Sounds like your bank has really messed up the deployment.
We've got chip & pin here in Canada and my card works flawlessly both in Canada and in the USA. My card has a the raised lettering, magnetic stripe, a chip, and contact-less payment. I've actually used all 4 recently:
1. Raised lettering - at a Mennonite farm (long story, normally would have brought cash)
2. Magnetic stripe - in the USA last year
3. Chip & Pin - everyday, larger transactions and places that don't have tap
4. Tap & Pay - everyday smaller transactions, including at a drug store in Florida.
New stuff is great - the key to a smooth roll out is great backwards compatibility though.
>And would it not be much more fair to look at per-capita numbers? i.e. stop harping on China/India, start worrying about Europe / NA
That's a good question. At first glance, per-captita consumption seems like the thing to focus on. Honestly, it's probably a good place to star; however, as that gap closes things get more subtle.
Consider 4 people, entitled to equal carbon emissions. They form 2 couples and the first decides to have 2 kids, while the second decides to have 6.
Are the resulting families entitled to equal emissions, or is each person still entitled to equal emissions?
- It's unfair that children born into a large family should have less then those born into a small family
- It's also unfair that the actions of a couple choosing to have a large family should slice the environmental pie more thinly, reducing the share of those who chose to have a small family.
Furthermore, the first option leads to the question of what's a fair baseline and basic human rights, while the second leads to a tragedy of the commons or lowest-common-denominator scenario.
Of course 3440 x1440 is better than 4K, having only 56% of the pixels of a true 4K display (4096x2160) LG can make a lot more money on it.
A true 4K screen cropped to 21:9 is still going to give you more pixels to work with.
BTW: 4K cinema is 4096x2160, but when then want to show 21:9 they use the appropriate lens to change the aspect ratio without throwing out pixels.
As a Software Engineer in the formal sense (Engineering is regulated profession here in Canada) I can assure you that "proper software engineering" works great - and it's often Agile. Software Engineering is just like any other type of engineering, you have to pick the right tool for the job. That said, a lot of under-qualified people go around claiming to be Software Engineers and think that generating piles of paperwork will make their crap code (and crappier designs) smell better. They are just as bad as these people
Even from an evolutionary perspective, yes. Aren't rats kind pretty low on the totem pole?
Depends what totem pole. The totem pole of "most like humans", then they are a little ways down, but still FAR above the 1/2 way point if you include non-mammals.
In terms of "most evolved" rats are exactly where humans are. If there was any argument to be made, you could say they are MORE evolved, since they have a shorter life span and more children - more chance for natural selection to work it's magic.
Evolution works towards optimizing a species for survival; not for "becoming human" or "becoming smart" or anything else that puts people on top. I don't mean to be "anti-human", but evolution doesn't care about those things.
I'm not very familar with this sort of thing at all, but I thought the problem with DC in powerlines was you'd need absolutely massive lines to properly transmit power any sort of real distance.
Actually, HVDC can carry about 40% more power over the same lines, compared to AC. The main drawback is that you need to convert to/from AC on either end. See:
Allready you shouldn't just be throwing away your electronic devices when they stop working.
Have you ever tried to recycle your electrics?
I know I'm supposed to do something with them, but honestly, they expect me to drive to one location in the city, during business hours, and pay just to get rid of an old cell phone? Even for a computer, I'd feel guilty, but it'll go in the dumpster. I did take batteries back to one of the local stores that is part of a group that claims they take batteries back to recycle:
Me: Can you take these batteries for recycling, like your website says
Help Desk Guy: Ummmmm... (looks around).. I suppose I could throw them out for you..
When I can recycle my electrics as easily as I can recycle my tin cans, I will. Until then the land-fills are going to keep getting more toxic crap.
I know plenty of people who don't get very much activity, eat things loaded in sugar and fat, yet are incredibly skinny and healthy looking. I know other people who exercise a ton, eat extremely healthy food choices, yet are very, very large. There are some reasons for obesity that go way beyond just what you eat....
