In my 1893-built house the wiring is pretty archaic. All of the light switches that haven't been replaced are mechanical pushbutton switches. One for on, one for off. Pressing one raises the other.
Telepathy is going to have to improve a whole lot before it is good for anything. I think most cases are attributable to the human tendency to remember when things align and forget when things don't.
For every person who felt a chill at the moment their loved one died there are millions who lost a loved one and felt nothing. And for every person who felt a chill and lost a loved one there are millions who felt a chill and lost nobody.
There aren't any studies showing any telepathic effect whatsoever, so it doesn't seem like a very powerful or reliable power.
I think atheists in the US come across as anti-Christian because we live in a predominantly Christian culture. When Muslims dominate the scene you can be certain that atheists will come across as anti-Muslim. It's natural to rail against the immediate threats.
I've seen numerous atheists compare muslim extremists to christian fundamentalists, and heard many variations on the theme of "Religious people were behind 9/11. I should trust religious people again because why?" I think you're wrong that atheists give Islam a pass. It just isn't a very pressing and immediate issue for the US.
IPv6 will be no better if we make the same mistakes, we'll use up all the IP addresses just as fast.
No we won't.
Since IPv6 addresses are 128 bits long, the theoretical address space if all addresses were used is 2^128 addresses. This number, when expanded out, is 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456, which is normally expressed in scientific notation as about 3.4*10^38 addresses. That's about 340 trillion, trillion, trillion addresses. As I said, it's pretty hard to grasp just how large this number is. Consider:
* It's enough addresses for many trillions of addresses to be assigned to every human being on the planet.
* The earth is about 4.5 billion years old. If we had been assigning IPv6 addresses at a rate of 1 billion per second since the earth was formed, we would have by now used up less than one trillionth of the address space.
* The earth's surface area is about 510 trillion square meters. If a typical computer has a footprint of about a tenth of a square meter, we would have to stack computers 10 billion high blanketing the entire surface of the earth to use up that same trillionth of the address space.
Okay, I think you get the idea. It's clear that one goal of the decision to go to 128-bit addresses is to make sure that we will never run out of address space again, and it seems quite likely that this will be the case.
Yeah, there is nothing wrong with being proud of our prison population or our military spending. It irritates me when people are proud of our healthcare, ISPs, mobile phone service, etc. Pick the ones where we really truly are #1 dammit!
You could have a billion watt PSU and it won't work if it can't put out enough on whatever rail is your choke point.
When I buy a power supply I eyeball how much I need on which rails and find one that exceeds all of those specs by a comfortable margin. There are a lot of high wattage units that don't have the right distribution while a lower wattage unit does.
I pay about 50% tax on my phone bill if you add up all the stupid charges. Telecom companies are among the biggest corporate welfare recipients.
You picked the wrong industry to use as an example of unfettered capitalism.
I wish we had better internet in the US. I am envious of my Korean and French friends who have very fast connections. I don't even care much about the price, although it adds insult to injury. I don't think things will get better if you keep your head in the sand chanting USA#1. It makes you look like an idiot when we're nowhere near #1.
You're looking at it wrong. It was never intended to be a business model. The record companies never thought they'd subsist on settlement money.
The suefest was simple marketing. They wanted to discourage copyright infringement and thought fear of legal trouble would be effective. To some extent it worked. I know many people who refuse to download mp3s because they don't want to risk a lawsuit.
Financial analysis of an industry and the possible outcomes is what they do all the time. I'd trust them to get it right about the overall trends for the industry. The fact that this is getting publicity outside the tech sector is encouraging. If investors start dumping media stocks en masse you can bet their strategy will change instantly.
I have a mostly negative opinion of law enforcement, but I thought I'd tell you a positive couple of encounters I had a few weeks ago.
I was driving a new (to me) car through the Rockies and didn't know the taillights were both burned out. This is pretty dangerous on curvy mountain roads at night. Anyway, I got pulled over twice by cops who told me that my lights were burned out and I was speeding (stop #1) or ran a stop sign (stop #2) I smelled like alcohol, but was under the legal limit I think.
