The four major satellites that are providing key information on the European Space Agency today noted four major satellites that are monitoring the volcano that erupted this week under Iceland's Eyjafjallajoekull glacier.
Huh... the four major satellites are noting four major satellites? That's a bit of tautological recursion.
Well, if you were a satellite, what would you rather monitor? Some boring old volcano or that sexy little number down the street? Why, her cowling's so small her gyroscopes are showing!
So, does this detection result in a message like "Windows Update had an error. Code 0xB302392838271" or "YOU'VE BEEN HACKED!!! GET YOUR COMPUTER FIXED!!!!"?
Oh, like those lovely programs XP Antivirus and "Security Tool" do! Yes, I think that trying to scare and confuse the user into an irrational course of action is the way to go.
I'm sorry, but as I read the RIAA/MPAA text I thought I was reading Cory Doctorow's "I, Robot" again, specifically the scene where the Social Harmony (sort of like 1984's thought police, redone for the 21st century) representative explains why a government-run monopoly on technology makes everything better. (For him.)
“Now, the latest stats show a sharp rise in grey-market electronics importing and other tariff-breaking crimes, mostly occurring in open-air market stalls and from sidewalk blankets. I know that many in law enforcement treat this kind of thing as mere hand-to-hand piracy, not worth troubling with, but I want to assure you, gentlemen and lady, that Social Harmony takes these crimes very seriously indeed.”
We wait for radio signals. I suspect we're as likely to get them as the ants. A better way would be look for objects that might be artifacts, odd star formations, etc.
Tsk, tsk. Making intelligent posts instead of just going "ObXKCD LOL!". Newbie.
The average couple needs to have > 2 children (~2.1) in order to maintain the population. If only half your "geek" friends are having 2-3 children then they are a dying breed, just as the author explains.
You say this like geeks are a race unto themselves. Intelligence, probable introversion, and a fondness for non-mainstream pursuits isn't the sort of thing that can be blamed on a specific DNA sequence. Even if certain genetic factors encourage it, it's not like geekiness is hemophilia or something.
Another Canadian political party siphoning off left-leaning voters.
Yeah, siphoned me right off the Conservative vote, and we all know how big a Communist Stephen Harper is. Some of us right-leaning fascist Nazi bastards are actually get-your-government-out-of-my-face types who never had party that actually represents our core ideals.
Problem seems to be that if the party doesn't have one of those "left" or "right" words in the name or isn't based in a dyed-in-the-wool always-votes-X part of the country, no one knows what to make of it.
(Disclaimer: I'm a card-carrying Pirate. Well, the card's in the mail. Maybe I shouldn't have pillaged the mail truck, it would get to me faster.)
I miss the Natural Law Party. Those guys were a hoot, especially since they were being completely serious while their policies were completely ridiculous. For example, their defense policy was to use meditation to create a peace bubble surrounding Canada. Great stuff.
I LOVED them. The leaflets they sent around were always good reading. My favorite parts were that their meditators who levitate (shown on TV, it's more like trying to hop while your legs are crossed), and the peace bubble you mentioned.
Their explanation of how it worked was basically "A superconductor carries energy with no resistance. It's just like that, except with meditators instead of superconductors." Here's some SCIENCE! That's how it's done, but not! Confused? It's SCIENCE! Look at this ball labeled "superconductor" with wavy lines drawn around it! See how we drew the same wavy lines around a map of Canada? SCIENCE! Enemy missiles are resistance, so it stops them because there's no resistance! SCIENCE!
And no, I'm not kidding. Their proof was literally a drawing of a ball with wavy lines around it next to a map of Canada with the same wavy lines around it.
> Well, it's better than "Copyright Reform Party".
It could very well be since there was a "Reform Party" in Canada and people could view the name "Copyright Reform Party" as "Copyrighted Reform Party" or some kind of new version of the "Reform Party";-)))
Although that might be good out west. We could even pull a Reform and call it the Canadian Copyright Reform Alliance and then get annoyed when people add "Party" to the end and start acronyming it as CCRAP.
From 50 km/h to 0 if you're five meters from the intersection when it changes? Not possible. Never mind brakes, you couldn't react to the light changefast enough to do it. And even if you and your brakes are paragons of halting, then it's a safe bet the guy and car behind you aren't.
Canada probably has national traffic laws; the US does not.
While I don't claim to be a traffic law maven, I do know there was no right turn on red in Quebec for the longest time, and still is at least in Montreal, meaning at the very least not all laws are national. Driver's license minimum ages are also rather different between provinces.