Fair enough - but you seem to be making a classic mistake. It's not so much what you eat, but how much of it, that determines your weight. Now, as someone who has to work to control his weight - yes, I envy my fiance, who can eat whatever he wants. But the difference isn't that he can magically eat way more than I can - it's that his appetite is more easily sated. Sure there are also metabolism differences, but in reality a very obese person is almost certain to be burning more calories than a thin person at a similar level of physical activity, because all that fat takes energy just to keep alive, and more still to move around.
Where I'm going with this is: sure, life isn't fair. It's more difficult to control eating for some than for others - but at the end of the day what you eat is a conscious choice. Helping teach, encourage, and in some cases force (depending on age, we "force" young kids to do everything) people to eat in a way that will lead to a healthier life can be justified.
the more your drive the more you should pay. Now this presents a problem with more fuel efficient vehicles.
Depends a bit on your perspective. To some extent less fuel-efficient vehicles tend to put more wear on the road (eg a pickup-truck vs a sub-compact). If you're thinking "Hybrid Prius" then consider that many places go out of their way to subsidize/mandate fuel economy. Between those two factors, a higher gas-tax kills 2 birds with one stone:
1. Tax for wear on highways that automatically factors in vehicle size
2. Subsidy for fuel-efficient vehicles (and penalty for gas-guzzlers)
Try checking out the HP laptop keyboards on Canadian laptops. Dear god the layout on those things is terrible.
You do realize that "Canadian"keyboard layout refers to the special bi-lingual layout (mostly for use in Quebec) ? This isn't some recent HP invention, as it's been around for more than a decade (I quite clearly remember it being supported by Windows 95, because I accidentally selected it). The "normal" keyboard layout that you're probably used to if you are an English-speaking Canadian is the US keyboard layout.
Seems pretty reasonable. The question is, now, how likely is it that I flipped exactly 48 heads and 52 tails?
If you know something about a binomial random variable (which is what we just sampled from), you know that this is (100 choose 48)*.5^(100) =.0735!
Wow...and that was with only 100 random coin flips. A 1 in 20 chance that, by their metrics, this was a fair set of coin flips (see where the logical incongruity happens?)
You've used quite the wrong metric, asking "what are the odds of this EXACT outcome in a fair contest". The right question is "what are the odds of at least this this much deviation from the expected outcome in a fair contest".
In the case of your coin toss your questions would be "how likely is it that in 100 flips, I will get 52 OR MORE of either heads or tails"
(note that if you were asking only about tails, you'd just get 1/2 the number, but considering the odds of 50 or more tails is only 50/50% it's a bit misleading that way).
To get this you would sum all probabilities in the range, eg
(100 choose 0)*.5^(100) + (100 choose 1)*.5^(100) +.... + (100 choose 47)*.5^(100) + (100 choose 48)*.5^(100) + (100 choose 52)*.5^(100) + (100 choose 53)*.5^(100)+... + (100 choose 100)*.5^(100)
which is about 76.4%.
That is, about 3/4 tosses of 100 coins will differ from 50-50 by at least two flips, this is very similar to the probabilities for these events in the recent US election, held up in the article as an example of 'normal' results.
Now if you'd gotten something like 38-62 you'd have results about as unlikely as this election (2%).
If you're familiar with stats at all, in general it's when the odds fall below 5% that you have an interesting result, 2% is quite interesting (though it depends on how often the event happens - 2% in an election that happens once/4 years or so is going to happen by chance with a mean period of 200 years).
Personally I think universities should abolish practices like course buyouts and TAs doing the actual teaching, and strictly require faculty to spend X amount of hours in front of a classroom every year.
I went to a university (Waterloo) that more-or-less does this. It has it's up side - you sometimes get taught by research profs who are amazing at why they do, on the cutting edge, and have amazing enthusiasm to impart. On the other hand, you also get research profs who begrudge every minute of actually teaching - student complaints fall on def ears (even more than normal) because "he's a research prof" (who may pull in millions worth of grants). I think that for the senior courses, the benefits outweigh the drawbacks; but the entry-level material is best taught by a good teacher who is competent in the subject.
