Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit...
on
Chefs As Chemists
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· Score: 1
Thanks, but I pay people to kill and prepare the animals I eat.
Oh, I didn't say that you should do it all the time. I just said that you should be pyschologically (or philosophically) capable of doing so. Nice try, but next time bother to read what was written and not set up a straw man.
The fact that his termination was this public and graceless tells me he did something pretty egregious
I agree, but I think the reasons for public termination may be different. Possibly harassment or discrimination or something like that. Pay off harassed employee, with public termination of the harasser as a condition of the settlement.
I somehow find it hard to believe that MS would want to warn other corporations about hiring him.
It could also be a problem that other MS employees are aware of, and the public termination sends a notice to employees who would cross the same lines he did. Plus, it sends the message that the highest-ups face consequences for their actions, and thus can be good for company morale among the drones.
China and Japan (and pretty much the rest of the world) are already looking to divest themselves of their reserves of US dollars
Source, please? China is still buying dollars. They also know that they have huge problems if the US economy tanks, as they are dependent on the export market we provide to them.
It's erroneous to believe that China would willingly walk away as the US economy tanked... that is, until their domestic market makes our market seem like a drop in the bucket. I give it at least three generations, probably more, until the Chinese middle class has developed enough.
since Barneke has made it clear that he will destroy the dollar's value in a stupid attempt to delay the consequences of the collapsed housing bubble as long as possible, which will only make it worse when the time of reconning arrives,
Oh, you don't believe that this problem was created prior to Bernanke's tenure? That the devaluation of the dollar is a correction made necessary by the speculation fostered under Greenspan?
The dollar needs to be devalued to correct for previous errors in fiscal management. To do otherwise is simply to defer the correction that ultimately will happen, perhaps in a more catastrophic way. The dollar should have been devalued (or rather, inflation allowed) in the late 90s or early 00s, but Fed policy at the time would not let that happen due to the domestic effects of inflation.
At some point, you've got to pay the piper. Bernanke at least understands this, and appears willing to do what is necessary.
Re:Foie Gras is some nasty shit...
on
Chefs As Chemists
·
· Score: 1
If you're not willing to face up to what needs to happen to get you your meat, you shouldn't be eating meat.
I'd expand on that a little further. If you are psychologically unable to prepare your meat all the way from live animal to your plate, you should refrain from eating meat. I've done it many times, and I believe anyone who eats meat should do it.
For me, the mroality of eating less (or no meat) has nothing to do with animal rights. It has to do with the production capacity of the planet and the population we expect to support. Producing meat is a very inefficient use of arable land from a total edible calorie standpoint. Meat production should be limited to land that is marginal for producing crops, and limited to species that do well on that land. This alone would alleviate much of the hunger seen worldwide, as well as reduce the carbon footprint (and other pollutants) of food production. Furthermore, it would free up resources to be used for other processes.
Unfortunately, meat just tastes too good. Our bodies crave the protein and the fat. I try to eat it in moderation, and have respect for those who choose to abstain for moral or other reasons.
But, one thought for vegetarians and vegans out there -- if God did not want us to eat animals, why did He make them out of meat?
It's not comparable at all. The geese willingly go to get themselves stuffed with food (google).
Traditionally, foie gras was made by nailing the feet of the goose to a board, then force-feeding the goose via funnel which stretched the neck of the goose so as to allow more food to be inserted. While most producers now use much more humane methods, foie gras still carries the taint of this practice. Futhermore, if the geese were allowed to feed normally, I'm not so sure they'd willingly go to "get themselves stuffed with food". Most poultry learn to feed by example; if all the geese ever know is getting stuffed, then of course they will willingly go to do so -- they never learned another way to feed as hatchlings.
As for slaughterhouses being shut down, people should be asking why there's so much salmonella and e. coli about - it's because of really crappy practices.
Only partly true. For salmonella, particularly with chicken, it's due to the bacteria spreading among the chicken population. For food production on the scale necessary today, there is little we can do to limit the spread of salmonella among poultry. Regardless of how clean your abbatoir is, there will be salmonella present in some of the finished product.
