Even if the chances were one in a billion or one in a trillion, the sheer number of stars and planetary systems in the galaxy (and indeed the universe) make it entirely unlikely that there *isn't* life out there somewhere.
Humans seem to want to be perceived as being special on both an individual and a collective level. We don't really want to accept being common or normal or average.
There is life out there somewhere. We'll never find it because of the distances involved, but I am convinced it's there. I think we beat huge odds to get here, but there are still huge numbers of other civilizations that beat similar odds.
The 6502 was nowhere nearly the best of the bunch (the later 6809 kicked its butt), but it was the cheapest of the bunch. That's why it became such a popular microprocessor. It was around $20 when it was released, and competing chips were well over $100 each.
MOS had the right idea. Don't make it great... just make it good, and affordable. The whole Commodore philosophy mirrored the MOS philosophy. The C64 was never the best computer on the market, and yet it outsold every other one out there, because it offered a lot for the money.
The Earth-sized planets are hard to see, but they are surely out there.
It's quite interesting to me to think that are are on a tiny planet orbiting a nondescript, rather dim star (I don't know if the sun is average or not - it may even be above average, given how many brown dwarfs there must be that we can't see - but it certainly isn't very bright at any distance). There could be countless similar systems out there that we will never know about because they are too dim to find. It rather boggles my mind.
We really just see the highlights of the universe. The meat and potatoes of it are dim yet everywhere. Many of the nearest stars were only recently discovered, and there are likely more nearby that we haven't found yet.
No way. AmigaDOS/Workbench and TransAmiga BBS. I actually played heavy graphical games while the BBS was still up and while the users could tell the system was slower, it was still usable.
It doesn't line up with my social agenda, it corrects a market failure. There is a big difference.
We use too much fuel. Using fuel contributes to global warming. The state of California must already believe this to be making this lawsuit.
Given that that is true, providing economic incentive to pollute less will help to correct the failure.
In an ideal economic world, people use products and services and spend their money and other resources in ways that provide the most value. When some of the cost of that decision is borne by outsiders, that is a negative externality. (Sometimes others benefit, and that is a positive externality.) Both of these are a type of market failure because people consume or conserve based on their individual needs and the effect on the rest of the world, or their neighbours, etc., is completly disregarded.
Why pay $5 in taxes to have my garbage hauled away this week when I can put it in your yard? This is a cost to you, probably greater than $5, so we have a failure.
I realize that Americans are in general very reluctant to encourage the growth of government, but one of the paramount resonsibilities of government is to correct market failures. In fact, I think a strong argument could be made that government should do nothing but correct market failures, and this would create a near-ideal free market. I'll let the economists debate that issue.
If California wants vehicles to emit fewer pollutants, it could change taxation policy to dissuade people from driving large vehicles, or from driving at all. It could improve public transportation so that people don't have to drive.
Oh wait. This is an American state. Market failures are ok, unless we can fix them without taxing anyone.
Seriously, instead of telling the manufacturers they have to meet a certain fuel economy rating, California should just apply taxes to vehicles that don't meet that rating. The further above the rating, the higher the tax. If someone wants to pay 35% tax on a Hummer H2 despite its fuel economy, let him. If the population of California still buys vehicles that drink too much gas, raise the taxes. Conversely, if they achieve a better-than-anticipated mileage, consider reducing the tax, or providing a small tax credit to very environmentally-friendly vehicles. Target demand, not supply. Give people freedom to buy what they want, but a strong economic incentive to buy what is best for society as a whole.
Taxing fuel makes sense too. The more fuel your vehicle consumes, and the further you drive it, the more tax you pay. However, this creates economic pressure on poor Californians, so it would have to be balanced with a tax credit system for the poor or improvements to public transit to mitigate the impact.
Sure, this will hurt the economy in the short run, but in the long run, doing nothing will do far more damage.
