Democracy means if you have a group of a hundred people, fifty one can vote to piss in the Corn Flakes of the other forty nine and if everyone believes in Democracy there can't be any objections if the votes were counted properly. Because that is what Democracy IS, the People can have anything they vote for.
Incorrect. These days "Democracy" is an umbrella term describing a group of government systems with population participation to some extent. What you describe is -a- democracy (specifically: a direct and unlimited democracy) but it is by no means the only possible one. Incidentally, a republic is also -a- democracy (a representative one).
I know that it's off topic but can anyone suggest when can one find (simulated) images of what an extra-terrestrial landscape could look like (with oceans or otherwise) that don't look too artificial? Preferably desktop wallpaper sized.
Google Images found several but the picking is slim.
I did something similar in C# in early 2006. Validating with regexps on each key press, on the "text changed" event (to catch paste operations) and on leaving the field or accepting the form (for stuff that needed the whole text, like checksums, etc.)
There have been hysterical articles all over the news regarding the estrogenic effects of certain soy products. Although keep in mind genistein doesn't just occur in soy - it's also in other products, like beer.
So that's why after drinking too much beer people start talking nonsense and have trouble driving.
How do I describe the guy in the office next to mine who happens to be of African decent? I would refer to him as "the man in the office next to me." Sounds perfectly descriptive to me.
That does not scale. (Sorry for using jargon, Ray, but it is/.)
It seems to be acceptable to describe people in terms of height, width, hair colour, eye colour, etc. I can tell a visitor that Jennifer is the "skinny brunette lady", Jack is "the short, balding guy with an Italian accent" and even that that John is "the big Asian fellow with a Pacman tattoo" so, in most cases, physical and even racial/ethnic attributes are OK. I don't see why "black" or "African" should be different.
Perhaps you would like to read Report No. FHWA-RD-92-084 by the U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, titled "Effects of Raising and Lowering Speed Limits".
For your convenience I will quote and highlight some interesting facts from the summary of findings":
Accidents at the 58 experimental sites where speed limits were lowered increased by 5.4 percent.
Accidents at the 41 experimental sites where speed limits were raised decreased by 6.7 percent.
Lowering speed limits more than 5 mi/h (8 km/h) below the 85th percentile speed of traffic did not reduce accidents.
Read the complete report for the methodology, statistics, etc.
One interesting quote from the conclusion:
Based on the sites examined in 22 States, it is apparent that the majority of highway agencies set speed limits below the average speed of traffic as opposed to setting limits in the upper region of the minimum accident risk band or about 85th percentile speed. This practice means that more than one-half of the motorist are in technical violation of the speed limits laws.
So here you have it, straight from the horse's mouth.
What I don't understand is that made Cro Magnons good at killing Neanderthals which where definitely much stronger and probably similarly intelligent (bigger brains).
I once had a problem with some local cops in my girlfriend's home town. One of the officer was obsessed with her, and would pull me over every time I came to visit. They attempted to illegally search my car numerous times, and even accused me of selling drugs when I stopped to fill up my tank. The problem went away when I became friends with two state police officers who's barracks were located in the same town. There's nothing more fun than watching a local cop get pulled over by a state cop for "Failing to yield when entering a roadway" (he didn't come to a complete stop when he pulled out of his driveway). My friends made life miserable for him and after that he left me alone.
Am I the only one who sees a problem with this system?
"encouragement was held out to all who should discover any new refinement in luxury, the profits arising from which were secured to the inventor by patent for the space of a year."
If I mow your lawn, then I get paid for mowing it and that is the end of it. A lot of jobs are like that. But not all.
I disagree.
If I am your firefighter, I get paid each day, even if there are no fires. The day a fire breaks out and you need it controlled, you don't pay me anymore then you have done each day.
False. The firefighter isn't paid for fighting fires, he's paid for being on call for fighting fires, removing cats from trees or just sitting and waiting for a call. Same as other jobs.
Doctors and such are slightly different as well, you don't just pay them for labor and material, you pay them for the cost they went through to get that education that made them a doctor. So their salary is not just the salary right now, but the salary they missed out on during their student years.