Back then, those of us who that a band could give away their material, and if they were any good, some significant fraction of the audience would willingly pay for it --enough to make it a viable approach -- were seen as loony swivel-eyed furry-toothed freetards, if I remember correctly.
No worries, we still feel that way. Now we're just slightly more appreciative of what you loony swivel-eyed slack-jawed furry-toothed bow-legged freetards were saying.;)
From the MDI site linked to in TFA page for the compressed air car:
With the incorporation of bi-energy (compressed air + fuel) the CAT Vehicles have increased their driving range to close to 2000 km with zero pollution in cities and considerably reduced pollution outside urban areas.
Of course, that's a hybrid compressed air / fuel car, but it quite clearly states 2000 km.
It's an exercise for the reader to determine if that's just a number pulled out of MDI's compressed-air spewing ass, or if it's for real. Given the size of the CATcar (think go-cart on steroids), that range could be attainable...
Not for nothing, but how about RTFAing and bothering to address the reasons they picked the iPhone?
I happen to disagree with them as well, for many of the same reasons as you. However, they do (to a certain extent) try to address exactly what you're saying.
Of course, I believe that they picked the iPhone because it'll drive traffic, not because it's truly the #1 invention in their minds. I simply can't see how the iPhone is a better invention than a device/method to strip blood of its AB antigens.
Oh, and PS:
If looking nice is a quality of a great invention then I proclaim the Mona Lisa as the greatest invention of Leonardo da Vinci.
Meh. She's ugly. Plus, that's a painting, not an invention. I proclaim daVinci's wire tensile strength tester as his greatest invention (since it was actually put to use, unlike his helicopter plans).
Even Google's cheapest (by power cost) datacenter, their Columbia River facility on a hydro grid, costs roughly 25 cents per watt/year -- or about $.028 per kWh. Yes, slightly more than half the power cost of the Northlake facility.
However, if you think about it, there are benefits to diversified data center locations. They reduce the impact of regional disturbances such as storms (or, as you point out, power outages). They also distribute the demand for qualified labor, which keeps labor costs down.
Here's a link with some info about power costs affecting datacenter locations, with some other useful links included
Also please note that the cost of the land is one of the most minor costs of building a datacenter.
Microsoft has been keenly focused on power costs in its data center site location efforts. While 5 cents per kilowatt hour is in the midrange of average state-by-state power costs, it is lower than rates found near many major data center markets such as California (9 cents per kWh) or northern New Jersey (11 center per kWh). Microsoft's data center in Quincy runs on hyrdro power that costs less than 2 centers per kilowatt hour
I don't know how many homes can be lit up by the planned power consumption, but their facility in Quincy WA has energy that costa six licks per kilowatt hour (if you don't recall, it takes three licks to get to a center. Since the cost of the IL facility is 250% that of the WA facility, we can calculate that the cost in the IL facility will be 7.5 licks per kWh.
Furthermore, we know that 5 good licks is an ol'-fashioned ass-whupping, so the power cost will be 1.5 ass-whuppings per kWh.
Sounds like Ballmer will need to work overtime, since he is only budgeted to dispense 1 ass-whupping per hour; the smart money right now would be investing in chair manufacturers.
Nope. This is where you're wrong. This would cause deflation in the rest of the economy were the supply of money to actually remain at zero and the level of money to remain constant (with for example a gold backed currency). The relative value of the land increased with respect to everything else in the economy. Everything else would reduce in price and the value of individual units of money increased.
Hence encouraging hoarding, thereby removing capital from the economy, thereby reducing growth (or even causing a reduction in GDP) thereby causing bank failures... shall I go on?
Inflation is necessary to compensate for growing GDP. I do believe it's a little out of hand currently, but to remove inflation severely weakens the economy.
A lot of lottos that offer a computer 'quick-pick' are set up so that the quick-pick only chooses numbers not already taken. Of course, someone could namually choose your set of numbers after you buy your ticket, but if you want to maximize your potential earnings, always use the quick-pick (for lottos that obey this rule).
