Re:The press release is dated 24/8/2005 ...
on
Chinese Eco-Cities
·
· Score: 1
I risk trolling here, but speaking as an Englishman I'd say today was the 7th of November. Although I like the Japanese system of getting more and more specific in a nice heirachical fashon. But since I can genrally guess the higher levels of the heirachy it does make sense to either leave off the higher levels alltogether (I'll be heading up to Manchester on the 10th as opposed to the 10th of November 2005) or to qualify them heiracically. The mm-dd-yy seems to be completely random and without merit - a heiracical expression seems much more logical to me. Sigh, welcome to Americanism...
No i did get your point, I was just trying to say that the crap hollywood turns out seems to only follow 1 of these standard stories, never mind try and get several in.
Alternatively what have we learnt about decent storytelling (vs standard Hollywood) - that you have subplots and more than a single element? That you respect your audience and push them on all levels?
A more cynical way to look at it would be to say that when you're the underdog, you attempt to appeal to all demographics:-)
Re:Why wouldn't they be happy?
on
Pixar For Sale?
·
· Score: 1
I think you're missing the point. A person who is a hard working good/brilliant engineer is seldom the same kind of person who is a good/brilliant CEO. The person who is aogood at each of those parts enjoys different things and is good at different things.
I consider myself a reasonably tallented, hard working engineer; but the last thing I would do is run my own tech company. I'd sweep the streets first.
Doesn't this then suggest the idea of an automatically chosen set of admin team based upon their contribution/use of the site.
In all serious kind of like the mod system for/.
As in once you've edited/added enough articles without serious objections, you get the rights to moderate other people's changes. Do enough of that without complaints then you get god status. God status should be very hard to get limited to top few %?
As suggested above it would be open to abuse (e.g. I'll create 1000 new pages rather than 10 good ones to get my stats up) but it might be a start...
Have you tried applying for a job through agencies? When I was recently looking for a job I as a matter of principle tried everything to avoid sending out in.doc format.
Me: Here have my CV in ODF Job agency: What the hell format is that? Can I have it in word please Me: Here have a PDF! Job Agency: We can't edit that Me: Good - that's kind of the point of pdf Job Agency: Nope we need to edit it to remove your personal contact details Me: Here have a pdf without my personal contact details on it Job Agency: We need to send it to our client, we need in in rtf or doc Me: Why? {long discussion snipped} Me: So you can alter it to fit your format and change it to be what you want? {long discussion} Job Agency: Yes
BTW It wasn't just job agencies, but job websites and most HR departments looked at me like I'd tried to send them it in chinese - which to most people ODF or PDF are. In the end I grudgily settled on rtf where possible or doc if I had to.
The other thing I don't understand about this whole scheme is why the whole weight of the thing has to be supported from orbit!
Airships are a fairly safe and established technology. some companies (http://www.jpaerospace.com/) are looking at building airships to orbit. So why not combine the technologies? i.e. build a platform which will support the weight of the cable below it. I imagine something like a huge balloon in a torus shape with the cable going through the middle of it. Let's say you space these every mile or so up and that each station supports the weight of the mile of cable. Now the last i heard the best they've managed so far is about 19 miles up. Now this may be a long way off the 120 miles of low earth orbit that they're aiming for, but if you can take a sizable chunk of the weight off the problem then it surely can't hurt. If they're sucessful in making a balloon that can go to LEO, then why bother with building the 22,000 miles of space elevator to go to GEO? Ok because even once you get to that height you've not got enough energy to actually be in orbit, you'd then separately have to accelerate - still this might be a way to incrementally get to orbit cheaper?
HARP actually used the canon as the first stage then a 2-4 stage rocket to get to orbit.
And there's lots of things we need to get into orbit that could survive those G forces even if you did it all with the Canon in such a short time; fuel, water, food, refined metal to forge in space, etc. Maybe we can't everything by this method, but if it's cheap enough I'm sure we could find plenty of use for it.
