There's a big difference between a conventional response and a nuclear response. If we had retaliated for 9/11 with the equivalent of nuclear genocide, we would have been completely ostracized by the rest of the world. And don't think for one minute a worldwide embargo against the US wouldn't have any impact; it would bring us to our knees in a matter of weeks.
If a nuclear attack happens on US soil, that is governed by a totally different set of protocols. The command structure operates under the "strike first, ask questions later" paradigm as other nuclear attacks may be imminent. That means every single country deemed a threat to the US will get a rain of nukes showered down on them.
Terrorist leaders may be assholes, but they aren't retarded. A nuclear counter-strike is the last thing on their agenda.
Haven't you been paying attention? The terrorist leaders don't want to kill us, they want to make us suffer to the point where we are forced to leave. They did the same thing to the Soviet Union.
Not talking out my ass buddy. I've been paying attention. You might want to as well.
"WHat kills so many projects is a lack of good documentation -- if no one can figure out how to pick up the ball and code a feature or a bugfix or whatever, then the code will wither."
You obviously don't work with scientist-programmed Fortran much.
There would be no fourth reich. There would be death and destruction, launched by the US at every single country on our terrorism list.
People seem to be forgetting that there are planned responses to a nuclear strike. In the event that such a strike were to occur, you better hope you're not near any country that has been deemed a threat to the US.
The one thing that I think prevents even the most insane individuals from doling out nukes to attack the the US is the effect of reprisal, not just for those setting off the bomb but those who sold it as well.
On the other hand, the people on the ISS would get one hell of a fireworks show.
You should be aware that clues are classified as dangerous, and should only be used by trained professionals.
The training to use clues is fairly rigorous and intense, and therefore few of the general public actually have clues.
In fact, GWB has been a great forward thinker in this regard. The actions of his administration, along with help of the media conglomerates have almost eliminated the threat of untrained civilians accidentally stumbling upon, obtaining, or using clues.
We must be ever vigilant in this matter, as clues are direct threat to our way of life. It may be hard to stop getting clues once you start, but think of your family and loved ones. They will help you through this trying and difficult time.
Be aware that there are groups and individuals out there who knowingly distribute clues. They can be family members or friends. They may even be in our schools, despite our best efforts to eliminate clues before children get them.
If you suspect someone of having a clue, here are some warning signs to look out for:
1. Strange behavior, such as exhibiting common sense or disagreeing with a News personality.
2. A peculiar need for facts.
3. Indifference to important events, such as who is currently winning American Idol.
If you, or someone you know has a clue, you should contact the Clue Crisis Center immediately. The people there are trained professionals and will be able to handle clues appropriately. Clues can spread quickly, without warning, and may cause sudden outbreaks of common sense if left untreated so speed is of the essence, especially if you may have come in contact with a clue recently.
Once again I thank you for your support in this matter as a patriotic American. This is a War On Clues, and for the sake of our country we must be victorious.
Why not? It is simple. Congress has a lower approval rating than the President.
Of course they do. Between republican pedophiles and democratic do nothings, what's there to like?
The democrats won because they promised they were going to accomplish a list of items. They either never implemented them or were stonewalled by republicans and/or the president. If I hired someone to do some work for me, and then they did nothing, I'd be pretty disappointed to.
The war in Iraq is going well--
I always love this line. Well relative to what? Fewer people being killed? Fewer American casualties? I'm sorry Mr. President, but you're going to have to be a little more specific than that.
The main reason you're not hearing as much about Iraq is because it is not the hot topic at the moment, the economy is. You see, people will bitch about anything and everything as long as they have money in their pockets. When that changes, you could go on national TV and eat puppies and people won't care. They just want the economy fixed.
in fact Baghdad is having a housing market boom.
Yes, I've heard. Usually from IEDs. More seriously, are you really surprised by this? Baghdad is the safest city in Iraq, what with US headquarters there. OF COURSE PEOPLE WANT TO MOVE THERE!
The Democrats who control Congress have been quieting down the "lets get out of Iraq now" mantra.
Again, this should come as no surprise to you. It's an election year and the number one topic is the economy. That's what they're going to talk about.
