So, with the "breakthrough" a few months ago that three different dyes in a cell could capture 40% of light from the sun, does that make this more efficient than coal?
From an energy standpoint, direct solar has ALWAYS been more efficient than coal. How much sunlight do you think was needed to create the coal we burn? How much energy do we use to extract and refine it (when necessary)?
More cost-effective? That's a different matter, and impossible to calculate since we can't even properly measure the true costs of burning coal for electricity.
The billionth app downloader will have his mother impregnated via divine insemination by Steve Jobs himself.
Henceforth this will be known as the iMac-culate Conception, and the offspring of the Holy iSpirit will be brought up as leader of the iFaithful to inherit the reins of Apple.
This raises an interesting question: could I actually create an alternate communication method using A.C. postings alone? Using a cipher symbol alphabet consisting entirely of sensible words or sentences, I could hide inside of the more popular systems that allow anonymous posting and probably not even be noticed (I mean hell, how many people do more than scan the A.C. posting to see if it makes sense?).
What did you think slashdot memes were?
All your base reference == mission accomplished. Natalie Portman reference == target acquired Beowulf Cluster reference == Law enforcement involved
You didn't think people actually beat those dead horses for humor, did you?
Some crime is high-risk/high-reward... e.g., it's good for the lazy who could work an honest job, but don't want to. It's not stupidity, but laziness.
Or it can be cultural... someone who has only been exposed to crime as a means of being wealthy would likely not be comfortable with a legit job, since it is so foreign to them.
when instead such energy would be better spent guarding the porous borders or monitoring the FOREIGN FUNDED (Saudi) mosques (which is where most world wide terrorism originates).
[citation needed]
Perhaps you're unaware of the terrorism that occurs in central Africa on a daily basis, that is conveniently ignored? Or does that not count because it doesn't greatly affect American economic interests?
No one ever sat down, planned out a beautiful piece of art, then executed it according to plan. At least nothing worthy of the name art.
Are you sure about that?
Do you consider the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel to be a beautiful piece of art?
What about the Cathedral de Notre Dame?
What about tapestries?
Video games aren't like small paintings or music. The big game studios aren't making "art" completed during inspritation fugues, they are making a large commercial products that may be based on inspiration. This requires lots of mind-numbing repetitive work.
Do you think an heirloom furniture maker works only in bouts of inspiration? No... they drudge at sanding and all the other little bits required for the finished product. Almost all the inspiration comes at the design phase.
Sigh. I showed her divide by zero error on a calculator.
You explained to her she shouldn't do something because a machine can't do it either?
I'd use the good-old-pie-fractions example. Take a pie. Divide it into two parts, explain that's dividing by two. Cut it again, so it's four parts. Explain you divided it by four. Cut twice more and ask how many pieces there are (that's how many you divided by). Now, give her the knife, and ask her to divide it into zero parts. Explain that's why she can't divide by zero... no matter how many times you cut, no matter how you approach it, you cannot end up with zero parts.
Then, eat the pie and play fractions games with each piece.
Tough part is keeping them in one place, but ironically a little traditional glue does the job nicely.
In which case, you're using glue anyway.
I find it's much simpler to use a staple gun to affix the geckos to the wall.
I use the staples made for insulated wire, otherwise the staples go right through 'em and all you have to show for it is a perforated gecko twitching on the floor... which is the same result as within-reach-of-the-kitty gluing.
However, IBM and Microsoft have other competencies and sources of revenue. Oracle does not. In result, Oracle has been looking for new ways to enter the low-end market. So owning MySQL could be a boon for them, but it wouldn't significantly change the market.
Oracle has no other competencies?[1] Are you sure about that -- have you read their annual report anytime in the past couple years? Oracle's service LOB is growing quickly (currently 21% of revenues, and growing), and has good margins. Never mind the middleware portion of their licensing revenues, which is also growing fast.
[1] Dude, please stop using buzzwords, especially when you use them improperly. You sound like all the awful PHBs that use words without knowing what they mean. 'Competencies' does not mean 'Lines of Business', nor does it mean 'Divisions'.