That's one advantage of GSM: the carrier can't forbid you from using the phone. You can put your sim card in any locked phone (or phone locked to that particular provider) and as long as it supports the bands that the provider uses, it will work. Change your phone as often as you change your underwear, if you like.
This poster wasn't joking. AMPS really does have the best sound quality. It's also highly inefficient in its spectrum usage, and anyone with a scanner can listen to your call, but the quality can't be beaten.
When an AMPS phone is in borderline coverage, you get static, but you can still talk (usually). At this point GSM and CDMA phones drop packets and you get strange gaps in the conversation. It's much harder to follow what the other person is saying.
Re:The problem of nerve impulse conduction (and..)
on
An Alternate Human
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· Score: 1
Given the insane sums of money that US and Canadian football quarterbacks get and major league baseball pitchers make, throwing ability certainly does retain some value, even if its original evolutionary purpose is no longer terribly valued.
Re:WOW, there is nothing but shite on TV isn't the
on
A Look at IPTV
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· Score: 1
This is the beauty of laptop computers... you can spend your time online in front of the TV now.
Slashdot makes for great reading during commercials, no?:)
DVDs aren't subject to the levy and hold more data.
Of course, not everyone has a DVD reader or a DVD burner, but with burners in the $40-50 Cdn range at mail order establishments of repute, the easy solution is to switch to DVD media and only use CDs when absolutely necessary.
I agree that it's ridiculous that we have to, but it's simple enough to do.
Epson claims this, but the reality is that RA-4 silver gelatin prints (what many photolabs supply even when the original is a digital image) are known to be relatively archival. The technology has been around for a long time and has a lot in common with the colour negative printing that was done in the '70s and '80s (only it's better). I don't shoot digital, but if I did I can guarantee that all of my prints would be made on real photographic paper.
Some people are going to misbehave like that precisely because they can. In real life they probably wouldn't, but they know it's a game and want to see how acting differently will change things. I don't think this behaviour while playing games is particularly worrisome. I played D&D but I haven't killed any evil elves yet in real life.
There is more to a car's social responsibility case than how much fuel it consumes. The manufacturing cost and harm to the environment in making it are also issues. The batteries in hybrid cars are quite toxic, something not to be understated. It is possible that for low usage, a gasoline car could be proven to be more environmentally friendly than a hybrid.
They're nowhere nearly as cheap as floppy disks, although that may be coming in due course. Per megabyte, sure, great value but if you only need to store a megabyte or two...
I agree that floppy disks can be damaged by magnetism, but I've damaged far more optical discs by losing the case than I've damaged floppy disks in any fashion.
You can reuse a floppy. You can't reuse a CD, and CD-RWs aren't durable enough to be a good alternative.
I have tons of AOL floppies that I have used. I used to be happy to get them actually:)
You can make copies of data that you can park somewhere. I work at an insurance office. We take low-res digital pictures of risks all the time. Sure, we can load up the server with them, or we can put them on a floppy disk in the file. Disks are flat, cheap and ubiquitous. Thumb drives are not.
Thumb drives are fantastic when you just want to move files, or even if you want to keep files close by (I keep a resume on mine, e.g.). For seldom-used files that you need to archive, they are useless.
Yes, I know that I could use CDs, but unless I am storing hundreds of megabytes of data, that's an environmentally irresponsible choice. CD-RW discs are an okay solution but are not as durable as floppy disks.
Actually, Ethiopian cooking is pretty tasty. Those who have the means to eat tend to eat some pretty good-tasting food.
The problem with computer security books, of course, is that they become obsolete before the ink is dry.
There are a few things that people forget in all of this...
1. Digital prints are dye-based. They are not archival the way that monochrome prints on real photographic paper can be. All dyes fade in time. It's right on the ink packages (and colour film and photographic paper boxes, too; it's not unique to digital). Because monochrome photography is based on the actual silver image and not a dye (at least what this article is about; I'm ignoring chromogenic films and such), it has that archival advantage. Niepce's 1837 image still exists because of that (and that was printed before they knew how to actually make prints last for a long time through toning and proper washing).
