More specificly, what about the right to secure your papers and property against unreasonable searches. IIRC that would be the 8th. Bill of rights in anycase.
I don't mind them picking any closed source solution so long as it has sufficant functionality and guarenties so that they know it will work right. However I do have a problem with ANY solution that is not open standard based. microsoft doc format works okay, but it limits your ability to choose a compititor. In effect your next bid for who supplies word processors either has to have perfect microsoft compatability, or you need to account for a team to open every current document and save it in a standard that the new program can read.
By contrast if they require an open standard as default, today they can use Word, and tommorow switch to wordPerfect, and next year Staroffice might win the bid for who supplies word processing software. Even better than can be a mixture. Most people would be served just fine with kword or openoffice, but a few people need as use those features in microsft word that isn't provided in the alternatives. With a standard file format you mix and match as you wish. Today you can already provide Photoshop to those who really need the best, and Gimp to everyone, since picture formats are open. Word processing formats should be too.
Even though I mentioned file formats above, that isn't the only place where open standards are better. At walMart I can buy several different memory card readers. Some support 3 different formats, some 5, and some 6! If you happen to buy the 6 port version you can read most formats today, but not all. By contrast there is already a good open standard memory card interface: USB, and every new comptuer has it so there is no need to buy any adaptor. (Some of the memory cards read by the reader might be considered open, but they are not everywhere so it is hard to call them standard. This should be a considereation too)
Many FreeBSD folks remember the 3.0 release and don't want to repeat that. In short 3.0 had some serrious flaws that send people who needed the features it had to -current (the development kernels). I personaly installed 3.0, and it didn't last long, I found all the -current kernels (though I didn't install many) more stable than 3.0. 4.0 ended up rushing out the door because many of the fixes were designed with other features of 4.0 in mind and didn't backport easially.
Your other choice at the time was running 2.2.8, which was extreemly stable, but lacked some nice upgrades that 3.0 had. (USB for instance)
4.0 essentially became 3.0 stable. So now they are trying to do 5.0 right. 5.0 allows a release that is considered stable, and encourages people up use it, but by doing 4.8 they get some needed updates in the 4.0 series, and provide a reminder that 5.0 isn't stable yet.
Last, this is open source. If you are still using 2.2 and you feel a 2.2.9 is worth releaseing it might be done - if you can convince those involved that enough people are still using 2.2 to make it useful.
Columbia wass the only shuttle that has real difficulity getting to ISS (this was covered after the origional accident). Now all shuttles can get there, though admitidly not all orbits make it easy. Though we can get around that. (send an atlas up with supplies, a few space suits, and a second rocket designed to change orbits, or devise a way to refuel. Nothing easy of course)
And has been pointed out, nearly all shuttle missions are ISS missions. If you arrive at the ISS and someone says "The shuttle won't get you home safely", then you just sit tight, in crowded conditions. In fact given a docked shuttle that can't safely get back home I could see engineers devisiong a way to use it as a part of ISS since it is there. A second airlock for remaining shuttles would have to be added, and a lot of details, but getting things into orbit is hard, if you got something on the ISS you want to use it for the ISS as much as possiable. Who cares that it is mostly useless, if nothing else use it as a private office for someone who just wants to be alone.
So what that it takes a full day to put a shuttle on the pad. The shuttle can stay up for 14 days at least, and I'm sure even if a critical problem was discovered on the last day they could stretch the trip out for 3 days to launch another shuttle.
I don't know if a shuttle sitting in the hanger, ready for a rescue mission can be not only brought to the pad, but also fueled up in a few days, but if not it is only an enginnering problem to correct it.
I decline to speculate what it would cost to outfit a second shuttle for a rescue mission, and then after it proves unnessicary (only 2 missions have not had a successful landing; Columbia and Chalenger) re-fit for a useful mission. (Though to some extent the rescue stuff is useful for other missions, and some things intended for the next mission could be installed and ready to go, and if a resuce proves nessicary then it just goes up and is unused. Expensive, but overall not a big deal.
Classic lumber yards are not worried about Home Depot because of a different factor: service. I'm in carpentry now, and I can tell you that most local small town lumber yards don't care a lick if the average person walks in or goes elsewhere. The money is in the contractor buisness. All contractors know that a message on their NexTel phone (all other carriers need not apply) and the materials they need will be delivered right away. The contact guy knows how they work, so if roof plywood is specified 7/16ths OSB will be delivered and not 1/2" exterior plywood that is labeled as roof plywood. No need to specify where to deliver, the salesmen knows where the contractor is that day. Billing is handled monthy. (Not like a credit card, since there is nothing to swipe, it is an account)
Yeah, and finding actual 2 inch by 4 inch wood (NOT 2x4s) to fix those old houses is a lot of fun!
