Please take note that people hit by lightning typically not only survive, but are burned. They don't get giant holes in their heads.
Really, check it out yourself: http://www.getreadygear.com/index.asp?ID=36&PageAction=Custom "However, only ten percent of persons struck by lightning die, with cardiac arrest essentially being the only immediate cause, other than from a secondary cause such as a fall or collision with a rock after being struck first. The surprising low percentage of deaths is explainable by the extremely short time lightning is in contact with a human body - milliseconds."
Probably not. Look up Genetic Algorithms. Although they are an exercise in computer science, the boost in performance during a crossover operation is high enough to suspect that 'junk DNA' is enough to keep many individuals on the path to breeding.
That being said, you cannot rule out that it used to code for stuff, and that it is one mutation away from coming back into play (if you move around the 'start' and 'stop' within a genome, you can reintroduce what was previously 'junk' DNA). However, it is also likely that that DNA is no longer intact because it has not been evaluated for fitness recently (not being part of an individual means that individuals with 'bad' genes in this area can still effectively reproduce).
Although my fiance and myself have given up cable (Family Guy is broadcast, w00t!), she comes from a family where the TV is just ON. I hate it, but the typical procedure for 5 years ago went like this:
6AM - Dad wakes up, turns on TV, watches weather and traffic report, leaves TV on, takes shower 7AM - Dad checks TV again for report, Mom wakes up, views report on TV (report is discussed between Mom and Dad), takes shower, Dad leaves for work 8AM - Mom fixes breakfast (and lunch) for kids (who watch cartoons), gets ready for work. 9AM - Kids watch TV until time to leave, leave, mom takes them (leaves TV on) 10AM - Mom comes back, views weather/traffic, finishes getting ready for work, leaves for work, TV is turned off 2PM - Mom comes back from work, turns TV on, watches soaps, eats potato chips 3PM - Mom picks up kids (leaves TV on), takes kids home from school (kids watch Simpsons or whatever) 4PM - Mom watches something on TV, cooks dinner, Kids play games or HW, or whatever 5PM - Dad gets home (dinner better be on the table!), TV is on news while dinner is consumed 6PM-9PM - TV time with family, smoking, leisure time, possible do some home repairs (TV stays on, don't worry) 9PM - dessert (watch a movie?) 10PM - kids go to bed, Dad stays up and watches news 10PM-12AM - Dad falls asleep while watching news, Mom wakes him up at midnight to get him to come to bed, turns TV off.
So, the TV is off for 10 hours, daily (6 hours during the night, 4 hours as both parents work). 14 hours of TV, daily. No, I am not kidding at all. Yes, her parents smoke, drink, and lounge about the house gaining weight and killing themselves. Sadly, I am not kidding.
PS - weekends are actually worse, TV is on for 18 hours (6AM to midnight). Also, 2 years her mom quit her job (she doesn't like working), and added those 4 hours back in for a total of 18 hours daily. It is not even fair to compete under these circumstances.
PSS - the TV is on during Christmas (in case you wondered)
Mod parent up. Many people seem to forget nowadays that when the government is trying to impose "background checks" they can simply ask the question "is this person likely to be involved in government overthrow? If yes, no gun."
Um, small point of order in this discussion... Most countries don't have the means to ship ANYTHING to space. You know, at all. In fact, most countries can't even launch a ballistic missile into neighboring territory. I'm looking at you "The Middle East". I mean, your solution of "All you need to do is ship up some junk [into space]" is quite far off for, you know, MOST OF THE WORLD.
http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/9a06/ Given away for free if you buy enough things at ThinkGeek, endless fun for places where the TV just doesn't go off: (Doctors office, Best Buy, Automotive repair, hospital, etc.).
The real questions are: How did he get caught, and why didn't he do the courtesy of turning them back on?
God forbid that artists write new music and take it to a non-RIAA source. Yes, the RIAA holds the copyrights on all of the 'works for hire', but they can still write new music, retain the copyright, and sign Amazon (or iTunes) to distribute it.
The above example is certainly an example of Artificial Intelligence as far as I am concerned (I'm biased, I also plan to study Pattern Recognition for my Masters). I don't see how taking information to a computer program and asking it to evaluate for correlations is dramatically different than taking a dataset to a coworker and asking for a possible explanation of results. I believe that the "AI future" is in the assistance or automation of human tasks.