I'd love to see the outcome of a Senator voluntarily publishing their personal e-mail address for harvesting and getting their report on how they liked it.
Heh. Let's use Senators' private email accounts as spam honeypots (spampots?).
Let's see how many end up spending some money on herbal V1agra -- if Bob Dole uses it, surely there's no shame in it?
The "do not call" list is the only thing congress has done in the last 40 years that has helped me
The federal highway system (what, you thought all those goods you buy cheaply are trucked in off-road vehicles?) FDIC-insured bank accounts (or do you keep all your money as cash^H^H^H^Hgold coins under your mattress?) Environmental regulations (do you breathe air and drink water, or eat foods that need air and water to survive?)
It's easy to take potshots at the federal government, since there is so much that DOES get bungled. But take a look around you at the things you do every day, and think about how the Federal Government has contributed to them. It might surprise you how much our daily life is affected in secondary and tertiary ways.
you may recall that they split of congress was a compromise between the big/little states that could not agree if the # of reps per state should be based on population or be a set number.
While the debate between how the # of reps did affect the system we ended up with, the concept of a bicameral legislature was older than that debate. England had a bicameral system in the 17th century, for example.
It was originally intended to only have one group in the legislature.
I think you might want to reread your history. There was never a unified 'intent' to have a unicameral legislature. The majority of framers understood the need for a bicameral institution, but were faced with the problem that they did not want an aristocratic house (like the British House of Lords). One fix would have been a single house, as with the NJ plan. Another fix, the one ultimately accepted, was to find another way of assigning the different houses.
Congress has passed a few bills to support them, but the Senate is ignoring them
Congress contains the Senate. The House of Representatives has passed a few bills, not Congress as a whole. If Congress had passed a few bills, all that would be left would be Presidential approval.
The reason I mention this is that the House passes lots of bills that never are passed by the Senate. Sometimes the Senate will pass their own version of a bill, and send it back to the House. This is why we have a bicameral legislature -- so that one legislative body can't pass laws by itself. It's a check within a division of the federal government, and serves a useful purpose.
The internet is a venue for free speech, and any discussion of privacy concerns need to keep that in mind. From the American perspective, free speech is sancrosact, and one guarantor of free speech is anonymity. WHOIS (in theory) removes the ability to publish anonymous content via a self-owned website.
Most of the people clamoring for WHOIS to remain are those who have intellectual property to protect (especially trademarks). Without getting into a debate about whether trademarks should exist (please! that's for another discussion), something like WHOIS is necessary for people to protect their trademarks -- and the current law in the US requires this.
So the basic discussion is to weigh the interests of IP holders against any free speech infringement that WHOIS creates.
In my thinking, there are plenty of other ways to publish anonymously on the internet. Registering a website is not required; therefore, identification requirements for registering a website don't really infringe upon free speech -- especially considering that it is trivial to enter fake information for WHOIS registration.
One possible solution would be to require registration information, but then to not allow public access to the information. Those who wish to pursue action against potential trademark violators could then get a court order for the registration information to be unsealed. While this would in theory help safeguard privacy, it's only as safe as the court system (and by extension, the laws that guide the court system) that applies. It also runs into problems with international registrations, and if ICANN is in theory an independent body, hands too much power over to a particular government. Finally, it adds even more bureacracy to what should be a free flow of information.
In the long run, I think the only mutually beneficial solution is to require information to be registered, but find a way to limit access to that information to legitimate requests. This may be an impossible task, in which case we should all just throw up our hands in despair and let anarchy reign in the tubes.
Sure, but often it's much cheaper in the long run to outsource things like that. Often it's because the providers deal with a much larger scale, and therefore automation is more effective for them.
That CIO is outsourcing the task, but that task is provided by automation now rather than manual processing by staff. Regardless of who, in the end, provides the automation, it's automation that makes the cost savings possible.
Also, we have no idea of what they paid StrikeIron, or of what they currently pay to Workday and Visual Sciences. It's quite possible the costs are similar... without the unnecessary in-house staff expense.
