ssh was my prefered solution for when I could work at home. With X forwarding and DSL, being at home was exactly the same as at the office. (I had a NCD on my desk, not a full computer) It worked, and is cheap. It didn't work for windows, but many people didn't have windows at home. Those that did have windows used some other solution.
Most private piolets are told to avoid long striaght stretchs when looking for a place for an emergency landing. Most things that are long as straight are roads, with power/phone lines alongside. Landing on a road is safe enough, (if there is little traffic it can avoid you if everyone is as alert as they should be) except for the danger of those lines. Roads are visable from a high altatude, wires are invisiable until it is too late to avoid them.
I've been working constrution for a while, and we don't work when it is colder than -20f. I personally can work in that tempature, but the equipment we use won't work. Oil gets too thick when it gets cold. Changing too a lighter grade of oil doesn't give sufficant protection. Metals also start getting brittel (depends on the metal), and plastics are even worse. Cords no longer bend.
Mind you I don't like working when in is -20, but I can bundle up and do it. The equipment I use can't handle it.
Except the universial access fees are not well distributed. I have relatives who live in North Dakota, they pay about $10/month for unlimited local calling. I pay $20/month for metered (pay by the minute, unlimited is $40/month) local calls. Now I will grant that my calling area is bigger by a long shot, but I still pay a lot more, plus I pay that universial access fee. The point of the fee is to make it worthwhile to provide service to areas that could not otherwise afford it. (a rich person can get service anywhere, just pay for instalation, a poor city neeghbor hood is cheap to provide and within budget, while millionire farmers are still too expensive for their budget.) So why do farmers pay so much less than city dwellers? I could see a little subsities, but the poor in the cities are still paying more than the farmers (some of whome are poor, and some rich) for their service.
Since I'm another of the out of work computer programers I've giving serious thought to my bills, and the universial access fee looks outragious when I know what my bills are.
Backfeed is generally not a probolem. First, systems that feed the power lines need to be in sync with the 60hz (50 in europe and others) line frequency. If there is no power on the line than the system has nothing to sync to, and most will shut down. (Most, not all!)
Second, those that don't shut down find themselves feeding not only the grid, but everyone else on the (otherwise powerless) same part of the grid. There is normally enough draw from the neighbors that it will trip any circuit breaks and fueses because your system doesn't have the ability to supply this much power. Note that this isn't perfect protection, but in practice it works most of the time. Still better to not backfeed, get a transfer switch like you are supposed to have if you need to power when the grid is down.
The excess generation is a worse problem than you might think.
The most efficent power plants are best running between 80 and 95% of peak capacity. Anything less and they need extra fuel to overcome internal losses and keep things up to tempature. Anything more and they are pumping extra fuel in trying to extract the last little but, and letter extra heat go up in smoke. These plants gnerally take 2 weeks to start up or shutdown, so on a bright sunny day they will still be running, but at reduced capacity to take care of night and cloudly loads, leading to less efficency.
There is an option: peaking plants, systems that are able to start nearly instantly, but they are much less efficent, and so the power company wants to use them as little as possible.
There is one other option, not used much today (mostly research where it is used): when there is excess generation store that in some system that can quickly get it back when we need it. What has been suggested is pumping water up to a dam, filling it up, and then hydro when you need it. Otherwise big compressed air chambers underground. Batteries work too. However all have problems, other than cost. Enviormental concerns are a big one.
Of course the extact mix of efficent/peaking plants to have is an accounting problem, but it will have an impact on the prices you pay for power.
Unfortunatly the numbers don't really work out that good for most people. Sure you use $82 worth of power a month, or about the cost of the bigger system in 20 years. However the pannels do not produce $82 worth of power a money, more like $41 (half). So you pay your exlect power bill for 20 years, and then discover it doesn't cover all you power needs so you have to buy more. It gets worse though. Solar panels degrade over the years, so you might get close to $80/month worth of power the first year, but 20 years from now you are getting $10/month. Warning, I do not know what the real numbers are, mine are only a guide to what happens.
