My grandmother's doctor told her if she didn't get her cholesterol down she'd die. Well, the doctor died. The next doctor said the same thing, then he died. Three more doctors later she did die -- fell in the nursing home and broke her hip at age 99.
You have to die from something. Grandma told me when she was 95 "I don't know why people want to live to be a hundred, it ain't no fun bein' old!"
But yes, I'm lucky. Genes count more than anything when it comes to living a long time. I've known a lot of people far younger than me who exercised, ate right, and still keeled over in their forties.
I eat what I want and don't get much exercise at all. I'm thin, sit all day, drink too much, and you know what? You have to die from something. Live while you're alive. Take it from an old man who'll be sixty in a couple of months.
(now watch me die tomorrow, that would show me, wouldn't it?)
Half of the moderators thought your comment was funny. It is both informative and interesting, but it truly is security theatre only, and it isn't funny that so many of our tax dollars are wasted on it. TSA is supposed to be Transportation Safety Authority, why not spend that momey on the highways and actually SAVE a few lives? Half a dozen people died locally in the last month who could have been saved by GUARD RAILS! 45,000 die on the highways EACH YEAR! The TSA should be disbanded.
Yes, its name is "Bhuddism." The Bhuddists worship life.
cost/benefit ratio, something that gets precious little rational discussion. Those who are skeptical of spending obscene amounts of money with at best fuzzy promises of any tangible results arent 'deniers' by any stretch no matter how convenient it is to label them as such.
Yes, and that's another religion, the one most practiced in the US today. It's called "Mammonism."
If you are a mammonist, you will disagree with this statement -- there are things worth far more than money. If "money" is at the top of the list of things that matter to you, then I pity you.
I don't want any progarm to be connected to the web unless I'm uploading or downloading. That includes BitTorrent, too. And anything else I forgot about.
The 50%+ who are in love with government hand-outs and have forgotten how to provide for themselves are dependent. Cut them off and they're also desperate.
50% dependent on the government? So not paying federal tax is being "dependent"? You so-called "conservatives" have a funny way with language. When my grandfather was a young man in the 1920s, only the rich paid federal tax. One would think an anti-tax "conservative" would be happy that half the citizens aren't paying tax.
There are some government handouts I'd like to get rid of -- handouts to the rich, who get most of your tax money. IBM getting back more than they paid, GE paying no tax, oil company subsidies, farm subsidies... and you would begrudge a few table scraps for the poor? Disgusting.
There's nothing wrong with HTML and javascript... for making web pages. Web apps? I don't want any web apps! I like my computers to work with a broken router or modem; I refuse to use any program besides a browser that relies on web access. And I don't want forced upgrades. With the app on my PC I can upgrade or not as I see fit. If the app's on your server I have no choice.
For simple database-driven apps, javascript in the browser works fine if the heavy lifting is done on the back end. That's your data. I'll keep my own data and programs on my own computers, thanks.
HTML and javascript too hard for you? Maybe you're in the wrong line of work?
It's also that $730,000 / year in ongoing maintenance for a Z9 is not really all that practical, especially considering that newer deployments based on GPGPUs have far lower operating costs, and provide higher performance than a 5 year old big iron.
I saw a feature of the Z9 in wikipedia that intrigued me. I can't for the life of me figure out how they could accomplish it.
Concurrent book replacement
The System z9 supports nondisruptive processor replacement. That means a technician can replace an entire processor book without ending any applications and without restarting any operating systems. In most configurations a System z9 can even manage this feat without any reduction in performance or capacity for the running applications.
The pictures don't show the whole computer. I haven't seen a mainframe installation since a class in the late '90s. It was Illinois' Secretary of State's mainframe, the instructor was in charge of it and took us on a field trip. The actual computer took a whole very large room. Each of its 4 CPUs were the size of a fridge, memory and drives were in separate enclosures. Impressive. They had two natural gas generators for backup power in case the electricity went down.
That depends on your definition of "generate". Generators don't create energy either, they just convert it from kinetic energy. Batteries (except rechargeable batteries) just convert chemical energy to electricity.
No it isn't. In an infinite universe, nothing is finite. Water on earth is finite, even if there is an enormously huge amount of it. But water isn't used up; there is as much water as there ever was. The trouble is its management, not its quantity.
15 months from now, all of Muni's 819 buses will be equipped with the cameras: drivers caught on tape violating the bus lanes will be subject to fines of up to $115.
Nothing new at all. Back when cities had more than one newspaper publisher, and often several, they did the same thing to get you to put the dime in their box instead of the other paper's box.
A month ago I went there to buy a new computer. I narrowed it down to one model, but I had a question. Tried getting an employee to help for half an hour. Then I spent a half-hour surfing on my smart phone for the information. It didn't help that during this surfing I was in ear-short of an employee being flirted to by a person who claimed to be an employee from another branch on their day off.
