Frances Bean Cobain-Osment won't be mayor in 2056
on
The Onion in 2056
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· Score: 2, Funny
SEATTLE--Seattle Mayor Frances Bean Cobain-Osment issued a call for the emergency deforestation of the Pacific Northwest Monday. "Please, major logging companies, I beg you, send any spare sawmilling, pulping, or chipping equipment you have as soon as possible," said Cobain-Osment, invisible within the branches and overgrowth on the steps of City Hall. "We cannot fight off the encroaching trees and spotted owls any longer." The mayor's message concluded with a spirited condemnation of 2001's controversial Healthy Forests Initiative.
For one thing, while it is true that Seattle, Portland, Vancouver BC, and San Francisco will secede and form Ecotopia (which is why the rest of the USA will be defenseless to the Middle East (related Onion story), since we have most of the military assets), she won't be elected mayor.
To be elected Mayor in Seattle you have to be comfortable wearing plaid, and I'm afraid her mother spoiled her too much on that account, so Guchi doesn't work here.
Unless she hires an Aura Consultant and redoes her colors.
Actually, I'm betting that this time it was due to a spelling error. The sub that launched the Volna rocket was the Borisoglebsk, The first receiving station was at Petropavlovsk on the Kamchatka penninsula. The temporary ground station to pick it up next was on Majuro. Then it will next contact Panska Ves in the Czech republic. It's not until the ground stations at the Tarusa and Bear Lakes that the spelling becomes sufferable.:)
Oops, comrade! I said LEFT at Borisoglebsk, not LET IT CRASH at Borisoglebsk...
Some Carribean nations also still use the English system.
Officially they don't. Cuba, Haiti, and other sovereign nations use metric. Dutch, French, and other nation's possessions (like the French West Indies departements of Gaudaloupe) use their mother countries metric as well.
The only exceptions are possessions - not nations - of the USA.
I wonder how well this kind of propulsion will work in interestellar space where there is no solar wind, let alone enough protons from one direction.
Let's visualize someone on a bike. They stand at the top of a hill (solar radiation effect, closer to the sun, more there is). They peddle enough to get going (ion drive or solar sail). Then they pick up speed rapidly as they go down the hill.
Once they reach the bottom of the hill, where there isn't enough material to push them they fold up the sail - or in our bike version, they let the mechanism keep them moving forward.
During this time the sail is folded - like the biker bent forward to lower wind resistance. As they approach the destination, based on speed, solar radiation - or for a bike, based on how steep and high the next hill is - they eventually unfurl the sail.
The advantage over a bike is that as you go up the hill (into the solar radiation), you get pulled in by gravity and since your sails are collapsed there is not much push back.
Simple.
Yes, I know it's not linear, I'm just trying to help you visualize it. We can deal with the space-time continuum effects another time as well.
We lose more space probes due to a silly American persistance in using miles and feet when the whole world - and, yes, I do mean every single nation except for the USA - uses metric.
It seems everyone I've talked to in the last 6 months is using FireFox. Plus everyone I tell FireFox about thanks me later. Everyone loves the tab feature and the "natural" defense against spyware. Anyhow... sure it's just a browser.
Now, if I were Bill Gates, and there's no truth to that rumor, I'd be much more concerned with the open-source browser adoption and implementation.
Why? Because if people aren't using IE - tightly bound into my OS or so I would claim - then they might realize they don't need my OS. And that would be double plus ungood.
So, in a way, projects like FireFox could make it easier to switch from my OS (Windows Daddy Longlegs) to an open source OS (insert name here).
and if it can get China to actually enforce - or permit enforcement, in practice - of patent law, then it still owns the marbles, even if others want to create solutions in that area.
It's like walking across a minefield where every 2-3 feet a new mine exists - or doesn't. You can let a bunch of gerbils fan out across the minefield and detonate the mines - which takes time and uses up a lot of gerbils, not to mention funeral costs for them - or you can buy a map.
Microsoft sells the map. Patents let them stop others from selling you the map.
Now, if those gerbils had maps, and could read them, well that's a different story.