Engineering is in deep real world, with human nature and business requirements intervening all the time. Science (like religion) is in some sort of ideal world, vacuum, where all is simple and described by a formula.
Definitely on side here. I agree with all of your points but think you missed just two
In engineering you think not only about getting something to work, but (usually) how to keep it working. That same pragmatism that says "it needs to work" also says "the developers will make mistakes" - which means you need to study how to avoid mistakes, how to catch mistakes, and how to deal with mistakes. There's definitely a science component, but again the human component is also critical.
The other major component is that a Software Engineer, like any other Engineer, needs enough fundamental understanding of all other branches of Engineering to work with his counterparts. A Computer Scientist may not need to know anything about Physics, Chemistry, Electronics, Politics, or the environment, but a Software Engineer needs a little of each, so that he can work with his counterparts in those fields. Note that I'm not saying those things aren't good to have in a Comp. Sci. they just aren't really part of the 'baseline'.
No sir. The FAA sets those areas at the request of the military. If it came down to a real legal turf war, the FAA must have the ultimate authority. Otherwise we are under military rule. As far as I know the US is not...yet.
Seriously, all getting a bit dramatic isn't it?
It seems pretty clear cut. You're right that the FAA sets those areas at the request of the military - however because they have been set aside the FAA doesn't have much say in the day-to-day goings-on. Sounds like a case of some minor bureaucrat not realizing that he should shut up when the big-boys (aka his boss and the military) already have an agreement in place.
I know myself I hate air conditioning, and I feel very happy in 35C degree heat. In fact I hate the feeling of air conditioning because it is a shock to my system.
Ah, but what humidity are you used to? I used to live in the British Columbia interior - very dry during the summer, and it didn't really matter if there was A/C or not. Bring on 30C+ at 15% humidity. I've since moved to Ontario.. at 90%+ humidity for most of the summer, even 24C feels hot if you try so much as a brisk walk, at 30C I'm melting.
Want to know something else, whenever I am in a hotel in Florida or Texas, I open the windows wide open and turn off the air conditioning. I am then happy as can be. I haven't been to Florida, but I'm guessing they get humidity too. If you can do that, all the power to you. For the rest of us mortals, there is A/C.
i know in my work place we use geological modeling software that's 20k per dongle and it needs a total beast of a pc to run, so the users of that sometimes need to log into their work station remotely, be it from head office or home.
Much the same things here. We used to setup people to install the software at home and just access data over the network. It turned out that simply having them RemoteDesktop over the VPN is MUCH easier to setup, and for most people it's actually faster: in most cases Remote-Desktop uses less bandwidth and our office machines are better optimized for the work load (mostly maxed-out RAM). With our latest VPN device you can do the whole thing with a java applet that does VPN and Remote Desktop with no setup (though it's a little sluggish).
Which is why socialized medicine is great for minor and/or common problems, but not so good with rare/expensive problems. It is also why the rich from countries with socialized health care usually end up coming to the USA for expensive specialized treatments.
Hit the nail on the head. The trick though, is that by treating minor/common problems well, there are a lot less people with expensive problems. I'm a Canadian, and as such, love to bitch about our health care; but if you look at it, we have about 2 year longer life expectancy than our southern neighbors, yet we spend roughly half as much on health care. Actually, the Canadian government spends less on health-care per person than the US does - yet I don't pay a penny to go to the hospital or doctor. Why?
Two answers I think 1. Because Canadians are much more likely to get all those little things taken care of sooner because they are free.
2. Although a bureaucracy is not a great way to run heath-insurance (public) it's better than private companies who's job it is to screw you - particularly if you develop something chronic.
And don't get me started on the outdoor ones... I live in a moderate climate that rarely dips below freezing and I've seen the 2 outdoor CF's I've tried fail in less than a year.
Strange - I've had a cheep one on my front porch all winter and haven't had any problems with it. I only changed it to a colored one at Christmas (also CFL) and back. I'm in Southern Ontario, we get a lot more than a few days below freezing... I'm just hoping that last weekend was the last snow for the season!
That said, I found that about 1/4 of my cheep CFLs died within the first couple of months after I put them in my new place last year - but I haven't touched one in at least 6 months. The problem seems to be more quality control (infant death) than average lifespan.