I'm surprised they stayed in business this long, considering their obvious contempt for their customers. I posted a rant about them ten years ago, just reran it last week. Here's the relevant part:
I'll say something nice about Best Buy too- it's not crowded any more.
My wife Becky decided (after we got a big tax refund this year) that she needed a laptop PC for school. Actually, I suspect that now that she needs a computer she doesn't want to go down to the cold basement to use it like I and the kids do. But any way, we went shoppping for a laptop. I hit a few web sites (not eBay), and we decided to look locally ( JDR seems to only carry Toshiba and I don't like Japanese design). First stop was Best Buy. It had been a while since i had been in there. Well, actually we went in for some compressed air but since we were shopping for a laptop... she fell in love with a Hewlett Packard model, really nice one with a big hard drive, nice big clear screen, lots of memory, DVD CD burner, modem, network card... and most importantly to her, pretty blue lights above the keyboard.
Best Buy staff were puttering around doing... actually I'm clueless, they didn't look to me like they were doing more than trying to look busy and avoid customers. We grabbed a salesman, who told us he'd be right back... this happened three times. We finally got some pimple faced kid who informed us that he had a Gateway and it was crap. "Just a minute and I'll get this ready"... this a half hour after deciding on what to buy.
They were offering free internet access through MSN. Now, if I didn't already have an ISP (and likely DSL) would I be buying a computer with a LAN card and modem? They were also offering zero percent financing, which I also didn't want; I had cash in the bank.
Never mind that I didn't want it, it "will take about five minutes to set up the computer, he can do it while we're filling out paperwork." WTF, was I buying a house, or an antiaircraft missle? Paperwork???
We stood there in line a full half hour before the girl was ready to check us out. As we waited, Becky whipped out her phone and called the bank to make sure we had enough cash to pay for all the crap, over $2000.00 worth. The computer sat there, unopened and un-checked out.
Best Buy wouldn't take our check. After a two and a half hour ordeal of mostly waiting, we walked away from over two thousand dollars in merchandise and won't be back. The sales girl tried to blame some other company!
H&R Block tried to blame a different company, too. I guess business are all taking lessons from Microsoft. Here's a clue for all of them- you can't stay in business like that without a monopoly.
My guess is Best Buy treats everybody like this. If so, I'll give them two more years, maybe with Enron accounting they can survive three or four. I'll give H&R Block five to ten (and they should be glad I'm not a judge!)
Becky bought her HP laptop the next day at Circut City, where they had pleasant salespeople (unlike Best Buy), it took fifteen minutes to buy, and they gratefully took her check without any bullshit.
Just as bad ten years ago (post originally written ten years ago last Saturday).
"Yes but you cannot store LOX for long periods, It want is to boil off. Hydrazine will stay stable for a long time, and another important aspect of hydrazine is it is hypergolic properties."
Slashdot Mirror
Excellent illustration. When she was 95 my grandmother told me "I don't know why people want to live to be a hundred, it's no fun being old."
My grandmother's doctor told her if she didn't get her cholesterol down she'd die. Well, the doctor died. The next doctor said the same thing, then he died. Three more doctors later she did die -- fell in the nursing home and broke her hip at age 99.
You have to die from something. Grandma told me when she was 95 "I don't know why people want to live to be a hundred, it ain't no fun bein' old!"
But yes, I'm lucky. Genes count more than anything when it comes to living a long time. I've known a lot of people far younger than me who exercised, ate right, and still keeled over in their forties.
I had quite a few interesting conversations with Bhuddists in Thailand, including some wearing orange robes. Call bullshit all you want, it isn't.
<nelson>HA HA!</nelson>
I eat what I want and don't get much exercise at all. I'm thin, sit all day, drink too much, and you know what? You have to die from something. Live while you're alive. Take it from an old man who'll be sixty in a couple of months.
(now watch me die tomorrow, that would show me, wouldn't it?)
So google for a citation that shows you're not full of shit. WTF?
Half of the moderators thought your comment was funny. It is both informative and interesting, but it truly is security theatre only, and it isn't funny that so many of our tax dollars are wasted on it. TSA is supposed to be Transportation Safety Authority, why not spend that momey on the highways and actually SAVE a few lives? Half a dozen people died locally in the last month who could have been saved by GUARD RAILS! 45,000 die on the highways EACH YEAR! The TSA should be disbanded.
(and radical green-ism is certainly a religion).
Yes, its name is "Bhuddism." The Bhuddists worship life.
cost/benefit ratio, something that gets precious little rational discussion. Those who are skeptical of spending obscene amounts of money with at best fuzzy promises of any tangible results arent 'deniers' by any stretch no matter how convenient it is to label them as such.
Yes, and that's another religion, the one most practiced in the US today. It's called "Mammonism."