In fact, Obama is now saying there would be troops staying there. That's changed from his original position of bringing everyone home.
It doesn't really matter. In a few more years we won't have a choice, as we simply won't be able to afford it. Besides, it seems likely that Iraq will kick our asses out anyway.
Next, Congressional Democrats keep crying about high gas prices, and they are doing nothing about it.
Correction. Everyone is bitching about it, from tree-huggin' hippies to Texas Hummer drivers. Fortunately it is having good effects. SUV's are going the way of the dinosaur and hybrids are becoming more mainstream.
The only thing they have done (today 6/10/2008 the Republicans saved us) is try to raise taxes on the oil companies.
Raising taxes on oil isn't going to help. The problem is the fiscal policy of the US, which has been, to put it mildly, a steaming pile of shit.
This may come as a shock to some of you, but in the real world, business don't pay taxes--their customers do!!!!
That isn't going to come to any surprise to the readers of slashdot. The meme here is that companies always screw their customers whenever they can to make more money. That's why we have a general mistrust of things like...oh...say closed door energy policy meetings with oil company CEOs.
What does this mean in regards to the oil companies?
Hmmm...let me guess...I get a free pink unicorn with every fill-up?
Higher taxes from them will translate to higher gas prices for us!!!
Oh...I was so close.
The Republicans blocked this from happening...thankfully!!!
They blocked it alright, but not for the right reasons. Instead they helped pass a budget this year that's going to push our debt over the $10 trillion level AND they've part of the largest increases in government programs and spendings in a very long time. So don't hurt yourself patting your republican pals on the back. They've already mortgaged your children out to China.
If Congressional Democrats really wanted to do something about high gas prices (not just spew hot air about oil companies' big profits), they would have a 4 pronged attack.
Oh this will be good.
First, encourage Bush, and other countries with the ability, to flood the ma
Reminds of the "story" not too long ago that screamed "SMOKING POT SHRINKS YOUR BRAINS!!! OH N0ESSS!!11!"
Of course, if you had actually dug into the details you would have found out that it was a small study that really wasn't best run, and that these people had smoked a minimum of 5 joints a day for 10 years.
I could probably run a similar study on people who took 5 multivitamins a day over 10 years and showed that all of them either died or ended up with some pretty bad complications. Then I could write a story that says "MULTIVITAMINS WILL KILL YOU!!!!".
What is it about drugs that set people on edge? Parents absolutely lose it if they find they're kind smoking a joint, but they don't think twice about jacking their kids up on ritalin and anti-depressants.
Exactly what message is that sending them?
At least get hemp legalized. Aside from the recreational use, it has so many other uses that keeping it illegal is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
It's quite simple really. It began when the dollar started plummeting. This in turn affected the price of oil. At the same time, global demand has been skyrocketing and producers are not keeping up. When the price of oil kept moving upwards, companies that rely on oil for production started getting a little nervous. This has led to companies hoarding to prevent being undercut for price increases, since oil prices kept going up. This in turn puts upward pressure on oil prices. Wash, rinse, repeat.
The speculators took notice after this cycle got started, and are continuing to ride the wave. They influence the price, but not nearly to the degree people have been claiming.
If you want to see what the cost of oil has really done, use gold as the basis for comparison. You'll see that the the cost of oil, using gold, has remained pretty steady. There's been a slight upturn the last decade or so as emerging markets have increased demand, but nothing like the spike we have seen in dollars.
The simple fact is that the dollar is an inflated wreck. It has lost more than 40% of it's value over the past 8 years. And the problems we are seeing now are the result of it.
Believe it or not, Ron Paul warned everyone about this. So have several others. Of course, no one listened to them.
It also appears that peak oil production may have occurred last year. The OPEC nations seem to be getting very interested in sour crude processing tech, which could tell you something.
But hey, believe whatever the talking heads want you to believe.
Lower consumption is a good thing, as long as the alternatives are affordable...which presently they aren't.
If the US had a sensible energy policy instead of whatever top secret black box crap Cheney and his pals cooked up, a gradual transition to other sources of energy would be a lot less devastating than a sudden onslaught of high cost gasoline, heating oil, and other fossil fuel derivatives.