Less influence than you may think. There have only been a couple presidents who were able to get Congress to do what they wanted. Most modern presidents have been failures in that regard.
Public opinion is what the president can use to pressure Congresscritters.
But unless those core competencies bubble up through Oracle,
What?
the Sun portion of the company would be strangled to death.
On what basis do you believe that?
Personally, I've always wanted to see Sun purchase Oracle. But I don't think that's happening at this point.
Considering that Sun is a drop in the bucket (around 5 billion market cap) compared to Oracle (~100 billion), I think you're right. Oracle's been much bigger than Sun for a very long time. Never mind the fact that Oracle's business model is very different from Sun's. It just wouldn't make sense for a traditional software business like Sun to buy a huge service-oriented business like Oracle.
I'm not sure even when it would have been possible for Sun to acquire Oracle. The late 90s? I don't think they could have afforded it even then.
Ok, but Obama has strong majorities in both houses, and should he actually ask for it's repeal it would be handed to him.
The Democratic Party would not allow him to ask for it to be repealed. If it's repealed under the current situation, there is simply too much ammunition for Republicans in the next election cycle.
The key would be to get the public from both sides of the aisle to be very strongly supportive of repeal first. Only then would it not be political suicide to vote for repeal of the PATRIOT Act.
I don't really believe this is the Democrat's plan... but that would be the only way to get it done if our political leadership wanted to get it done.
1. Long-term tissue storage is hard. 2. Therefore we rely on short-term storage with frequent replenishment. 3. Replenishment is expensive, and problematic for rare species. 4. This is a low-priority item for funding. 5. We're gonna run out of bird skins to study if we don't do something. 6. Jim Carrey wore chicken skin on his face in "The Cable Guy". 7. If we replicate Jim Carrey, we can increase our supply of bird skins. 8. But if we replicate Jim Carrey, the world will become a dumber place. 9. Dumb people don't go to museums unless forced to when they are in grade school. 10. This decrease in museum traffic will free up funds (that were used to serve the public traffic) for purchase of other bird skins. 11. Then we'll have solved the pressing problem of exotic bird skin scarcity.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, we need to build an energy storage infrastructure... and factor the cost in.
From an energy standpoint, direct solar has ALWAYS been more efficient than coal. How much sunlight do you think was needed to create the coal we burn? How much energy do we use to extract and refine it (when necessary)?
More cost-effective? That's a different matter, and impossible to calculate since we can't even properly measure the true costs of burning coal for electricity.
What happens if you try a second entry from a new browser session?
Because you can't use Comcast if you're in a Time Warner area.
Welcome to the blindingly obvious downside of monopolies.
Au contraire, mon frere -- motherload is correct.
The billionth app downloader will have his mother impregnated via divine insemination by Steve Jobs himself.
Henceforth this will be known as the iMac-culate Conception, and the offspring of the Holy iSpirit will be brought up as leader of the iFaithful to inherit the reins of Apple.
What did you think slashdot memes were?
All your base reference == mission accomplished.
Natalie Portman reference == target acquired
Beowulf Cluster reference == Law enforcement involved
You didn't think people actually beat those dead horses for humor, did you?
Typically it's the risk-reward balance, I think.
Some crime is high-risk/high-reward... e.g., it's good for the lazy who could work an honest job, but don't want to. It's not stupidity, but laziness.
Or it can be cultural... someone who has only been exposed to crime as a means of being wealthy would likely not be comfortable with a legit job, since it is so foreign to them.
Roses are red
Violets are blue
I'm a schizophrenic
And so am I.
Rose are red
Violets are blue
I'd love you forever
but I'm upgrading to Mark II.
[citation needed]
Perhaps you're unaware of the terrorism that occurs in central Africa on a daily basis, that is conveniently ignored? Or does that not count because it doesn't greatly affect American economic interests?
Are you sure about that?
Do you consider the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel to be a beautiful piece of art?
What about the Cathedral de Notre Dame?
What about tapestries?