It is even more fun because there was NO standard for lumber back then. It wasn't the case that 2x4s used to be 2 inches by 4 inches, it was the case that some 2x4s where 2 inches by 4 inches, while the rest was some other size close to that (almost always smaller). I've had the pleasure of working on a 1880's house that happened to have 2x4 studs exactly the same dimentions of our modern 2x4. I've has the misfortune of working on a house built in the late '60s, and being unable to match stud width.
I've always wonder how you tell if a programer is good or not. I'm a programer looking for a job (and I consider myself good), and I've had no luck in 8 months now.
I'll bet filtering is a large part of your problem. I know many companies that have laid everyone off and closed the local plant. In fact most of the programers I know are out of work, and the few that are working have said that they haven't been hiring in over a year. Now I'll grant that some of the programers out of work are bad programers. However there are also some that are good.
I'd like to suggest some other possibilites. They might not apply to you, but they are a problem. The first is you want too close a match. There is nobody in the world who has 5 years of.net, but I've seen ads that require at least that. Next, how do you evaluate programers anyway? Most of my source code is locked behind a non-compete, and even then builds on and was built on by other programers. I cannot claim a single source code file that is all mine, and the only functions that are mine have the following comment at the top "Warning, this ugly piece of code is required to get around limitations of the lanugage we are using." (Not intended as a flame, in fact I was one of the biggest defenders of the language there, but the fact is there were some serious limitations) Programing is a team exercise in most enviorments, so other than references I don't see how you can tell if I'm any good or not.
How does the song go? Something like "Daddie never gave mommey a diamond ring, but mommie never had to worrk about anything
Cause what he gave her came from the heart
In a prommise that was never torn apart"
Alan Jackson if I remember right. I'm not nessicarly sure you would like the song, but it contains some useful advice: there is something more important than the ring, the promise. Some people demand the ring, and I don't have a problem with it (so long as you get one of the few diamonds that DeBeers doesn't sell...) if you want one. However the ring is not what is important. If you don't want one, then don't feel bound by tardition or what others will think.
I'm a carpender, trust me, you won't like a floor that we just nail down, it will squeak. Often we glue the walls down too for the same reason. The glue has the potential to outgas.
Insulation. Firberglass is extreemly common, but most modern fiberglass is mostly something other than glass (glass itches too much when installing it. I wouldn't be surprized if installing it is as bad for the lungs as smoking) There are other things, but even the safest ones can contain plenty of other things.
Paint. I don't think I need to comment.
Plastic, there are several different types, because really nothing stops airflow like a solid layer of plastic. This of course is the two edged sword, without that plastic your house would breath enough to let that nasty stuff out, and mold would not be near the problem it is because water can get through the walls. On the flip side though, plastic is a major contributer to insulation value, it stops air penitration, which is a major source of heat loss.
You would be surprized how much foam is used in a house. Around every window we spray it in. Around the rim (floor joists) we use foam. (joists have to sit on a wall, so we can't put normal insulation there, foam is better than normal insutlation though more expensive)
We can runs on an alcohol. In fact alcohol is a better fuel for most gas engines than gas is. However gas is cheap, and has more engery per gallon. (With a the right engine mods you can get almost the same energy from ethanol as gas, but not quite. I'm not sure about other alcahols, there might even be one with more energy per gallon)
My local utility gets 4% line losses. (they like to brag about them as they are amoung the lowest in the nation). The worst line loss rates are just over 8%. (again, according to my local utility - this time if I remember the artical right, not more than 12% in anycase) Long distance transportation is very high voltages, which is very good, but I'll give you another 2%. That puts you between 94% and 86% of the power getting through, nowhere close to 50% losses.
requires tremendous current. I don't remember the amount, but it's many times more than the 15A or so that a normal consumer power cord can deliver. Such large amounts of current require special equipment, which is expensive, and still dangerous for a non-electrician to be dealing with.
Huh? Sure it requires a lot more power, I'll give you that. However dangerious I won't give you.
Electic stoves and welders plug into 50 amp 220 outlets, and normal people do handle them. Not exactly often, but it happens all the time without serious consequences.
I know of fast food restaruants who's procedure of switching from breakfast to lunch involves moving some equipment needing 30 amps at 220 volts to the other side of the kitchen, plugging into a different outlet. Twice a day crew untrained in dealing with electrisity deals with it, without incident.