And if the Fed had a sane monetary policy and Bush/Congress had more than a turd's worth of financial sense, we would have seen the dollar slide by over 40% to help drive up the prices of all hard assets through the roof.
This is the price we pay for idiocy. Or rather, it's the price the middle and lower classes pays for our "leader's" idiocy. Oil will keep rising (Goldman Sachs is predicting $150+ by the end of the year), demand is expected to exceed supply this year by 2 million barrels, and with the mo' money fed in control we can expect to see inflation continue on it's rocketing pace.
Quite a little mess we got ourselves into. It will be interesting to see if we can get out before the next huge crisis occurs (national bankruptcy, see the GAO site for more info).
I was a physics tutor in college, and I can agree with this. I would take a problem, read it out load, and then ask the group I was tutoring where we should begin attacking the problem.
After a few seconds of blank stares, I'd list out the information given in the problem on a whiteboard and ask again, how to proceed.
After a few seconds of blank stares, I'd sigh and begin to explain the various concepts from the chapter, including the formulas. It usually wasn't until I got to writing out a formula (in raw form) that some would finally begin piecing together what goes with what and how to use the formula.
Give them the data parceled out clearly and a formula and they're fine. Critical thinking an abstract thought however seemed to be getting skipped in today's schools.
In order to utilize this "super computer", your problem has to be refactored in such a way that it can utilize the hardware efficiently. This can be either be fairly easy or incredibly difficult depending on the problem, tool-set available, etc. .
Their benchmark is good for them, but it is most likely meaningless to the general super-computing community. Porting something like LINPACK over and running that as a benchmark however would give a whole lot more insight into what kind of performance boost a typical scientific app might gain from said hardware.
Nice to see someone utilizing this functionality though.
If you're doing work in physics, you'll need to know how to program. As several others have stated, unless you're doing very simple things, excel/vb will not cut it.
A number of research projects involve numerically intense modeling. If you're doing very complex modeling, then more than likely you'll probably need to go parallel to get it done in any reasonable amount of time.
But here's the rub. You need more than just basic programming skills for this. I know. I've seen code written by physics Ph.D's and I can tell those who have had enough training to do what needs to be done, and those who have just enough skills that they are just plain dangerous near a keyboard.
In my opinion, you need a solid programming background for numerical modelling. If you don't have it, then go to someone who does and have them do it.
Most programmers can understand scientific algorithms enough to program them. However, scientists with little or no software engineering (at least code I've seen) produce anything near what production quality code should be.
This is similar to how they found that the taliban rulers actually enjoyed all the nice things Americans have come to love. Items such as large homes, SUVs, and rolex watches.
Religion is about power and control. The more zealot-like the religion, the more you can be sure there are people at the top profiting from it. It doesn't matter if you're talking about Islam or evangelical Christians. Only those at the bottom fervently believe in the faith (or whatever perverted version of their faith the religious leaders are currently spewing). Those at the top profit handsomely from it.
It's sad, but religions are the perfect tools for controlling and manipulating people. They're based on faith, so people don't question them. Those that do question them are ostracized. Similar to how those who are against the Iraq war "hate America".
This is how the world works. People get into power and they want to stay in power. A number of them will go to any lengths to maintain it, including perverting "sacred" beliefs. It's the same in every country. The methods may be different but the end goal is the same.
Slashdot Mirror
Even if you're a US citizen it's a PITA to get a serious clearance, which is why if you have one you can usually get some very good pay out of it.
~X~
Idiot.
There's a big difference between a conventional response and a nuclear response. If we had retaliated for 9/11 with the equivalent of nuclear genocide, we would have been completely ostracized by the rest of the world. And don't think for one minute a worldwide embargo against the US wouldn't have any impact; it would bring us to our knees in a matter of weeks.
If a nuclear attack happens on US soil, that is governed by a totally different set of protocols. The command structure operates under the "strike first, ask questions later" paradigm as other nuclear attacks may be imminent. That means every single country deemed a threat to the US will get a rain of nukes showered down on them.
Terrorist leaders may be assholes, but they aren't retarded. A nuclear counter-strike is the last thing on their agenda.