For example, there was study done to recognize checks automatically, look up the name, look up the amount, and take the appropriate financial transaction. A system was trained to so so (much like you would train a human), can learn different forms of checks (oh, this is a new one, the name is on the upper right corner), and learn different forms of handwriting (some people cross 2 't' letters simultaneously). This was filed under 'AI Research', and I believe it is.
However, when most people think "AI", they think of robots that paint pictures as representations of independent thought. Computer programs do not think (in the traditional sense); they extract, recognize, classify, act, categorize, etc. If you show a baby that has previously seen only red balls a blue ball, they will recognize it a new instance of a ball hitherto unseen, as will a good computer program. Just because the computer classified it into a separate database category indicates that it did not 'think' to most observers. However, one may ask what the baby did in order to yield the same response.
If only we were researching some sort of alternative fuel that could be dispensed in the same manner of gasoline as a mode of weening us to another fuel source.
Not sure whether you are going to consider this a "userspace" issue or not, but my MP3 player hasn't ever worked in linux (Fedora 3, Fedora 5, RHEL 4.4, Ubuntu Feisty).
Of course, it is a Phillips HDDxxxx, so it uses non-standard USB input and non-standard database stuff. It seems to be a problem for many more people than me. I would have bought supported hardware, but this brick is a few years old at this point (bought because Windows Media Player supported it...).
Just for the record, I am a senior at the University of Central Florida studying engineering (Electrical/Computer).
We are highly encouraged to pursue an internship to learn valuable skills that can be applied in industry. I have an internship (working with Computer Science), as do most of my friends. Here is a short list of people in the area that routinely hire students to work in internships: Disney The Government (Navy, Air Force, Army, NASA/KSC) Lockheed Martin Harris Boeing Jacobs Siemens AT&T (Singular hires, are they still in cahoots?) Florida Power United Space Alliance Citrix Bright House
Many of these companies are at every career fair, which are held every semester (3 times a year). This is Just for Electrical Engineering/Computer Science/Computer Engineering. Yes, many companies don't offer internship programs or continuing education. However, they should offer some other sort of compensation for that (also known as "I ain't workin' there unless they pay me the big dollars"). Besides, most of the time you can screw interns (pay them $12/hour so they can eat but make them do the work of someone that makes $20/hour). Really, we're students, if you pay us more than the Bookstore/Olive Garden/Library then we're all yours.
Grand-parent is stating that the dress code is so that everyone is on the same page for debate. If you say things like "There is a dress code and it is the following:" then people don't show up to a debate with the following shirt on: "Clinton lied about sex" "Bush lied and now thousands of innocent Americans are dead"
Preventing people from wearing the above shirt or the "The Left/Right side lies!", or a shirt covered in the blood of laboratory animals actually helps to foster debate rather than cheap political stunts.
85% of Americans self-identify as Christians. (2002)
7% of US adults classify as evangelicals (2004) (see Evangelical category for more information)
38% of US adults classify as born again, but not evangelical. (2004)
37% are self-described Christians but are neither evangelical nor born again
Atheists and agnostics comprise 12% of adults nationwide. (2004)
11% of the US population identify with a faith other than Christianity (2004)
s/Christian/Muslim/g okay, so we know that the 2002 poll polled everyone (americans) while the 2004 poll only polled adults. For those that didn't catch that (2002!=2004), I'll say it again, these are two separate polls.
Now, knowing that they are 2 separate polls, the author implies the breakdown of that 85% (into 7+38+37). This doesn't work because they are 2 polls.
Now that we know line 1 has nothing to do with the lines following, we must assume that the numbers add up to 100, right? Wrong, 7+38+37+12+11=105%. Okay, so now that we know some people fall into 2 categories.
Also, take note of how the original poster doesn't align atheism with the rest of the religions (to imply that there are more atheists than "other").
- Figures don't lie, but liars figure. - Samuel Clemens (alias Mark Twain)
Of course, the above poster had some Bush-bashing, so he gets modded up. Goddamn Slashdot.