Video games aren't like small paintings or music. The big game studios aren't making "art" completed during inspritation fugues, they are making a large commercial products that may be based on inspiration. This requires lots of mind-numbing repetitive work.
Do you think an heirloom furniture maker works only in bouts of inspiration? No... they drudge at sanding and all the other little bits required for the finished product. Almost all the inspiration comes at the design phase.
Not so. Unsuccessful career criminals tend to be stupid. Successful ones tend to be intelligent... just like any other career requiring thought.
Inability to make money legitimately is not the only motivation for a criminal career.
I'm one step ahead of you there, her name is Mindy. Mindy Flayer.
You explained to her she shouldn't do something because a machine can't do it either?
I'd use the good-old-pie-fractions example. Take a pie. Divide it into two parts, explain that's dividing by two.
Cut it again, so it's four parts. Explain you divided it by four.
Cut twice more and ask how many pieces there are (that's how many you divided by).
Now, give her the knife, and ask her to divide it into zero parts. Explain that's why she can't divide by zero... no matter how many times you cut, no matter how you approach it, you cannot end up with zero parts.
Then, eat the pie and play fractions games with each piece.
Woosh yerself. There's a reason I didn't close that HTML tag.
In which case, you're using glue anyway.
I find it's much simpler to use a staple gun to affix the geckos to the wall.
I use the staples made for insulated wire, otherwise the staples go right through 'em and all you have to show for it is a perforated gecko twitching on the floor... which is the same result as within-reach-of-the-kitty gluing.
I'm just practicing for when my daughter gets old enough to start asking "why?" about everything.
I am SO going to screw her up for elementary school science classes.
That's rubbish. Magnetic stickers don't work in space because there is no North or South pole to point to.
Oracle has no other competencies?[1] Are you sure about that -- have you read their annual report anytime in the past couple years? Oracle's service LOB is growing quickly (currently 21% of revenues, and growing), and has good margins. Never mind the middleware portion of their licensing revenues, which is also growing fast.
[1] Dude, please stop using buzzwords, especially when you use them improperly. You sound like all the awful PHBs that use words without knowing what they mean. 'Competencies' does not mean 'Lines of Business', nor does it mean 'Divisions'.
Less influence than you may think. There have only been a couple presidents who were able to get Congress to do what they wanted. Most modern presidents have been failures in that regard.
Public opinion is what the president can use to pressure Congresscritters.
Plus, the President knows who got him elected.
What?
On what basis do you believe that?
Considering that Sun is a drop in the bucket (around 5 billion market cap) compared to Oracle (~100 billion), I think you're right. Oracle's been much bigger than Sun for a very long time. Never mind the fact that Oracle's business model is very different from Sun's. It just wouldn't make sense for a traditional software business like Sun to buy a huge service-oriented business like Oracle.
I'm not sure even when it would have been possible for Sun to acquire Oracle. The late 90s? I don't think they could have afforded it even then.
The Democratic Party would not allow him to ask for it to be repealed. If it's repealed under the current situation, there is simply too much ammunition for Republicans in the next election cycle.
The key would be to get the public from both sides of the aisle to be very strongly supportive of repeal first. Only then would it not be political suicide to vote for repeal of the PATRIOT Act.
I don't really believe this is the Democrat's plan... but that would be the only way to get it done if our political leadership wanted to get it done.
You missed the point entirely.
1. Long-term tissue storage is hard.
2. Therefore we rely on short-term storage with frequent replenishment.
3. Replenishment is expensive, and problematic for rare species.
4. This is a low-priority item for funding.
5. We're gonna run out of bird skins to study if we don't do something.
6. Jim Carrey wore chicken skin on his face in "The Cable Guy".
7. If we replicate Jim Carrey, we can increase our supply of bird skins.
8. But if we replicate Jim Carrey, the world will become a dumber place.
9. Dumb people don't go to museums unless forced to when they are in grade school.
10. This decrease in museum traffic will free up funds (that were used to serve the public traffic) for purchase of other bird skins.
11. Then we'll have solved the pressing problem of exotic bird skin scarcity.
They do. However, the article is referring to the Lorax, not the lorry.