Well the testies do stop eventually if you tie these same tubes in the vasectomy operation, and no hormones are needed then, I was just thinking of this as a reversable version of this operation.
You've got me thinking here. There is a small group of people who don't believe we got to the moon at all, I suspect this same group of people wouldn't believe we built the Saturn V if we just gave them pictures and a description of the technical spec.
Would this vocal minority then not believe we were actually using any of this new tech needed at moon base/Mars if they couldn't see it with their own eyes.
Is showing someone something on TV not enough? When all we see of these fabulous missions and great advancements is some launches that look remarkably like 1960s tech and some images on the TV that could have been faked in a studio will we not loose popular support.
I believe this is a better approach than the current one, but I'm desperate to get the rest of the public behind this and worry that unless people see something from this we'll loose their support. How to get and keep this support i don't know, but the gee-wiz launch vehicle is pretty much all the public sees that doesn't look like something else they can see done 'better' on their screens.
I always did wonder why you couldn't put valves in the tubes that go from the testies. Have them inplanted when you're a teenager and when you want to have children a very simple operation to turn the valve to open (then shut it later).
The only problem I could see with this is the issues of tissue forming over the valves and blocking them, or of the body rejecting the foreign matter, but I thought that problem was getting towards solved these days?
Re:Watch a little more closely ...
on
Deep in the Core
·
· Score: 1
Only if you have the time and someone who is receptive to logical debate. You can't always change someone's point of view, try convincing the current pope that condoms would actually help the African communities, or the whole Kansas school board that the FSM is as valid a theory as creatonism; and even though someone knows something is false they'll still go ahead and do the wrong thing anyway, see the whole Iraq issue.
All I'm trying to say is that sometimes you have to go against one set of your ideals to protect another. Yes this is shit, but this is life, so we try to make it as un-shit as possible.
But would you argue that the Ford Focus is based upon the model T? The Soyuz orbiter is being constantly updated, pretty much each one that goes up is an improvement on the previous one. I think to call what flies now 1960s technology is a bit harsh. Yes you did say it's based upon it, but in that case, I just drove to work in a low-tech vehicle based upon a 1908 design. Damn I hoped I'd get more for my money than that;-)
Re:Watch a little more closely ...
on
Deep in the Core
·
· Score: 1
Thought experiment then: The US president has his finger on the big red button that will launch all the US' arsenal at appropriate targets. Interestingly enough I have a gun to his head and I know if I pull the trigger it will kill him, but stop him from pressing the button. Now under the assumption that no-one else will push the button, should I pull the trigger on my gun to stop him?
C'est un pingouin , pingouin en bois. Quoi? Un cadeau. What? A present. Oh, un cadeau. Oui, oui. Hurry. What? Let's go. Oh. On y va. Bon magne. Over here...
I think you've got the same problem I had recently. I would pick a distro and be very happy with it and everything it did. I'd then want to do something else the distro didn't do and ask how to do it. I'd then be directed on the very intimidating experiences you describe. Is that correct that you're trying to install things from outside the distro's main route for installing new features and running into trouble?
Nowadays I have my Linux desktop which runs a standard distro and little else. Until the distro supports it I don't use feature X. If there is a real reason i have to use feature X I thank geekdom I'm not running windows which wouldn't give me this choice and pull in a solution from outside the distro and all the headaches that go with it.
Yes the fragmentation is a massive issue, but I knwo the thing that limits me getting Linux onto my Dad's computer is 3 things: * He wants to be able to install things he finds on the web * he likes his web cam (which isn't supported currently) * His digital camera isn't supported
So if you stick to a single distro and the only things that offers then the only gaps I can see are better integration of Wine and better driver support.