I was blown away by the fact that both stops could have gone badly but neither did. The officers were polite, friendly, and honestly trying to keep a preventable accident from happening. It was a nice change for me.
The inflationary rate doesn't include health care, housing, or energy. All of these have been increasing at double digit rates for many years, and constitute the lion's share of most people's spending.
The inflationary rate is meaningless when actual cost of living has increased by such a large multiple.
That's a good policy. I think it's important to pay enough that the CEO doesn't get discouraged or tempted to do petty embezzlement and it is crucial to have long long term incentives. This focus on quarterly results is killing many companies.
This is a recipe for disaster unless something is done about executive turnover.
What's to stop someone from coming in, slashing headcount to pump up the stock price, collecting their booty and then off to fuck the next company?
I've seen way too many short-term executives come in and ruin things, make obscene profits, then high-tail it leaving a smoldering wreck of a company. All the good people are gone, morale is in the toilet, customers are leaving in droves, and it'll take years of brutal effort to salvage things. All to make one person rich.
If you ever want to check the weather, you should try the source
There are no ads. You already paid for this with your tax dollars, so nobody else needs to make a quick dirty buck off it. As a nice bonus, you can piss off people like Rick Santorum, who attempted to pass legislation banning the National Weather Service from providing weather information in order to benefit the crapware flash-ad bastards who ran a fraudulent weather website in his senate district.
Why does everything on the web have to be a money-geyser commercial nightmare? Why can't people leave the excellent, functional, downright usable sites alone? I like NOAAs site. I like craigslist. I'm tired of people trying to crap it up and make it worse to make a buck.
I can't tell if you're being willfully ignorant. We can use lighting that is more energy efficient, safer, provides superior illumination at a negative cost, and you think we should continue to pollute the sky in order to build character?
Don't be so dismissive of this issue. It is serious, it is easily fixed, and the fix will provide other benefits to everyone.
There is almost no place in the CONUS without significant light pollution. Even the remote reaches of rural areas are polluted by light from hundreds of miles away.
This light pollution makes both professional and amateur ground-based astronomy less rewarding. If stargazing becomes something only possible from space we will no longer recruit passionate astronomers who fall in love with amateur gear in their backyard.
The fix is easy and saves money. Don't light things that don't need to be lit and use more sensible designs for lighting.
Just because it doesn't matter to you doesn't mean it doesn't matter. I know astronomers who have very strong feelings about it and have watched in horror as the skies get brighter and brighter every year. Numerous observatories have been forced to close because of light pollution.
Perhaps he is claiming a moral high ground. Perhaps he inhabits the moral high ground.
OK, but I was replying to a post where he said
I claim no moral high ground
Speaking as a content producer I believe in copyright. I think current copyright law has become extreme.
After 50 years of content producers calling all the shots it is refreshing to see pirates get the upper hand. Now media companies must innovate and experiment in order to compete with cheap, rampant piracy. They may even be forced to accept more reasonable copyright terms in exchange for some type of increased enforcement. Whatever happens will be better for consumers, the arts, and quite possibly most artists than what the media companies would do on their own without piracy pressure.
The ethical stance in this case is not a clear one. Should I side with the pirates and help force change or should I obey the increasingly unjust law? I think those who judge others on this issue are being narrow minded and ignoring the larger issue.
Copyright holders need to remember that it is an artificial monopoly given them by society in order to advance the arts. If the bargain becomes too one-sided there will be resistance to it, and in this age of easy perfect piracy there is a powerful weapon to fight back. I think that the age of media distributors being able to control everything and dictate their terms are coming to an end. I hope a more equitable middle ground will emerge where truly limited copyrights with generous fair use exemptions will be firmly enforced.
Slashdot Mirror
Get in line. The Micky-Mouse wiring violates trademark, copyright, and patent laws.
Not to mention building codes, UL guidelines, fire codes, common sense, etc.
In my 1893-built house the wiring is pretty archaic. All of the light switches that haven't been replaced are mechanical pushbutton switches. One for on, one for off. Pressing one raises the other.
Telepathy is going to have to improve a whole lot before it is good for anything. I think most cases are attributable to the human tendency to remember when things align and forget when things don't.