Sure nobody knows what energy prices will do in 20 years, but in most cases if you have $20,000 to spend on solar, you could do better investing that money. (stocks and bonds) Of course if energy goes up faster than inflation you might be better off investing in these panels.
I think most of us knew we were hopeless long>/strong> before this afternoon. I suspected it was hopeless sometime last december. I was sure by the 1st. Next valentines isn't looking so good either.
P.S. Normally I'm not this depressed about it. I'm single because my standards are (too) high (and when I see the divorce settelments some people are paying I'm not willing to lower them). I can deal with it normally, just that once in a while people have to rub my face in it, and I don't like that.
I'm getting a good start in replying to as many/. messages as possble.
Instead of weeping in public I'm weeping on the dog, who cares. Or rather the dog thinks that if god wants to weep over hime, than god should. (every geek should own a dog to treat them like god)
The cat on the other hand thinks that my tears are fun to bat off my face. (Every geek should have a cat to prove the dog wrong)
I think I will go to bed early. Any girls I've met who are worth my time have forgotten I exist (if they still exist isn't sure either), but I can perhaps dream of them. Dreams have a major advantage. The cute nice girls like me in the dreams, and they don't have any overwhelming bad qualities that I can't stand.
All I know is that I get at least 10 emails a day from girls who want nothing better than to show off their bodys for me. I have not yet got one email from somebody who wants to help me with my spelling.
This is not what I would expect. My spelling is horrid, worse than most non-natives. I'm also a cheap tightwad who avoids spending money on anything. I would spend money on a spelling program that worked (and didn't involve 8 hours a day memorizing words, or other tricks that are completely unfeasable), while my religion forbids me from spending time with girls who only want to show my their bodys.
Speaning of which, my interest in girls who want to show my their bodys is much less than my interest in girls who want to spend time with me, care about me, and are fun to talk to. I could do the same back to those girls and enjoy it.
By Minnesota state law, it is illegal for an auto dialer to dial unless there is someone on their end to take the call. Hanging up because more people answered than you have operators for is illegal. Since one end point is in minnesota, this law applies for out of state tellemarketers too. (Though enforcing it for out of the US is tricky, that hasn't been a problem)
This seems to work fairly well, At least I don't know anyone in MN who complains about hangups.
Personally I have a better option that works for me: my cell phone. I have a land line because DSL requires it (and no other broadbad is avaible to me for less) but I don't attach a phone to the line. Call my cell phone or you won't get me. Telemarketing calls are illegal to cell phones.
Presumably it would be free. gpg is free, so it shouldn't be hard to make a free version. The goal is that if I put a piece of music up and sign it, anyone can share it, if someone (RIAA) accuses them of sharing illegally, that person just points to me "He said I could do this legally". Since the music is signed it is easy to prove that I gave that permission, and the RIAA takes me to court. Of course since I own the copyright they have no ground to sue me.
The difficulty is if I would make a new key, giving my name is Britney Spears, and sign some Britney Spears music, and upload it all at a public terminal. They then have no way to trace who the music is from, but it is on the network, so the RIAA gets to shut down your network just because someone used it against your policy.
In Minnesota it is illegal to view pornographic material (and I presume other offensive, not intended for minors) in public places. We don't need censor ware because it is illegal to go anywhere that needs to be censored.
See: simple solution to the problem. It doesn't even mention computers, it applys to a playboy magazine equally to your porn website. Most computer laws should exist as the same law is the same activity not involving comptuers.
This could probably be used to solve the pop-up issue. "Your software/ad placed pronographic information into public view, since the users of the computer could not have known this would happen, it is your fault, and you can pay the fines." Unfortunatly I suspect many users will get slapped instead of the wrong doers, but it could happen that way.
Unfortunatly the main use of absentee ballots is people who are not able to get to the polling place. Someone in the navy for example may spend 6 months at a time at sea. if the election happens to end just before they reach home port they have no way to get their ballot in in person. (They leave before the canidates are settled so they don't know who they want to vote for before hand, and when they get back it is too late).
