Has anyone ever been disemboweled by a cat? This thread has several mentions of how a cat scratched the poster, but never of how a cat disemboweled them. My cat has never disemboweled me. If we take this further (anything that can scratch can disebowel), I've had a nasty scratch or two courtesy of a nail (or two), but if you threatened to disembowel me with one, I'd laugh. I may receive a nasty puncture wound or two courtesy of your nail, but I'd laugh.
Were any of these seventy-three billion PSPs shipped to Montana? Now, granted, the general consensus seems to be that only about half as many have sold as have shipped; but that's still over thirty-six billion, five hundred ninety-six million, six-hundred seventy eight thousand PSPs. I have yet to see one. I'm not sure they even exist. Instead, like the AMD Geode processor, they are an internet myth, designed to make me happy that someone is putting actual pressure on nintendo to make better handhelds.
Oh, wait, no they aren't.
If you think scratched iPods are a problem, don't buy an iPod. If you already bought one because they're freakin' awesome and you had to have one so the cool kids wouldn't make fun of you, take it back, and tell all of your friends that they suck. Seriously, you don't sue the company, and you definitely don't deserve a share of their profits.
So could similar behaviors replace addictions? For instance, I used toothpicks to quit smoking. Was this somehow related (same muscle memory: reach into pocket for toothpick holder instead of pack of camels, put toothpick instead of cigarette in mouth, reach into pocket for lighter, take out lighter, feel like moron), or just an example of placebo effect? Can people quit drinking using soft drinks? Can I quit spending so much time on the internet by "typing " on the cover of my textbook during class?
Actually, dissect is a synonym for "analyze," which in this case is appropriate; however, when we say dissect, we usually wish to evoke images of tissue and high school biology. The definition of dissect has no reference to anything dying. Vivisect, on the other hand, means "to cut a body open while still alive," which means that it has to be alive in the first place. Given that the video iPod was "dead" for a part of the procedure (can't run it while it isn't connected to battery, for example), dissect may be more appropriate. However, given that this is a gadget and not a living being, I would have chosen "disassembles" or "takes apart." Vivisect just sounds cool, though.
That said, was anything learned that wasn't in apple's literature? Have we now any enjoyable hacks for the video iPod?
I must admit some skepticism with the idea of learning from videogames. While it is true that some people will read the flavor text (the historically accurate part) other people will only learn that a trebuchet is something like a catapult that must be unpacked, the Japanese start the game with the ability to build the phalanx because they have a bronze working tech, and that you can make it all the way to Oregon just by buying lots and lots of bullets and shooting a lot of buffalo every day. Seriously, most kids are illiterate these days. They aren't going to wade through flavor text and booklets, they're going to play the tutorial, skim the dialog, and find the part where it tells you what to do.
Those factors (mass, metabolism, etc) determine the persons BAC as a function of how many drinks they've had. If the 270-lb guy down the hall drinks three beers, and my pet chihuahua drinks three beers, who's going to have a higher BAC? The dog, of course. He'll also be more drunk. The point of these tests isn't to determine how many a person has had, but rather how drunk they are; this is perfectly fair.
That said, wouldn't releasing the code also involve the algorithm?
People possessing marginal intellect and any amount of learnedness tend to know what "tilting at windmills" means. "Don Quixote" is among the top-selling books of all time; if I'm not mistaken, it is the top-selling novel of all time. In addition, most classical writers read it, so it influences even modern works. This is why the word "Quixotic" and phrases like "Tilting at Windmills" are still useful and not as arcane as some people think they are.
That said, since slashdot is not devoted to antique literature and therefore people do not look like morons if they don't know about Cervantes, a more appropriate metaphor could probably have been chosen.
I come from small-town Montana (Thompson Falls, population 1300). Our Junior High school was, for many years, very full of asbestos insulation. The ceilings were usually in bad repair, so I expect that the citizens of our fine city were almost universally exposed to asbestos. However, I cannot recall any non-smoker in the city dying of lung cancer. Nanotoxicity is unlikely to happen except for manufacturers and other people exposed to large quantities: you and I are simply unlikely to be exposed to enough to harm us measurably. I am not denying the existance of black lung, asbestosis, or any other respiratory ailment, but it is important to remember that these usually afflict people constantly exposed to large amounts of the substance in question. A few carbon nanotubes working their way out of the internal structure of my thousand-story office building and into my lungs seems to me to be a worthwhile price for having that office building.
I can think of no downside to space tourism. For one, the space program in question gets more money; money that would not be used for anything else terribly useful, anyway. This means that this particular space program now has to request less government or entrupreneurial funding, and they can get more done. Tourists "displacing" "scientists" isn't really a problem, either. Those scientists can't go up if their spaceship doesn't fly because of lack of funding, and there's very little research up in space that requires an actual "scientist" to be present. The effects of weightlessness can be tested just as readily on a layman as on a PhD, any data collected in space can be analyzed earthside, and we get to see how space affects people who aren't elite air force test pilots who bench 350, have perfect hair, and date supermodels.
Besides, where's the bad in sending a rich old dude off-planet?
