I don't think the Founding Fathers would have done it the same way if they'd anticipated there'd be another 37 states.
Or if they'd anticipated 820k people per Member of the House instead of 30k. That's where the accountability really drops off for the legislative branch.
They sure as heck didn't want to be elevated to the status of unquestionable demigods.
I find this statement very funny, sorry -- because ascribing them such a humble perspective across-the-board does kind of elevate them to that status. I'm sure some of them wouldn't have minded one bit if they were elevated to that status.
But here we have an "editor" instructing the readership to do slashdot's work for them.
Erm, I'm sorry, where does it state that it is Slashdot's job to mirror linked sites and documents?
I think you're viewing Slashdot as a content provider, which is not what it is -- at its most basic level, it's a content indexer. The whole point of Slashdot (IMO) is the community -- it's the community discussion that I log in for, and it's the community who can choose to help out linked sites by creating and posting mirrors.
This all just points to the fact that OSTG will pay the bandwidth bills if it means ad revenue, but doesn't want to actually foot the bill to use their server complex for disseminating information.
Have you considered that doing so could put OSTG under the gun for copyright infringement? It's not just about bandwidth costs.
I've been investing since '92. Keep in mind that only a fool would invest solely in stocks, and only a bigger fool would invest in solely US stocks. Also, that many individual stocks and funds significantly out-perform the market as a whole. I was lucky enough to pay attention to the doomsayers who were projecting a bust as early as 1999 -- by 2000 I was shifting to more stable investments, by 2001 I was profit-taking. Did I take a hit in 2001? Sure... but I got mostly out a little ahead of the curve. Enron fscked me, though -- I thought energy stocks were a prime place to be.
The point is that the performance of a particular index doesn't even come close to indicating what an individual's investments have done.
So I invest my money elsewhere, then. It fluctuates, but right now about 35% of my portfolio is invested overseas anyway... likely to go up in the future.
Given stocks over the last 10 years- you'll be lucky to see a 3% return on your investments from here on out.
Not at all... Hell, I'm getting more than that on a fixed-return money market fund. My high-risk fund portfolio has earned me over 10% annually the past three years; my total portfolio return, excluding additional funds I've put in, has been over 8% annually since 2002.
Of course, I'm young, and so weighted a little more heavily toward high-risk funds, but 5% a year is by no means unusual over a twenty-year period.
If you really have those electricity rates, then the pay back for you is pretty far down the road, but for most people, if they can afford the initial investment and have a suitable location, it's looking pretty good.
Not really. Don't forget the opportunity cost of laying out that cash right away. Over a twenty-year life, you'll find that you're actually spending around three times that for the energy... if you assume a modest return of 5% on your investments.
This of course does not include adjustments for inflation (which increase cost-effectiveness of buying one now) or changes in energy costs...
But it's absolutely clear from a personal financial standpoint that you're currently (pardon the pun) better off buying from the grid.
Now, from a public standpoint, you'll want to look at the cost of environmental impact of the energy you'd otherwise be buying off the grid, plus the energy and environmental impacts of producing the windmill, but I think it's more than likely that these offsets don't make the personal windmill a benefit to the public good or to the private good.
I work in print (magazine) publishing -- and I can assure you that published images do indeed help get to the portfolio review stage for consideration for editorial use, regardless of where published. We use a mix of established and young (& therefore cheap) photographers.
Also, a lot of young photographers end up shooting for us at a loss in order to get into the magazine -- for FOB stories, we only pay a very small page rate (no expenses) that doesn't come close to covering the expenses of even a small shoot. And yes, we scour small magazines for photographer attributions, and ask some of them to submit a portfolio.
Well, if your photo makes it into print with an attribution, it's not just the satisfaction of getting your pics in print -- it's also another published item in your portfolio. For someone looking to develop their photography or photjournalism career, it can really help -- like having your name, in the code, associated with a FOSS project when you're applying for a corporate developer position.
I'm the guy who can read; I get the "slow down cowboy" message constantly.
But apparently not the guy who can think through his posts... or take the time to post something a little more informative.
What I hate is when I browse back to double-check what someone (like a grandparemt post) said before I submit a comment... then I browse back forward, copy my text, and then have to wait a few minutes...
Ummmm.....No. Beach sand is mostly silicon dioxide, whereas computer chips are fabricated starting from wafers of very pure silicon.
And yet that pure silicon came from... I dunno... silicon dioxide, maybe?
If you're a materials scientist, you should know better than to think polySi exists in any usable quantities in nature, and you should know that the doped polySi used in wafer production comes originally from reduction of Si02 by burning with a carbon fuel (like wood) at very high temperatures.