Unfortunatly that means we have to have a system where abuse is easy, to allow the honest users a chance where they otherwise would have none. Let me know if you come up with a good solution to this problem. Until then we are stuck with what we have.
Your thinking of the wrong name. When I leave the polling booth I don't want MY name on the ballot. I want the name of the guy I voted for. I cannot read bar codes, if the reicpt was just a bar code list of who I voted for I would have no way to verify that the machine didn't register the wrong vote for me and also print off the wrong one. If the reicpt has the name of the guy I vote for anyone can come back latter and do a hand count to make sure the machine didn't rig the vote.
I caught a kid doing that in high school, waited until he left, and then quit his program (control-c) and deleted all his files. I hope he had important stuff.
Note, the system was novell 4.x, and his program was just a qbasic script. Nothing fancy, it wasn't even work to break it. I suspect that he wasn't loging passwords, but I had already heard of other people who had logged password so I wasn't taking any chances.
Theoritical or real value? Most of the push for 64 but chips is because 32 bits doensn't allow for enough memory. (big databases) The i386 and above supports more than 32 bits (4GB) of memory access, 48bit memory access with a 32 bit computer often would be fast enough.
There are several areas though where reality gets in the way. No OS that I'm aware of supports this very well, if at all. Segmented memory is tough. Most of us hoped that it went away with the i286 and DOS. Sure it works, but it makes for ugly code, and allows for many subtile bugs.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Read that carefully. Note that it does NOT say seperation of church and state. It says that a national religion may not be established. So long as which God(s) isn't specified, and you are free to worship as you choose. True seperation of church and state is easy to derive from this, and it is reasonable, but it isn't required to assume it.
You might be able to argue that Atheism can be banned legally under the first ammendment. However your ban will have the effect of the Atheists (at least those who don't protest) just becoming either agnostics (I don't worship because I don't know who to worship, prove which religion is right and I'll convert), or just say flat out "I'm a christian, but I don't belive that the benifits of worshipping God are worth the sacrafices."
I mostly agree. However like everything, the mandatory seceret ballot must have exceptions. An election judge, is often needed to help elderly/blind/handicapped, and that position much exist or some otherwise perfectly good voters cannot get their vote counted. These judges must never alter someone's vote, no matter how stupid, nor tell anyone how someone else voted.
You are right though, vote swapping should be legal, but verification that the vote was properly swaped must be illegal.
I don't like "receipt-free voting". A better solution is a paper receipt that MUST be deposited before you leave. The paper may or may not use OCR/bard codes to recored your vote, but it must have a verifiable name on it. If anyone accuses the computer system of fraud, just count the paper receipts by hand and you can verify that the comptuer works (or that someone is cheating as the case may be).
My rule is upgrade when I feel a need and have money.
I upgraded my 486-80 (amd, intel didn't make that speed) to a fast, top of the line dual ppro-200 when the 486 finialy died (it just barely worked, but I was in college and had to settle for what I could get). I'll upgrade the ppro200s when they start to become slow.
Of course my favorite games are kolor lines, and xlincity, so you can guess how long that will take.
Seriously though, I'm thinking about a second computer, but more speed isn't a factor. I want to play with some kernel programing, and don't want to risk my main machine or uptime on it.
Why go to work? There are many reason to stay home.
I takes about a gallon of gas to get to work, and another back home. I have a compuer at home that I can run for far less energy than that. Enviormental concerns make staying home often a big win.
I live in Minnesota where we have to deal with snow. In most cases you can drive to work, while it is snowing, but it is not safe. The less people on the road when the weather turns bad, the better for those who must drive (emergency services). We get bad weather often enough up here that no company can afford to tell everyone to stay home everytime it gets a little dangerious. If instead we have a choice, the company can just cancle all on-site meetings, declare it a work day where work from home is prefered, they can get all the work done without potentialy killing someone.