I've personally stood in an inch of water and touched a bare wire connected to mains. Not an expirence I want to repeate, but it wasn't a big deal either. Sort of on the order of a paper cut. Warning I am not saying that electric power is harmless, there is plenty of oportunity to kill yourself with household current. However it isn't automatic death to come in contact with it.
There are rules that electric follows. Truth is that there is no different between a 15 amp household circut and a 50 amp household circute (In the Us, europe is different!). Sure one is 220, and one is 120, but to ground both are 120, and that is would you would encounter in a problem situaion. Code requires Ground fault protection on bathroom outlets because even when you are wet you body won't conduct the 15 amps nessicary to blow a breaker. So the extra 35 amps on a 50 amp circuit will not do anything either. Pure Ohm's law.
Woah, slow down. Hybred cars are great for city drving, but if you read the numbers you will notice they aren't so good for hiway. Batteries are just extra mass that the engine needs to recover the rolling resistance of when you are driving long distances.
for those who mostly drive in the cities, a hybred is a perfect match. For those who mostly drive at high speeds the match isn't so good. Other technologies are much better (See VS's TDI for example, it beats hybreds for hiway use, even in a larger car.)
Just like any other resteraunt, McDonalds has busy times and slow times. If you linger in a slow time they don't care anyway, and if you linger to/through a busy time your going to need more food anyway.
Your incorrect that people don't linger. Most people don't true, but a few do. McDonalds is used as a meeting place by some groups. I once walked into someone presenting a buisness plan at 10:30 at night in a McDonalds. The restaruant was perfect, open that late, free, and provided coffee. (It was none of my business so I didn't linger but it seemed to be a potential startup that didn't yet have investers)
Access is provided one hour at a time, so it seems like they are trying to provide for the [business] crowd that comes in for lunch and needs to get some work done. This is the perfect way to target salesmen, they tend to spend most of their time behind customer firewalls that won't let them check email at the office. Run to McDonalds for lunch/supper (when you are not buying the customer lunch...) and catch up on the office news.
First, I'm assuming there is no intelligent life on mars, at which point it doesn't matter.
Second, I did not mean to suggest that we would force anyone to go, only that we would offer them a chance. They know they are guilty (if innocent they should plan on appeals to prove it - though I'll admit our courts are not perfect) so they face an early death either way. If they want to, we will send them on a one way trip to mars where they can't harm anyone else, and can provide valuable research, otherwise they can die.
I'm not making any comments on the ethics of death penaltys, which is a different debate, I'm saying given that we have the death penetly that would be applied to someone with the right skills to do research on mars, lets offer then a one-way trip instead. Life sentences could count too. (spend the rest of your life behind bars on earth, or have freedom to roam mars)
Linux is not directly descended from anything AT&T did. It is a clean room implimentation started before the DMCA. Therefore the DMCA at most applies only to a small amount of the code. And there is an introperability clause in the DMCA that gives some hope that even for that code it does not apply. IANAL so I don't know what applies and doesn't. Worst case we have to go back to 2.0 kernels and apply only improvments that we know are safe, and 2.0 was pretty good. (not as good as the latest, but still good)
Second, BSD decendants have been proven in court to NOT be infringing decendants of UNIX (6 files were found infringing and removed and replaced). IBM has not worked (much?) on any BSD system so we can go to them. OpenBSD has been especcially paranoid about intellectualy property issues, plus they are based in Canada so the laws that apply are different anyway.
And finially for this to stick in court, SCO will probably have to point to some code and say "Joe wrote this after working with code we own", at which point linux will just re-write those sections, just like BSD did for the 6 infringing files. There are some difficulties here, but worst case for linux isn't that bad.
Well some selection needs to be applied, though there is basicly nothing we could do to prevent it.
However I don't think it is likely. Remember I did'nt say just any inmate could qualify, someone who went through the effort to get a degree in geology (archiology, or any other program that would have some use for studing mars) is likely interested enough in the subject to at least spend some time doing it. No requirement but it increases the odds of getting something useful.
Remember after they arrive, they have spent months or years with nothing to do but play solitary, so they are likely bored with simple games. A shovel and a chance to study something they are interested in would be welcome relief from bordom.
If we do decide to do this, we need to get some money's worth. A couple days of O2 isn't enough to get anything done, if they really want to. So give them a few years. (I think food would be more a problem than O2, but whatever) Enough that they can get some real research done if they want to. Mars is big enough that even given the worst case they can't spoil significant quanity of the landscape on their own. (though a significant part could be)
Of course if mars has intelligent life we don't want to send anyone other than our most trusted "diplomats". (In quotes because modern diplomats get on my nerves and might be the worst people to send to other planets)
I can think of several reasons to call it ethical. The dieing of cancer that someone else mentioned is good. However in that case by the time you can get that person ready to go they will be dead, at least anyway I can look at it. First we need rockets that can go there, plus a space capsule that can support his life all the way there. The Moon was really too far to go in the small capsule they went in, and that was only a few days journey. Mars would be months or years, which means a lot more food to deal with, keeping the body in shape, dealing with medical issues, and so one. I think the biggest will be bordom, we are talking about months in a small place with nothing to do, enough to drive most people to scuicide.
