the var keyword are still statically typed: the compiler just infers the type.
Namespace.LongComplicatedObject foo = new Namespace.LongComplicatedObject() -- lame! var foo = new Namespace.LongComplicatedObject() -- better
IMHO, the dynamic keyword doesn't need to be added to C#. From the examples I've seen, they are using it in places where their implementation of Generics is too limiting.
Nope: the joke is on me. I'm rusty on Javascript since I haven't done web development in a while. I fully expected to come back to this and see it modded -1 Flamebait with 100 comments explaining why I don't know the language.
Javascript is too dynamically typed. In my experience, testers constantly find bugs caused by type-mismatches, misspelled variable names, or other basic things that a compiler could have detected. The next most common set of problems is that Javascript generally doesn't report errors right away: they show up 200 lines later. Suppose a variable doesn't exist when it is referenced? It just makes one up right there on the spot, and assigns it a null value. That's terrible. Then there's the null -vs- undefined mess that constantly trips-up even experienced programmers.
What you are talking about is removing the metadata from the system and just having the staff use ad-hoc decisions. There are several reasons those types of systems won't work in a medical system:
- They require the users to conform to ad-hoc standards like "always enter the SS# with dashes" or "without dashes" or "enter a 9999 for an unknown" or something like that. Inevitably the users don't conform, so you have to search for something 10 different ways to find it. - Without dedicated fields, a search can't tell a first name from a last name or a middle name. Many types of numbers (phone, SS #, driver's license #, medical record #, dates) have similar formats or number of digits and a search will give you wrong results. - Such a system can't connect to a billing system, which is how the hospital makes money. To bill properly, the names must be spelled the same in every place. It has to be able to tell first, middle, and last. Many fields are required, or must follow certain rules. Some times it needs to be able to tell the mother's name -vs- the father's name -vs- the responsible party's name.
So based on this, if I smash two sheets of paper together fast enough, I'll have enough mass-energy to build a car from the resulting debris? Or will the Lorentz factor mean that I could do it, but the resulting vehicle would only exist for a short period of time?
Slashdot Mirror
This is the usual set of fictional arguments against fluorescent bulbs, and it comes up on every Slashdot discussion. I don't know why it got modded-up this time.
1. CCFLs last longer. There's no research anywhere that says otherwise. I'm sorry you got some bad ones.
2. Fluorescent lights do not have a higher startup current.
3. Never heard of this one before, and I can't find anything about it either way. It seems unlikely to be true since fluorescent lights put out more visible light and less "other" light than incandescent bulbs -- that's the very reason they are more efficient.
4. There is an insignificant and irrelevant amount of mercury in fluorescent bulbs.
Various Slashdot discussions on this
The mercury thing comes up on every Slashdot discussion of fluorescent lights, all because of one particularly overblown story. Fluorescent lights can be disposed of in normal trash.
I think it makes good sense for the government to step in and make regulations that makes the market more competitive.
For some reason, this statement is controversial because people mistakenly think that capitalism does not require regulation. in the US, regulation is characterized as either totally evil, or the savior of humanity.
The theory of capitalism is that the perfect consumer will pick the product that maximizes utility. Thus, they select the best producers. The problem is that consumers are not perfect, and even if they are, they need perfect knowledge to make good decisions.
To facilitate perfect knowledge requires accurate labeling, truth in advertising, etc. Suppose you have one product that is super tasty, but poisonous and another one that is mildly tasty but nutritious. The second one maximizes utility, but the consumer may not know that without proper labeling. If the first one is advertised as being totally health then the whole system falls apart.
In summary, regulation is necessary in Capitalism.
show me a democratic government in which, if N% of people say that other 100-N% should be enslaved,
One where the 100%-N are armed.
P.S. If they aren't armed, then it isn't democratic. In modern day, people assume that elections == democracy, and that isn't true. There are types of democracy that don't rely on elections. And election results can only be enforced if the people are willing.
Update: So that I don't appear to be trolling, let me point out that I just noticed this: Apple did approve that political app that I was just referring to.
pushes the boundaries of what Apple considers acceptable
The problem is that those boundaries are not defined. Which is why we get rejections on artistic grounds and other such stupidities.
offering pending patents special examiner status if the holder abandons another co-pending unexamined application.
So I need to file for two patents, then abandon one of them. Even if this kind of solution did result in less backlog, it trades quality for throughput. It is the same kind of bureaucratic solution that Baltimore city does with court cases. They are years behind, so if you offer to plead guilty they process you faster. Which results in people pleading guilty because the waiting is worse than the sentence. That gets the system unjammed, but at the expense of justice, which is the entire purpose.
Ironically, if they posted such a page, it would be censored in China.
How far off is this from the fabled 3-hour New York to Tokyo flight?
One of those COPS TV shows covered an officer who would make jokes when he pulled someone over. He would say "Do you know any drugs, open alcohol containers, or dead hookers in the trunk?" He said that criminals would respond "No" while innocent people would smile and laugh.