When support calls at 3am for help with a serious problem they don't want to wait for me to get up and drive to the office (an hour) when I could go to the computer and start solving the problem in minutes. Okay, this shouldn't happen often, but if your not willing to get up at 3am to solve a critical customer problem in your area of expertise, then you are worthless - just don't let it get out of hand.
When the problems get really hard I get more done at home. At the office there are distractions, people coming by to ask questions. Sure I can blow them off, but I loose my train of thought. At home there are no distractions to deal with. (Not true for everyone of course)
Illness is a problem. Sure I have sick leave, but I'd prefer to avoid using it (Extra vacation). When I can't get out of bed fine. When I'm contagious, but feel up to moving, then I'd prefer to do something. I've went to work somewhat sick, because I didn't feel like staying home that day. I've worked from home many of those days and not spread whatever I had. When you consider that many people have children who get sick while the parent is perfectly able to work, and it makes more sense to have the ability to work from home.
And last, if insperation strikes in the middle of the night, I want to get it down then, not hope I remember in the morning. This is a two edged sword, some middle of the night insperations are worthless, but if you use version control you can just back them out. (Though I don't recomend making a habit of these ideas unless you can take the night hours off your normal day shift, otherwise you loose)
Re:Challenger cause NOT unknown, and admin's fault
on
Latest Columbia News
·
· Score: 1
It has been suggested that Challenger wouldn't have failed if the booster rockets had been assembled at the tempature they were launched at. That is materials shrink when cold, and so by assembling at a colder tempature they would have compensated by tightening them more. Of course there is then a chance that the o-rings would fail if the tempature suddenly went up to normal after being assembled cold, perhaps in a different way.
I have no idea if this is true. I wouldn't want to test it with my money or any person.
Fortunatly for USB pendrives, they don't ahve to be ubiquitous. USB has to be, but microsoft won't let you call a machine windows compatable (designed for windows? I'm not sure what they call it) unless it has USB ports. Therefore every machine that isn't baddly obsolete has USB ports, and a pen drive will work with it.
Even if you personally are the only person in your country that uses a pen drive, you can be assured that your pendrive will work in nearly all computers you touch.
In this regaurd it doesn't matter if some non-usb technology is what everyone uses, you can use yours. Wal-mart sells adapters to work with four different types of memory devices, so there are plenty of "standards" out there trying for market share, but with USB you don't have to choose the evential winner, you are assured your device will work. (And if you don't choose usb your are taking the chance that the computer you encounter has the right adapter)
Re:Mothball the ISS and the Shuttle.
on
Columbia Coverage
·
· Score: 1
True the shuttle is a disaster. However ISS is not about science, it is about keeping some smart russian rocket scientits from developing ICBMs for the likes of Iraq. The former soviet union had some excellent rocket scientists who after the breakup find that they still need to feed their family. They may not like it, but if they can't find any other way to feed their family they will sell their services to terrerists. When they can feed their family, then they won't be temped by offers from evil doers.
Depends on how you look at it. If Nasa had known after launch what they know now, Columbia would still be up there (and the crew on reduced/no rations - healthy people can survive a few weeks without food, and they don't let unhealthy people in space), and Atlantis on a rushed schedual to get up there. All ground crew would work the longest shifts deemed safe (tired people make mistakes and work slower) to get it up safely. Sure there is some risk, but Nasa would much prefer to get those people back than not.
Risk is relative. Risk of losing a shuttle because minimal tests are done on a routine launch is worth it compared to letting a known bad shuttle fail. Unfortunatly nobody knew what would happen. Hindsite is 20/20, but not very useful when you need to make critical decisions. Indeed even if they belived there could be a problem odds are they would have considered the risks of launching atlantis with no testing higher than the risks of re-entry with some damage.
In many cases the cable company has a monopoly agreement with the city. They are the only cable TV company allowed in town, and in return they will provide cable to every house/building in town. (Including houses where the cost to run cable is more than the income from residents who subscribe) If that is the case, then the apartment is breaking the local law by providing cable TV.