Despite the high "awful" and "dumb" factors of the DMCA and Patriot Act, you must remember that courts do function in a sorta-real world.
The virus writer would have to write a program that pretty much breaks into your computer and puts itself into your computer. His lawyer would have the daunting task of proving that despite the fact that his client is a criminal who planted the program on the machine by its design, the person whose computer is infected is still at fault for having it. It would never work, even with the DMCA.
Not as I read it. It's not up to a copyright holder to take unusual methods to protect oneself from piracy, in fact by depositing it to preserve copyright under the Berne Convention - which is how you get Strong protection for Copyright - you make it possible for anyone to read it.
Then, since it is code, they merely need to implement it in a virus and Shazaam you have a DCMA claim to anyone who got the virus.
I didn't say it made sense - I just said it was possible.
easier method - don't let companies profit from "fixing" virus programs so that their isn't an incentive for "helping" bored developers to create new ones.
What happens when someone finds a loophole and patents some sort of virus and then sues any AV companies that try to reverse engineer it? Yay for our intellectual property dogma!
I think that's DCMA, actually. If you copyright a virus and someone borrows your work and it shows up on millions of PCs worldwide, aren't all those millions of PCs subject to seizure, since they contain your copyrighted work?
...why don't they just cover their entire property with cammo netting?:)
They're not. The really rich people live in Old Greenwich, not in Greenwich proper.
My aunt and uncle have a mansion near the yatch club there (Old Greenwich) which is how I found this out - maybe I should see if they've been trimming their trees?
he's still trying to get hits on his column to drive up his salary from all us on/.
First MSFT tries to "replace" BitTorrent with a "safe" version (read revenue-enhanced). Then they help sponsor the Canadian legislation so they can sell it in both the US and Canada. Then they push the EU to actually permit software patents (which don't exist there yet).
Embrace. Extend.
But just because Dvorak is right doesn't mean he's always right - he's usually wrong.
It's different in Canada where a bill only becomes law after it is passed by the Senate and House of Commons and then receives the royal assent.
it was the short version of the song (refrain)
in other words, the final stanza before the refrain would be:
And if make it thru the third time, in both the House and Senate, then the Queen or King of Canada will probably say: "You're just such a swell bill we will Pronounce you today", and sign me and then I'll be a law.
Unless the Queen or King is not in Canada today, for then the Governor General will do it instead, hip hip hooray!
But it all means I will be a law, unless I died on the way, then I'll be resurrected and slapped on as an amendment and ridiculed during Question Period causing the Government to fall - if I'm a money bill.
[ok that last part doesn't sing too well, how about we just KISS?]
Any studies on the number of successful outsourcing vs unsuccessful outsourcing? I'm having a hard time believing they are as successful as everyone wants to believe.
Latest reports in the Wall Street Journal - I get the print edition - say that it's not that successful in practice.
But management fads come and go, just like consumer fads and overpaying execs.
They didn't introduce a new law, they introduced a new bill. It's not a law yet, and hopefully won't be.
OK, let's all sing along to Schoolhouse Rock - "I'm just a bill, yes, I'm only a bill, and I'm living up on Parliament Hill. And someday, the Dark Lord hopes and prays, that I will be a law, but today, I'm just a bill."
Slashdot Mirror
SEATTLE--Seattle Mayor Frances Bean Cobain-Osment issued a call for the emergency deforestation of the Pacific Northwest Monday. "Please, major logging companies, I beg you, send any spare sawmilling, pulping, or chipping equipment you have as soon as possible," said Cobain-Osment, invisible within the branches and overgrowth on the steps of City Hall. "We cannot fight off the encroaching trees and spotted owls any longer." The mayor's message concluded with a spirited condemnation of 2001's controversial Healthy Forests Initiative.
For one thing, while it is true that Seattle, Portland, Vancouver BC, and San Francisco will secede and form Ecotopia (which is why the rest of the USA will be defenseless to the Middle East (related Onion story), since we have most of the military assets), she won't be elected mayor.
To be elected Mayor in Seattle you have to be comfortable wearing plaid, and I'm afraid her mother spoiled her too much on that account, so Guchi doesn't work here.