For every person who felt a chill at the moment their loved one died there are millions who lost a loved one and felt nothing. And for every person who felt a chill and lost a loved one there are millions who felt a chill and lost nobody.
There aren't any studies showing any telepathic effect whatsoever, so it doesn't seem like a very powerful or reliable power.
On the off chance you're serious, there is an expression used when someone gets a "chill" that "Someone just walked over my grave."
It isn't meant to be literal. It's just a spooky feeling attributed to someone walking over the place where you will be one day buried.
I think atheists in the US come across as anti-Christian because we live in a predominantly Christian culture. When Muslims dominate the scene you can be certain that atheists will come across as anti-Muslim. It's natural to rail against the immediate threats.
I've seen numerous atheists compare muslim extremists to christian fundamentalists, and heard many variations on the theme of "Religious people were behind 9/11. I should trust religious people again because why?" I think you're wrong that atheists give Islam a pass. It just isn't a very pressing and immediate issue for the US.
Since IPv6 addresses are 128 bits long, the theoretical address space if all addresses were used is 2^128 addresses. This number, when expanded out, is 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456, which is normally expressed in scientific notation as about 3.4*10^38 addresses. That's about 340 trillion, trillion, trillion addresses. As I said, it's pretty hard to grasp just how large this number is. Consider:
* It's enough addresses for many trillions of addresses to be assigned to every human being on the planet.
* The earth is about 4.5 billion years old. If we had been assigning IPv6 addresses at a rate of 1 billion per second since the earth was formed, we would have by now used up less than one trillionth of the address space.
* The earth's surface area is about 510 trillion square meters. If a typical computer has a footprint of about a tenth of a square meter, we would have to stack computers 10 billion high blanketing the entire surface of the earth to use up that same trillionth of the address space.
Okay, I think you get the idea. It's clear that one goal of the decision to go to 128-bit addresses is to make sure that we will never run out of address space again, and it seems quite likely that this will be the case.
Agreed. I have seen a lot of people buy based on the wattage rating alone without considering what the choke point is. That only works sometimes.
Yeah, there is nothing wrong with being proud of our prison population or our military spending. It irritates me when people are proud of our healthcare, ISPs, mobile phone service, etc. Pick the ones where we really truly are #1 dammit!
You could have a billion watt PSU and it won't work if it can't put out enough on whatever rail is your choke point.
When I buy a power supply I eyeball how much I need on which rails and find one that exceeds all of those specs by a comfortable margin. There are a lot of high wattage units that don't have the right distribution while a lower wattage unit does.
I pay about 50% tax on my phone bill if you add up all the stupid charges. Telecom companies are among the biggest corporate welfare recipients.
You picked the wrong industry to use as an example of unfettered capitalism.
I wish we had better internet in the US. I am envious of my Korean and French friends who have very fast connections. I don't even care much about the price, although it adds insult to injury. I don't think things will get better if you keep your head in the sand chanting USA#1. It makes you look like an idiot when we're nowhere near #1.
You're looking at it wrong. It was never intended to be a business model. The record companies never thought they'd subsist on settlement money.
The suefest was simple marketing. They wanted to discourage copyright infringement and thought fear of legal trouble would be effective. To some extent it worked. I know many people who refuse to download mp3s because they don't want to risk a lawsuit.
There is no better source for this type of news.
Financial analysis of an industry and the possible outcomes is what they do all the time. I'd trust them to get it right about the overall trends for the industry. The fact that this is getting publicity outside the tech sector is encouraging. If investors start dumping media stocks en masse you can bet their strategy will change instantly.
I have a mostly negative opinion of law enforcement, but I thought I'd tell you a positive couple of encounters I had a few weeks ago.
I was driving a new (to me) car through the Rockies and didn't know the taillights were both burned out. This is pretty dangerous on curvy mountain roads at night. Anyway, I got pulled over twice by cops who told me that my lights were burned out and I was speeding (stop #1) or ran a stop sign (stop #2) I smelled like alcohol, but was under the legal limit I think.