I am currently a college student (Electrical Engineering). I currently buy all of my books (and keep most of them), seeing as I am in my senior year. I currently have electronic copies of more than half of my books (running around 80%). I currently have electronic copies of ALL of my in-class materials (lectures are recorded for graduate-level classes, notes are PDF or PowerPoint format on-line, research papers are PDFs on-line, homework is written in and submitted in electronic format). Many students around me take notes in electronic format (laptops or the fancy kind you can write on).
I think that e-books are just waiting to take off here.
Also, given the amount of piracy on campus, I would not think the re-sale value would come into question (or, indeed, the sale value).
10K/year is retarded. I live in Central Florida and attend the major university here (UCF). My part-time internship pays more than 10,xxx/year while I attend school full-time. Really. 17 hours/week at $12/hour (17*52*12=10608).
If you work as a pizza delivery person for 40 hours/week making $5.50/hour (less than minimum wage), you make 11,440/year.
Evidence Exhibit A "I am well aware of the fact that they don't take water, put it into something, and voila, no water, but plenty of electricity"
Evidence Exhibit B "...the reservoirs get depleted. Lake Allatoona, just to the south and east of here is losing a foot of water a day. Were it not being used to generate electricity, then I would imagine, in my own little weird way, that there would be a higher water level right about now..."
As the ladies and gentlemen of the jury can see here, the defendant understands that hydroelectric power does not consume water with it's production... or does he? Let's take a look at the evidence. If everyone would please direct their attention to Exhibit A, you will see where he states that he does understand the process of hydro-electric power. However, look closely at Exhibit B. There it is, do you see it now? The defendant proceeds to state that he believes that we would have more water if we did not use it for hydroelectric power. I daresay that the defendant has committed the grievous crime of perjury.
Now, we have to take the post as a whole. Look at the sentence structure and grammar. Take note of sentences such as "BUT, the reservoirs get depleted.", and I use the term lightly. Ordinarily I would not take note of this, but he then uses the ad hominem argument of accusing my client of "unless Engrish is your 99th language, or you are just here to stir up trollble". Take note of the misspellings of "English" and "trouble". Are they intentional? Is he accusing my client of being an Asian troll, or just using word bastardizations seen elsewhere?
In earlier posts, observe the bait and switch arguments of: "We've had how many years to build nuclear power plants, yet this whole time the science fiction minded segment of society is freaking out and trying to stop it? Your interpretation of what I say is kinda way off, and your replies have seemed to be somewhat belligerent." Notice the jump to an unsupported conclusion followed by an ad hominem attack of another issue. and also: "I say don't use water for electricity, store it for later use. Let it replenish the aquifers. As precious a commodity as is fresh water, you'd think that people would want to see a way to keep as much on hand as is possible at all times." where he states that fresh water is limited and precious. But wait, then tells us that we should put it in the ground instead of using it. Yet another unsupported conclusion, followed by an unsupported action. Also keep in mind that the defendant stated that he understood that a hydroelectric damn did not use water in the production of electricity, but implies an Either-Or argument of "If the water is used for power, it cannot be stored afterwards". Because he states that he understands hydro-power, we must assume that he is making this fallacy intentionally.
Keep all of this in mind when makes your decision.
I ask you, user TickleMonster. ARE YOU A TROLL? *gasps from the jury* You, the jury, may now deliberate.
PS - I'm did not want to sack anymore karma here, but contradicting yourself in the NEXT SENTENCE was just too much. The rest are just logical fallacies that are the flagship of poor argumentative skills.
No one ever seems to remember sugar cane and sugar beets, so I'll point it out. They are double the yield per acre (vastly more efficient but harder to grow) as compared to American corn.
Well that's not entirely true, Brazil didn't forget. But then again, they don't have corn lobbyists.
Slashdot Mirror
Yea, until you notice the HOLE that it made.
Please take note that people hit by lightning typically not only survive, but are burned. They don't get giant holes in their heads.
Really, check it out yourself: http://www.getreadygear.com/index.asp?ID=36&PageAction=Custom
"However, only ten percent of persons struck by lightning die, with cardiac arrest essentially being the only immediate cause, other than from a secondary cause such as a fall or collision with a rock after being struck first. The surprising low percentage of deaths is explainable by the extremely short time lightning is in contact with a human body - milliseconds."