Slashdot Mirror
I somehow find it hard to believe that MS would want to warn other corporations about hiring him.
It could also be a problem that other MS employees are aware of, and the public termination sends a notice to employees who would cross the same lines he did. Plus, it sends the message that the highest-ups face consequences for their actions, and thus can be good for company morale among the drones.
It's erroneous to believe that China would willingly walk away as the US economy tanked... that is, until their domestic market makes our market seem like a drop in the bucket. I give it at least three generations, probably more, until the Chinese middle class has developed enough.
Oh, you don't believe that this problem was created prior to Bernanke's tenure? That the devaluation of the dollar is a correction made necessary by the speculation fostered under Greenspan?
The dollar needs to be devalued to correct for previous errors in fiscal management. To do otherwise is simply to defer the correction that ultimately will happen, perhaps in a more catastrophic way. The dollar should have been devalued (or rather, inflation allowed) in the late 90s or early 00s, but Fed policy at the time would not let that happen due to the domestic effects of inflation.
At some point, you've got to pay the piper. Bernanke at least understands this, and appears willing to do what is necessary.
For me, the mroality of eating less (or no meat) has nothing to do with animal rights. It has to do with the production capacity of the planet and the population we expect to support. Producing meat is a very inefficient use of arable land from a total edible calorie standpoint. Meat production should be limited to land that is marginal for producing crops, and limited to species that do well on that land. This alone would alleviate much of the hunger seen worldwide, as well as reduce the carbon footprint (and other pollutants) of food production. Furthermore, it would free up resources to be used for other processes.
Unfortunately, meat just tastes too good. Our bodies crave the protein and the fat. I try to eat it in moderation, and have respect for those who choose to abstain for moral or other reasons.
But, one thought for vegetarians and vegans out there -- if God did not want us to eat animals, why did He make them out of meat?
Only partly true. For salmonella, particularly with chicken, it's due to the bacteria spreading among the chicken population. For food production on the scale necessary today, there is little we can do to limit the spread of salmonella among poultry. Regardless of how clean your abbatoir is, there will be salmonella present in some of the finished product.
Of course, that's a hybrid compressed air / fuel car, but it quite clearly states 2000 km.
It's an exercise for the reader to determine if that's just a number pulled out of MDI's compressed-air spewing ass, or if it's for real. Given the size of the CATcar (think go-cart on steroids), that range could be attainable...
I happen to disagree with them as well, for many of the same reasons as you. However, they do (to a certain extent) try to address exactly what you're saying.
Of course, I believe that they picked the iPhone because it'll drive traffic, not because it's truly the #1 invention in their minds. I simply can't see how the iPhone is a better invention than a device/method to strip blood of its AB antigens.
Oh, and PS:Meh. She's ugly. Plus, that's a painting, not an invention. I proclaim daVinci's wire tensile strength tester as his greatest invention (since it was actually put to use, unlike his helicopter plans).
Insightful? Please, RTFA.
Power in Northlake costs $0.05 per kWh.
Even Google's cheapest (by power cost) datacenter, their Columbia River facility on a hydro grid, costs roughly 25 cents per watt/year -- or about $.028 per kWh. Yes, slightly more than half the power cost of the Northlake facility.
However, if you think about it, there are benefits to diversified data center locations. They reduce the impact of regional disturbances such as storms (or, as you point out, power outages). They also distribute the demand for qualified labor, which keeps labor costs down.
Here's a link with some info about power costs affecting datacenter locations, with some other useful links included
Also please note that the cost of the land is one of the most minor costs of building a datacenter.
Furthermore, we know that 5 good licks is an ol'-fashioned ass-whupping, so the power cost will be 1.5 ass-whuppings per kWh.
Sounds like Ballmer will need to work overtime, since he is only budgeted to dispense 1 ass-whupping per hour; the smart money right now would be investing in chair manufacturers.
Oh, my bad. serves me right for browsing slashdot in 4-pt font.