While I completely agree with you on so much of what you said there, 2 things occured to me: * Most of what you say seems to advocate robotic explotation of space over manned missions. While I agree with this it says that perhaps the Chinese focus is in the wrong place. * No we couldn't build a death star, just no, do you know how impossible and against the known laws of physics that ting is right?:-) Would be fun to try though
Now if we gave up on this go to the moon malarchy and one space agency said "No we're going to capture an asteroid and mine that. Then I'd get very excited. Few others would though...
:-) If I remember my history teacher back from GCSE (where did those 13 years go) then Von Braun and co would today be classed as asylum seekers as many were being pursued by the SAS for crimes against the reich (although some were almost certainly prisoners of war - I'm not sure how you can have an abductee under those circumstances).
Wonder how we'd treat them today - damn freeloading asylum seekers:-p
Corporations are happy to play the long term game. Most accountants write things off over a 10 year period. All corporations play the long term game. Lots of venture capitalists (represented on the stock exchange) invest in technologies that won't pay off for years if at all.
If GM was only interested in the next quater's profits they _could_ sell off all their holdings and post a massive profit for that year. They'd probably fold the next quater, but they've maximised the quaterly profits.
Not all stock markets follow the enron philosophy... So yes, they profer the short term gain, but what most want most is maximum ROI.
Forgot to add to the last point that we're much closer to getting the abopve space technologies working than we are to getting the required recycling efficiencies and economies in place. Therefore my money goes on what appears to be the cheapest route which is space.
But if those heavy metals can be got for less resources by mining near earth asteroids? What if we can hollow out these asteroids (or build spheres from ice) and use them to grow food stuffs for use down here? Or if we use orbital solar power arrays for greater efficiency?
Space technology doesn't mean many/any have to leave the planet, but we can expoit the resources up there for down here.
As for recycling rubbish tips; what you miss there is that the concentrations of valuable materials in there are no-where near as high as you get in economically viable deposits. Sure that'll shift over time, but it's got a long way to go before I start fighting the seagulls at my local tip.
Slashdot Mirror
I risk trolling here, but speaking as an Englishman I'd say today was the 7th of November. Although I like the Japanese system of getting more and more specific in a nice heirachical fashon.
But since I can genrally guess the higher levels of the heirachy it does make sense to either leave off the higher levels alltogether (I'll be heading up to Manchester on the 10th as opposed to the 10th of November 2005) or to qualify them heiracically.
The mm-dd-yy seems to be completely random and without merit - a heiracical expression seems much more logical to me.
Sigh, welcome to Americanism...
No i did get your point, I was just trying to say that the crap hollywood turns out seems to only follow 1 of these standard stories, never mind try and get several in.
How about patenting: :-)
"Shit Happens"
I think that covers every story ever really
Yah. What have we learn about categories?
:-)
Alternatively what have we learnt about decent storytelling (vs standard Hollywood) - that you have subplots and more than a single element? That you respect your audience and push them on all levels?
A more cynical way to look at it would be to say that when you're the underdog, you attempt to appeal to all demographics
I think you're missing the point.
A person who is a hard working good/brilliant engineer is seldom the same kind of person who is a good/brilliant CEO. The person who is aogood at each of those parts enjoys different things and is good at different things.
I consider myself a reasonably tallented, hard working engineer; but the last thing I would do is run my own tech company. I'd sweep the streets first.
Doesn't this then suggest the idea of an automatically chosen set of admin team based upon their contribution/use of the site.
/.
In all serious kind of like the mod system for
As in once you've edited/added enough articles without serious objections, you get the rights to moderate other people's changes. Do enough of that without complaints then you get god status.
God status should be very hard to get limited to top few %?
As suggested above it would be open to abuse (e.g. I'll create 1000 new pages rather than 10 good ones to get my stats up) but it might be a start...
Have you tried applying for a job through agencies? .doc format.
When I was recently looking for a job I as a matter of principle tried everything to avoid sending out in
Me: Here have my CV in ODF
Job agency: What the hell format is that? Can I have it in word please
Me: Here have a PDF!