Slashdot Mirror
Has anyone ever been disemboweled by a cat? This thread has several mentions of how a cat scratched the poster, but never of how a cat disemboweled them. My cat has never disemboweled me. If we take this further (anything that can scratch can disebowel), I've had a nasty scratch or two courtesy of a nail (or two), but if you threatened to disembowel me with one, I'd laugh. I may receive a nasty puncture wound or two courtesy of your nail, but I'd laugh.
Were any of these seventy-three billion PSPs shipped to Montana? Now, granted, the general consensus seems to be that only about half as many have sold as have shipped; but that's still over thirty-six billion, five hundred ninety-six million, six-hundred seventy eight thousand PSPs. I have yet to see one. I'm not sure they even exist. Instead, like the AMD Geode processor, they are an internet myth, designed to make me happy that someone is putting actual pressure on nintendo to make better handhelds. Oh, wait, no they aren't.
If you think scratched iPods are a problem, don't buy an iPod. If you already bought one because they're freakin' awesome and you had to have one so the cool kids wouldn't make fun of you, take it back, and tell all of your friends that they suck. Seriously, you don't sue the company, and you definitely don't deserve a share of their profits.
So could similar behaviors replace addictions? For instance, I used toothpicks to quit smoking. Was this somehow related (same muscle memory: reach into pocket for toothpick holder instead of pack of camels, put toothpick instead of cigarette in mouth, reach into pocket for lighter, take out lighter, feel like moron), or just an example of placebo effect? Can people quit drinking using soft drinks? Can I quit spending so much time on the internet by "typing " on the cover of my textbook during class?
Actually, dissect is a synonym for "analyze," which in this case is appropriate; however, when we say dissect, we usually wish to evoke images of tissue and high school biology. The definition of dissect has no reference to anything dying. Vivisect, on the other hand, means "to cut a body open while still alive," which means that it has to be alive in the first place. Given that the video iPod was "dead" for a part of the procedure (can't run it while it isn't connected to battery, for example), dissect may be more appropriate. However, given that this is a gadget and not a living being, I would have chosen "disassembles" or "takes apart." Vivisect just sounds cool, though. That said, was anything learned that wasn't in apple's literature? Have we now any enjoyable hacks for the video iPod?
I must admit some skepticism with the idea of learning from videogames. While it is true that some people will read the flavor text (the historically accurate part) other people will only learn that a trebuchet is something like a catapult that must be unpacked, the Japanese start the game with the ability to build the phalanx because they have a bronze working tech, and that you can make it all the way to Oregon just by buying lots and lots of bullets and shooting a lot of buffalo every day. Seriously, most kids are illiterate these days. They aren't going to wade through flavor text and booklets, they're going to play the tutorial, skim the dialog, and find the part where it tells you what to do.
Those factors (mass, metabolism, etc) determine the persons BAC as a function of how many drinks they've had. If the 270-lb guy down the hall drinks three beers, and my pet chihuahua drinks three beers, who's going to have a higher BAC? The dog, of course. He'll also be more drunk. The point of these tests isn't to determine how many a person has had, but rather how drunk they are; this is perfectly fair. That said, wouldn't releasing the code also involve the algorithm?
People possessing marginal intellect and any amount of learnedness tend to know what "tilting at windmills" means. "Don Quixote" is among the top-selling books of all time; if I'm not mistaken, it is the top-selling novel of all time. In addition, most classical writers read it, so it influences even modern works. This is why the word "Quixotic" and phrases like "Tilting at Windmills" are still useful and not as arcane as some people think they are. That said, since slashdot is not devoted to antique literature and therefore people do not look like morons if they don't know about Cervantes, a more appropriate metaphor could probably have been chosen.
I come from small-town Montana (Thompson Falls, population 1300). Our Junior High school was, for many years, very full of asbestos insulation. The ceilings were usually in bad repair, so I expect that the citizens of our fine city were almost universally exposed to asbestos. However, I cannot recall any non-smoker in the city dying of lung cancer. Nanotoxicity is unlikely to happen except for manufacturers and other people exposed to large quantities: you and I are simply unlikely to be exposed to enough to harm us measurably. I am not denying the existance of black lung, asbestosis, or any other respiratory ailment, but it is important to remember that these usually afflict people constantly exposed to large amounts of the substance in question. A few carbon nanotubes working their way out of the internal structure of my thousand-story office building and into my lungs seems to me to be a worthwhile price for having that office building.
One, score for rocket lovers! Much increased efficiency of rockets is making space elevator needed less.
I can think of no downside to space tourism. For one, the space program in question gets more money; money that would not be used for anything else terribly useful, anyway. This means that this particular space program now has to request less government or entrupreneurial funding, and they can get more done. Tourists "displacing" "scientists" isn't really a problem, either. Those scientists can't go up if their spaceship doesn't fly because of lack of funding, and there's very little research up in space that requires an actual "scientist" to be present. The effects of weightlessness can be tested just as readily on a layman as on a PhD, any data collected in space can be analyzed earthside, and we get to see how space affects people who aren't elite air force test pilots who bench 350, have perfect hair, and date supermodels.
Besides, where's the bad in sending a rich old dude off-planet?