Climbers die while descending Mount Everest because even though hundreds of people capable of rescuing them pass, all of those people have paid upwards of $25,000 to have a chance to summit the peak, and none of those assholes are willing to risk their precious experience to save someone's life.
Well, Anonymous Coward, that's not entirely true. While I'm not a climber, I've read numerous books on climbing Everest, as well as watched several documentaries and talked to some climbers about it. As I understand it, once you're in the death zone, *every step* is an ordeal. You literally think about it, lift your foot, move it, and put it down, then think about the next one. Apparently it's like trying to walk with a 200 pound backpack on. In many cases, if you're climbing Everest and you come upon someone in need of assistance, even if you want to, there's nothing you can do. You can't carry someone in the death zone, there's no sled to put them on, no ski patrol with a helicopter. Basically, all you can do is give them your oxygen bottle, make them comfortable, and then get back to trudging. Tragic, but true.
"A resistive zone developed in one of the electrical connections, creating an electrical arc that punctured one of the helium enclosures around a magnet, according to an analysis by CERN. The warming helium expanded in the vacuum enclosure of the central subsector of the pipe, damaging the vacuum barriers separating the central subsector from the neighboring subsectors."
This is a huge problem here in Vancouver, Canada. One solution that has been bandied around is requiring the scrap dealers to not pay cash - i.e. if you have copper to sell you get a receipt from the scrap dealer, provide your name & address and in 30 days the dealer mails you a cheque. As most junkies don't have addresses, nor are they prepared to wait 30 days, they'll stop selling copper. The legitimate sellers don't mind waiting 30 days.
While these are impressive and nifty machines, what exactly constitutes a "robot" anyway? When I was a kid I built a machine out of Meccano that was able to climb up some stairs. Had I built a robot?
At car plants there are machines that pick up windshields with suction cups and then put them in the front of cars. Are these robots? To my mind, the 'self-driving cars' you see in events like the DARPA Grand Challenge are robots, but a mechanical gadget, while cool and clever bits of engineering are NOT robots. Am I wrong?
Also, my hands move faster than I can think sometimes. When words like "there/their/they're" come along, my brain just says "there". Especially in a hurry or under stress, my brain doesn't say "WHOA there buddy. That sound can be spelled more than one way depending on the context".
This is where the amazing skill taught in school called "proofreading" kicks in. Before you click "Submit" you pause, re-read what you've written, think about it for a moment, and correct any mistakes. Conveniently, Slashdot even provides a "Preview" button to make this "proofreading" even easier:)
On top of that, the Enterprise is actually traveling at a small fraction of c.
I know this is the generally-agreed upon understanding of how "warp drive" works in the Star Trek world, but often the story lines don't bear this out. One example (of many) is Wrath of Khan, where Spock fixes the warp drive to make the Enterprise "go faster" to escape the Genesis effect. The visuals are very much one of the ship dramatically speeding up and 'screaming' out of the way once the warp drive is fired up.
According to the teaser, the "re-imagined" NCC-1701 was built on terra firma - So presumably it would make at least one atmospheric journey up into space.
Current estimates put U.S. health care spending at approximately 15.2% of GDP, second only to the tiny Marshall Islands among all United Nations member nations. The health share of GDP is expected to continue its historical upward trend, reaching 19.5 percent of GDP by 2017. In 2007 the U.S. spent $2.26 trillion on health care, or $7,439 per person.
There are numerous cites in the Wikipedia article that you can read.
I would argue that spending over $7000 per person per year in health care, yet having vast numbers of your citizenry uninsured is a powerful example of a health care system that is both expensive and inefficient.
Why would you get rid of the smallest model and the most efficient OS?
Presumably because it wasn't profitable. I know everyone on/. would like to claim a big M$ conspiracy, but I suspect in the end it came down to weak sales and/or poor profits. I never saw any of the EEEEEEs at local big-box electronics stores next to the other notebooks etc...
Did you stop to consider that old appliances often consume more power than newer ones?
A new 42" flatscreen LCD is $1100 Canadian. My monthly power bill is around $50 per month. My old TV would have to be swallowing a LOT of juice to see a payback on replacing it, and even then it would take years. I'll replace the TV once it breaks. Until then, I watch Battlestar Galactica on it just fine.
I live in a neighbourhood which is rapidly gentrifying - So you have a mix of 'poor' people, middle class and upper-middle class. It's interesting to look at the houses when I walk my dog in the evening - The houses which would be branded as 'poor' - Junk in the yard, unmowed lawn, shabby house, almost always have a 50" flatscreen glowing away in the front room, showing hockey in high-def. Then I go home to my ten year old 28" CRT television with analog cable.