Haven't you been paying attention? The terrorist leaders don't want to kill us, they want to make us suffer to the point where we are forced to leave. They did the same thing to the Soviet Union.
Not talking out my ass buddy. I've been paying attention. You might want to as well.
~X~
"WHat kills so many projects is a lack of good documentation -- if no one can figure out how to pick up the ball and code a feature or a bugfix or whatever, then the code will wither."
You obviously don't work with scientist-programmed Fortran much.
~X~
Huh?
There would be no fourth reich. There would be death and destruction, launched by the US at every single country on our terrorism list.
People seem to be forgetting that there are planned responses to a nuclear strike. In the event that such a strike were to occur, you better hope you're not near any country that has been deemed a threat to the US.
The one thing that I think prevents even the most insane individuals from doling out nukes to attack the the US is the effect of reprisal, not just for those setting off the bomb but those who sold it as well.
On the other hand, the people on the ISS would get one hell of a fireworks show.
~X~
"No Trespassing" just reads as "Access Denied", which is often regarded as a challenge to most electron absorbing basement boys.
Post a sign that says "GET OFF MY LAWN!". You'll have more luck.
~X~
Wow...and I thought I spent too much time on slashdot.
~X~
I believe it's: "America"
~X~
Dear Friend,
You should be aware that clues are classified as dangerous, and should only be used by trained professionals.
The training to use clues is fairly rigorous and intense, and therefore few of the general public actually have clues.
In fact, GWB has been a great forward thinker in this regard. The actions of his administration, along with help of the media conglomerates have almost eliminated the threat of untrained civilians accidentally stumbling upon, obtaining, or using clues.
We must be ever vigilant in this matter, as clues are direct threat to our way of life. It may be hard to stop getting clues once you start, but think of your family and loved ones. They will help you through this trying and difficult time.
Be aware that there are groups and individuals out there who knowingly distribute clues. They can be family members or friends. They may even be in our schools, despite our best efforts to eliminate clues before children get them.
If you suspect someone of having a clue, here are some warning signs to look out for:
1. Strange behavior, such as exhibiting common sense or disagreeing with a News personality.
2. A peculiar need for facts.
3. Indifference to important events, such as who is currently winning American Idol.
If you, or someone you know has a clue, you should contact the Clue Crisis Center immediately. The people there are trained professionals and will be able to handle clues appropriately. Clues can spread quickly, without warning, and may cause sudden outbreaks of common sense if left untreated so speed is of the essence, especially if you may have come in contact with a clue recently.
Once again I thank you for your support in this matter as a patriotic American. This is a War On Clues, and for the sake of our country we must be victorious.
Sincerely,
The Department of Homeland Ignorance
Yeah, that's like skateboarding on your testicles.
~X~
For all you know, God could have been playing in the lab, dropped something, and has been trying to clean it up ever since.
It would kind of explain why he never shows up anymore.
~X~
What better way to launder slush money than to start a war and pretend to rebuild a country?
But you'd have to wonder, why the gag order? If private companies were ripping off the US, wouldn't you want the public to know?
Those are my tax dollars and I want 'em back!
~X~
Why not? It is simple. Congress has a lower approval rating than the President.
Of course they do. Between republican pedophiles and democratic do nothings, what's there to like?
The democrats won because they promised they were going to accomplish a list of items. They either never implemented them or were stonewalled by republicans and/or the president. If I hired someone to do some work for me, and then they did nothing, I'd be pretty disappointed to.
The war in Iraq is going well--
I always love this line. Well relative to what? Fewer people being killed? Fewer American casualties? I'm sorry Mr. President, but you're going to have to be a little more specific than that.
The main reason you're not hearing as much about Iraq is because it is not the hot topic at the moment, the economy is. You see, people will bitch about anything and everything as long as they have money in their pockets. When that changes, you could go on national TV and eat puppies and people won't care. They just want the economy fixed.
in fact Baghdad is having a housing market boom.
Yes, I've heard. Usually from IEDs. More seriously, are you really surprised by this? Baghdad is the safest city in Iraq, what with US headquarters there. OF COURSE PEOPLE WANT TO MOVE THERE!
The Democrats who control Congress have been quieting down the "lets get out of Iraq now" mantra.
