I always assumed that stories about extended darkness or light were based on explorers returning from extreme latitudes where such events are normal. There is also the "telephone game" bullshit generation that is especially powerful when people don't understand the actual mechanics behind the sun's apparent movement. There is the tendency to extrapolate from normal variation in the length of the day, or eclipses, and reach impossible conclusions.
The Vatican's opposition to basic family planning and STD prevention is barbaric. Why watching your 15th offspring starving to death or dying from disease is more morally acceptable than using the pill or a condom is a mystery to me.
There are a lot of good people doing good work in the Catholic church but until they get their basic concepts right it will continue to be a "net negative" for the poor.
There are over 6.5m traffic accidents in the US every year, so assuming 300m people there is a 2.1% chance of being in an accident. Over 40k people die from this (0.001% chance), so you have less of a chance of dying in a car crash than contracting appendicitis but more of a chance of being in a car crash than contracting appendicitis.
I like to compare risk to auto statistics, and not just because I like car analogies.
You pretty much need to be sociopathic to become a governmental, corporate, or entertainment leader.
To "weigh anchor" is to bring it aboard a vessel in preparation for departure. The phrase anchor's aweigh is a report that the anchor is clear of the sea bottom and that, therefore, the ship is officially underway.
It's more helpful to make an argument or post some links. Simply saying "citation needed" isn't helpful and makes you look like you are wikipediretarded.
I happen to agree with you but your lack of argument isn't helpful. It is annoying. Stop doing it, please.
People stood in line to buy copies of windows 95. Maybe windows 2000 too, I don't remember for sure. People stood in line to buy new OSs before that, but mainly when the OS was hardware. There were lines like crazy for Amiga, C64, Macintosh, things like that.
Go ahead and enjoy my "lawn." I haven't watered it in many years and I hope the dry hard dirt makes your feet hurt.
Smokers cost less than nonsmokers because they don't live as long. Most healthcare is spent on the last 6 months of life regardless of when that is. Smokers just have that happen sooner and don't live through those ruinously expensive 70s and 80s that nonsmokers can reach.
Nonsmokers should pay a tax to pay for their more expensive health care if you want things to be fair.
Exodus 21:35 And if one man's ox hurt another's, that he die; then they shall sell the live ox, and divide the money of it; and the dead [ox] also they shall divide.
I am glad to see signs that small modern diesels will become more mainstream in the US. They are much more reliable, efficient, and well proven than any other motive source. We are sadly behind our European and South American counterparts.
I joke about replacing my 1981 diesel pickup as soon as I can find one with the same mileage. I can get 40 mpg on highways with no load.
One vehicle will never fill all my needs. I share a small car with my gf and I have an ancient pickup for moving bulky items. When I am driving hundreds of miles or going camping with friends I sometimes rent a vehicle.
Partly I don't want to wear out the car I own, and partly it is nice to pick out the perfect vehicle. If I am going on a thousand mile trip with 5 friends and a lot of gear it will be different than a 200 mile daytrip with just the gf.
My commuting car, although 100% ICE, already sucks for long trips. It gets super good gas mileage but it is so light that it is kind of scary to go 75MPH in windy areas or with any kind of precipitation. When it wears out I want a similar replacement - something fuel efficient that I will use for in-town commuting. That is about 90% of my yearly mileage.
If vitamin C made much of a difference it would have showed up in one of the hundreds of studies done over the last 40+ years. It hasn't.
If you think recommending treatments despite plentiful evidence that they do nothing is good medicine you are going to be a shitty doctor. Lack of serious harmful effects is the best thing you can say about Vitamin C therapy? That is pathetic.
People calling kickbacks a myth piss me off. People believe in this "myth" because it has happened sooften
There is no oversight. I was mortified by how many doctors insist on a particular lab performing a test. There aren't any innocent reasons why they would insist on a particular lab.
The reason is often financial interest. If you don't believe that it happens all the time you are a fool, or you are in on it.
My friends that work at IBM say they have cut to the bone many years ago and are hacking off limbs at this point.