According to Gartner, 70% of computer theft is internal, which means the encryption password may be known. It's further complicated by the fact that many users have the encryption password stuck on their machine on a post-it, or have their RSA SecurID token key in their (unlocked) desk drawer or in their computer bag.
You need to look at security as a three-legged stool. If any leg is missing, the stool falls down:
1) Physical security: Locks, security cables, security cages etc.
2) Encryption - Provides data protection
3) Theft recovery and secure data delete - Via a product like Computrace
KHAN: Admiral? Admiral?! Admiral Kirk! He never told you how Admiral Kirk sent seventy of us into exile on this barren sand heap with only the contents of these cargo bays to sustain us!?
CHEKOV: You lie! On Ceti Alpha Five there was life, a fair chance!
KHAN: *THIS* is Ceti Alpha Five! Ceti Alpha Six exploded six months after we were left here! The shock shifted the orbit of this planet and everything was laid waste. Admiral Kirk never bothered to check on our progress. It was only the fact of my genetically engineered intellect that enabled us to survive!
In my world, the real world, DRM is largely a necessary evil. People deserve to get paid for their work.
How dare you post such blasphemy on Slashdot. The next thing you'll be saying is Bill Gates isn't such a bad guy cause he gives away billions to poor people.
In some jurisdictions, crime is not 'tax free', it's just the taxman is Tony Soprano. The 'organized' piece of 'organized crime' is all the money that moves up the pyramid to the crime boss(es). So in many locales, if you steal a truck full of cigarettes there's an assumption a crime boss will get his cut, even if he had nothing to do with the crime, per se.
What kind of reason is that? That doesn't make any sense at all
Because if he didn't post anon he'd be immediately reported as a spammer and burned at the stake for daring to post a link for a vendor with which he has a connection.
I work in the computer security arena and I've been burned on/. for the same reason, so now I too only post anon when I'm referring vendors, lest I'm immediately branded a spammer.
There are literally tens-of-millions (if not hundreds of millions) more cameras in the hands of the residents of the planet earth than there were even 15 years ago. Cameras in phones, cameras in purses, cameras in trunks of cars, cameras in PDAs, the list goes on. Most of the cameras also shoot video.
As a consequence we have many more pictures of police misconduct and celebrity's privates than we ever have in the past, but we have no noticeable increases in the numbers of good UFO pictures (or good sasquatch pics for that matter).
If the number of UFOs are constant, and there are many more cameras, why aren't we seeing many more pictures flooding the intertubes?
I say move it to 7 p.m. Moving to 6 in the morning would be very unpopular, but 7 in the evening isn't too far of a move and it would still spread the peak
The problem is that people wouldn't turn their TVs off at 8pm after the show was over, they'd just turn them on earlier, and then watch something else at 8 like "Everybody Loves Raymond" re-runs. It's not like they're going to turn off their TVs and read a book, go for a walk or go play scrabble.
Windows NT 4 was much more stable than NT 3.x. Every version of Windows after ME was better than Windows ME. Windows 3.11 was better than Windows 3.0 and Windows 3.0 was a huge improvement over Windows 2.0...
I have a co-worker who has an aunt that is an American citizen, she has lived here for well over 10 years and she has never learned English
I'm Canadian, and I live in Canada, so forgive my confusion over this.
What is the mechanism to get citizenship in the USA? As an immigrant, in Canada to become a citizen you have to take a test, in either English or French. You don't have to be perfect, but you need to be able to understand the questions and answer them, in either 'official' language. Here's a sample question:
What is the role of the Opposition parties?
a. To assist the Prime Minister.
b. To sign bills.
c. To oppose or try to improve government proposals.
d. To put forward bills to be passed.
Is there not a similar requirement in the USA? How can you become a citizen without speaking English?
Fire the person who cannot work when "the blue e has moved" and fill the position with someone who can.
Many, many, companies (mine included) have hardworking, productive employees who aren't necessarily very computer literate. "Mary in accounting" might be a bookkeeper with 20 years of experience with a company's processes and workflows, may manage the relationships with vendors (and by extension impact cash flow) etc. etc. etc. - Losing her may indeed cost the company money, and saying 'fire an employee because they have trouble when you move the blue e' shows a deeply flawed understanding of the value of human 'capital' at a company.
Slashdot Mirror
Climbers die while descending Mount Everest because even though hundreds of people capable of rescuing them pass, all of those people have paid upwards of $25,000 to have a chance to summit the peak, and none of those assholes are willing to risk their precious experience to save someone's life.