However the above aside, I can think of several people who we could ethically send despite the time it would take. Anyone on death row for instance. If they really commited a crime, and have the acidemic qualifications we should send them to mars instead. Other charges that don't lead to death penalties count too. (those making child porn for instance, rapists)
Exactly. I can read enough to tell which button is ok. It would be nice if it was always in the same position, but I can deal with them not being in the same spot. I cannot deal with copy/paste not working between two apps (a lot of work was done here, and it mostly works).
Re:menus and apps (Score:1)
by renoX (11677) on 02:03 PM March 10th, 2003 (#5479194)
> I want the menu to be complete
Do a ls in/usr/bin,/usr/local/bin, have a coffee, come back and look at the result: a lots of tools isn't-it?
Do you REALLY want to see all those tools in the menu? No, you don't..
I think that was the part of the point. I have many things installed on my system. I have no idea what they all are. What is this co program that I often start accidently which I ment cp? (I happen to know the answer, but known reenforces the point because anyone meaning cp could not possibly be interested in co instead) Of course neither program belongs in my menu (cp is only useful on a command line, co should be accessed though a wrapper in your editor).
The programs I want to see are the ones that are useful for some purpose. I know I have lincity installed on my computer, but it isn't in my menu so when I'm looking for a game to play I have to think of it specificly, or I won't play it, even if I'm looking for something to kill a saterday afternoon. Instead I'll play a mindless game of solitary until I get bored.
Now add in all the programs from the 271 other packages I have installed (some packages include multipul programs, while others are libraries so who knows how many programs need to get into my menu. Oh, and while I'm asking for magic, I'd like them arranged in a meaningful fashion so I can find the right program and know what it will do. (is xplot a game, a cad package, an internal xfree program, or something else?)
When I decided that my slackware 3.0 server was getting too many attempts on ftp I disabled ftp on that machine. After some thought I put the entire machine behind a nat firewall. When I want to log on remotely (it is headless so local login is impossible) I need to first log into a secured (somewhat) freeBSD machine, and then telnet.
Someday I'm going to retire that machine, but don't be surprized to read in a few years that I've got it has a uptime record (or rollover, not sure if that is fixed or not) if I break down and buy a UPS.
I used to agree. Then I happened to be around several girls at a time when everyone else was pulling out cameras. I suddenly realised that I rarely take pictures so I don't have a camera. If it was in the phone it would be there. Better yet, it would be there not just when I expect to want a picture and so brought along my camera (which would be better quality if I had one), but also those time when I didn't expect to want to, so I reduced bulk by not carring it.
After that I suddenly realised that I use the calculator on my phone almost as much as I use the voice features! I wish I had scientific functions, because I've wanted them. Sure I could carry a full calculator, but often I don't need one.
PDAs are better than the PIM in cell phones, but then you have to carry it with you. I've already suggested above that gagets are a pain to carry around. With a cell phone that does everyone, I have all the gagets I need. If I'm the type of person uses a PDA all the time I'll carry both, but I rarely need a PDA (a couple times a month!), so I don't have one, so the cell phone compromise is good enough.
And don't forget that if the gaget breaks, you still have a cell phone backup to get you by. (Unless it is the cell phone that breaks, I'm not sure what you do there)
In conclusion, a cell phone may be the worst of all other worlds, but it is still good enough.
In addition to the other posters (who are correct), minute differences in the wire length and composition mean the signals arriving at the speed of light often to not arrive close enough to the same time on parrell wires in the same cable to be considered close enough. With a scsi bus it is common for several signals to be in the wire at once.
I'm still using a 386-25 that my parents bought in 1991. Still boots (when the power company decides it needs to reboot) off a 80MB harddrive (that is megabytes, not gigabytes) Today it runs Slackware 3.0, with a lot of changes and upgrades that I have since forgotten about. Most software wasn't even upgraded for y2k, and that was the last time I touched it, except for when I moved a couple years back. (and when rc5-64 was solved, I stoped the client then)
It has been on my list of things to retire for 4 years now, but it keeps working so I don't bother. Most functions have moved off it though, I used to regularly see loads of 8 or more. Now it sit there idle except when fetchmail wakes up.