False, you pay them for "labor and material". The cost they went through just raises the entry barrier and allows them to demand higher labor rates. Supply and demand (plus regulation). No different from any other job.
If I pay an engineer, I don't just pay him for the job right now, but for the ensurance that his work will continue to be solid long after the work has finished.
False, you pay him just for the job. You assume that his training and qualification will result in a better work quality. The quality and whatever guarantees you get are a part of the product. Same as any other job.
An actor I pay not just for the performance tonight, but for all the excersises.
False. You pay for the performance. You don't care if he dedicated half a lifetime to get good or if he had a one-time divine inspiration, you just want a good performance. The quality is a part of the product. Same as any other job.
A bus I pay not just for the overcrowded bus he is driving right now, but for all the empty ones in the off hours.
False. You pay only for your ride. The bus company sets the price and you decide if you are willing to pay it, or walk, or ride a car, or take a cab. Same as any other product.
My rent for a house is not the total cost of the house, rather it is the cost of the house being build payed over several years.
False. The price for your rent is "what the market will bear". Same as any other job. Welcome to capitalism.
AND THAT BRING US TO AUTHORS. The years of copyright are there because an author does NOT get paid his salary when he completes the book.
Then he should have negotiated a better deal with the publisher, or went to a medical school instead.
In the days before current copyright an author was payed upon completion by the publisher and all sales after that belonged to the publisher. This is EXTREMELY risky for the publisher
Not my problem.
and easily leads to only those books being written for which someone is willing to pay the author his fee at completion or even during writing itself. Not all authors can work that way and if you value diversity neither would you want them all to work that way.
The question is not "if you value diversity", it is "how much value you place on diversity". Personally, I do not value diversity at "life + 70", that is too expensive. I am willing to consider something like 10 years. Let's negotiate.
An author writes a book, then has to recover his salary he missed out on from the sales, sales that will NOT be instant on the day of publication. Do you really want books that might sell only 100 copies on day one to have to pay the author in full from their price? And then what reason would the author have to continue sales?
Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn. If your choice of a business model is a poor one, find a different one or switch jobs.
That is the reason for copyright, to allow a content creator a period of time to recoup the costs of producing the material.
Absolutely not! The reason (or rather the excuse) for copyright is the enrichment of
And in any case, it's not likely to break your banking session unless you also turn on network.http.pipelining.ssl.
From the horse's mouth: This preference is meant to override network.http.pipelining for one specific case--secure websites. If this preference is false and network.http.pipelining is true, pipelining will still be used for secure websites.
I beg to differ. Did you notice that most manufacturers only advertise read speeds nowadays? With the wholesale move from SLC to MLC, write speeds dropped (as well as reliability).
...or you could notice that Google deprecates the pipe symbol and you could bother to learn how Google does a Boolean OR search using only *alpha* characters (also covered in the PDF of Google's handbook).
... or you could have tried that search using the alpha "OR" operator instead of the pipe and noticed that it returns exactly the same results.
Similarly I guess they decided that not enough people search for crazy symbol combinations, so those are ignored. There are probably solutions to the problem (e.g. using the sub-pieces of a regex or symbol search to find candidate pages, and then only searching for the exact string on that subset), but again Google seems to have decided that the functionality is not in sufficient demand.
And here lies the problem. For certain types of searches, Google is a monopoly. If they decide that your favourite feature is "not in sufficient demand" and break it, you have no alternatives.
Take for example Usenet search. Google bought dejanews so I am not aware of any alternative to Google Groups. Yet, searching by several authors (which used to work) is now broken.
Consider the following example:
Search for 'author:mikea' -- Results 1 - 100 of about 313 for author:mikea. Search for 'author:mikeb' -- Results 1 - 100 of about 345 for author:mikeb. Search for 'author:mikea | author:mikeb' -- Results 1 - 100 of about 281 for author:mikea | author:mikeb.
And Presto! New math: 313 + 345 = 281
Google may not be Evil (though I have my doubts) but they are a good example for why monopolies are bad for the end user.