Well, Anonymous Coward, that's not entirely true. While I'm not a climber, I've read numerous books on climbing Everest, as well as watched several documentaries and talked to some climbers about it. As I understand it, once you're in the death zone, *every step* is an ordeal. You literally think about it, lift your foot, move it, and put it down, then think about the next one. Apparently it's like trying to walk with a 200 pound backpack on. In many cases, if you're climbing Everest and you come upon someone in need of assistance, even if you want to, there's nothing you can do. You can't carry someone in the death zone, there's no sled to put them on, no ski patrol with a helicopter. Basically, all you can do is give them your oxygen bottle, make them comfortable, and then get back to trudging. Tragic, but true.
I preferred the description of the damage that was released a couple of days ago on CNET-
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-10120215-76.html
"A resistive zone developed in one of the electrical connections, creating an electrical arc that punctured one of the helium enclosures around a magnet, according to an analysis by CERN. The warming helium expanded in the vacuum enclosure of the central subsector of the pipe, damaging the vacuum barriers separating the central subsector from the neighboring subsectors."
Geordi La Forge couldn't have said it better.
This is a huge problem here in Vancouver, Canada. One solution that has been bandied around is requiring the scrap dealers to not pay cash - i.e. if you have copper to sell you get a receipt from the scrap dealer, provide your name & address and in 30 days the dealer mails you a cheque. As most junkies don't have addresses, nor are they prepared to wait 30 days, they'll stop selling copper. The legitimate sellers don't mind waiting 30 days.
While these are impressive and nifty machines, what exactly constitutes a "robot" anyway? When I was a kid I built a machine out of Meccano that was able to climb up some stairs. Had I built a robot?
At car plants there are machines that pick up windshields with suction cups and then put them in the front of cars. Are these robots?
To my mind, the 'self-driving cars' you see in events like the DARPA Grand Challenge are robots, but a mechanical gadget, while cool and clever bits of engineering are NOT robots. Am I wrong?
Also, my hands move faster than I can think sometimes. When words like "there/their/they're" come along, my brain just says "there". Especially in a hurry or under stress, my brain doesn't say "WHOA there buddy. That sound can be spelled more than one way depending on the context".
This is where the amazing skill taught in school called "proofreading" kicks in. Before you click "Submit" you pause, re-read what you've written, think about it for a moment, and correct any mistakes. Conveniently, Slashdot even provides a "Preview" button to make this "proofreading" even easier :)
Am I going to be the only one who asks the obvious? Why should he be allowed to record the movie?
Infidel. How DARE you ask such a blasphemous question on Slashdot.
The answer is obvious: "Movies want to be free."
On top of that, the Enterprise is actually traveling at a small fraction of c.
I know this is the generally-agreed upon understanding of how "warp drive" works in the Star Trek world, but often the story lines don't bear this out. One example (of many) is Wrath of Khan, where Spock fixes the warp drive to make the Enterprise "go faster" to escape the Genesis effect. The visuals are very much one of the ship dramatically speeding up and 'screaming' out of the way once the warp drive is fired up.
It is not like those curves are for aerodynamics!
According to the teaser, the "re-imagined" NCC-1701 was built on terra firma - So presumably it would make at least one atmospheric journey up into space.
The ~1970 Andromeda Strain is probably about the only one where they came close (including Jurassic Park).
The "Great Train Robbery" (1979 - also directed by Crichton) was an enjoyable film. Here's the trailer:
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=h_QathS_8Ok
For some reason the U.S. has the most expensive and the least efficient health care system of all developed nations.
Citation required.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_the_United_States
Current estimates put U.S. health care spending at approximately 15.2% of GDP, second only to the tiny Marshall Islands among all United Nations member nations. The health share of GDP is expected to continue its historical upward trend, reaching 19.5 percent of GDP by 2017. In 2007 the U.S. spent $2.26 trillion on health care, or $7,439 per person.
There are numerous cites in the Wikipedia article that you can read.
I would argue that spending over $7000 per person per year in health care, yet having vast numbers of your citizenry uninsured is a powerful example of a health care system that is both expensive and inefficient.
Why would you get rid of the smallest model and the most efficient OS?
Presumably because it wasn't profitable. I know everyone on /. would like to claim a big M$ conspiracy, but I suspect in the end it came down to weak sales and/or poor profits. I never saw any of the EEEEEEs at local big-box electronics stores next to the other notebooks etc...
Did you stop to consider that old appliances often consume more power than newer ones?
A new 42" flatscreen LCD is $1100 Canadian. My monthly power bill is around $50 per month. My old TV would have to be swallowing a LOT of juice to see a payback on replacing it, and even then it would take years. I'll replace the TV once it breaks. Until then, I watch Battlestar Galactica on it just fine.
I live in a neighbourhood which is rapidly gentrifying - So you have a mix of 'poor' people, middle class and upper-middle class. It's interesting to look at the houses when I walk my dog in the evening - The houses which would be branded as 'poor' - Junk in the yard, unmowed lawn, shabby house, almost always have a 50" flatscreen glowing away in the front room, showing hockey in high-def. Then I go home to my ten year old 28" CRT television with analog cable.