If another country (or terrorist) wanted to seriously hurt the US, they'd just have to target a broad swath of these offshore windmills. A pretty easy target I'd think?
Did you really think? Of the VAST area these would be covering? I suspect that the generating capacity per unit area is far lower than any conventional power source (hydro, nuclear, gas/coal).
For comparison, a quick google suggests that the largest windmill in operation has a peak output of 7MW wheras a "small" commercial nuclear reactor has an output over 1000MW. Granted you could fit a few large windmills on the grounds of a nuclear reactor, but probably not a few hundred.
The Bible provides direct testimony from the creator Himself, whereas all of evolution's so called evidence is at best inferred and circumstantial. The question you, as part of the jury must decide is whether to BELIEVE the witness or some circumstantial evidence gathered after the fact. In the end, it all comes down to belief.
You seem to have overlooked one tiny flaw. God isn't standing in the courtroom (or lecture theater) giving testimony. Nor do we have his literal, verifiable signature at the bottom of Genisis. Calling the Bible direct testimony is a bit of an over-statement. It's more like a written statement where the witness had died and there's no video (or even direct, reliable witnesses) of the statement being written.
Although it might be presented at evidence, this is hardly going to carry the sort of weight you describe.
I agree that P2P is holding us back, and unfortunately current P2P systems aren't "smart" enough to prefer local connections over long distance ones (which might actually be a trivial fix, but I don't know enough about the inner workings of Bittorrent and others
Ah, but they already are, to a large extent, based on three principals:
1. (Almost) All P2P systems will prefer high bandwidth and/or low-latency peers. These tend to be the ones that are local.
2. I've seen plugins/mods to several popular clients including eMule and Vuze that do a version of this by IP address look up.
The real problem is that ISPs don't encourage this, for example, by never throttling local connections and/or excluding that bandwidth from any caps. I don't want to start getting charged different rates per country, but might not be so offended by a bandwidth cap if it excluded local peers; particularly if the ISP actively facilitated taking advantage of this feature.
People probably won't like my suggestion, which would be to regulate air travel again. Cut the routes, limit take off and landing slots, increase the seat and isle widths and let airlines raise prices to the market level of support...... The trains could handle the commodity traffic and airlines could compete for luxury traffic, just like the old days
You're bloody right people won't like your suggestion.
How does mandatory big seats/wide isles help anyone aside from perhaps the obese? I'm not small (6'2"/190lbs) and my only complaint with most airline seats is that the head-rest is too low. Right now the market demand (that's us) determines the trade-off between cost and comfort and that's fine with me.
If I could go anywhere in the continental US in 24 hours, I'd never fly again.
Assuming the US and Canada have a similar coat-to-cost distance we're at about 7,250km (ignoring north-south). That means your train would have to travel at over 300kph in a straight line with no stops to cover the distance in 24 hours. Factor in a healthy dose of reality and what you're asking for is a highly-connected maglev train network that's still slower than airline travel. Though I'll admit that for shorter routes it would be advantageous.
...sadly, the incompetence, red tape, and waste of money is a common denominator.
And now...we're wanting to put THEM in charge of our medical care? Scary.
Well, as a Canadian I can tell you that you're right, health-care run but bureaucrats is a bit scary. But, there is a bit of a problem with the alternative: the nature of heath-care is such that unless you are VERY rich, you want insurance. The problem with insurance is that it's not their job to heal you, it's their job to make money - and they are very good at it.
So, an incompetent bureaucrat managing my health care dollars is still much better than an insurance company.
PS: This goes for car insurance to. British Columbia has mandatory crown insurance - the company makes money for the government and still has lower insurance rates than the privatized provinces (I now live in Ontario).
Slashdot Mirror
Sounds like your bank has really messed up the deployment.