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More specificly, what about the right to secure your papers and property against unreasonable searches. IIRC that would be the 8th. Bill of rights in anycase.
I don't mind them picking any closed source solution so long as it has sufficant functionality and guarenties so that they know it will work right. However I do have a problem with ANY solution that is not open standard based. microsoft doc format works okay, but it limits your ability to choose a compititor. In effect your next bid for who supplies word processors either has to have perfect microsoft compatability, or you need to account for a team to open every current document and save it in a standard that the new program can read.
By contrast if they require an open standard as default, today they can use Word, and tommorow switch to wordPerfect, and next year Staroffice might win the bid for who supplies word processing software. Even better than can be a mixture. Most people would be served just fine with kword or openoffice, but a few people need as use those features in microsft word that isn't provided in the alternatives. With a standard file format you mix and match as you wish. Today you can already provide Photoshop to those who really need the best, and Gimp to everyone, since picture formats are open. Word processing formats should be too.
Even though I mentioned file formats above, that isn't the only place where open standards are better. At walMart I can buy several different memory card readers. Some support 3 different formats, some 5, and some 6! If you happen to buy the 6 port version you can read most formats today, but not all. By contrast there is already a good open standard memory card interface: USB, and every new comptuer has it so there is no need to buy any adaptor. (Some of the memory cards read by the reader might be considered open, but they are not everywhere so it is hard to call them standard. This should be a considereation too)
Many FreeBSD folks remember the 3.0 release and don't want to repeat that. In short 3.0 had some serrious flaws that send people who needed the features it had to -current (the development kernels). I personaly installed 3.0, and it didn't last long, I found all the -current kernels (though I didn't install many) more stable than 3.0. 4.0 ended up rushing out the door because many of the fixes were designed with other features of 4.0 in mind and didn't backport easially.
Your other choice at the time was running 2.2.8, which was extreemly stable, but lacked some nice upgrades that 3.0 had. (USB for instance)
4.0 essentially became 3.0 stable. So now they are trying to do 5.0 right. 5.0 allows a release that is considered stable, and encourages people up use it, but by doing 4.8 they get some needed updates in the 4.0 series, and provide a reminder that 5.0 isn't stable yet.
Last, this is open source. If you are still using 2.2 and you feel a 2.2.9 is worth releaseing it might be done - if you can convince those involved that enough people are still using 2.2 to make it useful.
Columbia wass the only shuttle that has real difficulity getting to ISS (this was covered after the origional accident). Now all shuttles can get there, though admitidly not all orbits make it easy. Though we can get around that. (send an atlas up with supplies, a few space suits, and a second rocket designed to change orbits, or devise a way to refuel. Nothing easy of course)
And has been pointed out, nearly all shuttle missions are ISS missions. If you arrive at the ISS and someone says "The shuttle won't get you home safely", then you just sit tight, in crowded conditions. In fact given a docked shuttle that can't safely get back home I could see engineers devisiong a way to use it as a part of ISS since it is there. A second airlock for remaining shuttles would have to be added, and a lot of details, but getting things into orbit is hard, if you got something on the ISS you want to use it for the ISS as much as possiable. Who cares that it is mostly useless, if nothing else use it as a private office for someone who just wants to be alone.
So what that it takes a full day to put a shuttle on the pad. The shuttle can stay up for 14 days at least, and I'm sure even if a critical problem was discovered on the last day they could stretch the trip out for 3 days to launch another shuttle.
I don't know if a shuttle sitting in the hanger, ready for a rescue mission can be not only brought to the pad, but also fueled up in a few days, but if not it is only an enginnering problem to correct it.
I decline to speculate what it would cost to outfit a second shuttle for a rescue mission, and then after it proves unnessicary (only 2 missions have not had a successful landing; Columbia and Chalenger) re-fit for a useful mission. (Though to some extent the rescue stuff is useful for other missions, and some things intended for the next mission could be installed and ready to go, and if a resuce proves nessicary then it just goes up and is unused. Expensive, but overall not a big deal.
Classic lumber yards are not worried about Home Depot because of a different factor: service. I'm in carpentry now, and I can tell you that most local small town lumber yards don't care a lick if the average person walks in or goes elsewhere. The money is in the contractor buisness. All contractors know that a message on their NexTel phone (all other carriers need not apply) and the materials they need will be delivered right away. The contact guy knows how they work, so if roof plywood is specified 7/16ths OSB will be delivered and not 1/2" exterior plywood that is labeled as roof plywood. No need to specify where to deliver, the salesmen knows where the contractor is that day. Billing is handled monthy. (Not like a credit card, since there is nothing to swipe, it is an account)
Yeah, and finding actual 2 inch by 4 inch wood (NOT 2x4s) to fix those old houses is a lot of fun!