There are tens of millions of portable computers in use. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is aware of at least 47 incidents involving smoke or fire associated with notebook computers, from January 2001 through August 2006.
So, taking a low-ball figure of 20 million for total notebooks in use from 1/01 thorugh 8/06, that's still just over 2 incidents per million notebooks... I wonder how many incidents there would be per million notebook-use-hours.
To contrast, the rail system in the US was very pround when, in 1993, they were able to reduce reportable safety incidents below 3.0 per million train miles.
What I'm trying to say is that people are getting very worked up over a not-very-big deal (not that the goal shouldn't be 0 incidents per million hours) -- and considering the minor harm that such fires are likely to cause, is it worth the economic and financial impact of these recalls?
Unintentional funny -- double whoosh with word usage pedantry.
OP: Missed the sarcasm of the summary.
Parent to this post: Missed the sarcasm of the summary, and then blasted the OP for not knowing what coincidence is.
I say, it's no coincidence that two posters who both don't get sarcasm have a giant bug up their bum that forces them to correct people's mistakes even when no mistake exists.
As far as I can tell, the editor knows exactly what a coincidence is...parent doesn't have a clue. Read some books mate and you might understand english a bit better.
All I gotta say is: read some non-technical books, pal, and you might just understand what sarcasm is.
This spying bill is pretty bad, but it's not nearly as big a blemish on our country as the Detainee/Trials/Torture bill that just got passed. If you want to see some real evidence of the terrorists winning against our freedoms, read up on that.
Well, not to be facetious or anything;), but this sounds like a great anti-terrorism plan to me.
We all know that the terrorists hate us for our freedoms. It's simple logic to deduce that if we reduce our freedoms, we will also reduce the number of terrorists.
"PCM is like a super set of NOR or NAND flash," Doller said. "It's almost nirvana for an engineer. It reads fast, writes fast--it does everything faster."
Nah, if it were nirvana for an engineer, it would do everything just as fast as it needs to, and no faster.
A media that declares no bias is generally expected to cover both sides.
Not true at all. A medium that declares no bias is expected to report the truth, no matter what side it is on. For subjective issues, yes there is the consideration of equal exposure -- but for objective issues, no way.
Yes. Bias and truth are completely separate things.
My point exactly. They are independent; therefore, it is not biased to report one side of an issue when all research points to that side being true.
When there are to major parties, and one's position is clearly on one side, calling it non-partisan is a game in nomenclature rather than carrying any actual meaning. In fact, it deligitimizes the effort, by having them focus on something which is not true.
Not so; the point here is that the PAC is operating on a single issue. This is what makes them nonpartisan -- they aren't going to change their mission if the next Democratic administration starts politicizing science to the degree the current administration does.
They would be partisan if they said "support the Democratic Party because they tend to politicize science less." However, since their stance is "In this race, support candidate X because candidate Y has politicized scientific issues in their campaign," regardless of party, they are nonpartisan.
What? Does non-partisan mean equal-support-for-all-people-no-matter-their-view?
The founders don't care that Bush is a Republican, and that Congress is controlled by Republicans -- they care that the current administration doesn't handle scientific issues scientifically.
It's like the whole debate over whether 'unbiased' media needs to cover both sides of a dichotomous issue equally -- even when one of the sides is obviously wrong. Is accepting the truth biased when an opposiing view exists?
The sad fact of the current political state of the United States is simply that politicians are relying on voters to vote based on emotion, not logic.
I think you're close, but not quite there. The political machines in the US are convincing voters to vote based on wedge issues -- often issues that will not be resolved whomever is elected (as you point out with abortion), or with issues of minor significance.
Just admit it, Democrats are less founded in conservative Christian belief and therefore are more prone to rely on science for decisions/explanations.
You're confusing the issues here, and generalizing far too much. Republicans are not founded in conservative Christian belief -- it just so happened that the fundamentalist Christian bloc has been able to dominate the politics of the Republican Party. Also, conservative Christian != fundamentalist Christian (which is why I used the different term). Fundies want to change the law to reflect their beliefs -- by definition, conservatives are more interested in preserving the status quo. There is some overlap, of course.
The politicians are supposed to represent the people and, since most people aren't experts using science and engineering, they shouldn't make decisions based on this.