You need to look at security as a three-legged stool. If any leg is missing, the stool falls down:
1) Physical security: Locks, security cables, security cages etc.
2) Encryption - Provides data protection
3) Theft recovery and secure data delete - Via a product like Computrace
With these three legs you'll be covered.
KHAN: Admiral? Admiral?! Admiral Kirk! He never told you how Admiral Kirk sent seventy of us into exile on this barren sand heap with only the contents of these cargo bays to sustain us!?
CHEKOV: You lie! On Ceti Alpha Five there was life, a fair chance!
KHAN: *THIS* is Ceti Alpha Five! Ceti Alpha Six exploded six months after we were left here! The shock shifted the orbit of this planet and everything was laid waste. Admiral Kirk never bothered to check on our progress. It was only the fact of my genetically engineered intellect that enabled us to survive!
In my world, the real world, DRM is largely a necessary evil. People deserve to get paid for their work.
How dare you post such blasphemy on Slashdot. The next thing you'll be saying is Bill Gates isn't such a bad guy cause he gives away billions to poor people.
That 83,000 is tax free
In some jurisdictions, crime is not 'tax free', it's just the taxman is Tony Soprano. The 'organized' piece of 'organized crime' is all the money that moves up the pyramid to the crime boss(es). So in many locales, if you steal a truck full of cigarettes there's an assumption a crime boss will get his cut, even if he had nothing to do with the crime, per se.
What kind of reason is that? That doesn't make any sense at all
Because if he didn't post anon he'd be immediately reported as a spammer and burned at the stake for daring to post a link for a vendor with which he has a connection.
I work in the computer security arena and I've been burned on /. for the same reason, so now I too only post anon when I'm referring vendors, lest I'm immediately branded a spammer.
There are literally tens-of-millions (if not hundreds of millions) more cameras in the hands of the residents of the planet earth than there were even 15 years ago. Cameras in phones, cameras in purses, cameras in trunks of cars, cameras in PDAs, the list goes on. Most of the cameras also shoot video.
As a consequence we have many more pictures of police misconduct and celebrity's privates than we ever have in the past, but we have no noticeable increases in the numbers of good UFO pictures (or good sasquatch pics for that matter).
If the number of UFOs are constant, and there are many more cameras, why aren't we seeing many more pictures flooding the intertubes?
I say move it to 7 p.m. Moving to 6 in the morning would be very unpopular, but 7 in the evening isn't too far of a move and it would still spread the peak
The problem is that people wouldn't turn their TVs off at 8pm after the show was over, they'd just turn them on earlier, and then watch something else at 8 like "Everybody Loves Raymond" re-runs. It's not like they're going to turn off their TVs and read a book, go for a walk or go play scrabble.
EVERY version of Windows has more bugs...
Windows NT 4 was much more stable than NT 3.x. Every version of Windows after ME was better than Windows ME. Windows 3.11 was better than Windows 3.0 and Windows 3.0 was a huge improvement over Windows 2.0...
I could go on...
I have a co-worker who has an aunt that is an American citizen, she has lived here for well over 10 years and she has never learned English
I'm Canadian, and I live in Canada, so forgive my confusion over this.
What is the mechanism to get citizenship in the USA? As an immigrant, in Canada to become a citizen you have to take a test, in either English or French. You don't have to be perfect, but you need to be able to understand the questions and answer them, in either 'official' language. Here's a sample question:
What is the role of the Opposition parties?
a. To assist the Prime Minister.
b. To sign bills.
c. To oppose or try to improve government proposals.
d. To put forward bills to be passed.
Is there not a similar requirement in the USA? How can you become a citizen without speaking English?
I don't understand why the game companies don't put their game on a USB flash drive with some built in hardware encryption
You mean kind of like these? :)
http://www.retrogalaxy.com/imgs/2005/atari-games-stacked.jpg
Like when moving from XP to Vista, and IE6 to IE7, you mean?
XP to Vista absolutely, although it's not terribly hard to theme Vista to look like XP, which is what many shops do.
IE6 to IE7? Nope. There's barely a noticeable change in the user interface or user experience.
Fire the person who cannot work when "the blue e has moved" and fill the position with someone who can.
Many, many, companies (mine included) have hardworking, productive employees who aren't necessarily very computer literate. "Mary in accounting" might be a bookkeeper with 20 years of experience with a company's processes and workflows, may manage the relationships with vendors (and by extension impact cash flow) etc. etc. etc. - Losing her may indeed cost the company money, and saying 'fire an employee because they have trouble when you move the blue e' shows a deeply flawed understanding of the value of human 'capital' at a company.