It is even more fun because there was NO standard for lumber back then. It wasn't the case that 2x4s used to be 2 inches by 4 inches, it was the case that some 2x4s where 2 inches by 4 inches, while the rest was some other size close to that (almost always smaller). I've had the pleasure of working on a 1880's house that happened to have 2x4 studs exactly the same dimentions of our modern 2x4. I've has the misfortune of working on a house built in the late '60s, and being unable to match stud width.
I've always wonder how you tell if a programer is good or not. I'm a programer looking for a job (and I consider myself good), and I've had no luck in 8 months now.
I'll bet filtering is a large part of your problem. I know many companies that have laid everyone off and closed the local plant. In fact most of the programers I know are out of work, and the few that are working have said that they haven't been hiring in over a year. Now I'll grant that some of the programers out of work are bad programers. However there are also some that are good.
I'd like to suggest some other possibilites. They might not apply to you, but they are a problem. The first is you want too close a match. There is nobody in the world who has 5 years of .net, but I've seen ads that require at least that. Next, how do you evaluate programers anyway? Most of my source code is locked behind a non-compete, and even then builds on and was built on by other programers. I cannot claim a single source code file that is all mine, and the only functions that are mine have the following comment at the top "Warning, this ugly piece of code is required to get around limitations of the lanugage we are using." (Not intended as a flame, in fact I was one of the biggest defenders of the language there, but the fact is there were some serious limitations) Programing is a team exercise in most enviorments, so other than references I don't see how you can tell if I'm any good or not.
How does the song go? Something like
"Daddie never gave mommey a diamond ring,
but mommie never had to worrk about anything
Cause what he gave her came from the heart
In a prommise that was never torn apart"
Alan Jackson if I remember right. I'm not nessicarly sure you would like the song, but it contains some useful advice: there is something more important than the ring, the promise. Some people demand the ring, and I don't have a problem with it (so long as you get one of the few diamonds that DeBeers doesn't sell...) if you want one. However the ring is not what is important. If you don't want one, then don't feel bound by tardition or what others will think.
Insulation, paint, glue, plastic, and foam.
I'm a carpender, trust me, you won't like a floor that we just nail down, it will squeak. Often we glue the walls down too for the same reason. The glue has the potential to outgas.
Insulation. Firberglass is extreemly common, but most modern fiberglass is mostly something other than glass (glass itches too much when installing it. I wouldn't be surprized if installing it is as bad for the lungs as smoking) There are other things, but even the safest ones can contain plenty of other things.
Paint. I don't think I need to comment.
Plastic, there are several different types, because really nothing stops airflow like a solid layer of plastic. This of course is the two edged sword, without that plastic your house would breath enough to let that nasty stuff out, and mold would not be near the problem it is because water can get through the walls. On the flip side though, plastic is a major contributer to insulation value, it stops air penitration, which is a major source of heat loss.
You would be surprized how much foam is used in a house. Around every window we spray it in. Around the rim (floor joists) we use foam. (joists have to sit on a wall, so we can't put normal insulation there, foam is better than normal insutlation though more expensive)
We can runs on an alcohol. In fact alcohol is a better fuel for most gas engines than gas is. However gas is cheap, and has more engery per gallon. (With a the right engine mods you can get almost the same energy from ethanol as gas, but not quite. I'm not sure about other alcahols, there might even be one with more energy per gallon)
My local utility gets 4% line losses. (they like to brag about them as they are amoung the lowest in the nation). The worst line loss rates are just over 8%. (again, according to my local utility - this time if I remember the artical right, not more than 12% in anycase) Long distance transportation is very high voltages, which is very good, but I'll give you another 2%. That puts you between 94% and 86% of the power getting through, nowhere close to 50% losses.
requires tremendous current. I don't remember the amount, but it's many times more than the 15A or so that a normal consumer power cord can deliver. Such large amounts of current require special equipment, which is expensive, and still dangerous for a non-electrician to be dealing with.
Huh? Sure it requires a lot more power, I'll give you that. However dangerious I won't give you.
Electic stoves and welders plug into 50 amp 220 outlets, and normal people do handle them. Not exactly often, but it happens all the time without serious consequences.
I know of fast food restaruants who's procedure of switching from breakfast to lunch involves moving some equipment needing 30 amps at 220 volts to the other side of the kitchen, plugging into a different outlet. Twice a day crew untrained in dealing with electrisity deals with it, without incident.