Slashdot Mirror
ssh was my prefered solution for when I could work at home. With X forwarding and DSL, being at home was exactly the same as at the office. (I had a NCD on my desk, not a full computer) It worked, and is cheap. It didn't work for windows, but many people didn't have windows at home. Those that did have windows used some other solution.
Most private piolets are told to avoid long striaght stretchs when looking for a place for an emergency landing. Most things that are long as straight are roads, with power/phone lines alongside. Landing on a road is safe enough, (if there is little traffic it can avoid you if everyone is as alert as they should be) except for the danger of those lines. Roads are visable from a high altatude, wires are invisiable until it is too late to avoid them.
I've been working constrution for a while, and we don't work when it is colder than -20f. I personally can work in that tempature, but the equipment we use won't work. Oil gets too thick when it gets cold. Changing too a lighter grade of oil doesn't give sufficant protection. Metals also start getting brittel (depends on the metal), and plastics are even worse. Cords no longer bend.
Mind you I don't like working when in is -20, but I can bundle up and do it. The equipment I use can't handle it.
Except the universial access fees are not well distributed. I have relatives who live in North Dakota, they pay about $10/month for unlimited local calling. I pay $20/month for metered (pay by the minute, unlimited is $40/month) local calls. Now I will grant that my calling area is bigger by a long shot, but I still pay a lot more, plus I pay that universial access fee. The point of the fee is to make it worthwhile to provide service to areas that could not otherwise afford it. (a rich person can get service anywhere, just pay for instalation, a poor city neeghbor hood is cheap to provide and within budget, while millionire farmers are still too expensive for their budget.) So why do farmers pay so much less than city dwellers? I could see a little subsities, but the poor in the cities are still paying more than the farmers (some of whome are poor, and some rich) for their service.
Since I'm another of the out of work computer programers I've giving serious thought to my bills, and the universial access fee looks outragious when I know what my bills are.
Backfeed is generally not a probolem. First, systems that feed the power lines need to be in sync with the 60hz (50 in europe and others) line frequency. If there is no power on the line than the system has nothing to sync to, and most will shut down. (Most, not all!)
Second, those that don't shut down find themselves feeding not only the grid, but everyone else on the (otherwise powerless) same part of the grid. There is normally enough draw from the neighbors that it will trip any circuit breaks and fueses because your system doesn't have the ability to supply this much power. Note that this isn't perfect protection, but in practice it works most of the time. Still better to not backfeed, get a transfer switch like you are supposed to have if you need to power when the grid is down.
The excess generation is a worse problem than you might think.
The most efficent power plants are best running between 80 and 95% of peak capacity. Anything less and they need extra fuel to overcome internal losses and keep things up to tempature. Anything more and they are pumping extra fuel in trying to extract the last little but, and letter extra heat go up in smoke. These plants gnerally take 2 weeks to start up or shutdown, so on a bright sunny day they will still be running, but at reduced capacity to take care of night and cloudly loads, leading to less efficency.
There is an option: peaking plants, systems that are able to start nearly instantly, but they are much less efficent, and so the power company wants to use them as little as possible.
There is one other option, not used much today (mostly research where it is used): when there is excess generation store that in some system that can quickly get it back when we need it. What has been suggested is pumping water up to a dam, filling it up, and then hydro when you need it. Otherwise big compressed air chambers underground. Batteries work too. However all have problems, other than cost. Enviormental concerns are a big one.
Of course the extact mix of efficent/peaking plants to have is an accounting problem, but it will have an impact on the prices you pay for power.
Unfortunatly the numbers don't really work out that good for most people. Sure you use $82 worth of power a month, or about the cost of the bigger system in 20 years. However the pannels do not produce $82 worth of power a money, more like $41 (half). So you pay your exlect power bill for 20 years, and then discover it doesn't cover all you power needs so you have to buy more. It gets worse though. Solar panels degrade over the years, so you might get close to $80/month worth of power the first year, but 20 years from now you are getting $10/month. Warning, I do not know what the real numbers are, mine are only a guide to what happens.