I was blown away by the fact that both stops could have gone badly but neither did. The officers were polite, friendly, and honestly trying to keep a preventable accident from happening. It was a nice change for me.
The inflationary rate doesn't include health care, housing, or energy. All of these have been increasing at double digit rates for many years, and constitute the lion's share of most people's spending.
The inflationary rate is meaningless when actual cost of living has increased by such a large multiple.
That's a good policy. I think it's important to pay enough that the CEO doesn't get discouraged or tempted to do petty embezzlement and it is crucial to have long long term incentives. This focus on quarterly results is killing many companies.
This is a recipe for disaster unless something is done about executive turnover.
What's to stop someone from coming in, slashing headcount to pump up the stock price, collecting their booty and then off to fuck the next company?
I've seen way too many short-term executives come in and ruin things, make obscene profits, then high-tail it leaving a smoldering wreck of a company. All the good people are gone, morale is in the toilet, customers are leaving in droves, and it'll take years of brutal effort to salvage things. All to make one person rich.
I'd still want a grid for night, lengths of cloudy days, or if my rig needed servicing.
So, just to be clear, a well-engineered bridge should have No Negative Damping. And the Tacoma Narrows bridge didn't have no negative damping.
What a nightmare!
I got a 2nd battery for my phone for $15 and I can carry it around as a spare if I'll be away from juice for a while.
How can you claim that non-user-changeable inconvenience mated with 5x price markup isn't a problem?
Digital TV is just fine right now. I doubt it will last very long.
The media companies will get their way with the broadcast flag soon enough, and suddenly all new hardware will be crippled.
If you ever want to check the weather, you should try the source
There are no ads. You already paid for this with your tax dollars, so nobody else needs to make a quick dirty buck off it. As a nice bonus, you can piss off people like Rick Santorum, who attempted to pass legislation banning the National Weather Service from providing weather information in order to benefit the crapware flash-ad bastards who ran a fraudulent weather website in his senate district.
Why does everything on the web have to be a money-geyser commercial nightmare? Why can't people leave the excellent, functional, downright usable sites alone? I like NOAAs site. I like craigslist. I'm tired of people trying to crap it up and make it worse to make a buck.
I can't tell if you're being willfully ignorant. We can use lighting that is more energy efficient, safer, provides superior illumination at a negative cost, and you think we should continue to pollute the sky in order to build character?
That kind of logic is embarrassing.
Don't be so dismissive of this issue. It is serious, it is easily fixed, and the fix will provide other benefits to everyone.
There is almost no place in the CONUS without significant light pollution. Even the remote reaches of rural areas are polluted by light from hundreds of miles away.
This light pollution makes both professional and amateur ground-based astronomy less rewarding. If stargazing becomes something only possible from space we will no longer recruit passionate astronomers who fall in love with amateur gear in their backyard.
The fix is easy and saves money. Don't light things that don't need to be lit and use more sensible designs for lighting.
Just because it doesn't matter to you doesn't mean it doesn't matter. I know astronomers who have very strong feelings about it and have watched in horror as the skies get brighter and brighter every year. Numerous observatories have been forced to close because of light pollution.
After 50 years of content producers calling all the shots it is refreshing to see pirates get the upper hand. Now media companies must innovate and experiment in order to compete with cheap, rampant piracy. They may even be forced to accept more reasonable copyright terms in exchange for some type of increased enforcement. Whatever happens will be better for consumers, the arts, and quite possibly most artists than what the media companies would do on their own without piracy pressure.
The ethical stance in this case is not a clear one. Should I side with the pirates and help force change or should I obey the increasingly unjust law? I think those who judge others on this issue are being narrow minded and ignoring the larger issue.
Copyright holders need to remember that it is an artificial monopoly given them by society in order to advance the arts. If the bargain becomes too one-sided there will be resistance to it, and in this age of easy perfect piracy there is a powerful weapon to fight back. I think that the age of media distributors being able to control everything and dictate their terms are coming to an end. I hope a more equitable middle ground will emerge where truly limited copyrights with generous fair use exemptions will be firmly enforced.
Gee, I wonder why mainstream media producers don't cover stories about copyright creep.