We've got chip & pin here in Canada and my card works flawlessly both in Canada and in the USA. My card has a the raised lettering, magnetic stripe, a chip, and contact-less payment. I've actually used all 4 recently:
1. Raised lettering - at a Mennonite farm (long story, normally would have brought cash)
2. Magnetic stripe - in the USA last year
3. Chip & Pin - everyday, larger transactions and places that don't have tap
4. Tap & Pay - everyday smaller transactions, including at a drug store in Florida.
New stuff is great - the key to a smooth roll out is great backwards compatibility though.
>And would it not be much more fair to look at per-capita numbers? i.e. stop harping on China/India, start worrying about Europe / NA
That's a good question. At first glance, per-captita consumption seems like the thing to focus on. Honestly, it's probably a good place to star; however, as that gap closes things get more subtle.
Consider 4 people, entitled to equal carbon emissions. They form 2 couples and the first decides to have 2 kids, while the second decides to have 6. Are the resulting families entitled to equal emissions, or is each person still entitled to equal emissions?
- It's unfair that children born into a large family should have less then those born into a small family
- It's also unfair that the actions of a couple choosing to have a large family should slice the environmental pie more thinly, reducing the share of those who chose to have a small family. Furthermore, the first option leads to the question of what's a fair baseline and basic human rights, while the second leads to a tragedy of the commons or lowest-common-denominator scenario.
Of course 3440 x1440 is better than 4K, having only 56% of the pixels of a true 4K display (4096x2160) LG can make a lot more money on it. A true 4K screen cropped to 21:9 is still going to give you more pixels to work with. BTW: 4K cinema is 4096x2160, but when then want to show 21:9 they use the appropriate lens to change the aspect ratio without throwing out pixels.
"Proper software engineering" doesn't work.
As a Software Engineer in the formal sense (Engineering is regulated profession here in Canada) I can assure you that "proper software engineering" works great - and it's often Agile. Software Engineering is just like any other type of engineering, you have to pick the right tool for the job. That said, a lot of under-qualified people go around claiming to be Software Engineers and think that generating piles of paperwork will make their crap code (and crappier designs) smell better. They are just as bad as these people
Even from an evolutionary perspective, yes. Aren't rats kind pretty low on the totem pole?
Depends what totem pole. The totem pole of "most like humans", then they are a little ways down, but still FAR above the 1/2 way point if you include non-mammals.
In terms of "most evolved" rats are exactly where humans are. If there was any argument to be made, you could say they are MORE evolved, since they have a shorter life span and more children - more chance for natural selection to work it's magic.
Evolution works towards optimizing a species for survival; not for "becoming human" or "becoming smart" or anything else that puts people on top. I don't mean to be "anti-human", but evolution doesn't care about those things.
I happen to prefer the consensus method to the imaginary deity method.
Amen brother!
But seriously, I wish I had mod-points today.
I'm not very familar with this sort of thing at all, but I thought the problem with DC in powerlines was you'd need absolutely massive lines to properly transmit power any sort of real distance.
Actually, HVDC can carry about 40% more power over the same lines, compared to AC. The main drawback is that you need to convert to/from AC on either end. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current#Advantages_of_HVDC_over_AC_transmission
(I know, not that authoritative, but it cites lots of sources I can't be bothered to copy).
Allready you shouldn't just be throwing away your electronic devices when they stop working.
Have you ever tried to recycle your electrics?
I know I'm supposed to do something with them, but honestly, they expect me to drive to one location in the city, during business hours, and pay just to get rid of an old cell phone? Even for a computer, I'd feel guilty, but it'll go in the dumpster. I did take batteries back to one of the local stores that is part of a group that claims they take batteries back to recycle:
Me: Can you take these batteries for recycling, like your website says
Help Desk Guy: Ummmmm... (looks around).. I suppose I could throw them out for you..
When I can recycle my electrics as easily as I can recycle my tin cans, I will. Until then the land-fills are going to keep getting more toxic crap.
I know plenty of people who don't get very much activity, eat things loaded in sugar and fat, yet are incredibly skinny and healthy looking. I know other people who exercise a ton, eat extremely healthy food choices, yet are very, very large. There are some reasons for obesity that go way beyond just what you eat....
