The problem is that the legal immigration system is horribly broken. If you try to legally enter the US without a relative here, the answer is almost always "no." We wouldn't have 12 million illegal immigrants if we allowed people to actually get in legally.
It's actually interesting that many of the complaints about "the grind" in WoW (the only MMORPG I know well) aren't quite valid. Blizzard has made several components of the game massive time sinks in order to placate those with no life, but they aren't essential to progressing. Mostly this is since the last patch. A couple of examples. The "nether drake" is a fancy looking dragon you can ride around on that has no utility in completing game content besides looking cool. It is very time consuming to get, and exists to give people something to do when they have all day to play. Second, on the opposite end are the Arenas, where you get points for items based on your rating (which increases with games won, and decreases with games lost) with no regard to how many games you play (more than 10, so you can't just sit on a high rating). If I play 10 or 100, it in no way changes what I get unless I win more.
Are there still aspects of "the grind" that are annoying, yeah, but game designers are pretty smart, and I think Blizzard in this case did a decent job in creating a game that has components for grinders and non-grinders.
If they don't comply, the full Senate can have a vote finding the subpoenaed officials in contempt of Congress. This forces the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate and possibly bring charges. Contempt generally doesn't require a jury ruling to be found guilty (for contempt of court, not sure about Congress), so the judge in the case could issue a bench warrant for the subpoenaed officials to appear before the Congress. If they refused to appear, they could be arrested and physically forced to appear.
Well, our synthetic methods for capturing sunlight are inefficient, plants are better at it. So, plant-originated ethanol/hydrogren/etc is a compelling solution. And it turns out that high-energy plants.... tend to be food sources, imagine that.
Sorta. Plants are much less efficient than solar cells per sq meter. But plants are also dirt cheap (literally) to use. Solar panels can run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars for a large area. Solar cells have a much higher marginal efficiency, but involve much higher sunk costs. Also, most every plant is "high-energy," just some store that energy in easier to use forms than others. Plants which store large quantities of their energy in sugars or simpler starches are easier to process than plants that store it in fibrous material (that material can be useful for other things though...see cotton).
The problem really is a question of energy density. We have an increasing population which requires increasing amounts of energy to sustain itself physically, move itself around, and entertain itself. Oil is more energy dense than plants, and that's why we are willing to go out of our way to get it. 100 kg of oil has MUCH more energy in it than 100 kg of wheat (Whole plant, stalk and all).
The human race has come up with a way of harnessing a fuel source millions of times more energy dense than oil though: matter. If you want a tool which can create huge amounts of energy without huge amounts of materials, remember that E = mc^2.
Proper way to do the test would put the source in a Faraday cage. As others have noted, sounds made by these devices and other factors can cause problems. If the device is on but not emitting any EM waves, the symptoms should stop. See if they do.
From shopping around a bit, this is because dell only lists options where you have options. There is probably only one Ethernet card available on the system you're configuring, so they don't show it as an option. Besides, the main reason to always know the model number of the card is irrelevant. The card will work with Linux, Dell has seen to that.
I'm saying crossing parallel to the kids, as in I'm going north, they're going north. If I'm going through a N/S green then the walk sign is lit on the N/S route only.
The point the GP makes though is still valid. He is trying to rid the world of violent games. He is just doing it in the least effective way possible. This would be the rough equivalent of me suing someone for driving through a green light while kids were crossing with the walk sign in their direction...because I think that cars should wait for all pedestrians to cross all directions before proceeding.
He is suing MS for doing something legal. There is no law preventing the sale of violent games to kids. The suit will be thrown out.
Grade school as it may seem, this IS "supply and demand." Demand-pull inflation to be precise. Demand for petroleum products has increased (see SUVs and China...mostly China). Price has gone up so rapidly because the short term elasticity is so low. People need to get to work, and in the car they have now. In the short term, people won't respond to a $.05 change in gas prices. Prices have spiked because we hit the wall of refining capacity and the supply curve got steep. Prices needed to go up to push demand down.
Personally, I'd like an all electric drivetrain with a gas motor to provide electricity. Then you could eliminate the need for a transmission entirely.
It doesn't matter in this context. That 1960s software now constitutes prior art. Any patent by Microsoft for those OS components would be invalidated in court by an examination of the old IBM code in question. Assuming Linus is right of course.
Sudo is much safer than a root account. When logged in as root, all applications that are running do so with root privileges. This is very dangerous because it gives root power to apps which normally never have it, such as your web browser (and the latest r00tkit...assuming it works on linux). It also means using $rm -rf / will instantly wipe your drive, no questions asked, and with no password prompt to make you think you hit enter too quickly. Logging in as root isn't too dangerous as an absolute beginner, since you tend not to leave the cozy GUI space (until/unless there start being a ton of driveby attacks for *NIX machines). But logging in as root is insane for a medium/high skill user except in VERY strange circumstances.