2) Relying on said single, solitary server for payroll is just begging for disaster. For a highly critical task such as payroll, having one point of failure is beyond stupid. One deserves what one gets if the server dies.
Do you work with me? Sounds like half of the conversation we have here on a regular basis.
I work in the shop of a computer store and at least three times a year someone comes in with an off-the-shelf $400 PC that they need fixed ZOMG YESTERDAY because it's their payroll server and 10-200 people need their paychecks ASAP. (For about half, it's the end of the week. For the other half, it's end of the DAY. And it's 4:45 when they bring the PC in and they close at 5:00.) Then when we tell them that it won't be ready in 15 minutes they get angry. And if their hard drive died, it gets better. The first thing they say when we tell them that their information is, short of a data recovery company's best efforts, gone forever is ALWAYS "But that's the only copy!"
Seriously? Single point of failure, no redundancy, no backup, and any sort of failure means 200 people who want their paychecks being mad at YOU? Might as well just have sent everyone a gift-wrapped torch or pitchfork for Christmas.
I'm an aforementioned moron. The argument is very simple; it's much more effective to let Verizon shoot itself in the foot than to pass a law with potentially harmful side effects.
Question from an ingorant ferrigner: Doesn't Verizon have areas where it's the only company allowed? Wouldn't this then be a case of them shooting themselves in the foot and the ricochet hitting their customer in the head?
Should we start worrying that devices based on this tech can start developing psychological issues?
Great Cthulhu is Their cousin, yet can he ping Them only intermittently?
Though the HP confusion gets worse when you get reader programs for the blind involved. Some of them autoexpand HP into "horsepower". Model numbers can add yet another layer of weirdness to that particular mistake, since the computer then seems to be talking about a printer with more power than a Formula One race car.
Now I have to use my superior geek powers to make this computer box thing work. It's not turning on and there's smoke coming out of it. I think it's a virus.
And, interestingly enough, Kwyjibo is a cromulent proper noun. The Kwyjibo iron oxide-Cu-Au deposit can be found in eastern Canada; here's a map showing its location.
Though the non-proper nouns on that thing are pretty snappy too. Orogen? Skarn? I've likely been stuck with those letter combos in the past.
I don't wish for it - its already in Australia and it certainly isn't a dictatorship. On rare votes the party will encourage what they call conscience voting but on most issues members of a party are expected to vote with the party and even though there are no stated penalties I have yet to see anyone cross the floor on a close vote.
I live in Canada and we have a similar system. It's every bit as rife with corruption and petty grudges as any other. There are no stated penalties for voting against the party, but there ARE penalties, loss of portfolio being the least of them. Next election comes around, the party may decide they don't want you as an MP anymore and appoint someone to run in your place.
In Australia you are always voting for a party or you vote for an independent - its not the end of the world as you make it out to be.
But it's the problem. Voting for the party is not IMHO a good idea. Look at the US and tell me that a New York Democrat and a Tennessee Democrat are interchangeable. They're not. But when the party is so deeply entrenched in the system, then one of them is going to be telling the other what to do.
The party campaigns and the people vote according to which party they like (why would that be blind??). If your local representative belongs to a "goat-sodomising" party then I cannot imagine him to be a prince among men.
I've yet to see two good men in the exact two positions needed, that of local MP and party leader. I have no love for any of the party leaders at a federal level. Occasionally, at the local level, an MP comes along that I like. But by voting for him I'm voting for his boss at the same time.
Its not some shady cabal that makes party policy - it is the cabinet along with the party members that decide broad policy.
And the cabinet isn't a cabal? A group of people chosen by the Prime Minister who can lose their high-paying jobs at any time if the Prime Minister so deems it? While in some systems the leaders are afraid of their backbenchers, in a lot they aren't, and being demoted from cabinet member to backbencher is definite punishment. Once the leadership entrenches they can't be pried loose easily. Again, look at Canada. It's a given that a backbencher NEVER question his boss. It's been as much as said. And the current prime minster isn't afraid to use unilateral power at all - look at how he's prorogued Parliament. Is it part of the Conservative party mandate to run and hide when the questions being asked get too tough?
I think this system leads to less corruption and the kind of aversion to tackling big issues that the US experiences.
Not really. Politicians are by and large cowards, seeking maximal power with minimal responsibility. They won't tackle anything big because it would damage their careers, no matter what the system.