If you are a mammonist, you will disagree with this statement -- there are things worth far more than money. If "money" is at the top of the list of things that matter to you, then I pity you.
I don't want any progarm to be connected to the web unless I'm uploading or downloading. That includes BitTorrent, too. And anything else I forgot about.
It can't be any worse than the losers we're stuck with now.
Ah, youth... I miss my naivete. I never thought I'd see a worse President than Carter until Shrub came along.
Just when you think things can't possibly get any worse, they get worse.
Should that line have read "their awful silence" or "they're awful silent?"
The 50%+ who are in love with government hand-outs and have forgotten how to provide for themselves are dependent. Cut them off and they're also desperate.
50% dependent on the government? So not paying federal tax is being "dependent"? You so-called "conservatives" have a funny way with language. When my grandfather was a young man in the 1920s, only the rich paid federal tax. One would think an anti-tax "conservative" would be happy that half the citizens aren't paying tax.
There are some government handouts I'd like to get rid of -- handouts to the rich, who get most of your tax money. IBM getting back more than they paid, GE paying no tax, oil company subsidies, farm subsidies... and you would begrudge a few table scraps for the poor? Disgusting.
There's nothing wrong with HTML and javascript... for making web pages. Web apps? I don't want any web apps! I like my computers to work with a broken router or modem; I refuse to use any program besides a browser that relies on web access. And I don't want forced upgrades. With the app on my PC I can upgrade or not as I see fit. If the app's on your server I have no choice.
For simple database-driven apps, javascript in the browser works fine if the heavy lifting is done on the back end. That's your data. I'll keep my own data and programs on my own computers, thanks.
HTML and javascript too hard for you? Maybe you're in the wrong line of work?
It's also that $730,000 / year in ongoing maintenance for a Z9 is not really all that practical, especially considering that newer deployments based on GPGPUs have far lower operating costs, and provide higher performance than a 5 year old big iron.
I saw a feature of the Z9 in wikipedia that intrigued me. I can't for the life of me figure out how they could accomplish it.
The pictures don't show the whole computer. I haven't seen a mainframe installation since a class in the late '90s. It was Illinois' Secretary of State's mainframe, the instructor was in charge of it and took us on a field trip. The actual computer took a whole very large room. Each of its 4 CPUs were the size of a fridge, memory and drives were in separate enclosures. Impressive. They had two natural gas generators for backup power in case the electricity went down.
My jaw was hanging all afternoon.
That depends on your definition of "generate". Generators don't create energy either, they just convert it from kinetic energy. Batteries (except rechargeable batteries) just convert chemical energy to electricity.
Water is finite
No it isn't. In an infinite universe, nothing is finite. Water on earth is finite, even if there is an enormously huge amount of it. But water isn't used up; there is as much water as there ever was. The trouble is its management, not its quantity.
15 months from now, all of Muni's 819 buses will be equipped with the cameras: drivers caught on tape violating the bus lanes will be subject to fines of up to $115.
Tape? How quaint.
Fortunately for me I retire in two years, and they probably won't upgrade before then.
Dr. Odin did surgery on my eye (yes, he's real)
Nothing new at all. Back when cities had more than one newspaper publisher, and often several, they did the same thing to get you to put the dime in their box instead of the other paper's box.
Kerosene has hardly "green."
Well, RIAA is not a music label
True, it's a cartel trying feverishly to hold on to their vanishing monopoly.
it is an organization that was first and foremost created to facilitate driving music labels' interests and protect them from outside harm
No, it was created to set a standard for records' equalization curve.
You guys and your "my state is badder!" pissing contests... sheesh. Reminds me of an old joke (and no, I'm not from Alaska).
A Texan, a Californian, and an Alaskan are in camp, and the Texan brags about Texans. "We ride BULLS!"
The Californian laughed. "We ride WHALES!"
The Alaskan didn't say anything, he just stood there stirring the fire with his dick.
A month ago I went there to buy a new computer. I narrowed it down to one model, but I had a question. Tried getting an employee to help for half an hour. Then I spent a half-hour surfing on my smart phone for the information. It didn't help that during this surfing I was in ear-short of an employee being flirted to by a person who claimed to be an employee from another branch on their day off.
I'm surprised they stayed in business this long, considering their obvious contempt for their customers. I posted a rant about them ten years ago, just reran it last week. Here's the relevant part:
Just as bad ten years ago (post originally written ten years ago last Saturday).
Usually it is something like 3-9V (Why is it called electric shock in the Slashdot headline?)
Put the terminals of a new 9v battery to your tongue and you'll see.
"Yes but you cannot store LOX for long periods, It want is to boil off. Hydrazine will stay stable for a long time, and another important aspect of hydrazine is it is hypergolic properties."
Those sentences make no sense whatever.