I've personally stood in an inch of water and touched a bare wire connected to mains. Not an expirence I want to repeate, but it wasn't a big deal either. Sort of on the order of a paper cut. Warning I am not saying that electric power is harmless, there is plenty of oportunity to kill yourself with household current. However it isn't automatic death to come in contact with it.
There are rules that electric follows. Truth is that there is no different between a 15 amp household circut and a 50 amp household circute (In the Us, europe is different!). Sure one is 220, and one is 120, but to ground both are 120, and that is would you would encounter in a problem situaion. Code requires Ground fault protection on bathroom outlets because even when you are wet you body won't conduct the 15 amps nessicary to blow a breaker. So the extra 35 amps on a 50 amp circuit will not do anything either. Pure Ohm's law.
Woah, slow down. Hybred cars are great for city drving, but if you read the numbers you will notice they aren't so good for hiway. Batteries are just extra mass that the engine needs to recover the rolling resistance of when you are driving long distances.
for those who mostly drive in the cities, a hybred is a perfect match. For those who mostly drive at high speeds the match isn't so good. Other technologies are much better (See VS's TDI for example, it beats hybreds for hiway use, even in a larger car.)
Just like any other resteraunt, McDonalds has busy times and slow times. If you linger in a slow time they don't care anyway, and if you linger to/through a busy time your going to need more food anyway.
Your incorrect that people don't linger. Most people don't true, but a few do. McDonalds is used as a meeting place by some groups. I once walked into someone presenting a buisness plan at 10:30 at night in a McDonalds. The restaruant was perfect, open that late, free, and provided coffee. (It was none of my business so I didn't linger but it seemed to be a potential startup that didn't yet have investers)
Access is provided one hour at a time, so it seems like they are trying to provide for the [business] crowd that comes in for lunch and needs to get some work done. This is the perfect way to target salesmen, they tend to spend most of their time behind customer firewalls that won't let them check email at the office. Run to McDonalds for lunch/supper (when you are not buying the customer lunch...) and catch up on the office news.
First, I'm assuming there is no intelligent life on mars, at which point it doesn't matter.
Second, I did not mean to suggest that we would force anyone to go, only that we would offer them a chance. They know they are guilty (if innocent they should plan on appeals to prove it - though I'll admit our courts are not perfect) so they face an early death either way. If they want to, we will send them on a one way trip to mars where they can't harm anyone else, and can provide valuable research, otherwise they can die.
I'm not making any comments on the ethics of death penaltys, which is a different debate, I'm saying given that we have the death penetly that would be applied to someone with the right skills to do research on mars, lets offer then a one-way trip instead. Life sentences could count too. (spend the rest of your life behind bars on earth, or have freedom to roam mars)
Linux is not directly descended from anything AT&T did. It is a clean room implimentation started before the DMCA. Therefore the DMCA at most applies only to a small amount of the code. And there is an introperability clause in the DMCA that gives some hope that even for that code it does not apply. IANAL so I don't know what applies and doesn't. Worst case we have to go back to 2.0 kernels and apply only improvments that we know are safe, and 2.0 was pretty good. (not as good as the latest, but still good)
Second, BSD decendants have been proven in court to NOT be infringing decendants of UNIX (6 files were found infringing and removed and replaced). IBM has not worked (much?) on any BSD system so we can go to them. OpenBSD has been especcially paranoid about intellectualy property issues, plus they are based in Canada so the laws that apply are different anyway.
And finially for this to stick in court, SCO will probably have to point to some code and say "Joe wrote this after working with code we own", at which point linux will just re-write those sections, just like BSD did for the 6 infringing files. There are some difficulties here, but worst case for linux isn't that bad.
Well some selection needs to be applied, though there is basicly nothing we could do to prevent it.
However I don't think it is likely. Remember I did'nt say just any inmate could qualify, someone who went through the effort to get a degree in geology (archiology, or any other program that would have some use for studing mars) is likely interested enough in the subject to at least spend some time doing it. No requirement but it increases the odds of getting something useful.
Remember after they arrive, they have spent months or years with nothing to do but play solitary, so they are likely bored with simple games. A shovel and a chance to study something they are interested in would be welcome relief from bordom.
If we do decide to do this, we need to get some money's worth. A couple days of O2 isn't enough to get anything done, if they really want to. So give them a few years. (I think food would be more a problem than O2, but whatever) Enough that they can get some real research done if they want to. Mars is big enough that even given the worst case they can't spoil significant quanity of the landscape on their own. (though a significant part could be)
Of course if mars has intelligent life we don't want to send anyone other than our most trusted "diplomats". (In quotes because modern diplomats get on my nerves and might be the worst people to send to other planets)
I can think of several reasons to call it ethical. The dieing of cancer that someone else mentioned is good. However in that case by the time you can get that person ready to go they will be dead, at least anyway I can look at it. First we need rockets that can go there, plus a space capsule that can support his life all the way there. The Moon was really too far to go in the small capsule they went in, and that was only a few days journey. Mars would be months or years, which means a lot more food to deal with, keeping the body in shape, dealing with medical issues, and so one. I think the biggest will be bordom, we are talking about months in a small place with nothing to do, enough to drive most people to scuicide.