The US is not a direct democracy -- it was not intended to be one, and our elective system represents that. We, the people, are responsible for electing those we trust to lead us, to make good decisions on our behalf, and to represent our interests -- which is not the same as reflecting our will on specific issues. Never will 100% of the population be educated enough on any single issue that the government should do exactly as a majority of the people want. I vote for the person who I think will make the best-reasoned, best-educated decisions based on shared values. Of course, I have limited choice, but that's a rant for a different thread.
At any rate, I find this new 527 to be right up my alley, and I'll have to take a look at them when I decide what PACs my money is going to next year.
So, I didn't bother reading the NYTimes article (too lazy atm for Bugmenot, I'll get to it later), but a quick googling showed that the contact for Scientists and Engineers for America is Michael Brown of Alexandira, VA. No contact info was given on the three sites I saw the information.
All I have to say is: Brownie, I hope this time you do a heckuva job.
It's the one-click feature -- no userID, no password.
Basically, one aggregate cookie for each person that displays (limited to PrefPass participant sites) browser history. The reason this works better than Passport for a lot of sites is that the website is provided with marketing info, not just a validation of the user. So the participating sites don't need to request the info, they don't need to worry about storing the info (if they do so to make sure non-cookie-accepting-visitors still get tracked), etc.
Another way to think about it is meta-tagging applied to websurfers for the use of websites they visit.
Your comment was a waste of energy - it was an IE fix - and everyone here.. even the editors know that you don't have that problem unless your running windows.. idiot.
Wow, ur so kewl 2! You can point out when someone is making an obvious point, but then completely blow it when you refer to running windows as if the OP had commented on it being a Windows-only vulnerability... when the OP only referred to other browsers, not other OSs.
Flame on, if you like, but having something more useful or amusing to add to the conversation would be great -- instead of the bitter rantings of an idiot with a superiority complex.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to figure out where I put my Hypocrasy Merit Badge.
Slashdot Mirror
I find this statement very funny, sorry -- because ascribing them such a humble perspective across-the-board does kind of elevate them to that status. I'm sure some of them wouldn't have minded one bit if they were elevated to that status.
I think you're viewing Slashdot as a content provider, which is not what it is -- at its most basic level, it's a content indexer. The whole point of Slashdot (IMO) is the community -- it's the community discussion that I log in for, and it's the community who can choose to help out linked sites by creating and posting mirrors.
Have you considered that doing so could put OSTG under the gun for copyright infringement? It's not just about bandwidth costs.
I've been investing since '92. Keep in mind that only a fool would invest solely in stocks, and only a bigger fool would invest in solely US stocks. Also, that many individual stocks and funds significantly out-perform the market as a whole.
I was lucky enough to pay attention to the doomsayers who were projecting a bust as early as 1999 -- by 2000 I was shifting to more stable investments, by 2001 I was profit-taking. Did I take a hit in 2001? Sure... but I got mostly out a little ahead of the curve. Enron fscked me, though -- I thought energy stocks were a prime place to be.
The point is that the performance of a particular index doesn't even come close to indicating what an individual's investments have done.
So I invest my money elsewhere, then. It fluctuates, but right now about 35% of my portfolio is invested overseas anyway... likely to go up in the future.
Of course, I'm young, and so weighted a little more heavily toward high-risk funds, but 5% a year is by no means unusual over a twenty-year period.
This of course does not include adjustments for inflation (which increase cost-effectiveness of buying one now) or changes in energy costs...
But it's absolutely clear from a personal financial standpoint that you're currently (pardon the pun) better off buying from the grid.
Now, from a public standpoint, you'll want to look at the cost of environmental impact of the energy you'd otherwise be buying off the grid, plus the energy and environmental impacts of producing the windmill, but I think it's more than likely that these offsets don't make the personal windmill a benefit to the public good or to the private good.
Sorry, couldn't resist.
I work in print (magazine) publishing -- and I can assure you that published images do indeed help get to the portfolio review stage for consideration for editorial use, regardless of where published. We use a mix of established and young (& therefore cheap) photographers.
Also, a lot of young photographers end up shooting for us at a loss in order to get into the magazine -- for FOB stories, we only pay a very small page rate (no expenses) that doesn't come close to covering the expenses of even a small shoot. And yes, we scour small magazines for photographer attributions, and ask some of them to submit a portfolio.
Well, if your photo makes it into print with an attribution, it's not just the satisfaction of getting your pics in print -- it's also another published item in your portfolio. For someone looking to develop their photography or photjournalism career, it can really help -- like having your name, in the code, associated with a FOSS project when you're applying for a corporate developer position.
Regardless, silicon chips are made from the same material that sand is primarily composed of. The manufacturing process starts with raw materials.