Fair enough - but you seem to be making a classic mistake. It's not so much what you eat, but how much of it, that determines your weight. Now, as someone who has to work to control his weight - yes, I envy my fiance, who can eat whatever he wants. But the difference isn't that he can magically eat way more than I can - it's that his appetite is more easily sated. Sure there are also metabolism differences, but in reality a very obese person is almost certain to be burning more calories than a thin person at a similar level of physical activity, because all that fat takes energy just to keep alive, and more still to move around.
Where I'm going with this is: sure, life isn't fair. It's more difficult to control eating for some than for others - but at the end of the day what you eat is a conscious choice. Helping teach, encourage, and in some cases force (depending on age, we "force" young kids to do everything) people to eat in a way that will lead to a healthier life can be justified.
the more your drive the more you should pay. Now this presents a problem with more fuel efficient vehicles.
Depends a bit on your perspective. To some extent less fuel-efficient vehicles tend to put more wear on the road (eg a pickup-truck vs a sub-compact). If you're thinking "Hybrid Prius" then consider that many places go out of their way to subsidize/mandate fuel economy. Between those two factors, a higher gas-tax kills 2 birds with one stone:
1. Tax for wear on highways that automatically factors in vehicle size
2. Subsidy for fuel-efficient vehicles (and penalty for gas-guzzlers)
Try checking out the HP laptop keyboards on Canadian laptops. Dear god the layout on those things is terrible.
You do realize that "Canadian"keyboard layout refers to the special bi-lingual layout (mostly for use in Quebec) ? This isn't some recent HP invention, as it's been around for more than a decade (I quite clearly remember it being supported by Windows 95, because I accidentally selected it). The "normal" keyboard layout that you're probably used to if you are an English-speaking Canadian is the US keyboard layout.
48 heads and 52 tails!
.0735!
Seems pretty reasonable. The question is, now, how likely is it that I flipped exactly 48 heads and 52 tails?
If you know something about a binomial random variable (which is what we just sampled from), you know that this is (100 choose 48)*.5^(100) =
Wow...and that was with only 100 random coin flips. A 1 in 20 chance that, by their metrics, this was a fair set of coin flips (see where the logical incongruity happens?)
You've used quite the wrong metric, asking "what are the odds of this EXACT outcome in a fair contest". The right question is "what are the odds of at least this this much deviation from the expected outcome in a fair contest". In the case of your coin toss your questions would be "how likely is it that in 100 flips, I will get 52 OR MORE of either heads or tails" (note that if you were asking only about tails, you'd just get 1/2 the number, but considering the odds of 50 or more tails is only 50/50% it's a bit misleading that way).
.... + (100 choose 47)*.5^(100) + (100 choose 48)*.5^(100) + (100 choose 52)*.5^(100) + (100 choose 53)*.5^(100)+... + (100 choose 100)*.5^(100)
To get this you would sum all probabilities in the range, eg
(100 choose 0)*.5^(100) + (100 choose 1)*.5^(100) +
which is about 76.4%.
That is, about 3/4 tosses of 100 coins will differ from 50-50 by at least two flips, this is very similar to the probabilities for these events in the recent US election, held up in the article as an example of 'normal' results.
Now if you'd gotten something like 38-62 you'd have results about as unlikely as this election (2%).
If you're familiar with stats at all, in general it's when the odds fall below 5% that you have an interesting result, 2% is quite interesting (though it depends on how often the event happens - 2% in an election that happens once/4 years or so is going to happen by chance with a mean period of 200 years).
Personally I think universities should abolish practices like course buyouts and TAs doing the actual teaching, and strictly require faculty to spend X amount of hours in front of a classroom every year.
I went to a university (Waterloo) that more-or-less does this. It has it's up side - you sometimes get taught by research profs who are amazing at why they do, on the cutting edge, and have amazing enthusiasm to impart. On the other hand, you also get research profs who begrudge every minute of actually teaching - student complaints fall on def ears (even more than normal) because "he's a research prof" (who may pull in millions worth of grants). I think that for the senior courses, the benefits outweigh the drawbacks; but the entry-level material is best taught by a good teacher who is competent in the subject.