2. Digital photography versus film photography is not the same as digital audio versus analog audio. CDs are super convenient, small, high resolution (higher than the turntables 95% of us had, worse only than the very highest-end ones and only while the albums weren't damaged or worn), technologically stable (a 1982 CD plays fine in a 2005 CD player, and a 2005 CD plays fine in a 1982 CD player - my 1982 CD player even plays CD-Rs and they hadn't been invented yet) and cheap. Digital photography requires a high end computer (and probably a laptop too if you shoot a lot, or at least a ton of cards), much worse to approximately similar to 35mm film in resolution (much worse than rollfilm or sheet film), constantly makes prior gear obsolete, and the gear is very costly.
3. All film photographs are shot at full resolution. You don't have to remember, and you can't screw it up.
4. A good $70 point-and-shoot (e.g. Olympus Stylus Epic) outresolves 99% of the digital cameras on the market and basically equals almost all of the rest.
5. Digital gear barely works in extremely wet or cold weather. Autofocus film gear works alright in extremely wet or cold weather. Manual focus (and particularly mechanically-shuttered) film gear works quite well in extremely wet or cold weather.
6. I spend enough hours in front of the computer already. The darkroom is my escape. I don't want to do my photography on a computer.
Digital photography is very cool, no question. It's just not for me, and nor should it be for everyone else. I can live with the majority of everyone else.
Using this logic, retirement plans like 401Ks and RRSPs are evil, too. You're deferring taxes by buying one.
Tax deferment is a perfectly acceptable tact. Stock options are only worth something once the stock price goes up and the gain is realized in actual dollars. You can't pay tax on theoretical earnings, only on real ones.
Unquestionably, there are advantages to be had in some circumstances to be paid in stock options, but to think that it's some perfect panacaea to avoid paying taxes is naive. Besides, in most jurisdictions, consumption taxes earn as much money for government, or more, than income taxes do.
Slashdot Mirror
Even if the chances were one in a billion or one in a trillion, the sheer number of stars and planetary systems in the galaxy (and indeed the universe) make it entirely unlikely that there *isn't* life out there somewhere. Humans seem to want to be perceived as being special on both an individual and a collective level. We don't really want to accept being common or normal or average. There is life out there somewhere. We'll never find it because of the distances involved, but I am convinced it's there. I think we beat huge odds to get here, but there are still huge numbers of other civilizations that beat similar odds.
Clean the keyboard. Really. That's all it needs.
The 6502 was nowhere nearly the best of the bunch (the later 6809 kicked its butt), but it was the cheapest of the bunch. That's why it became such a popular microprocessor. It was around $20 when it was released, and competing chips were well over $100 each. MOS had the right idea. Don't make it great... just make it good, and affordable. The whole Commodore philosophy mirrored the MOS philosophy. The C64 was never the best computer on the market, and yet it outsold every other one out there, because it offered a lot for the money.
The Earth-sized planets are hard to see, but they are surely out there. It's quite interesting to me to think that are are on a tiny planet orbiting a nondescript, rather dim star (I don't know if the sun is average or not - it may even be above average, given how many brown dwarfs there must be that we can't see - but it certainly isn't very bright at any distance). There could be countless similar systems out there that we will never know about because they are too dim to find. It rather boggles my mind. We really just see the highlights of the universe. The meat and potatoes of it are dim yet everywhere. Many of the nearest stars were only recently discovered, and there are likely more nearby that we haven't found yet.
No way. AmigaDOS/Workbench and TransAmiga BBS. I actually played heavy graphical games while the BBS was still up and while the users could tell the system was slower, it was still usable.