Sure nobody knows what energy prices will do in 20 years, but in most cases if you have $20,000 to spend on solar, you could do better investing that money. (stocks and bonds) Of course if energy goes up faster than inflation you might be better off investing in these panels.
I think most of us knew we were hopeless long>/strong> before this afternoon. I suspected it was hopeless sometime last december. I was sure by the 1st. Next valentines isn't looking so good either.
P.S. Normally I'm not this depressed about it. I'm single because my standards are (too) high (and when I see the divorce settelments some people are paying I'm not willing to lower them). I can deal with it normally, just that once in a while people have to rub my face in it, and I don't like that.
I'm getting a good start in replying to as many /. messages as possble.
Instead of weeping in public I'm weeping on the dog, who cares. Or rather the dog thinks that if god wants to weep over hime, than god should. (every geek should own a dog to treat them like god)
The cat on the other hand thinks that my tears are fun to bat off my face. (Every geek should have a cat to prove the dog wrong)
I think I will go to bed early. Any girls I've met who are worth my time have forgotten I exist (if they still exist isn't sure either), but I can perhaps dream of them. Dreams have a major advantage. The cute nice girls like me in the dreams, and they don't have any overwhelming bad qualities that I can't stand.
All I know is that I get at least 10 emails a day from girls who want nothing better than to show off their bodys for me. I have not yet got one email from somebody who wants to help me with my spelling.
This is not what I would expect. My spelling is horrid, worse than most non-natives. I'm also a cheap tightwad who avoids spending money on anything. I would spend money on a spelling program that worked (and didn't involve 8 hours a day memorizing words, or other tricks that are completely unfeasable), while my religion forbids me from spending time with girls who only want to show my their bodys.
Speaning of which, my interest in girls who want to show my their bodys is much less than my interest in girls who want to spend time with me, care about me, and are fun to talk to. I could do the same back to those girls and enjoy it.
By Minnesota state law, it is illegal for an auto dialer to dial unless there is someone on their end to take the call. Hanging up because more people answered than you have operators for is illegal. Since one end point is in minnesota, this law applies for out of state tellemarketers too. (Though enforcing it for out of the US is tricky, that hasn't been a problem)
This seems to work fairly well, At least I don't know anyone in MN who complains about hangups.
Personally I have a better option that works for me: my cell phone. I have a land line because DSL requires it (and no other broadbad is avaible to me for less) but I don't attach a phone to the line. Call my cell phone or you won't get me. Telemarketing calls are illegal to cell phones.
Presumably it would be free. gpg is free, so it shouldn't be hard to make a free version. The goal is that if I put a piece of music up and sign it, anyone can share it, if someone (RIAA) accuses them of sharing illegally, that person just points to me "He said I could do this legally". Since the music is signed it is easy to prove that I gave that permission, and the RIAA takes me to court. Of course since I own the copyright they have no ground to sue me.
The difficulty is if I would make a new key, giving my name is Britney Spears, and sign some Britney Spears music, and upload it all at a public terminal. They then have no way to trace who the music is from, but it is on the network, so the RIAA gets to shut down your network just because someone used it against your policy.
In Minnesota it is illegal to view pornographic material (and I presume other offensive, not intended for minors) in public places. We don't need censor ware because it is illegal to go anywhere that needs to be censored.
See: simple solution to the problem. It doesn't even mention computers, it applys to a playboy magazine equally to your porn website. Most computer laws should exist as the same law is the same activity not involving comptuers.
This could probably be used to solve the pop-up issue. "Your software/ad placed pronographic information into public view, since the users of the computer could not have known this would happen, it is your fault, and you can pay the fines." Unfortunatly I suspect many users will get slapped instead of the wrong doers, but it could happen that way.