I've seen the gentleman's layoffs you speak of but this is clearly not going on at IBM now. When the people left behind are so overburdened and demoralized as to be ineffective workers with ruined personal lives you aren't astutely pruning the company anymore.
They run a credit check when you buy a subsidized phone. You have to provide a SSID and driver's license and everything. I guess you could get away with it a few times but it would trash your credit and you would owe them money.
If you want to run a scam and don't care about ruining your credit you're better off getting a stack of credit cards and buying gold with them.
I stopped running my own mailserver 10 years ago when my ADSL connection was pegged 24/7 by spam. Tens of thousands of messages a day, mostly for nonexistent addresses. I only had 3 domains. These weren't all small messages, either. It is certain that google could shut down multiple data centers if spam suddenly stopped.
The US spent 2.4 trillion on healthcare in 2008. with 304m population that is nearly 8k per year for every man, woman and child. Compare that to the paltry 16 million new vehicles sold in 2007. They would have to average $150k each to add up to the same amount as healthcare spending.
Even if you subtract out the 30% wasted on private insurance overhead the average person spends quite a bit more for healthcare than cars. In fact, the average US citizen spends more on healthcare than anything else except housing.
Anecdotal evidence about your relatives are meaningless. I broke my foot last year and it cost $100k.
You want perspective? The US spends 17% of GDP on healthcare. Please don't talk about how cheap health care is.
I remember when video stores were new. Most midsize towns had a video store and big cities had several. I think we're headed back in that direction. Download/streamed video will dominate, groceries and gas stations will have vending machines, but for a last minute non-top 40 movie there will always be room for a video store or two locally.
It was strange to see hundreds of mediocre video stores dominate every city. I'm glad to see them go.
Slashdot Mirror
I always assumed that stories about extended darkness or light were based on explorers returning from extreme latitudes where such events are normal. There is also the "telephone game" bullshit generation that is especially powerful when people don't understand the actual mechanics behind the sun's apparent movement. There is the tendency to extrapolate from normal variation in the length of the day, or eclipses, and reach impossible conclusions.
The Vatican's opposition to basic family planning and STD prevention is barbaric. Why watching your 15th offspring starving to death or dying from disease is more morally acceptable than using the pill or a condom is a mystery to me.
There are a lot of good people doing good work in the Catholic church but until they get their basic concepts right it will continue to be a "net negative" for the poor.
There are over 6.5m traffic accidents in the US every year, so assuming 300m people there is a 2.1% chance of being in an accident. Over 40k people die from this (0.001% chance), so you have less of a chance of dying in a car crash than contracting appendicitis but more of a chance of being in a car crash than contracting appendicitis.
I like to compare risk to auto statistics, and not just because I like car analogies.
You pretty much need to be sociopathic to become a governmental, corporate, or entertainment leader.
To "weigh anchor" is to bring it aboard a vessel in preparation for departure. The phrase anchor's aweigh is a report that the anchor is clear of the sea bottom and that, therefore, the ship is officially underway.
I tell everyone I meet who is interested in barefoot young women and chickens to consider moving to rural Kentucky.
It's more helpful to make an argument or post some links. Simply saying "citation needed" isn't helpful and makes you look like you are wikipediretarded.
I happen to agree with you but your lack of argument isn't helpful. It is annoying. Stop doing it, please.
People stood in line to buy copies of windows 95. Maybe windows 2000 too, I don't remember for sure. People stood in line to buy new OSs before that, but mainly when the OS was hardware. There were lines like crazy for Amiga, C64, Macintosh, things like that.
Go ahead and enjoy my "lawn." I haven't watered it in many years and I hope the dry hard dirt makes your feet hurt.
Smokers cost less than nonsmokers because they don't live as long. Most healthcare is spent on the last 6 months of life regardless of when that is. Smokers just have that happen sooner and don't live through those ruinously expensive 70s and 80s that nonsmokers can reach.
Nonsmokers should pay a tax to pay for their more expensive health care if you want things to be fair.
Exodus 21:35 And if one man's ox hurt another's, that he die; then they shall sell the live ox, and divide the money of it; and the dead [ox] also they shall divide.