It doesn't line up with my social agenda, it corrects a market failure. There is a big difference. We use too much fuel. Using fuel contributes to global warming. The state of California must already believe this to be making this lawsuit. Given that that is true, providing economic incentive to pollute less will help to correct the failure. In an ideal economic world, people use products and services and spend their money and other resources in ways that provide the most value. When some of the cost of that decision is borne by outsiders, that is a negative externality. (Sometimes others benefit, and that is a positive externality.) Both of these are a type of market failure because people consume or conserve based on their individual needs and the effect on the rest of the world, or their neighbours, etc., is completly disregarded. Why pay $5 in taxes to have my garbage hauled away this week when I can put it in your yard? This is a cost to you, probably greater than $5, so we have a failure. I realize that Americans are in general very reluctant to encourage the growth of government, but one of the paramount resonsibilities of government is to correct market failures. In fact, I think a strong argument could be made that government should do nothing but correct market failures, and this would create a near-ideal free market. I'll let the economists debate that issue.
If California wants vehicles to emit fewer pollutants, it could change taxation policy to dissuade people from driving large vehicles, or from driving at all. It could improve public transportation so that people don't have to drive.
Oh wait. This is an American state. Market failures are ok, unless we can fix them without taxing anyone.
Seriously, instead of telling the manufacturers they have to meet a certain fuel economy rating, California should just apply taxes to vehicles that don't meet that rating. The further above the rating, the higher the tax. If someone wants to pay 35% tax on a Hummer H2 despite its fuel economy, let him. If the population of California still buys vehicles that drink too much gas, raise the taxes. Conversely, if they achieve a better-than-anticipated mileage, consider reducing the tax, or providing a small tax credit to very environmentally-friendly vehicles. Target demand, not supply. Give people freedom to buy what they want, but a strong economic incentive to buy what is best for society as a whole.
Taxing fuel makes sense too. The more fuel your vehicle consumes, and the further you drive it, the more tax you pay. However, this creates economic pressure on poor Californians, so it would have to be balanced with a tax credit system for the poor or improvements to public transit to mitigate the impact.
Sure, this will hurt the economy in the short run, but in the long run, doing nothing will do far more damage.
That's one advantage of GSM: the carrier can't forbid you from using the phone. You can put your sim card in any locked phone (or phone locked to that particular provider) and as long as it supports the bands that the provider uses, it will work. Change your phone as often as you change your underwear, if you like.
This poster wasn't joking. AMPS really does have the best sound quality. It's also highly inefficient in its spectrum usage, and anyone with a scanner can listen to your call, but the quality can't be beaten.
When an AMPS phone is in borderline coverage, you get static, but you can still talk (usually). At this point GSM and CDMA phones drop packets and you get strange gaps in the conversation. It's much harder to follow what the other person is saying.
Given the insane sums of money that US and Canadian football quarterbacks get and major league baseball pitchers make, throwing ability certainly does retain some value, even if its original evolutionary purpose is no longer terribly valued.
This is the beauty of laptop computers... you can spend your time online in front of the TV now. Slashdot makes for great reading during commercials, no? :)
DVDs aren't subject to the levy and hold more data. Of course, not everyone has a DVD reader or a DVD burner, but with burners in the $40-50 Cdn range at mail order establishments of repute, the easy solution is to switch to DVD media and only use CDs when absolutely necessary. I agree that it's ridiculous that we have to, but it's simple enough to do.
Epson claims this, but the reality is that RA-4 silver gelatin prints (what many photolabs supply even when the original is a digital image) are known to be relatively archival. The technology has been around for a long time and has a lot in common with the colour negative printing that was done in the '70s and '80s (only it's better). I don't shoot digital, but if I did I can guarantee that all of my prints would be made on real photographic paper.
Some people are going to misbehave like that precisely because they can. In real life they probably wouldn't, but they know it's a game and want to see how acting differently will change things. I don't think this behaviour while playing games is particularly worrisome. I played D&D but I haven't killed any evil elves yet in real life.
There is more to a car's social responsibility case than how much fuel it consumes. The manufacturing cost and harm to the environment in making it are also issues. The batteries in hybrid cars are quite toxic, something not to be understated. It is possible that for low usage, a gasoline car could be proven to be more environmentally friendly than a hybrid.