Again, this should come as no surprise to you. It's an election year and the number one topic is the economy. That's what they're going to talk about.
In fact, Obama is now saying there would be troops staying there. That's changed from his original position of bringing everyone home.
It doesn't really matter. In a few more years we won't have a choice, as we simply won't be able to afford it. Besides, it seems likely that Iraq will kick our asses out anyway.
Next, Congressional Democrats keep crying about high gas prices, and they are doing nothing about it.
Correction. Everyone is bitching about it, from tree-huggin' hippies to Texas Hummer drivers. Fortunately it is having good effects. SUV's are going the way of the dinosaur and hybrids are becoming more mainstream.
The only thing they have done (today 6/10/2008 the Republicans saved us) is try to raise taxes on the oil companies.
Raising taxes on oil isn't going to help. The problem is the fiscal policy of the US, which has been, to put it mildly, a steaming pile of shit.
This may come as a shock to some of you, but in the real world, business don't pay taxes--their customers do!!!!
That isn't going to come to any surprise to the readers of slashdot. The meme here is that companies always screw their customers whenever they can to make more money. That's why we have a general mistrust of things like...oh...say closed door energy policy meetings with oil company CEOs.
What does this mean in regards to the oil companies?
Hmmm...let me guess...I get a free pink unicorn with every fill-up?
Higher taxes from them will translate to higher gas prices for us!!!
Oh...I was so close.
The Republicans blocked this from happening...thankfully!!!
They blocked it alright, but not for the right reasons. Instead they helped pass a budget this year that's going to push our debt over the $10 trillion level AND they've part of the largest increases in government programs and spendings in a very long time. So don't hurt yourself patting your republican pals on the back. They've already mortgaged your children out to China.
If Congressional Democrats really wanted to do something about high gas prices (not just spew hot air about oil companies' big profits), they would have a 4 pronged attack.
Oh this will be good.
First, encourage Bush, and other countries with the ability, to flood the ma
Reminds of the "story" not too long ago that screamed "SMOKING POT SHRINKS YOUR BRAINS!!! OH N0ESSS!!11!"
Of course, if you had actually dug into the details you would have found out that it was a small study that really wasn't best run, and that these people had smoked a minimum of 5 joints a day for 10 years.
I could probably run a similar study on people who took 5 multivitamins a day over 10 years and showed that all of them either died or ended up with some pretty bad complications. Then I could write a story that says "MULTIVITAMINS WILL KILL YOU!!!!".
What is it about drugs that set people on edge? Parents absolutely lose it if they find they're kind smoking a joint, but they don't think twice about jacking their kids up on ritalin and anti-depressants.
Exactly what message is that sending them?
At least get hemp legalized. Aside from the recreational use, it has so many other uses that keeping it illegal is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
~X~
You're standing in a room with your wizard hat and robe with a large strange man. You are likely to have a grue shoved up your ass. ....Roll bitch.
From D&D4J: Jock edition.
~X~
For $DEITY's sake, it isn't speculators.
It's quite simple really. It began when the dollar started plummeting. This in turn affected the price of oil. At the same time, global demand has been skyrocketing and producers are not keeping up. When the price of oil kept moving upwards, companies that rely on oil for production started getting a little nervous. This has led to companies hoarding to prevent being undercut for price increases, since oil prices kept going up. This in turn puts upward pressure on oil prices. Wash, rinse, repeat.
The speculators took notice after this cycle got started, and are continuing to ride the wave. They influence the price, but not nearly to the degree people have been claiming.
If you want to see what the cost of oil has really done, use gold as the basis for comparison. You'll see that the the cost of oil, using gold, has remained pretty steady. There's been a slight upturn the last decade or so as emerging markets have increased demand, but nothing like the spike we have seen in dollars.
The simple fact is that the dollar is an inflated wreck. It has lost more than 40% of it's value over the past 8 years. And the problems we are seeing now are the result of it.
Believe it or not, Ron Paul warned everyone about this. So have several others. Of course, no one listened to them.
It also appears that peak oil production may have occurred last year. The OPEC nations seem to be getting very interested in sour crude processing tech, which could tell you something.
But hey, believe whatever the talking heads want you to believe.