Tomorrow's episode is already in the can.
ADP does.
I am glad to see signs that small modern diesels will become more mainstream in the US. They are much more reliable, efficient, and well proven than any other motive source. We are sadly behind our European and South American counterparts.
I joke about replacing my 1981 diesel pickup as soon as I can find one with the same mileage. I can get 40 mpg on highways with no load.
One vehicle will never fill all my needs. I share a small car with my gf and I have an ancient pickup for moving bulky items. When I am driving hundreds of miles or going camping with friends I sometimes rent a vehicle.
Partly I don't want to wear out the car I own, and partly it is nice to pick out the perfect vehicle. If I am going on a thousand mile trip with 5 friends and a lot of gear it will be different than a 200 mile daytrip with just the gf.
My commuting car, although 100% ICE, already sucks for long trips. It gets super good gas mileage but it is so light that it is kind of scary to go 75MPH in windy areas or with any kind of precipitation. When it wears out I want a similar replacement - something fuel efficient that I will use for in-town commuting. That is about 90% of my yearly mileage.
That is some seriously talented writing. Reminded me of Kurt Vonnegut.
The Hippocratic Oath?
So what you're saying is that the Vatican wrote the Bible! The secret is out!
Actually, the Vatican didn't write the Bible. They did have editorial control however, which is much the same thing.
If vitamin C made much of a difference it would have showed up in one of the hundreds of studies done over the last 40+ years. It hasn't.
If you think recommending treatments despite plentiful evidence that they do nothing is good medicine you are going to be a shitty doctor. Lack of serious harmful effects is the best thing you can say about Vitamin C therapy? That is pathetic.
People calling kickbacks a myth piss me off. People believe in this "myth" because it has happened so often
There is no oversight. I was mortified by how many doctors insist on a particular lab performing a test. There aren't any innocent reasons why they would insist on a particular lab.
The reason is often financial interest. If you don't believe that it happens all the time you are a fool, or you are in on it.
My friends that work at IBM say they have cut to the bone many years ago and are hacking off limbs at this point.
I've seen the gentleman's layoffs you speak of but this is clearly not going on at IBM now. When the people left behind are so overburdened and demoralized as to be ineffective workers with ruined personal lives you aren't astutely pruning the company anymore.
I happen to agree with you about HP-UX, but referring to it as HP-SUX is over the line. I figured you were trolling.
I laughed and agreed but I can see the mods point of view.
They run a credit check when you buy a subsidized phone. You have to provide a SSID and driver's license and everything. I guess you could get away with it a few times but it would trash your credit and you would owe them money.
If you want to run a scam and don't care about ruining your credit you're better off getting a stack of credit cards and buying gold with them.
I stopped running my own mailserver 10 years ago when my ADSL connection was pegged 24/7 by spam. Tens of thousands of messages a day, mostly for nonexistent addresses. I only had 3 domains. These weren't all small messages, either. It is certain that google could shut down multiple data centers if spam suddenly stopped.
You couldn't be more wrong.
The US spent 2.4 trillion on healthcare in 2008. with 304m population that is nearly 8k per year for every man, woman and child. Compare that to the paltry 16 million new vehicles sold in 2007. They would have to average $150k each to add up to the same amount as healthcare spending.
Even if you subtract out the 30% wasted on private insurance overhead the average person spends quite a bit more for healthcare than cars. In fact, the average US citizen spends more on healthcare than anything else except housing.
Anecdotal evidence about your relatives are meaningless. I broke my foot last year and it cost $100k.
You want perspective? The US spends 17% of GDP on healthcare. Please don't talk about how cheap health care is.
I remember when video stores were new. Most midsize towns had a video store and big cities had several. I think we're headed back in that direction. Download/streamed video will dominate, groceries and gas stations will have vending machines, but for a last minute non-top 40 movie there will always be room for a video store or two locally.
It was strange to see hundreds of mediocre video stores dominate every city. I'm glad to see them go.
As horrific as that seems, I suspect slow poisoning is preferable to starvation. Remember that people still starve to death in staggering numbers.