It is that way here too. Rarely does anyone serve the entire sentence. It is like speed limits: The sign says 55 miles per hour, but probably 99% of the people read that and do 65. 10% do 75. The 1% who pass 85 ticketed. The number on the sign is nearly as meaningless as the length of a jail sentence.
Nor is tryptophan's involvement a myth
The myth is not that tryptophan is involved. The myth is that tryptophan is the cause, and that Turkey causes sleepiness because of it. The fact that there is a small grain of truth in the myth does not make it any less of a myth. The common everyday belief is incorrect.
It's funny how the unregulated *free* market seems to regulate us so well.
Your comment is pointless: Copyright law is a market regulation.
Good to know. Thanks.
Seems like America keeps making the same mistake over and over again. Don't allow a regulated monopoly to be a distributor and the content provider. Failure to follow this inevitably results in corruption and anti-competitive behavior. This applies to:
- Power production and power distribution
- Cellular network providers, cellular phone manufacturers, voice service providers
- Phone companies and voice providers
- Internet service providers and internet content providers
- Cable television delivery and cable content providers
- The Telegraph (recent Slashdot article on this)
The smoke has not yet cleared over Comcast illegally throttling connections. Why the heck would we consider allowing them to own a major content provider?
Factual reporting will still exist. It will remain in paid journals, newspapers, etc. Even today, people who pay attention to such reporting are actually in the minority. To most people it is really nerdy to read the Wall Street Journal or something like that.
Most Americans aren't interested in that: they want to hear someone loudly spew oversimplifications and accusations that they can rally behind. "The [other party] is a bunch of [insult]! Next up: Best and worst dressed celebrities!"
Visual Studio is not the only development environment for Windows.
Why do hybrids not make sense in Europe?
Imperial or US gallons?
There is a 20% difference.
Plus, they aren't the same vehicles. The US safety standards require heavier cars. I know some Chinese car manufacturers can't export cars to the US because they are too lightweight.
The Prius is a larger car than a Ford Fiesta. It is pointless to say "look, car XYZ gets better mileage than a Prius, and it isn't a hybrid!" when that car is half the size.
Most laser printers in this person's price range do not support Postscript. Even those that claim to don't support it well enough that you can rely on it.
Yeah you'll find this with any language dynamically typed.
Yeah, I really don't like them for this reason. I'd like to see a nice statically-typed scripting language. It really doesn't make the code that much more difficult to write, and it can prevent so many bugs.
I worked on an app that used JSON and had this problem constantly. If someone changed the return of a web service, all the C#/Java code would get compile errors because they saw the change to the structure. But the Javascript would break at run time.
C# is introducing the "dynamic" keyword in .NET 4.0 which will introduce dynamically typed stuff. LINQ and the var keyword are still statically typed: the compiler just infers the type.
Namespace.LongComplicatedObject foo = new Namespace.LongComplicatedObject() -- lame!
var foo = new Namespace.LongComplicatedObject() -- better
IMHO, the dynamic keyword doesn't need to be added to C#. From the examples I've seen, they are using it in places where their implementation of Generics is too limiting.
Did that joke just go flying over my head?
Nope: the joke is on me. I'm rusty on Javascript since I haven't done web development in a while. I fully expected to come back to this and see it modded -1 Flamebait with 100 comments explaining why I don't know the language.
Fortunately, now I'll never forget it. :-)
Javascript is too dynamically typed. In my experience, testers constantly find bugs caused by type-mismatches, misspelled variable names, or other basic things that a compiler could have detected. The next most common set of problems is that Javascript generally doesn't report errors right away: they show up 200 lines later. Suppose a variable doesn't exist when it is referenced? It just makes one up right there on the spot, and assigns it a null value. That's terrible. Then there's the null -vs- undefined mess that constantly trips-up even experienced programmers.
What you are talking about is removing the metadata from the system and just having the staff use ad-hoc decisions. There are several reasons those types of systems won't work in a medical system:
- They require the users to conform to ad-hoc standards like "always enter the SS# with dashes" or "without dashes" or "enter a 9999 for an unknown" or something like that. Inevitably the users don't conform, so you have to search for something 10 different ways to find it.
- Without dedicated fields, a search can't tell a first name from a last name or a middle name. Many types of numbers (phone, SS #, driver's license #, medical record #, dates) have similar formats or number of digits and a search will give you wrong results.
- Such a system can't connect to a billing system, which is how the hospital makes money. To bill properly, the names must be spelled the same in every place. It has to be able to tell first, middle, and last. Many fields are required, or must follow certain rules. Some times it needs to be able to tell the mother's name -vs- the father's name -vs- the responsible party's name.
So based on this, if I smash two sheets of paper together fast enough, I'll have enough mass-energy to build a car from the resulting debris? Or will the Lorentz factor mean that I could do it, but the resulting vehicle would only exist for a short period of time?