Job Agency: We can't edit that
Me: Good - that's kind of the point of pdf
Job Agency: Nope we need to edit it to remove your personal contact details
Me: Here have a pdf without my personal contact details on it
Job Agency: We need to send it to our client, we need in in rtf or doc
Me: Why?
{long discussion snipped}
Me: So you can alter it to fit your format and change it to be what you want?
{long discussion}
Job Agency: Yes
BTW It wasn't just job agencies, but job websites and most HR departments looked at me like I'd tried to send them it in chinese - which to most people ODF or PDF are. In the end I grudgily settled on rtf where possible or doc if I had to.
The other thing I don't understand about this whole scheme is why the whole weight of the thing has to be supported from orbit!
Airships are a fairly safe and established technology. some companies (http://www.jpaerospace.com/) are looking at building airships to orbit.
So why not combine the technologies?
i.e. build a platform which will support the weight of the cable below it. I imagine something like a huge balloon in a torus shape with the cable going through the middle of it. Let's say you space these every mile or so up and that each station supports the weight of the mile of cable.
Now the last i heard the best they've managed so far is about 19 miles up. Now this may be a long way off the 120 miles of low earth orbit that they're aiming for, but if you can take a sizable chunk of the weight off the problem then it surely can't hurt. If they're sucessful in making a balloon that can go to LEO, then why bother with building the 22,000 miles of space elevator to go to GEO?
Ok because even once you get to that height you've not got enough energy to actually be in orbit, you'd then separately have to accelerate - still this might be a way to incrementally get to orbit cheaper?
HARP actually used the canon as the first stage then a 2-4 stage rocket to get to orbit.
And there's lots of things we need to get into orbit that could survive those G forces even if you did it all with the Canon in such a short time; fuel, water, food, refined metal to forge in space, etc. Maybe we can't everything by this method, but if it's cheap enough I'm sure we could find plenty of use for it.
Could I get them in push fit please?
Well the testies do stop eventually if you tie these same tubes in the vasectomy operation, and no hormones are needed then, I was just thinking of this as a reversable version of this operation.
You've got me thinking here.
There is a small group of people who don't believe we got to the moon at all, I suspect this same group of people wouldn't believe we built the Saturn V if we just gave them pictures and a description of the technical spec.
Would this vocal minority then not believe we were actually using any of this new tech needed at moon base/Mars if they couldn't see it with their own eyes.
Is showing someone something on TV not enough? When all we see of these fabulous missions and great advancements is some launches that look remarkably like 1960s tech and some images on the TV that could have been faked in a studio will we not loose popular support.
I believe this is a better approach than the current one, but I'm desperate to get the rest of the public behind this and worry that unless people see something from this we'll loose their support. How to get and keep this support i don't know, but the gee-wiz launch vehicle is pretty much all the public sees that doesn't look like something else they can see done 'better' on their screens.
Perhaps the movies then can start referencing the real world more by including these ordinary rockets in their films :-)
Man this is good shit!
I always did wonder why you couldn't put valves in the tubes that go from the testies. Have them inplanted when you're a teenager and when you want to have children a very simple operation to turn the valve to open (then shut it later).
The only problem I could see with this is the issues of tissue forming over the valves and blocking them, or of the body rejecting the foreign matter, but I thought that problem was getting towards solved these days?
Only if you have the time and someone who is receptive to logical debate.
You can't always change someone's point of view, try convincing the current pope that condoms would actually help the African communities, or the whole Kansas school board that the FSM is as valid a theory as creatonism; and even though someone knows something is false they'll still go ahead and do the wrong thing anyway, see the whole Iraq issue.
All I'm trying to say is that sometimes you have to go against one set of your ideals to protect another. Yes this is shit, but this is life, so we try to make it as un-shit as possible.