What I think the US needs is actually something similar to Australia - preference voting combined with strong party discipline. You can vote for who you want without "throwing away your vote", and the party that is in charge doesn't have to bribe its own members (i.e. pork) to pass a bill.
You wish for a system where the carrot (i.e. pork) is replaced with the stick (i.e. 'discipline'). So if someone on principle votes against his party, what happens? Is he thrown out of the party? Replaced with someone else? Then it's a dictatorship since the voted-in individual is being replaced by a party-chosen puppet.
"Strong party discipline" is another way of saying "do whatever the party leader orders you to". Your vote is still thrown away unless you're the kind of person who blindly votes for the party, not for the person. So my local representative is a prince among men, who cares if he is forced to take marching orders from some goat-sodomizing bastard? Oh, but they both have the same letter in parentheses after their names, so it's all right. Nope, sorry, I don't buy it.
Or easier-- hide your SSID, claim it's off, and see if he notices.
"Sure thing Mr Firstenberg, just let me log in and disable the WiFi on the router. There, can't see the network on your laptop anymore right? Good. Feel better? Oh yes, the kids are doing great. Have a nice day, sir!"
If the guy has a laptop, his claims are more retarded than they initially appear. And they initially appear pretty damn retarded.
Remember, he's also complaining about dimmer switches. DIMMER SWITCHES. He's saying he can sense and is made ill by being within 30 feet of a triode or variable resisitor! He's saying that some of the most basic pieces of electronics make him sick AT RANGE. And yet somehow he can stay at friends' houses or sleep in his car next to a motor and a charged lead acid battery and that's just peachy.
The guy doesn't know how a dimmer switch works and thinks it shoots magic at him. Laptop? I severely doubt he'd touch one of those devil machines.
not only take there money but make Scientology look like the idiots they are, win, win
Given that he claims to have turned in a GOOD script that was hacked up, I think it's less about making them look like idiots and more about sitting back and letting their natural idiocy shine through.
Slashdot Mirror
Huh... the four major satellites are noting four major satellites? That's a bit of tautological recursion.
Well, if you were a satellite, what would you rather monitor? Some boring old volcano or that sexy little number down the street? Why, her cowling's so small her gyroscopes are showing!
Intelligence can't be linked to genetics? Probable introversion; autism can't be linked to genetics?
If intelligence isn't linked to genetics then how did I know that neither of your parents were very smart. Figure that one out.
So you say there's a geek gene?
So, does this detection result in a message like "Windows Update had an error. Code 0xB302392838271" or "YOU'VE BEEN HACKED!!! GET YOUR COMPUTER FIXED!!!!"?
Oh, like those lovely programs XP Antivirus and "Security Tool" do! Yes, I think that trying to scare and confuse the user into an irrational course of action is the way to go.
“Now, the latest stats show a sharp rise in grey-market electronics importing and other tariff-breaking crimes, mostly occurring in open-air market stalls and from sidewalk blankets. I know that many in law enforcement treat this kind of thing as mere hand-to-hand piracy, not worth troubling with, but I want to assure you, gentlemen and lady, that Social Harmony takes these crimes very seriously indeed.”
We wait for radio signals. I suspect we're as likely to get them as the ants. A better way would be look for objects that might be artifacts, odd star formations, etc.
Tsk, tsk. Making intelligent posts instead of just going "ObXKCD LOL!". Newbie.
The average couple needs to have > 2 children (~2.1) in order to maintain the population. If only half your "geek" friends are having 2-3 children then they are a dying breed, just as the author explains.
You say this like geeks are a race unto themselves. Intelligence, probable introversion, and a fondness for non-mainstream pursuits isn't the sort of thing that can be blamed on a specific DNA sequence. Even if certain genetic factors encourage it, it's not like geekiness is hemophilia or something.
Or "How would you feel about Mr. X if you learned he was a moron?"
Another Canadian political party siphoning off left-leaning voters.
Yeah, siphoned me right off the Conservative vote, and we all know how big a Communist Stephen Harper is. Some of us right-leaning fascist Nazi bastards are actually get-your-government-out-of-my-face types who never had party that actually represents our core ideals.
Problem seems to be that if the party doesn't have one of those "left" or "right" words in the name or isn't based in a dyed-in-the-wool always-votes-X part of the country, no one knows what to make of it.
(Disclaimer: I'm a card-carrying Pirate. Well, the card's in the mail. Maybe I shouldn't have pillaged the mail truck, it would get to me faster.)