Engineering is in deep real world, with human nature and business requirements intervening all the time. Science (like religion) is in some sort of ideal world, vacuum, where all is simple and described by a formula.
Definitely on side here. I agree with all of your points but think you missed just two
In engineering you think not only about getting something to work, but (usually) how to keep it working. That same pragmatism that says "it needs to work" also says "the developers will make mistakes" - which means you need to study how to avoid mistakes, how to catch mistakes, and how to deal with mistakes. There's definitely a science component, but again the human component is also critical.
The other major component is that a Software Engineer, like any other Engineer, needs enough fundamental understanding of all other branches of Engineering to work with his counterparts. A Computer Scientist may not need to know anything about Physics, Chemistry, Electronics, Politics, or the environment, but a Software Engineer needs a little of each, so that he can work with his counterparts in those fields. Note that I'm not saying those things aren't good to have in a Comp. Sci. they just aren't really part of the 'baseline'.
No sir. The FAA sets those areas at the request of the military. If it came down to a real legal turf war, the FAA must have the ultimate authority. Otherwise we are under military rule. As far as I know the US is not...yet.
Seriously, all getting a bit dramatic isn't it?
It seems pretty clear cut. You're right that the FAA sets those areas at the request of the military - however because they have been set aside the FAA doesn't have much say in the day-to-day goings-on. Sounds like a case of some minor bureaucrat not realizing that he should shut up when the big-boys (aka his boss and the military) already have an agreement in place.
I know myself I hate air conditioning, and I feel very happy in 35C degree heat. In fact I hate the feeling of air conditioning because it is a shock to my system.
Ah, but what humidity are you used to? I used to live in the British Columbia interior - very dry during the summer, and it didn't really matter if there was A/C or not. Bring on 30C+ at 15% humidity. I've since moved to Ontario.. at 90%+ humidity for most of the summer, even 24C feels hot if you try so much as a brisk walk, at 30C I'm melting.
Want to know something else, whenever I am in a hotel in Florida or Texas, I open the windows wide open and turn off the air conditioning. I am then happy as can be. I haven't been to Florida, but I'm guessing they get humidity too. If you can do that, all the power to you. For the rest of us mortals, there is A/C.
i know in my work place we use geological modeling software that's 20k per dongle and it needs a total beast of a pc to run, so the users of that sometimes need to log into their work station remotely, be it from head office or home.
Much the same things here. We used to setup people to install the software at home and just access data over the network. It turned out that simply having them RemoteDesktop over the VPN is MUCH easier to setup, and for most people it's actually faster: in most cases Remote-Desktop uses less bandwidth and our office machines are better optimized for the work load (mostly maxed-out RAM). With our latest VPN device you can do the whole thing with a java applet that does VPN and Remote Desktop with no setup (though it's a little sluggish).
Which is why socialized medicine is great for minor and/or common problems, but not so good with rare/expensive problems. It is also why the rich from countries with socialized health care usually end up coming to the USA for expensive specialized treatments.
Hit the nail on the head. The trick though, is that by treating minor/common problems well, there are a lot less people with expensive problems. I'm a Canadian, and as such, love to bitch about our health care; but if you look at it, we have about 2 year longer life expectancy than our southern neighbors, yet we spend roughly half as much on health care. Actually, the Canadian government spends less on health-care per person than the US does - yet I don't pay a penny to go to the hospital or doctor. Why?
Two answers I think
1. Because Canadians are much more likely to get all those little things taken care of sooner because they are free.
2. Although a bureaucracy is not a great way to run heath-insurance (public) it's better than private companies who's job it is to screw you - particularly if you develop something chronic.
And don't get me started on the outdoor ones ... I live in a moderate climate that rarely dips below freezing and I've seen the 2 outdoor CF's I've tried fail in less than a year.
Strange - I've had a cheep one on my front porch all winter and haven't had any problems with it. I only changed it to a colored one at Christmas (also CFL) and back. I'm in Southern Ontario, we get a lot more than a few days below freezing... I'm just hoping that last weekend was the last snow for the season!
That said, I found that about 1/4 of my cheep CFLs died within the first couple of months after I put them in my new place last year - but I haven't touched one in at least 6 months. The problem seems to be more quality control (infant death) than average lifespan.