There is a difference between WoW and a drug, a big one. A drug introduces an addictive chemical into your body (nicotine, ethyl alcohol, etc.) which can chemically addict you regardless of the pleasurable or unpleasurable properties of the consumption of the drug itself.
A game or other activity can addict you, but only insomuch as you enjoy playing it and want to repeat that experience. Not that this can't be addicting (as it releases chemicals in your brain associated with pleasure) but it cannot reasonably be blamed on the people who sold it to you, unlike drugs (maybe).
Almost any activity can be addictive to some people. And if someone does tend to get addicted to things, WoW might not be the worst thing. It's probably better than being addicted to alcohol.
"An ex post facto law (from the Latin for "from something done afterward") or retroactive law, is a law that retroactively changes the legal consequences of acts committed or the legal status of facts and relationships that existed prior to the enactment of the law." -Wikipedia.
Retroactive immunity is an ex post facto law. Thus it is unconstitutional.
That depends who you ask. Many ethical theories would agree with your assessment, consequentialism and deontology among them. Others would say that there are "good and bad people," virtue ethics is among such theories. I would suggest the writings of Shelly Kagan on consequentialism, Robert Nozick on deontology, and Phillipa Foot on virtue ethics.
They can ask you to sign that, but as far as I know, that can't be a valid contract. There is binding arbitration, but that has to be agreed to by both parties AFTER the event over which there is a suit has taken place. The 7th amendment is pretty clear on the issue.
This is censorship and not toleration of defamation. They are trying to restrict access to the means of speaking, regardless of content. This is a site where students can post positive or negative information about teachers. Negative info about teachers isn't always false. and even if some of it is, it is not grounds to stop the means of communication, just to punish the specific speaker.
SCO is worth probably -$100 million. They will lose the IBM case badly, and get judged against for some gigantic amount. If you bought out SCO, you'd have to pray that IBM, Sun, and all the other people suing would drop the cases and let you be. If you arranged that in advance...you'd go to jail for insider trading.
There is an argument to be made that a debate 9 months before votes will be cast isn't really newsworthy and is much a PR stunt by the Democrats (or Republicans next week) as it is a news event. Debates close to the elections, sure. This isn't a debate to get people to decide between candidates, it's a debate to let people hear there was a debate. If all 8 of the people in that debate were on my primary ballot in Feb. I'd be shocked.
I'm all for debates, but I'd like to wait until we have the official list of candidates. Some of the major candidates haven't actually filed with the FEC even.
Basic fair use covers even totally private copyrighted material. The right to use short clips to elucidate an argument or comment on a candidate is protected no matter what. Total rebroadcast is of course not, but fair use applies to copyrighted material. That is its point.
The Commission on Presidential Debates is funded through donations sponsored by the government (those $1 check off boxes on tax returns). Not sure on the legal status of the works they produce, but I'd guess it's public domain just because so many broadcasters pick them up, and nobody has tags on it. Prior to the CPD, debates were done by the League of Women's Voters. Those are technically private, but the League isn't as crazy as NBC
Slashdot Mirror
The problem is that the legal immigration system is horribly broken. If you try to legally enter the US without a relative here, the answer is almost always "no." We wouldn't have 12 million illegal immigrants if we allowed people to actually get in legally.
Are there still aspects of "the grind" that are annoying, yeah, but game designers are pretty smart, and I think Blizzard in this case did a decent job in creating a game that has components for grinders and non-grinders.
If they don't comply, the full Senate can have a vote finding the subpoenaed officials in contempt of Congress. This forces the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate and possibly bring charges. Contempt generally doesn't require a jury ruling to be found guilty (for contempt of court, not sure about Congress), so the judge in the case could issue a bench warrant for the subpoenaed officials to appear before the Congress. If they refused to appear, they could be arrested and physically forced to appear.
GP was referring to GGP's suggestion of the Firefox extension Slashdotter.
Not really, see: paparazzi. They can shoot totally non-newsworthy events without consent of the subjects.
Sorta. Plants are much less efficient than solar cells per sq meter. But plants are also dirt cheap (literally) to use. Solar panels can run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars for a large area. Solar cells have a much higher marginal efficiency, but involve much higher sunk costs. Also, most every plant is "high-energy," just some store that energy in easier to use forms than others. Plants which store large quantities of their energy in sugars or simpler starches are easier to process than plants that store it in fibrous material (that material can be useful for other things though...see cotton).
The problem really is a question of energy density. We have an increasing population which requires increasing amounts of energy to sustain itself physically, move itself around, and entertain itself. Oil is more energy dense than plants, and that's why we are willing to go out of our way to get it. 100 kg of oil has MUCH more energy in it than 100 kg of wheat (Whole plant, stalk and all).