Unfortunatly the main use of absentee ballots is people who are not able to get to the polling place. Someone in the navy for example may spend 6 months at a time at sea. if the election happens to end just before they reach home port they have no way to get their ballot in in person. (They leave before the canidates are settled so they don't know who they want to vote for before hand, and when they get back it is too late).
Unfortunatly that means we have to have a system where abuse is easy, to allow the honest users a chance where they otherwise would have none. Let me know if you come up with a good solution to this problem. Until then we are stuck with what we have.
Your thinking of the wrong name. When I leave the polling booth I don't want MY name on the ballot. I want the name of the guy I voted for. I cannot read bar codes, if the reicpt was just a bar code list of who I voted for I would have no way to verify that the machine didn't register the wrong vote for me and also print off the wrong one. If the reicpt has the name of the guy I vote for anyone can come back latter and do a hand count to make sure the machine didn't rig the vote.
I caught a kid doing that in high school, waited until he left, and then quit his program (control-c) and deleted all his files. I hope he had important stuff.
Note, the system was novell 4.x, and his program was just a qbasic script. Nothing fancy, it wasn't even work to break it. I suspect that he wasn't loging passwords, but I had already heard of other people who had logged password so I wasn't taking any chances.
Theoritical or real value? Most of the push for 64 but chips is because 32 bits doensn't allow for enough memory. (big databases) The i386 and above supports more than 32 bits (4GB) of memory access, 48bit memory access with a 32 bit computer often would be fast enough.
There are several areas though where reality gets in the way. No OS that I'm aware of supports this very well, if at all. Segmented memory is tough. Most of us hoped that it went away with the i286 and DOS. Sure it works, but it makes for ugly code, and allows for many subtile bugs.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Read that carefully. Note that it does NOT say seperation of church and state. It says that a national religion may not be established. So long as which God(s) isn't specified, and you are free to worship as you choose. True seperation of church and state is easy to derive from this, and it is reasonable, but it isn't required to assume it.
You might be able to argue that Atheism can be banned legally under the first ammendment. However your ban will have the effect of the Atheists (at least those who don't protest) just becoming either agnostics (I don't worship because I don't know who to worship, prove which religion is right and I'll convert), or just say flat out "I'm a christian, but I don't belive that the benifits of worshipping God are worth the sacrafices."
I mostly agree. However like everything, the mandatory seceret ballot must have exceptions. An election judge, is often needed to help elderly/blind/handicapped, and that position much exist or some otherwise perfectly good voters cannot get their vote counted. These judges must never alter someone's vote, no matter how stupid, nor tell anyone how someone else voted.
You are right though, vote swapping should be legal, but verification that the vote was properly swaped must be illegal.
I don't like "receipt-free voting". A better solution is a paper receipt that MUST be deposited before you leave. The paper may or may not use OCR/bard codes to recored your vote, but it must have a verifiable name on it. If anyone accuses the computer system of fraud, just count the paper receipts by hand and you can verify that the comptuer works (or that someone is cheating as the case may be).
My rule is upgrade when I feel a need and have money.
I upgraded my 486-80 (amd, intel didn't make that speed) to a fast, top of the line dual ppro-200 when the 486 finialy died (it just barely worked, but I was in college and had to settle for what I could get). I'll upgrade the ppro200s when they start to become slow.
Of course my favorite games are kolor lines, and xlincity, so you can guess how long that will take.
Seriously though, I'm thinking about a second computer, but more speed isn't a factor. I want to play with some kernel programing, and don't want to risk my main machine or uptime on it.
Why go to work? There are many reason to stay home.
I takes about a gallon of gas to get to work, and another back home. I have a compuer at home that I can run for far less energy than that. Enviormental concerns make staying home often a big win.
I live in Minnesota where we have to deal with snow. In most cases you can drive to work, while it is snowing, but it is not safe. The less people on the road when the weather turns bad, the better for those who must drive (emergency services). We get bad weather often enough up here that no company can afford to tell everyone to stay home everytime it gets a little dangerious. If instead we have a choice, the company can just cancle all on-site meetings, declare it a work day where work from home is prefered, they can get all the work done without potentialy killing someone.