Probably not. Look up Genetic Algorithms. Although they are an exercise in computer science, the boost in performance during a crossover operation is high enough to suspect that 'junk DNA' is enough to keep many individuals on the path to breeding.
That being said, you cannot rule out that it used to code for stuff, and that it is one mutation away from coming back into play (if you move around the 'start' and 'stop' within a genome, you can reintroduce what was previously 'junk' DNA). However, it is also likely that that DNA is no longer intact because it has not been evaluated for fitness recently (not being part of an individual means that individuals with 'bad' genes in this area can still effectively reproduce).
I feel obligated to post at this time:
Although my fiance and myself have given up cable (Family Guy is broadcast, w00t!), she comes from a family where the TV is just ON. I hate it, but the typical procedure for 5 years ago went like this:
6AM - Dad wakes up, turns on TV, watches weather and traffic report, leaves TV on, takes shower
7AM - Dad checks TV again for report, Mom wakes up, views report on TV (report is discussed between Mom and Dad), takes shower, Dad leaves for work
8AM - Mom fixes breakfast (and lunch) for kids (who watch cartoons), gets ready for work.
9AM - Kids watch TV until time to leave, leave, mom takes them (leaves TV on)
10AM - Mom comes back, views weather/traffic, finishes getting ready for work, leaves for work, TV is turned off
2PM - Mom comes back from work, turns TV on, watches soaps, eats potato chips
3PM - Mom picks up kids (leaves TV on), takes kids home from school (kids watch Simpsons or whatever)
4PM - Mom watches something on TV, cooks dinner, Kids play games or HW, or whatever
5PM - Dad gets home (dinner better be on the table!), TV is on news while dinner is consumed
6PM-9PM - TV time with family, smoking, leisure time, possible do some home repairs (TV stays on, don't worry)
9PM - dessert (watch a movie?)
10PM - kids go to bed, Dad stays up and watches news
10PM-12AM - Dad falls asleep while watching news, Mom wakes him up at midnight to get him to come to bed, turns TV off.
So, the TV is off for 10 hours, daily (6 hours during the night, 4 hours as both parents work). 14 hours of TV, daily. No, I am not kidding at all. Yes, her parents smoke, drink, and lounge about the house gaining weight and killing themselves. Sadly, I am not kidding.
PS - weekends are actually worse, TV is on for 18 hours (6AM to midnight). Also, 2 years her mom quit her job (she doesn't like working), and added those 4 hours back in for a total of 18 hours daily. It is not even fair to compete under these circumstances.
PSS - the TV is on during Christmas (in case you wondered)
"Evil will always will because Good is dumb"
- Spaceballs
Mod parent up. Many people seem to forget nowadays that when the government is trying to impose "background checks" they can simply ask the question "is this person likely to be involved in government overthrow? If yes, no gun."
Um, small point of order in this discussion... Most countries don't have the means to ship ANYTHING to space. You know, at all. In fact, most countries can't even launch a ballistic missile into neighboring territory. I'm looking at you "The Middle East". I mean, your solution of "All you need to do is ship up some junk [into space]" is quite far off for, you know, MOST OF THE WORLD.
http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/9a06/
Given away for free if you buy enough things at ThinkGeek, endless fun for places where the TV just doesn't go off:
(Doctors office, Best Buy, Automotive repair, hospital, etc.).
The real questions are: How did he get caught, and why didn't he do the courtesy of turning them back on?
They wouldn't buy the ship because they are pirates... who traditionally steal things... including ships... typically for money...
You know it's a joke... it get less funny as you explain it.
God forbid that artists write new music and take it to a non-RIAA source. Yes, the RIAA holds the copyrights on all of the 'works for hire', but they can still write new music, retain the copyright, and sign Amazon (or iTunes) to distribute it.
Thought is just a complex set of heuristics.
The above example is certainly an example of Artificial Intelligence as far as I am concerned (I'm biased, I also plan to study Pattern Recognition for my Masters). I don't see how taking information to a computer program and asking it to evaluate for correlations is dramatically different than taking a dataset to a coworker and asking for a possible explanation of results. I believe that the "AI future" is in the assistance or automation of human tasks.