However the above aside, I can think of several people who we could ethically send despite the time it would take. Anyone on death row for instance. If they really commited a crime, and have the acidemic qualifications we should send them to mars instead. Other charges that don't lead to death penalties count too. (those making child porn for instance, rapists)
Exactly. I can read enough to tell which button is ok. It would be nice if it was always in the same position, but I can deal with them not being in the same spot. I cannot deal with copy/paste not working between two apps (a lot of work was done here, and it mostly works).
Re:menus and apps (Score:1) by renoX (11677) on 02:03 PM March 10th, 2003 (#5479194) > I want the menu to be complete Do a ls in /usr/bin, /usr/local/bin, have a coffee, come back and look at the result: a lots of tools isn't-it?
Do you REALLY want to see all those tools in the menu? No, you don't..
I think that was the part of the point. I have many things installed on my system. I have no idea what they all are. What is this co program that I often start accidently which I ment cp? (I happen to know the answer, but known reenforces the point because anyone meaning cp could not possibly be interested in co instead) Of course neither program belongs in my menu (cp is only useful on a command line, co should be accessed though a wrapper in your editor).
The programs I want to see are the ones that are useful for some purpose. I know I have lincity installed on my computer, but it isn't in my menu so when I'm looking for a game to play I have to think of it specificly, or I won't play it, even if I'm looking for something to kill a saterday afternoon. Instead I'll play a mindless game of solitary until I get bored.
Now add in all the programs from the 271 other packages I have installed (some packages include multipul programs, while others are libraries so who knows how many programs need to get into my menu. Oh, and while I'm asking for magic, I'd like them arranged in a meaningful fashion so I can find the right program and know what it will do. (is xplot a game, a cad package, an internal xfree program, or something else?)
When I decided that my slackware 3.0 server was getting too many attempts on ftp I disabled ftp on that machine. After some thought I put the entire machine behind a nat firewall. When I want to log on remotely (it is headless so local login is impossible) I need to first log into a secured (somewhat) freeBSD machine, and then telnet.
Someday I'm going to retire that machine, but don't be surprized to read in a few years that I've got it has a uptime record (or rollover, not sure if that is fixed or not) if I break down and buy a UPS.
I used to agree. Then I happened to be around several girls at a time when everyone else was pulling out cameras. I suddenly realised that I rarely take pictures so I don't have a camera. If it was in the phone it would be there. Better yet, it would be there not just when I expect to want a picture and so brought along my camera (which would be better quality if I had one), but also those time when I didn't expect to want to, so I reduced bulk by not carring it.
After that I suddenly realised that I use the calculator on my phone almost as much as I use the voice features! I wish I had scientific functions, because I've wanted them. Sure I could carry a full calculator, but often I don't need one.
PDAs are better than the PIM in cell phones, but then you have to carry it with you. I've already suggested above that gagets are a pain to carry around. With a cell phone that does everyone, I have all the gagets I need. If I'm the type of person uses a PDA all the time I'll carry both, but I rarely need a PDA (a couple times a month!), so I don't have one, so the cell phone compromise is good enough.
And don't forget that if the gaget breaks, you still have a cell phone backup to get you by. (Unless it is the cell phone that breaks, I'm not sure what you do there)
In conclusion, a cell phone may be the worst of all other worlds, but it is still good enough.
In addition to the other posters (who are correct), minute differences in the wire length and composition mean the signals arriving at the speed of light often to not arrive close enough to the same time on parrell wires in the same cable to be considered close enough. With a scsi bus it is common for several signals to be in the wire at once.
I'm still using a 386-25 that my parents bought in 1991. Still boots (when the power company decides it needs to reboot) off a 80MB harddrive (that is megabytes, not gigabytes) Today it runs Slackware 3.0, with a lot of changes and upgrades that I have since forgotten about. Most software wasn't even upgraded for y2k, and that was the last time I touched it, except for when I moved a couple years back. (and when rc5-64 was solved, I stoped the client then)
It has been on my list of things to retire for 4 years now, but it keeps working so I don't bother. Most functions have moved off it though, I used to regularly see loads of 8 or more. Now it sit there idle except when fetchmail wakes up.