When support calls at 3am for help with a serious problem they don't want to wait for me to get up and drive to the office (an hour) when I could go to the computer and start solving the problem in minutes. Okay, this shouldn't happen often, but if your not willing to get up at 3am to solve a critical customer problem in your area of expertise, then you are worthless - just don't let it get out of hand.
When the problems get really hard I get more done at home. At the office there are distractions, people coming by to ask questions. Sure I can blow them off, but I loose my train of thought. At home there are no distractions to deal with. (Not true for everyone of course)
Illness is a problem. Sure I have sick leave, but I'd prefer to avoid using it (Extra vacation). When I can't get out of bed fine. When I'm contagious, but feel up to moving, then I'd prefer to do something. I've went to work somewhat sick, because I didn't feel like staying home that day. I've worked from home many of those days and not spread whatever I had. When you consider that many people have children who get sick while the parent is perfectly able to work, and it makes more sense to have the ability to work from home.
And last, if insperation strikes in the middle of the night, I want to get it down then, not hope I remember in the morning. This is a two edged sword, some middle of the night insperations are worthless, but if you use version control you can just back them out. (Though I don't recomend making a habit of these ideas unless you can take the night hours off your normal day shift, otherwise you loose)
It has been suggested that Challenger wouldn't have failed if the booster rockets had been assembled at the tempature they were launched at. That is materials shrink when cold, and so by assembling at a colder tempature they would have compensated by tightening them more. Of course there is then a chance that the o-rings would fail if the tempature suddenly went up to normal after being assembled cold, perhaps in a different way.
I have no idea if this is true. I wouldn't want to test it with my money or any person.
Fortunatly for USB pendrives, they don't ahve to be ubiquitous. USB has to be, but microsoft won't let you call a machine windows compatable (designed for windows? I'm not sure what they call it) unless it has USB ports. Therefore every machine that isn't baddly obsolete has USB ports, and a pen drive will work with it.
Even if you personally are the only person in your country that uses a pen drive, you can be assured that your pendrive will work in nearly all computers you touch.
In this regaurd it doesn't matter if some non-usb technology is what everyone uses, you can use yours. Wal-mart sells adapters to work with four different types of memory devices, so there are plenty of "standards" out there trying for market share, but with USB you don't have to choose the evential winner, you are assured your device will work. (And if you don't choose usb your are taking the chance that the computer you encounter has the right adapter)
True the shuttle is a disaster. However ISS is not about science, it is about keeping some smart russian rocket scientits from developing ICBMs for the likes of Iraq. The former soviet union had some excellent rocket scientists who after the breakup find that they still need to feed their family. They may not like it, but if they can't find any other way to feed their family they will sell their services to terrerists. When they can feed their family, then they won't be temped by offers from evil doers.
Depends on how you look at it. If Nasa had known after launch what they know now, Columbia would still be up there (and the crew on reduced/no rations - healthy people can survive a few weeks without food, and they don't let unhealthy people in space), and Atlantis on a rushed schedual to get up there. All ground crew would work the longest shifts deemed safe (tired people make mistakes and work slower) to get it up safely. Sure there is some risk, but Nasa would much prefer to get those people back than not.
Risk is relative. Risk of losing a shuttle because minimal tests are done on a routine launch is worth it compared to letting a known bad shuttle fail. Unfortunatly nobody knew what would happen. Hindsite is 20/20, but not very useful when you need to make critical decisions. Indeed even if they belived there could be a problem odds are they would have considered the risks of launching atlantis with no testing higher than the risks of re-entry with some damage.
In many cases the cable company has a monopoly agreement with the city. They are the only cable TV company allowed in town, and in return they will provide cable to every house/building in town. (Including houses where the cost to run cable is more than the income from residents who subscribe) If that is the case, then the apartment is breaking the local law by providing cable TV.