What I hate is when I browse back to double-check what someone (like a grandparemt post) said before I submit a comment... then I browse back forward, copy my text, and then have to wait a few minutes...
If you're a materials scientist, you should know better than to think polySi exists in any usable quantities in nature, and you should know that the doped polySi used in wafer production comes originally from reduction of Si02 by burning with a carbon fuel (like wood) at very high temperatures.
So, taking a low-ball figure of 20 million for total notebooks in use from 1/01 thorugh 8/06, that's still just over 2 incidents per million notebooks... I wonder how many incidents there would be per million notebook-use-hours.
To contrast, the rail system in the US was very pround when, in 1993, they were able to reduce reportable safety incidents below 3.0 per million train miles.
What I'm trying to say is that people are getting very worked up over a not-very-big deal (not that the goal shouldn't be 0 incidents per million hours) -- and considering the minor harm that such fires are likely to cause, is it worth the economic and financial impact of these recalls?
OP: Missed the sarcasm of the summary.
Parent to this post: Missed the sarcasm of the summary, and then blasted the OP for not knowing what coincidence is.
I say, it's no coincidence that two posters who both don't get sarcasm have a giant bug up their bum that forces them to correct people's mistakes even when no mistake exists.
All I gotta say is: read some non-technical books, pal, and you might just understand what sarcasm is.
We all know that the terrorists hate us for our freedoms. It's simple logic to deduce that if we reduce our freedoms, we will also reduce the number of terrorists.
Bravo, GWB, Bravo. Genius!
My point exactly. They are independent; therefore, it is not biased to report one side of an issue when all research points to that side being true.
Not so; the point here is that the PAC is operating on a single issue. This is what makes them nonpartisan -- they aren't going to change their mission if the next Democratic administration starts politicizing science to the degree the current administration does.
They would be partisan if they said "support the Democratic Party because they tend to politicize science less." However, since their stance is "In this race, support candidate X because candidate Y has politicized scientific issues in their campaign," regardless of party, they are nonpartisan.
What? Does non-partisan mean equal-support-for-all-people-no-matter-their-view?
The founders don't care that Bush is a Republican, and that Congress is controlled by Republicans -- they care that the current administration doesn't handle scientific issues scientifically.
It's like the whole debate over whether 'unbiased' media needs to cover both sides of a dichotomous issue equally -- even when one of the sides is obviously wrong. Is accepting the truth biased when an opposiing view exists?
FYI, it's not the same Michael Brown.
You're confusing the issues here, and generalizing far too much. Republicans are not founded in conservative Christian belief -- it just so happened that the fundamentalist Christian bloc has been able to dominate the politics of the Republican Party. Also, conservative Christian != fundamentalist Christian (which is why I used the different term). Fundies want to change the law to reflect their beliefs -- by definition, conservatives are more interested in preserving the status quo. There is some overlap, of course.
The US is not a direct democracy -- it was not intended to be one, and our elective system represents that. We, the people, are responsible for electing those we trust to lead us, to make good decisions on our behalf, and to represent our interests -- which is not the same as reflecting our will on specific issues. Never will 100% of the population be educated enough on any single issue that the government should do exactly as a majority of the people want. I vote for the person who I think will make the best-reasoned, best-educated decisions based on shared values. Of course, I have limited choice, but that's a rant for a different thread.
At any rate, I find this new 527 to be right up my alley, and I'll have to take a look at them when I decide what PACs my money is going to next year.
So, I didn't bother reading the NYTimes article (too lazy atm for Bugmenot, I'll get to it later), but a quick googling showed that the contact for Scientists and Engineers for America is Michael Brown of Alexandira, VA. No contact info was given on the three sites I saw the information.
All I have to say is: Brownie, I hope this time you do a heckuva job.
It's the one-click feature -- no userID, no password.
Basically, one aggregate cookie for each person that displays (limited to PrefPass participant sites) browser history. The reason this works better than Passport for a lot of sites is that the website is provided with marketing info, not just a validation of the user. So the participating sites don't need to request the info, they don't need to worry about storing the info (if they do so to make sure non-cookie-accepting-visitors still get tracked), etc.
Another way to think about it is meta-tagging applied to websurfers for the use of websites they visit.
Flame on, if you like, but having something more useful or amusing to add to the conversation would be great -- instead of the bitter rantings of an idiot with a superiority complex.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to figure out where I put my Hypocrasy Merit Badge.
I'm sure some of the mice experiments involved reproductive testing.
As to which astronaut actually had to copulate with the mice, I don't know.