Even better, crews get better ransoms than cargo. You'd probably still require humans for anything desirable like a weapons shipment, but Somali pirates generally don't care about other cargos.
And it's much easier to have a policy of never paying the ransom if there are no human hostages.
where are all the "your base" jokes? am i missing something?
That is an old, obsolete meme; we've moved on and support for the meme was officially withdrawn last week. According to current plans, you still have a couple of years to use "Hot Grits", however, before that one is EOLed.
The real conspiracy theory is that that is where the USA tests it's illegal weapons. After all, the U-2 was developed there to be used for illegal overflights, and it's existence was only discovered because the Soviets shot one down (and only then after denials coming right from the top). Seen that way, it starts to look reasonably likely that much worse things have been developed there.
I always found the name "OXCART" creepy, because of the famous von Neumann quote "I am not sure that the miserable thing can work, nor that it can be gotten to the target except by oxcart", referring to the weight of the atom bomb.
"make all content currently distributed under the GNU Free Documentation License (with later version clause) additionally available under CC-BY-SA 3.0, as explicitly allowed through the latest version of the GFDL;"
That clause seems to be written specially for Wikipedia:
"Massive Multiauthor Collaboration Site" (or "MMC Site") means any World Wide Web server that publishes copyrightable works and also provides prominent facilities for anybody to edit those works. A public wiki that anybody can edit is an example of such a server. A "Massive Multiauthor Collaboration" (or "MMC") contained in the site means any set of copyrightable works thus published on the MMC site. ... The operator of an MMC Site may republish an MMC contained in the site under CC-BY-SA on the same site at any time before August 1, 2009, provided the MMC is eligible for relicensing.
What about existing content? I don't recall being asked to allow my edits to be re-licensed later. Won't they face the same problem Linux would if it went to GPLv3?
I've never watched a professional game, but I have seen videos of Quake III, and the limits of what we are capable of mentally (in terms of timing, fast decisions and reflexes) can be equally impressive.
For example, I've seen trickjumping videos where the players seem to be able to estimate speeds and distances unbelievably quickly and accurately, doing things like launching a rocket at the exact split-second required in order for the player, rocket and a hard surface to meet at exactly the same time a few seconds later, all while having to pay attention to other things.
It may be that more understanding of what is happening is required to notice the impressive things in a video game; I have played very fast Quake III with friends who are well-matched to my level of skill, and possibly gained an appreciation of how fast things happen that way.
But solar panels are nasty. I mean really toxic-nasty
Not true. Now, "potentially toxic-nasty" would be debatable. Cadmium telluride is indeed toxic, but not as horrible as elemental cadmium (there is chlorine in your table salt, etc.), and not considered dangerous unless you grind it up and snort it (which can, of course, happen by accident in a factory). There is no "dispersed, decentralised" toxic chemistry, as elemental cadmium is involved only in the production and recycling of solar panels, which would take place at dedicated facilities. Compare this with nuclear power, where nasty stuff will eventually need to be transported over long distances for disposal (even if you reprocess spent fuel, you make a lot of equipment pretty radioactive in the process). Now THAT is "highly dispersed and decentralised", as well as very toxic indeed (not to mention radioactive).
At least, nuclear powerplants are small and localised.
You neglect not only the issues of transport to disposal, but also the issue of fuel supply. Even if you put fuel purification and waste processing on-site, fuels need to be mined. As uranium deposits are used up, there will presumably be more and more smaller mines, making things even less localised.
Nuclear weapons can be built to have very low fallout.
Not if you then set them off at ground level. If there is material near the device (air hardly counts, as it isn't very dense), the high-energy neutrons will transmute nuclei in that material into radioactive elements, which are then scattered to the winds by the blast. The fact that a cleaverly designed weapon uses up nearly all of it's own radioactive material doesn't really make a difference in this case.
Compare them to a respectable site like the smoking gun which actually fact checks their material - and as a result has never been successfully sued.
Wikileaks does not get in trouble for things which aren't true (or not solely due to untruths). It's the true things that people make the most fuss about. For example, the leaked Scientology OT documents were verified as genuine by the legal threats made by the COS, which were based on IP law, not defamation.
If you want lossless, you could always just copy the files on the DVD to your hard disk. Mplayer and various other programs can play such a directory exactly as if it were an actual DVD (but with less seek time, obviously).
Of course, I should've done the whole post "code" formatted, which, unlike the ecode tag, doesn't treat double spaces the HTML way (which is odd behaviour in the first place for a tag which can contain angle brackets).
I would have more examples but Slashdot refuses to render characters in a fixed-width fashion, foiling any further attempts at character art jokes.
.__. ''._. | . \ ' | |o it doesn't. It does however, stop posts which contain an | |\ \' | | excessive proportion of ASCII art. Thankfully, this paragraph, | | \ \ | | when combined with your quote, is sufficient 'proper text' | | '\ \| | for me to get away with the this post. The single quotes are |_| ' \___| needed because/. does not allow two consecutive spaces.
To phrase your argument differently, the iPod's OS is not a player either, while an MP3 player with RockBox on it is a player. And RockBox supports voice for both track names and menus.
I am surprised, with Apple constantly spouting "The first music player that talks to you", that no one has yet mentioned Rockbox's voice capabilities.
It has existed for some time, and even supports it on some very cheap hardware, by calculating and storing the speech synth on a PC while the player is plugged in.