Inflation is necessary to compensate for growing GDP. I do believe it's a little out of hand currently, but to remove inflation severely weakens the economy.
Very close. Instead of (Rate of Return on Investments) / (Delta(Money Supply)), he should be calculating RoR / (Delta[(Money Supply)/GDP)]).
It's GDP, not population, that he missed accounting for.
A lot of lottos that offer a computer 'quick-pick' are set up so that the quick-pick only chooses numbers not already taken. Of course, someone could namually choose your set of numbers after you buy your ticket, but if you want to maximize your potential earnings, always use the quick-pick (for lottos that obey this rule).
Instead of using absolute dollar figures for your analysis, you should use lifestyle impact.
e.g. One dollar a week == no lifestyle impact; $370MM payout == off the charts lifestyle impact.
This is why people will continue to play the lottery, even if mathematically it's a poor choice.
He did not say 'enacted' he said 'done'. Besides which, appropriations bills and the budget are 'done' by Congress.
I see, so the instant something becomes enacted, it ceases to provide benefits?
Let's see how many end up spending some money on herbal V1agra -- if Bob Dole uses it, surely there's no shame in it?
Then we could address them as Skeletor Jones, Skeletor Menendez, etc.
FDIC-insured bank accounts (or do you keep all your money as cash^H^H^H^Hgold coins under your mattress?)
Environmental regulations (do you breathe air and drink water, or eat foods that need air and water to survive?)
It's easy to take potshots at the federal government, since there is so much that DOES get bungled. But take a look around you at the things you do every day, and think about how the Federal Government has contributed to them. It might surprise you how much our daily life is affected in secondary and tertiary ways.
The reason I mention this is that the House passes lots of bills that never are passed by the Senate. Sometimes the Senate will pass their own version of a bill, and send it back to the House. This is why we have a bicameral legislature -- so that one legislative body can't pass laws by itself. It's a check within a division of the federal government, and serves a useful purpose.
Niiice...
For a second I was going to point out how important anonymous pamphlets were to the American Revolution (especially leading up to the Revolution)...
And then it clicked.
I tip my hat to you, whoever you may be.
The internet is a venue for free speech, and any discussion of privacy concerns need to keep that in mind. From the American perspective, free speech is sancrosact, and one guarantor of free speech is anonymity. WHOIS (in theory) removes the ability to publish anonymous content via a self-owned website.
Most of the people clamoring for WHOIS to remain are those who have intellectual property to protect (especially trademarks). Without getting into a debate about whether trademarks should exist (please! that's for another discussion), something like WHOIS is necessary for people to protect their trademarks -- and the current law in the US requires this.
So the basic discussion is to weigh the interests of IP holders against any free speech infringement that WHOIS creates.
In my thinking, there are plenty of other ways to publish anonymously on the internet. Registering a website is not required; therefore, identification requirements for registering a website don't really infringe upon free speech -- especially considering that it is trivial to enter fake information for WHOIS registration.
One possible solution would be to require registration information, but then to not allow public access to the information. Those who wish to pursue action against potential trademark violators could then get a court order for the registration information to be unsealed. While this would in theory help safeguard privacy, it's only as safe as the court system (and by extension, the laws that guide the court system) that applies. It also runs into problems with international registrations, and if ICANN is in theory an independent body, hands too much power over to a particular government. Finally, it adds even more bureacracy to what should be a free flow of information.
In the long run, I think the only mutually beneficial solution is to require information to be registered, but find a way to limit access to that information to legitimate requests. This may be an impossible task, in which case we should all just throw up our hands in despair and let anarchy reign in the tubes.
Sure, but often it's much cheaper in the long run to outsource things like that. Often it's because the providers deal with a much larger scale, and therefore automation is more effective for them.
That CIO is outsourcing the task, but that task is provided by automation now rather than manual processing by staff. Regardless of who, in the end, provides the automation, it's automation that makes the cost savings possible.
Also, we have no idea of what they paid StrikeIron, or of what they currently pay to Workday and Visual Sciences. It's quite possible the costs are similar... without the unnecessary in-house staff expense.