I miss the Natural Law Party. Those guys were a hoot, especially since they were being completely serious while their policies were completely ridiculous. For example, their defense policy was to use meditation to create a peace bubble surrounding Canada. Great stuff.
I LOVED them. The leaflets they sent around were always good reading. My favorite parts were that their meditators who levitate (shown on TV, it's more like trying to hop while your legs are crossed), and the peace bubble you mentioned.
Their explanation of how it worked was basically "A superconductor carries energy with no resistance. It's just like that, except with meditators instead of superconductors." Here's some SCIENCE! That's how it's done, but not! Confused? It's SCIENCE! Look at this ball labeled "superconductor" with wavy lines drawn around it! See how we drew the same wavy lines around a map of Canada? SCIENCE! Enemy missiles are resistance, so it stops them because there's no resistance! SCIENCE!
And no, I'm not kidding. Their proof was literally a drawing of a ball with wavy lines around it next to a map of Canada with the same wavy lines around it.
> Well, it's better than "Copyright Reform Party".
It could very well be since there was a "Reform Party" in Canada and people could view the name "Copyright Reform Party" as "Copyrighted Reform Party" or some kind of new version of the "Reform Party" ;-)))
Although that might be good out west. We could even pull a Reform and call it the Canadian Copyright Reform Alliance and then get annoyed when people add "Party" to the end and start acronyming it as CCRAP.
You should get your brakes checked.
From 50 km/h to 0 if you're five meters from the intersection when it changes? Not possible. Never mind brakes, you couldn't react to the light change fast enough to do it. And even if you and your brakes are paragons of halting, then it's a safe bet the guy and car behind you aren't.
Canada probably has national traffic laws; the US does not.
While I don't claim to be a traffic law maven, I do know there was no right turn on red in Quebec for the longest time, and still is at least in Montreal, meaning at the very least not all laws are national. Driver's license minimum ages are also rather different between provinces.
2) Relying on said single, solitary server for payroll is just begging for disaster. For a highly critical task such as payroll, having one point of failure is beyond stupid. One deserves what one gets if the server dies.
Do you work with me? Sounds like half of the conversation we have here on a regular basis.
I work in the shop of a computer store and at least three times a year someone comes in with an off-the-shelf $400 PC that they need fixed ZOMG YESTERDAY because it's their payroll server and 10-200 people need their paychecks ASAP. (For about half, it's the end of the week. For the other half, it's end of the DAY. And it's 4:45 when they bring the PC in and they close at 5:00.) Then when we tell them that it won't be ready in 15 minutes they get angry. And if their hard drive died, it gets better. The first thing they say when we tell them that their information is, short of a data recovery company's best efforts, gone forever is ALWAYS "But that's the only copy!"
Seriously? Single point of failure, no redundancy, no backup, and any sort of failure means 200 people who want their paychecks being mad at YOU? Might as well just have sent everyone a gift-wrapped torch or pitchfork for Christmas.
I'm an aforementioned moron. The argument is very simple; it's much more effective to let Verizon shoot itself in the foot than to pass a law with potentially harmful side effects.
Question from an ingorant ferrigner: Doesn't Verizon have areas where it's the only company allowed? Wouldn't this then be a case of them shooting themselves in the foot and the ricochet hitting their customer in the head?
Should we start worrying that devices based on this tech can start developing psychological issues?
Great Cthulhu is Their cousin, yet can he ping Them only intermittently?
Though the HP confusion gets worse when you get reader programs for the blind involved. Some of them autoexpand HP into "horsepower". Model numbers can add yet another layer of weirdness to that particular mistake, since the computer then seems to be talking about a printer with more power than a Formula One race car.
Global oxygenation killed it.
Damn oxygen, destroying the environment like that.
Now I have to use my superior geek powers to make this computer box thing work. It's not turning on and there's smoke coming out of it. I think it's a virus.
Could Darth Vader do anything funny?
Toss Jar Jar in an airlock and cycle it.
See? Vader can do something funny without even BEING funny.
And, interestingly enough, Kwyjibo is a cromulent proper noun. The Kwyjibo iron oxide-Cu-Au deposit can be found in eastern Canada; here's a map showing its location.
Though the non-proper nouns on that thing are pretty snappy too. Orogen? Skarn? I've likely been stuck with those letter combos in the past.
(User browsing some good porn.)
Guardian Angel: "It looks like you're breaking some commandments!"