But would you argue that the Ford Focus is based upon the model T? ;-)
The Soyuz orbiter is being constantly updated, pretty much each one that goes up is an improvement on the previous one. I think to call what flies now 1960s technology is a bit harsh. Yes you did say it's based upon it, but in that case, I just drove to work in a low-tech vehicle based upon a 1908 design.
Damn I hoped I'd get more for my money than that
Thought experiment then:
The US president has his finger on the big red button that will launch all the US' arsenal at appropriate targets. Interestingly enough I have a gun to his head and I know if I pull the trigger it will kill him, but stop him from pressing the button.
Now under the assumption that no-one else will push the button, should I pull the trigger on my gun to stop him?
How do you know you haven't seen any censorship? If it was done well you wouldn't notice.
:-)
Maybe Barney the dinosaur is infact X-rated German porn that has just been well dubbed and cut for the american market.
Maybe that explains a lot
C'est un pingouin , pingouin en bois. Quoi? Un cadeau. What? A present. Oh, un cadeau. Oui, oui. Hurry. What? Let's go. Oh. On y va. Bon magne. Over here...
I think you've got the same problem I had recently.
I would pick a distro and be very happy with it and everything it did. I'd then want to do something else the distro didn't do and ask how to do it.
I'd then be directed on the very intimidating experiences you describe. Is that correct that you're trying to install things from outside the distro's main route for installing new features and running into trouble?
Nowadays I have my Linux desktop which runs a standard distro and little else. Until the distro supports it I don't use feature X. If there is a real reason i have to use feature X I thank geekdom I'm not running windows which wouldn't give me this choice and pull in a solution from outside the distro and all the headaches that go with it.
Yes the fragmentation is a massive issue, but I knwo the thing that limits me getting Linux onto my Dad's computer is 3 things:
* He wants to be able to install things he finds on the web
* he likes his web cam (which isn't supported currently)
* His digital camera isn't supported
So if you stick to a single distro and the only things that offers then the only gaps I can see are better integration of Wine and better driver support.
While I completely agree with you on so much of what you said there, 2 things occured to me: :-) Would be fun to try though
* Most of what you say seems to advocate robotic explotation of space over manned missions. While I agree with this it says that perhaps the Chinese focus is in the wrong place.
* No we couldn't build a death star, just no, do you know how impossible and against the known laws of physics that ting is right?
Now if we gave up on this go to the moon malarchy and one space agency said "No we're going to capture an asteroid and mine that. Then I'd get very excited. Few others would though...
:-)
:-p
If I remember my history teacher back from GCSE (where did those 13 years go) then Von Braun and co would today be classed as asylum seekers as many were being pursued by the SAS for crimes against the reich (although some were almost certainly prisoners of war - I'm not sure how you can have an abductee under those circumstances).
Wonder how we'd treat them today - damn freeloading asylum seekers
Corporations are happy to play the long term game.
Most accountants write things off over a 10 year period. All corporations play the long term game. Lots of venture capitalists (represented on the stock exchange) invest in technologies that won't pay off for years if at all.
If GM was only interested in the next quater's profits they _could_ sell off all their holdings and post a massive profit for that year. They'd probably fold the next quater, but they've maximised the quaterly profits.
Not all stock markets follow the enron philosophy... So yes, they profer the short term gain, but what most want most is maximum ROI.
Forgot to add to the last point that we're much closer to getting the abopve space technologies working than we are to getting the required recycling efficiencies and economies in place. Therefore my money goes on what appears to be the cheapest route which is space.
But if those heavy metals can be got for less resources by mining near earth asteroids?
What if we can hollow out these asteroids (or build spheres from ice) and use them to grow food stuffs for use down here?
Or if we use orbital solar power arrays for greater efficiency?
Space technology doesn't mean many/any have to leave the planet, but we can expoit the resources up there for down here.
As for recycling rubbish tips; what you miss there is that the concentrations of valuable materials in there are no-where near as high as you get in economically viable deposits. Sure that'll shift over time, but it's got a long way to go before I start fighting the seagulls at my local tip.