For example, there was study done to recognize checks automatically, look up the name, look up the amount, and take the appropriate financial transaction. A system was trained to so so (much like you would train a human), can learn different forms of checks (oh, this is a new one, the name is on the upper right corner), and learn different forms of handwriting (some people cross 2 't' letters simultaneously). This was filed under 'AI Research', and I believe it is.
However, when most people think "AI", they think of robots that paint pictures as representations of independent thought. Computer programs do not think (in the traditional sense); they extract, recognize, classify, act, categorize, etc. If you show a baby that has previously seen only red balls a blue ball, they will recognize it a new instance of a ball hitherto unseen, as will a good computer program. Just because the computer classified it into a separate database category indicates that it did not 'think' to most observers. However, one may ask what the baby did in order to yield the same response.
If only we were researching some sort of alternative fuel that could be dispensed in the same manner of gasoline as a mode of weening us to another fuel source.
If only.
http://www.fridays.com/index.htm
Venting because I was pissed that I had to wait to load a freaking flash page (with music) in order to look at a menu.
MOD PARENT UP, there needs to be an option to remove this kind of stuff from the RSS feed.
Not sure whether you are going to consider this a "userspace" issue or not, but my MP3 player hasn't ever worked in linux (Fedora 3, Fedora 5, RHEL 4.4, Ubuntu Feisty).
Of course, it is a Phillips HDDxxxx, so it uses non-standard USB input and non-standard database stuff. It seems to be a problem for many more people than me. I would have bought supported hardware, but this brick is a few years old at this point (bought because Windows Media Player supported it...).
Just for the record, I am a senior at the University of Central Florida studying engineering (Electrical/Computer).
We are highly encouraged to pursue an internship to learn valuable skills that can be applied in industry. I have an internship (working with Computer Science), as do most of my friends. Here is a short list of people in the area that routinely hire students to work in internships:
Disney
The Government (Navy, Air Force, Army, NASA/KSC)
Lockheed Martin
Harris
Boeing
Jacobs
Siemens
AT&T (Singular hires, are they still in cahoots?)
Florida Power
United Space Alliance
Citrix
Bright House
Many of these companies are at every career fair, which are held every semester (3 times a year). This is Just for Electrical Engineering/Computer Science/Computer Engineering. Yes, many companies don't offer internship programs or continuing education. However, they should offer some other sort of compensation for that (also known as "I ain't workin' there unless they pay me the big dollars"). Besides, most of the time you can screw interns (pay them $12/hour so they can eat but make them do the work of someone that makes $20/hour). Really, we're students, if you pay us more than the Bookstore/Olive Garden/Library then we're all yours.
Grand-parent is stating that the dress code is so that everyone is on the same page for debate. If you say things like "There is a dress code and it is the following:" then people don't show up to a debate with the following shirt on:
"Clinton lied about sex"
"Bush lied and now thousands of innocent Americans are dead"
Preventing people from wearing the above shirt or the "The Left/Right side lies!", or a shirt covered in the blood of laboratory animals actually helps to foster debate rather than cheap political stunts.
7% of US adults classify as evangelicals (2004) (see Evangelical category for more information)
38% of US adults classify as born again, but not evangelical. (2004)
37% are self-described Christians but are neither evangelical nor born again
Atheists and agnostics comprise 12% of adults nationwide. (2004)
11% of the US population identify with a faith other than Christianity (2004)
s/Christian/Muslim/g okay, so we know that the 2002 poll polled everyone (americans) while the 2004 poll only polled adults. For those that didn't catch that (2002!=2004), I'll say it again, these are two separate polls.
Now, knowing that they are 2 separate polls, the author implies the breakdown of that 85% (into 7+38+37). This doesn't work because they are 2 polls.
Now that we know line 1 has nothing to do with the lines following, we must assume that the numbers add up to 100, right? Wrong, 7+38+37+12+11=105%. Okay, so now that we know some people fall into 2 categories.
Also, take note of how the original poster doesn't align atheism with the rest of the religions (to imply that there are more atheists than "other").
- Figures don't lie, but liars figure. - Samuel Clemens (alias Mark Twain)
Of course, the above poster had some Bush-bashing, so he gets modded up. Goddamn Slashdot.
I am currently a college student (Electrical Engineering).