Nope. There's no commandment that says "Thou shalt not watch 'Hot bitches taking it in all three holes at once!'"
I checked.
I don't wish for it - its already in Australia and it certainly isn't a dictatorship. On rare votes the party will encourage what they call conscience voting but on most issues members of a party are expected to vote with the party and even though there are no stated penalties I have yet to see anyone cross the floor on a close vote.
I live in Canada and we have a similar system. It's every bit as rife with corruption and petty grudges as any other. There are no stated penalties for voting against the party, but there ARE penalties, loss of portfolio being the least of them. Next election comes around, the party may decide they don't want you as an MP anymore and appoint someone to run in your place.
In Australia you are always voting for a party or you vote for an independent - its not the end of the world as you make it out to be.
But it's the problem. Voting for the party is not IMHO a good idea. Look at the US and tell me that a New York Democrat and a Tennessee Democrat are interchangeable. They're not. But when the party is so deeply entrenched in the system, then one of them is going to be telling the other what to do.
The party campaigns and the people vote according to which party they like (why would that be blind??). If your local representative belongs to a "goat-sodomising" party then I cannot imagine him to be a prince among men.
I've yet to see two good men in the exact two positions needed, that of local MP and party leader. I have no love for any of the party leaders at a federal level. Occasionally, at the local level, an MP comes along that I like. But by voting for him I'm voting for his boss at the same time.
Its not some shady cabal that makes party policy - it is the cabinet along with the party members that decide broad policy.
And the cabinet isn't a cabal? A group of people chosen by the Prime Minister who can lose their high-paying jobs at any time if the Prime Minister so deems it? While in some systems the leaders are afraid of their backbenchers, in a lot they aren't, and being demoted from cabinet member to backbencher is definite punishment. Once the leadership entrenches they can't be pried loose easily. Again, look at Canada. It's a given that a backbencher NEVER question his boss. It's been as much as said. And the current prime minster isn't afraid to use unilateral power at all - look at how he's prorogued Parliament. Is it part of the Conservative party mandate to run and hide when the questions being asked get too tough?
I think this system leads to less corruption and the kind of aversion to tackling big issues that the US experiences.
Not really. Politicians are by and large cowards, seeking maximal power with minimal responsibility. They won't tackle anything big because it would damage their careers, no matter what the system.
What I think the US needs is actually something similar to Australia - preference voting combined with strong party discipline. You can vote for who you want without "throwing away your vote", and the party that is in charge doesn't have to bribe its own members (i.e. pork) to pass a bill.
You wish for a system where the carrot (i.e. pork) is replaced with the stick (i.e. 'discipline'). So if someone on principle votes against his party, what happens? Is he thrown out of the party? Replaced with someone else? Then it's a dictatorship since the voted-in individual is being replaced by a party-chosen puppet.
"Strong party discipline" is another way of saying "do whatever the party leader orders you to". Your vote is still thrown away unless you're the kind of person who blindly votes for the party, not for the person. So my local representative is a prince among men, who cares if he is forced to take marching orders from some goat-sodomizing bastard? Oh, but they both have the same letter in parentheses after their names, so it's all right. Nope, sorry, I don't buy it.
What has shutting down communication actually been demonstrated to be good for? Cutting off protests in Iran. Would it improve "security"? Hell no.
Well, it certainly improves the security of the guy with his finger on the button. Everyone else, not so much.
Or easier-- hide your SSID, claim it's off, and see if he notices. "Sure thing Mr Firstenberg, just let me log in and disable the WiFi on the router. There, can't see the network on your laptop anymore right? Good. Feel better? Oh yes, the kids are doing great. Have a nice day, sir!"
If the guy has a laptop, his claims are more retarded than they initially appear. And they initially appear pretty damn retarded.
Remember, he's also complaining about dimmer switches. DIMMER SWITCHES. He's saying he can sense and is made ill by being within 30 feet of a triode or variable resisitor! He's saying that some of the most basic pieces of electronics make him sick AT RANGE. And yet somehow he can stay at friends' houses or sleep in his car next to a motor and a charged lead acid battery and that's just peachy.
The guy doesn't know how a dimmer switch works and thinks it shoots magic at him. Laptop? I severely doubt he'd touch one of those devil machines.
not only take there money but make Scientology look like the idiots they are, win, win
Given that he claims to have turned in a GOOD script that was hacked up, I think it's less about making them look like idiots and more about sitting back and letting their natural idiocy shine through.