In the olden times of Dejanews, I could search all the Usenet threads I posted in under all the accounts I ever used. For a while, Google groups also provided that functionality but eventually they broke it.
Consider this artificial example:
Search for 'author:mikea' -- Results 1 - 100 of about 313 for author:mikea. Search for 'author:mikeb' -- Results 1 - 100 of about 345 for author:mikeb. Search for 'author:mikea | author:mikeb' -- Results 1 - 100 of about 281 for author:mikea | author:mikeb.
What? You might want to read up on NewYorkCountryLawyer's contributions.
NYCL appears to be a decent fellow. I only regret that he limits "the good fight" to media corporations. We could really use somebody like him on the front against government corruption and right abuse.
Slashdot Mirror
Incorrect.
These days "Democracy" is an umbrella term describing a group of government systems with population participation to some extent. What you describe is -a- democracy (specifically: a direct and unlimited democracy) but it is by no means the only possible one.
Incidentally, a republic is also -a- democracy (a representative one).
For the record, NetHack's DevTeam has been MIA since December 2003.
... and slowly and surely drew their plans against us.
I churn C++ code under VS2005 at work.
All in all, I like the IDE, although free-floating edit windows would be nice.
That said, I find Visual Assist indispensable.
It is expensive but if you can get your employer to pay for it, I highly recommend it.
I also use Artistic style (free) to reformat code, and PC-Lint ($$$) to find lurking problems.
I know that it's off topic but can anyone suggest when can one find (simulated) images of what an extra-terrestrial landscape could look like (with oceans or otherwise) that don't look too artificial? Preferably desktop wallpaper sized.
Google Images found several but the picking is slim.
So basically, they patented this?
I did something similar in C# in early 2006.
Validating with regexps on each key press, on the "text changed" event (to catch paste operations) and on leaving the field or accepting the form (for stuff that needed the whole text, like checksums, etc.)
So that's why after drinking too much beer people start talking nonsense and have trouble driving.
They are definitely *not* getting the "short end of the stick". It is just not quite as long as they got used to.
Well said, sir. Here's hoping you would be modded up.
That does not scale. (Sorry for using jargon, Ray, but it is /.)
It seems to be acceptable to describe people in terms of height, width, hair colour, eye colour, etc.
I can tell a visitor that Jennifer is the "skinny brunette lady", Jack is "the short, balding guy with an Italian accent" and even that that John is "the big Asian fellow with a Pacman tattoo" so, in most cases, physical and even racial/ethnic attributes are OK.
I don't see why "black" or "African" should be different.
Perhaps you would like to read Report No. FHWA-RD-92-084 by the U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, titled "Effects of Raising and Lowering Speed Limits".
For your convenience I will quote and highlight some interesting facts from the summary of findings":
Read the complete report for the methodology, statistics, etc.
One interesting quote from the conclusion:
So here you have it, straight from the horse's mouth.
Sho blin?
What I don't understand is that made Cro Magnons good at killing Neanderthals which where definitely much stronger and probably similarly intelligent (bigger brains).
Am I the only one who sees a problem with this system?
(emphasis mine).
Smart guys, those Greeks.
Nope, that's the excuse.
The reason is greed.
Any person that intentionally causes grief to others just because they can deserves the Clockwork Orange treatment.
Nice troll.
If I mow your lawn, then I get paid for mowing it and that is the end of it. A lot of jobs are like that. But not all.
I disagree.
If I am your firefighter, I get paid each day, even if there are no fires. The day a fire breaks out and you need it controlled, you don't pay me anymore then you have done each day.
False. The firefighter isn't paid for fighting fires, he's paid for being on call for fighting fires, removing cats from trees or just sitting and waiting for a call. Same as other jobs.
Doctors and such are slightly different as well, you don't just pay them for labor and material, you pay them for the cost they went through to get that education that made them a doctor. So their salary is not just the salary right now, but the salary they missed out on during their student years.
False, you pay them for "labor and material". The cost they went through just raises the entry barrier and allows them to demand higher labor rates. Supply and demand (plus regulation). No different from any other job.