I currently buy all of my books (and keep most of them), seeing as I am in my senior year.
I currently have electronic copies of more than half of my books (running around 80%).
I currently have electronic copies of ALL of my in-class materials (lectures are recorded for graduate-level classes, notes are PDF or PowerPoint format on-line, research papers are PDFs on-line, homework is written in and submitted in electronic format).
Many students around me take notes in electronic format (laptops or the fancy kind you can write on).
I think that e-books are just waiting to take off here.
Also, given the amount of piracy on campus, I would not think the re-sale value would come into question (or, indeed, the sale value).
Does anyone else have a problem with the justification of:
"yes, this shipment of cigarettes just arrived at our doorstep, we figured we'd keep 'em".
I have to say that I'm not a big fan of a refrigeration device to be used in the dessert that uses water instead of electricity.
I put in a formal request for one to be held in Orlando, Florida.
10K/year is retarded. I live in Central Florida and attend the major university here (UCF). My part-time internship pays more than 10,xxx/year while I attend school full-time. Really. 17 hours/week at $12/hour (17*52*12=10608).
If you work as a pizza delivery person for 40 hours/week making $5.50/hour (less than minimum wage), you make 11,440/year.
No one that is trying is making 10,xxx.
I would rather work with an asshole who knew how to complete a task that a great guy that didn't. One of these options actually gets the task done.
As long as we are being lawyers
Evidence Exhibit A
"I am well aware of the fact that they don't take water, put it into something, and voila, no water, but plenty of electricity"
Evidence Exhibit B
"...the reservoirs get depleted. Lake Allatoona, just to the south and east of here is losing a foot of water a day. Were it not being used to generate electricity, then I would imagine, in my own little weird way, that there would be a higher water level right about now..."
As the ladies and gentlemen of the jury can see here, the defendant understands that hydroelectric power does not consume water with it's production... or does he? Let's take a look at the evidence. If everyone would please direct their attention to Exhibit A, you will see where he states that he does understand the process of hydro-electric power. However, look closely at Exhibit B. There it is, do you see it now? The defendant proceeds to state that he believes that we would have more water if we did not use it for hydroelectric power. I daresay that the defendant has committed the grievous crime of perjury.
Now, we have to take the post as a whole. Look at the sentence structure and grammar. Take note of sentences such as "BUT, the reservoirs get depleted.", and I use the term lightly. Ordinarily I would not take note of this, but he then uses the ad hominem argument of accusing my client of "unless Engrish is your 99th language, or you are just here to stir up trollble". Take note of the misspellings of "English" and "trouble". Are they intentional? Is he accusing my client of being an Asian troll, or just using word bastardizations seen elsewhere?
In earlier posts, observe the bait and switch arguments of:
"We've had how many years to build nuclear power plants, yet this whole time the science fiction minded segment of society is freaking out and trying to stop it? Your interpretation of what I say is kinda way off, and your replies have seemed to be somewhat belligerent."
Notice the jump to an unsupported conclusion followed by an ad hominem attack of another issue.
and also:
"I say don't use water for electricity, store it for later use. Let it replenish the aquifers. As precious a commodity as is fresh water, you'd think that people would want to see a way to keep as much on hand as is possible at all times."
where he states that fresh water is limited and precious. But wait, then tells us that we should put it in the ground instead of using it. Yet another unsupported conclusion, followed by an unsupported action. Also keep in mind that the defendant stated that he understood that a hydroelectric damn did not use water in the production of electricity, but implies an Either-Or argument of "If the water is used for power, it cannot be stored afterwards". Because he states that he understands hydro-power, we must assume that he is making this fallacy intentionally.
Keep all of this in mind when makes your decision.
I ask you, user TickleMonster. ARE YOU A TROLL?
*gasps from the jury*
You, the jury, may now deliberate.
PS - I'm did not want to sack anymore karma here, but contradicting yourself in the NEXT SENTENCE was just too much. The rest are just logical fallacies that are the flagship of poor argumentative skills.
No one ever seems to remember sugar cane and sugar beets, so I'll point it out. They are double the yield per acre (vastly more efficient but harder to grow) as compared to American corn.
Well that's not entirely true, Brazil didn't forget. But then again, they don't have corn lobbyists.