The human race has come up with a way of harnessing a fuel source millions of times more energy dense than oil though: matter. If you want a tool which can create huge amounts of energy without huge amounts of materials, remember that E = mc^2.
Proper way to do the test would put the source in a Faraday cage. As others have noted, sounds made by these devices and other factors can cause problems. If the device is on but not emitting any EM waves, the symptoms should stop. See if they do.
From shopping around a bit, this is because dell only lists options where you have options. There is probably only one Ethernet card available on the system you're configuring, so they don't show it as an option. Besides, the main reason to always know the model number of the card is irrelevant. The card will work with Linux, Dell has seen to that.
I'm saying crossing parallel to the kids, as in I'm going north, they're going north. If I'm going through a N/S green then the walk sign is lit on the N/S route only.
The point the GP makes though is still valid. He is trying to rid the world of violent games. He is just doing it in the least effective way possible. This would be the rough equivalent of me suing someone for driving through a green light while kids were crossing with the walk sign in their direction...because I think that cars should wait for all pedestrians to cross all directions before proceeding.
He is suing MS for doing something legal. There is no law preventing the sale of violent games to kids. The suit will be thrown out.
Three words: Adjusted for inflation.
Godwin's Law. This is about spyware, Hitler analogies are not appropriate.
Grade school as it may seem, this IS "supply and demand." Demand-pull inflation to be precise. Demand for petroleum products has increased (see SUVs and China...mostly China). Price has gone up so rapidly because the short term elasticity is so low. People need to get to work, and in the car they have now. In the short term, people won't respond to a $.05 change in gas prices. Prices have spiked because we hit the wall of refining capacity and the supply curve got steep. Prices needed to go up to push demand down.
Personally, I'd like an all electric drivetrain with a gas motor to provide electricity. Then you could eliminate the need for a transmission entirely.
It doesn't matter in this context. That 1960s software now constitutes prior art. Any patent by Microsoft for those OS components would be invalidated in court by an examination of the old IBM code in question. Assuming Linus is right of course.
Sudo is much safer than a root account. When logged in as root, all applications that are running do so with root privileges. This is very dangerous because it gives root power to apps which normally never have it, such as your web browser (and the latest r00tkit...assuming it works on linux). It also means using $rm -rf / will instantly wipe your drive, no questions asked, and with no password prompt to make you think you hit enter too quickly. Logging in as root isn't too dangerous as an absolute beginner, since you tend not to leave the cozy GUI space (until/unless there start being a ton of driveby attacks for *NIX machines). But logging in as root is insane for a medium/high skill user except in VERY strange circumstances.
A game or other activity can addict you, but only insomuch as you enjoy playing it and want to repeat that experience. Not that this can't be addicting (as it releases chemicals in your brain associated with pleasure) but it cannot reasonably be blamed on the people who sold it to you, unlike drugs (maybe).
Almost any activity can be addictive to some people. And if someone does tend to get addicted to things, WoW might not be the worst thing. It's probably better than being addicted to alcohol.
Retroactive immunity is an ex post facto law. Thus it is unconstitutional.
That depends who you ask. Many ethical theories would agree with your assessment, consequentialism and deontology among them. Others would say that there are "good and bad people," virtue ethics is among such theories. I would suggest the writings of Shelly Kagan on consequentialism, Robert Nozick on deontology, and Phillipa Foot on virtue ethics.
They can ask you to sign that, but as far as I know, that can't be a valid contract. There is binding arbitration, but that has to be agreed to by both parties AFTER the event over which there is a suit has taken place. The 7th amendment is pretty clear on the issue.
And remember kids: if it's true, it's not libel.
SCO is worth probably -$100 million. They will lose the IBM case badly, and get judged against for some gigantic amount. If you bought out SCO, you'd have to pray that IBM, Sun, and all the other people suing would drop the cases and let you be. If you arranged that in advance...you'd go to jail for insider trading.
I'm all for debates, but I'd like to wait until we have the official list of candidates. Some of the major candidates haven't actually filed with the FEC even.
Basic fair use covers even totally private copyrighted material. The right to use short clips to elucidate an argument or comment on a candidate is protected no matter what. Total rebroadcast is of course not, but fair use applies to copyrighted material. That is its point.
The Commission on Presidential Debates is funded through donations sponsored by the government (those $1 check off boxes on tax returns). Not sure on the legal status of the works they produce, but I'd guess it's public domain just because so many broadcasters pick them up, and nobody has tags on it. Prior to the CPD, debates were done by the League of Women's Voters. Those are technically private, but the League isn't as crazy as NBC