Yeah, we are very backwards up here. That's why we had broadband Internet access before the Americans did. ;)
They're nowhere nearly as cheap as floppy disks, although that may be coming in due course. Per megabyte, sure, great value but if you only need to store a megabyte or two...
I agree that floppy disks can be damaged by magnetism, but I've damaged far more optical discs by losing the case than I've damaged floppy disks in any fashion.
You can reuse a floppy. You can't reuse a CD, and CD-RWs aren't durable enough to be a good alternative. I have tons of AOL floppies that I have used. I used to be happy to get them actually :)
You can make copies of data that you can park somewhere. I work at an insurance office. We take low-res digital pictures of risks all the time. Sure, we can load up the server with them, or we can put them on a floppy disk in the file. Disks are flat, cheap and ubiquitous. Thumb drives are not. Thumb drives are fantastic when you just want to move files, or even if you want to keep files close by (I keep a resume on mine, e.g.). For seldom-used files that you need to archive, they are useless. Yes, I know that I could use CDs, but unless I am storing hundreds of megabytes of data, that's an environmentally irresponsible choice. CD-RW discs are an okay solution but are not as durable as floppy disks.
Actually, Ethiopian cooking is pretty tasty. Those who have the means to eat tend to eat some pretty good-tasting food. The problem with computer security books, of course, is that they become obsolete before the ink is dry.
Umm... they do. It's called the film scanner.
There are a few things that people forget in all of this... 1. Digital prints are dye-based. They are not archival the way that monochrome prints on real photographic paper can be. All dyes fade in time. It's right on the ink packages (and colour film and photographic paper boxes, too; it's not unique to digital). Because monochrome photography is based on the actual silver image and not a dye (at least what this article is about; I'm ignoring chromogenic films and such), it has that archival advantage. Niepce's 1837 image still exists because of that (and that was printed before they knew how to actually make prints last for a long time through toning and proper washing). 2. Digital photography versus film photography is not the same as digital audio versus analog audio. CDs are super convenient, small, high resolution (higher than the turntables 95% of us had, worse only than the very highest-end ones and only while the albums weren't damaged or worn), technologically stable (a 1982 CD plays fine in a 2005 CD player, and a 2005 CD plays fine in a 1982 CD player - my 1982 CD player even plays CD-Rs and they hadn't been invented yet) and cheap. Digital photography requires a high end computer (and probably a laptop too if you shoot a lot, or at least a ton of cards), much worse to approximately similar to 35mm film in resolution (much worse than rollfilm or sheet film), constantly makes prior gear obsolete, and the gear is very costly. 3. All film photographs are shot at full resolution. You don't have to remember, and you can't screw it up. 4. A good $70 point-and-shoot (e.g. Olympus Stylus Epic) outresolves 99% of the digital cameras on the market and basically equals almost all of the rest. 5. Digital gear barely works in extremely wet or cold weather. Autofocus film gear works alright in extremely wet or cold weather. Manual focus (and particularly mechanically-shuttered) film gear works quite well in extremely wet or cold weather. 6. I spend enough hours in front of the computer already. The darkroom is my escape. I don't want to do my photography on a computer. Digital photography is very cool, no question. It's just not for me, and nor should it be for everyone else. I can live with the majority of everyone else.
Next they'll be telling us that politicians aren't ethical either. :)
People are always tempted to take the easy route...
Using this logic, retirement plans like 401Ks and RRSPs are evil, too. You're deferring taxes by buying one. Tax deferment is a perfectly acceptable tact. Stock options are only worth something once the stock price goes up and the gain is realized in actual dollars. You can't pay tax on theoretical earnings, only on real ones. Unquestionably, there are advantages to be had in some circumstances to be paid in stock options, but to think that it's some perfect panacaea to avoid paying taxes is naive. Besides, in most jurisdictions, consumption taxes earn as much money for government, or more, than income taxes do.