~X~
Or to paraphrase from Contact:
"Why build one internet when you can build two for twice the price."
~X~
Only until they were older than 18.
~X~
But how would the government afford all those big shiny army bases and super duper tanks and jets?
Won't someone please think of the bombs!
~X~
Lower consumption is a good thing, as long as the alternatives are affordable...which presently they aren't.
If the US had a sensible energy policy instead of whatever top secret black box crap Cheney and his pals cooked up, a gradual transition to other sources of energy would be a lot less devastating than a sudden onslaught of high cost gasoline, heating oil, and other fossil fuel derivatives.
And if the Fed had a sane monetary policy and Bush/Congress had more than a turd's worth of financial sense, we would have seen the dollar slide by over 40% to help drive up the prices of all hard assets through the roof.
This is the price we pay for idiocy. Or rather, it's the price the middle and lower classes pays for our "leader's" idiocy. Oil will keep rising (Goldman Sachs is predicting $150+ by the end of the year), demand is expected to exceed supply this year by 2 million barrels, and with the mo' money fed in control we can expect to see inflation continue on it's rocketing pace.
Quite a little mess we got ourselves into. It will be interesting to see if we can get out before the next huge crisis occurs (national bankruptcy, see the GAO site for more info).
~X~
I was a physics tutor in college, and I can agree with this. I would take a problem, read it out load, and then ask the group I was tutoring where we should begin attacking the problem.
After a few seconds of blank stares, I'd list out the information given in the problem on a whiteboard and ask again, how to proceed.
After a few seconds of blank stares, I'd sigh and begin to explain the various concepts from the chapter, including the formulas. It usually wasn't until I got to writing out a formula (in raw form) that some would finally begin piecing together what goes with what and how to use the formula.
Give them the data parceled out clearly and a formula and they're fine. Critical thinking an abstract thought however seemed to be getting skipped in today's schools.
~X~
History is replete with examples that show it's always easier to lower the bar than to get people to clear a higher one.
~X~
You're being overly simplistic.
In order to utilize this "super computer", your problem has to be refactored in such a way that it can utilize the hardware efficiently. This can be either be fairly easy or incredibly difficult depending on the problem, tool-set available, etc. .
Their benchmark is good for them, but it is most likely meaningless to the general super-computing community. Porting something like LINPACK over and running that as a benchmark however would give a whole lot more insight into what kind of performance boost a typical scientific app might gain from said hardware.
Nice to see someone utilizing this functionality though.
~X~
If you're doing work in physics, you'll need to know how to program. As several others have stated, unless you're doing very simple things, excel/vb will not cut it.
A number of research projects involve numerically intense modeling. If you're doing very complex modeling, then more than likely you'll probably need to go parallel to get it done in any reasonable amount of time.
But here's the rub. You need more than just basic programming skills for this. I know. I've seen code written by physics Ph.D's and I can tell those who have had enough training to do what needs to be done, and those who have just enough skills that they are just plain dangerous near a keyboard.
In my opinion, you need a solid programming background for numerical modelling. If you don't have it, then go to someone who does and have them do it.
Most programmers can understand scientific algorithms enough to program them. However, scientists with little or no software engineering (at least code I've seen) produce anything near what production quality code should be.
~X~
Wow, this conversation has really gone of a clef, hasn't it?
~X~
This is similar to how they found that the taliban rulers actually enjoyed all the nice things Americans have come to love. Items such as large homes, SUVs, and rolex watches.
Religion is about power and control. The more zealot-like the religion, the more you can be sure there are people at the top profiting from it. It doesn't matter if you're talking about Islam or evangelical Christians. Only those at the bottom fervently believe in the faith (or whatever perverted version of their faith the religious leaders are currently spewing). Those at the top profit handsomely from it.
It's sad, but religions are the perfect tools for controlling and manipulating people. They're based on faith, so people don't question them. Those that do question them are ostracized. Similar to how those who are against the Iraq war "hate America".
This is how the world works. People get into power and they want to stay in power. A number of them will go to any lengths to maintain it, including perverting "sacred" beliefs. It's the same in every country. The methods may be different but the end goal is the same.
~X~