Unless she hires an Aura Consultant and redoes her colors.
Actually, I'm betting that this time it was due to a spelling error. The sub that launched the Volna rocket was the Borisoglebsk, The first receiving station was at Petropavlovsk on the Kamchatka penninsula. The temporary ground station to pick it up next was on Majuro. Then it will next contact Panska Ves in the Czech republic. It's not until the ground stations at the Tarusa and Bear Lakes that the spelling becomes sufferable. :)
...
Oops, comrade! I said LEFT at Borisoglebsk, not LET IT CRASH at Borisoglebsk
also, it's Reagans fault.
...
Huh? because he signed the SALT II accords that caused the Russian ICBM to become available cheap?
How is that his fault?
Since they saved a lot by buying an ICBM that was supposed to be destroyed, they could always buy another
Some Carribean nations also still use the English system.
Officially they don't. Cuba, Haiti, and other sovereign nations use metric. Dutch, French, and other nation's possessions (like the French West Indies departements of Gaudaloupe) use their mother countries metric as well.
The only exceptions are possessions - not nations - of the USA.
Here endeth the lesson.
I wonder how well this kind of propulsion will work in interestellar space where there is no solar wind, let alone enough protons from one direction.
... coast ... -Pushx0.01 + -Pushx0.02 + -Pushx0.03 + -Pushx0.04 + -Pushx5 + -Pushx6 and you're there.
Let's visualize someone on a bike. They stand at the top of a hill (solar radiation effect, closer to the sun, more there is). They peddle enough to get going (ion drive or solar sail). Then they pick up speed rapidly as they go down the hill.
Once they reach the bottom of the hill, where there isn't enough material to push them they fold up the sail - or in our bike version, they let the mechanism keep them moving forward.
During this time the sail is folded - like the biker bent forward to lower wind resistance. As they approach the destination, based on speed, solar radiation - or for a bike, based on how steep and high the next hill is - they eventually unfurl the sail.
Pushx5 + Pushx4 + Pushx3 + Pushx2 + Pushx1
The advantage over a bike is that as you go up the hill (into the solar radiation), you get pulled in by gravity and since your sails are collapsed there is not much push back.
Simple.
Yes, I know it's not linear, I'm just trying to help you visualize it. We can deal with the space-time continuum effects another time as well.
We lose more space probes due to a silly American persistance in using miles and feet when the whole world - and, yes, I do mean every single nation except for the USA - uses metric.
Those rounding errors will get you every time.
does that mean we have to be depressed about everything all the time like him?
It seems everyone I've talked to in the last 6 months is using FireFox. Plus everyone I tell FireFox about thanks me later. Everyone loves the tab feature and the "natural" defense against spyware. Anyhow... sure it's just a browser.
Now, if I were Bill Gates, and there's no truth to that rumor, I'd be much more concerned with the open-source browser adoption and implementation.
Why? Because if people aren't using IE - tightly bound into my OS or so I would claim - then they might realize they don't need my OS. And that would be double plus ungood.
So, in a way, projects like FireFox could make it easier to switch from my OS (Windows Daddy Longlegs) to an open source OS (insert name here).
and if it can get China to actually enforce - or permit enforcement, in practice - of patent law, then it still owns the marbles, even if others want to create solutions in that area.
It's like walking across a minefield where every 2-3 feet a new mine exists - or doesn't. You can let a bunch of gerbils fan out across the minefield and detonate the mines - which takes time and uses up a lot of gerbils, not to mention funeral costs for them - or you can buy a map.
Microsoft sells the map. Patents let them stop others from selling you the map.
Now, if those gerbils had maps, and could read them, well that's a different story.
Despite the high "awful" and "dumb" factors of the DMCA and Patriot Act, you must remember that courts do function in a sorta-real world.
The virus writer would have to write a program that pretty much breaks into your computer and puts itself into your computer. His lawyer would have the daunting task of proving that despite the fact that his client is a criminal who planted the program on the machine by its design, the person whose computer is infected is still at fault for having it. It would never work, even with the DMCA.