So, Apple has, in fact, been fighting to keep speech synth off the iPod for years.
The terrorist will work out the orbit with a telescope costing a couple of hundred dollars, or even with the naked eye. Then he will know when to stay indoors.
Like in this case, where they cite an unreputable publication?
Newspapers should be reputable publications, and if they aren't, that is their fault. Wikipedia does not claim to be a "reputable publication" of that sort.
Slashdot Mirror
Even better, crews get better ransoms than cargo. You'd probably still require humans for anything desirable like a weapons shipment, but Somali pirates generally don't care about other cargos.
And it's much easier to have a policy of never paying the ransom if there are no human hostages.
That is an old, obsolete meme; we've moved on and support for the meme was officially withdrawn last week. According to current plans, you still have a couple of years to use "Hot Grits", however, before that one is EOLed.
The real conspiracy theory is that that is where the USA tests it's illegal weapons. After all, the U-2 was developed there to be used for illegal overflights, and it's existence was only discovered because the Soviets shot one down (and only then after denials coming right from the top). Seen that way, it starts to look reasonably likely that much worse things have been developed there.
Oppenheimer quote, rather. Got confused as it was reprinted in a book about von Neumann.
I always found the name "OXCART" creepy, because of the famous von Neumann quote "I am not sure that the miserable thing can work, nor that it can be gotten to the target except by oxcart", referring to the weight of the atom bomb.
Oh, I'm not annoyed by it, I was just pointing out the apparent flaw.
That clause seems to be written specially for Wikipedia:
Neat legal hack...
What about existing content? I don't recall being asked to allow my edits to be re-licensed later. Won't they face the same problem Linux would if it went to GPLv3?
Do they pay you for your sig, and do you get more if you first post?
I've never watched a professional game, but I have seen videos of Quake III, and the limits of what we are capable of mentally (in terms of timing, fast decisions and reflexes) can be equally impressive.
For example, I've seen trickjumping videos where the players seem to be able to estimate speeds and distances unbelievably quickly and accurately, doing things like launching a rocket at the exact split-second required in order for the player, rocket and a hard surface to meet at exactly the same time a few seconds later, all while having to pay attention to other things.
It may be that more understanding of what is happening is required to notice the impressive things in a video game; I have played very fast Quake III with friends who are well-matched to my level of skill, and possibly gained an appreciation of how fast things happen that way.
Not true. Now, "potentially toxic-nasty" would be debatable. Cadmium telluride is indeed toxic, but not as horrible as elemental cadmium (there is chlorine in your table salt, etc.), and not considered dangerous unless you grind it up and snort it (which can, of course, happen by accident in a factory). There is no "dispersed, decentralised" toxic chemistry, as elemental cadmium is involved only in the production and recycling of solar panels, which would take place at dedicated facilities. Compare this with nuclear power, where nasty stuff will eventually need to be transported over long distances for disposal (even if you reprocess spent fuel, you make a lot of equipment pretty radioactive in the process). Now THAT is "highly dispersed and decentralised", as well as very toxic indeed (not to mention radioactive).
You neglect not only the issues of transport to disposal, but also the issue of fuel supply. Even if you put fuel purification and waste processing on-site, fuels need to be mined. As uranium deposits are used up, there will presumably be more and more smaller mines, making things even less localised.
Not if you then set them off at ground level. If there is material near the device (air hardly counts, as it isn't very dense), the high-energy neutrons will transmute nuclei in that material into radioactive elements, which are then scattered to the winds by the blast. The fact that a cleaverly designed weapon uses up nearly all of it's own radioactive material doesn't really make a difference in this case.
I wasn't offering it as an example of a "good" leak, but as an example of a factually correct leak which still caused legal trouble.
Wikileaks does not get in trouble for things which aren't true (or not solely due to untruths). It's the true things that people make the most fuss about. For example, the leaked Scientology OT documents were verified as genuine by the legal threats made by the COS, which were based on IP law, not defamation.
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Republic_of_Dave
If you want lossless, you could always just copy the files on the DVD to your hard disk. Mplayer and various other programs can play such a directory exactly as if it were an actual DVD (but with less seek time, obviously).
If you don't have flash, it tells you so, in a Javascript messagebox. Really.
I am extremely annoyed that I went to that site, and it wasn't Goatse. That is all.
Of course, I should've done the whole post "code" formatted, which, unlike the ecode tag, doesn't treat double spaces the HTML way (which is odd behaviour in the first place for a tag which can contain angle brackets).
Religion involves "faith": a convenient way to believe absolutely anything very strongly. The others tend to require some sort of rationalisation.
To phrase your argument differently, the iPod's OS is not a player either, while an MP3 player with RockBox on it is a player. And RockBox supports voice for both track names and menus.
I am surprised, with Apple constantly spouting "The first music player that talks to you", that no one has yet mentioned Rockbox's voice capabilities.
It has existed for some time, and even supports it on some very cheap hardware, by calculating and storing the speech synth on a PC while the player is plugged in.
So, Apple has, in fact, been fighting to keep speech synth off the iPod for years.
The terrorist will work out the orbit with a telescope costing a couple of hundred dollars, or even with the naked eye. Then he will know when to stay indoors.
And no, geostationary is too far out of sniping.
Newspapers should be reputable publications, and if they aren't, that is their fault. Wikipedia does not claim to be a "reputable publication" of that sort.