If I pay an engineer, I don't just pay him for the job right now, but for the ensurance that his work will continue to be solid long after the work has finished.
False, you pay him just for the job. You assume that his training and qualification will result in a better work quality. The quality and whatever guarantees you get are a part of the product. Same as any other job.
An actor I pay not just for the performance tonight, but for all the excersises.
False. You pay for the performance. You don't care if he dedicated half a lifetime to get good or if he had a one-time divine inspiration, you just want a good performance. The quality is a part of the product. Same as any other job.
A bus I pay not just for the overcrowded bus he is driving right now, but for all the empty ones in the off hours.
False. You pay only for your ride. The bus company sets the price and you decide if you are willing to pay it, or walk, or ride a car, or take a cab. Same as any other product.
My rent for a house is not the total cost of the house, rather it is the cost of the house being build payed over several years.
False. The price for your rent is "what the market will bear". Same as any other job. Welcome to capitalism.
AND THAT BRING US TO AUTHORS. The years of copyright are there because an author does NOT get paid his salary when he completes the book.
Then he should have negotiated a better deal with the publisher, or went to a medical school instead.
In the days before current copyright an author was payed upon completion by the publisher and all sales after that belonged to the publisher. This is EXTREMELY risky for the publisher
Not my problem.
and easily leads to only those books being written for which someone is willing to pay the author his fee at completion or even during writing itself. Not all authors can work that way and if you value diversity neither would you want them all to work that way.
The question is not "if you value diversity", it is "how much value you place on diversity".
Personally, I do not value diversity at "life + 70", that is too expensive. I am willing to consider something like 10 years. Let's negotiate.
An author writes a book, then has to recover his salary he missed out on from the sales, sales that will NOT be instant on the day of publication. Do you really want books that might sell only 100 copies on day one to have to pay the author in full from their price? And then what reason would the author have to continue sales?
Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.
If your choice of a business model is a poor one, find a different one or switch jobs.
That is the reason for copyright, to allow a content creator a period of time to recoup the costs of producing the material.
Absolutely not! The reason (or rather the excuse) for copyright is the enrichment of
From the horse's mouth:
This preference is meant to override network.http.pipelining for one specific case--secure websites. If this preference is false and network.http.pipelining is true, pipelining will still be used for secure websites.
[citation needed]
I beg to differ.
Did you notice that most manufacturers only advertise read speeds nowadays?
With the wholesale move from SLC to MLC, write speeds dropped (as well as reliability).
... or you could have tried that search using the alpha "OR" operator instead of the pipe and noticed that it returns exactly the same results.
And here lies the problem.
For certain types of searches, Google is a monopoly. If they decide that your favourite feature is "not in sufficient demand" and break it, you have no alternatives.
Take for example Usenet search. Google bought dejanews so I am not aware of any alternative to Google Groups.
Yet, searching by several authors (which used to work) is now broken.
Consider the following example:
Search for 'author:mikea' -- Results 1 - 100 of about 313 for author:mikea.
Search for 'author:mikeb' -- Results 1 - 100 of about 345 for author:mikeb.
Search for 'author:mikea | author:mikeb' -- Results 1 - 100 of about 281 for author:mikea | author:mikeb.
And Presto! New math: 313 + 345 = 281
Google may not be Evil (though I have my doubts) but they are a good example for why monopolies are bad for the end user.
In the olden times of Dejanews, I could search all the Usenet threads I posted in under all the accounts I ever used.
For a while, Google groups also provided that functionality but eventually they broke it.
Consider this artificial example:
Search for 'author:mikea' -- Results 1 - 100 of about 313 for author:mikea.
Search for 'author:mikeb' -- Results 1 - 100 of about 345 for author:mikeb.
Search for 'author:mikea | author:mikeb' -- Results 1 - 100 of about 281 for author:mikea | author:mikeb.
Pathetic.
NYCL appears to be a decent fellow. I only regret that he limits "the good fight" to media corporations. We could really use somebody like him on the front against government corruption and right abuse.