If another country (or terrorist) wanted to seriously hurt the US, they'd just have to target a broad swath of these offshore windmills. A pretty easy target I'd think?
Did you really think? Of the VAST area these would be covering? I suspect that the generating capacity per unit area is far lower than any conventional power source (hydro, nuclear, gas/coal).
For comparison, a quick google suggests that the largest windmill in operation has a peak output of 7MW wheras a "small" commercial nuclear reactor has an output over 1000MW. Granted you could fit a few large windmills on the grounds of a nuclear reactor, but probably not a few hundred.
The Bible provides direct testimony from the creator Himself, whereas all of evolution's so called evidence is at best inferred and circumstantial. The question you, as part of the jury must decide is whether to BELIEVE the witness or some circumstantial evidence gathered after the fact. In the end, it all comes down to belief.
You seem to have overlooked one tiny flaw. God isn't standing in the courtroom (or lecture theater) giving testimony. Nor do we have his literal, verifiable signature at the bottom of Genisis. Calling the Bible direct testimony is a bit of an over-statement. It's more like a written statement where the witness had died and there's no video (or even direct, reliable witnesses) of the statement being written.
Although it might be presented at evidence, this is hardly going to carry the sort of weight you describe.
I agree that P2P is holding us back, and unfortunately current P2P systems aren't "smart" enough to prefer local connections over long distance ones (which might actually be a trivial fix, but I don't know enough about the inner workings of Bittorrent and others
Ah, but they already are, to a large extent, based on three principals:
1. (Almost) All P2P systems will prefer high bandwidth and/or low-latency peers. These tend to be the ones that are local.
2. I've seen plugins/mods to several popular clients including eMule and Vuze that do a version of this by IP address look up.
The real problem is that ISPs don't encourage this, for example, by never throttling local connections and/or excluding that bandwidth from any caps.
I don't want to start getting charged different rates per country, but might not be so offended by a bandwidth cap if it excluded local peers; particularly if the ISP actively facilitated taking advantage of this feature.
People probably won't like my suggestion, which would be to regulate air travel again. Cut the routes, limit take off and landing slots, increase the seat and isle widths and let airlines raise prices to the market level of support......
The trains could handle the commodity traffic and airlines could compete for luxury traffic, just like the old days
You're bloody right people won't like your suggestion.
How does mandatory big seats/wide isles help anyone aside from perhaps the obese? I'm not small (6'2"/190lbs) and my only complaint with most airline seats is that the head-rest is too low. Right now the market demand (that's us) determines the trade-off between cost and comfort and that's fine with me.
If I could go anywhere in the continental US in 24 hours, I'd never fly again.
Assuming the US and Canada have a similar coat-to-cost distance we're at about 7,250km (ignoring north-south). That means your train would have to travel at over 300kph in a straight line with no stops to cover the distance in 24 hours. Factor in a healthy dose of reality and what you're asking for is a highly-connected maglev train network that's still slower than airline travel. Though I'll admit that for shorter routes it would be advantageous.
And now...we're wanting to put THEM in charge of our medical care? Scary.
Well, as a Canadian I can tell you that you're right, health-care run but bureaucrats is a bit scary. But, there is a bit of a problem with the alternative: the nature of heath-care is such that unless you are VERY rich, you want insurance. The problem with insurance is that it's not their job to heal you, it's their job to make money - and they are very good at it.
So, an incompetent bureaucrat managing my health care dollars is still much better than an insurance company.
PS: This goes for car insurance to. British Columbia has mandatory crown insurance - the company makes money for the government and still has lower insurance rates than the privatized provinces (I now live in Ontario).
'These industries'? Who do you mean? You mean Verizon, TimeWarner, Cox, Charter? Basically, the ones who lay lines through your yard.
what about the second/third tier? Skype, Vonage, Cavalier?
No, I think the the GP was pretty clear the ones why lay lines through your yard.
There can be 100 "Skypes" or "Voganges". there cannot (for practical and economic reasons) be 100 different lines into my house.