Not as I read it. It's not up to a copyright holder to take unusual methods to protect oneself from piracy, in fact by depositing it to preserve copyright under the Berne Convention - which is how you get Strong protection for Copyright - you make it possible for anyone to read it.
Then, since it is code, they merely need to implement it in a virus and Shazaam you have a DCMA claim to anyone who got the virus.
I didn't say it made sense - I just said it was possible.
easier method - don't let companies profit from "fixing" virus programs so that their isn't an incentive for "helping" bored developers to create new ones.
that would probably cut them in half.
picky picky
virii isnt correct, and doesnt exist in latin. it would be viruses.
At best it would be viruse, not viruses. I'll stick with virii, thanks.
What happens when someone finds a loophole and patents some sort of virus and then sues any AV companies that try to reverse engineer it? Yay for our intellectual property dogma!
I think that's DCMA, actually. If you copyright a virus and someone borrows your work and it shows up on millions of PCs worldwide, aren't all those millions of PCs subject to seizure, since they contain your copyrighted work?
Well?
we figured out how to do all of these back in the mid-80s. Yup, self-decrypting viruses, polymorphic shellcode, and obfuscated loops - all of it.
The amazing thing is that it took so long for people to actually put them into practice.
They're not. The really rich people live in Old Greenwich, not in Greenwich proper.
My aunt and uncle have a mansion near the yatch club there (Old Greenwich) which is how I found this out - maybe I should see if they've been trimming their trees?
they'll be safe from the Soviet Nukes there, while Greenwich is destroyed using the GIS data ...
...
Sometimes I wonder if this country's not getting just a teeny bit too paranoid
I guess they have to find SOME way of burning through those chips now that no one will be investing in an architecture that's been EOLed
They make great earrings.
We're still waiting on that dual-button mouse.
...
That only comes with the triple-CPU Uber Mac, coming out in 2007
he's still trying to get hits on his column to drive up his salary from all us on /.
First MSFT tries to "replace" BitTorrent with a "safe" version (read revenue-enhanced). Then they help sponsor the Canadian legislation so they can sell it in both the US and Canada. Then they push the EU to actually permit software patents (which don't exist there yet).
Embrace. Extend.
But just because Dvorak is right doesn't mean he's always right - he's usually wrong.
I mean, when middle school kids are hacking Wikipedia sites, it's not like it's secure in the first place.
/.ers for it should realize that's a Troll and Flamepost mod, and shouldn't be surprised by people's reactions ...
That said, the person blaming
It's different in Canada where a bill only becomes law after it is passed by the Senate and House of Commons and then receives the royal assent.
it was the short version of the song (refrain)
in other words, the final stanza before the refrain would be:
And if make it thru the third time,
in both the House and Senate,
then the Queen or King of Canada will probably say:
"You're just such a swell bill we will Pronounce you today",
and sign me and then I'll be a law.
Unless the Queen or King is not in Canada today,
for then the Governor General will do it instead,
hip hip hooray!
But it all means I will be a law, unless I died on the way, then I'll be resurrected and slapped on as an amendment and ridiculed during Question Period causing the Government to fall - if I'm a money bill.
[ok that last part doesn't sing too well, how about we just KISS?]
Canada is a net exporter of music. It's one of their top ten exports, actually.
You mean Neil Young is still THAT popular?
No, Sarah McLachlan.
Any studies on the number of successful
outsourcing vs unsuccessful outsourcing? I'm having a hard time believing they are as successful as everyone wants to believe.
Latest reports in the Wall Street Journal - I get the print edition - say that it's not that successful in practice.
But management fads come and go, just like consumer fads and overpaying execs.
It won't matter, they'll all probably forget where their iPods are anyway...
Canada is a net exporter of music. It's one of their top ten exports, actually.
They didn't introduce a new law, they introduced a new bill. It's not a law yet, and hopefully won't be.
...
OK, let's all sing along to Schoolhouse Rock - "I'm just a bill, yes, I'm only a bill, and I'm living up on Parliament Hill. And someday, the Dark Lord hopes and prays, that I will be a law, but today, I'm just a bill."
or words to that effect