This is why I repeatedly say that 9/11 could never happen again with boxcutters. People will fight back. The pilots will resist.
I don't know that that's necessarily a valid leap of logic. In the once example in which the passengers did fight back (i.e., Pennsylvania), everybody still died. I don't think that 9/11 guaranteed that in the future, every hijacking will necessarily be met with resistance.
If this can help us spark a little interest in would-be voters, why not do it.
Because you're infusing ignorant, uninformed, angst-ridden teens with a last-minute burst of misplaced civic pride. Suddenly, they feel like they should vote, but they have no idea who to vote for. They didn't watch the debates, they don't read the paper, and they have no idea where any of the candidates stand on any issues, save for perhaps one or two "wedge" issues that may be important to them (to the exclusion of other, more important issues. For example, what's more important? Gay marriages or medicare for seniors? Which do you think a 19-year old cares about?)
It's dangerous to encourage uninformed people to vote. At best, they guess right and vote for a good candidate. At worst, they're canceling out the vote of an informed person who actually took the time and effort to research the candidates and platforms. Democracy is too important to be left to ignorant, apathetic people.
The first is that there's typically not a lot of mechanical advantage and/or pad area in the e-brake. Accordingly, they can't produce a whole lot of braking force. Most cars are quite capable of driving through their e-brake.
Then the brake is calibrated incorrectly. If I haul on my parking brake handle, at any speed, the rear brakes lock up solid. And they stay that way until I release the brake. Granted, my car is front-wheel drive. I'm sure it would be a different case in a rear-wheel drive vehicle. However, I really doubt that my little Honda Civic's engine has enough power to actually accelerate the vehicle while the rear brakes are completely locked up.
That said, if someone were to try to push your car, your engine would indeed be damaged, so do not put a gear when it is not needed.
No, do put it in gear while parked, all the time. While it is true that if your car were to receive a forceful push, you'd damage the gear, the answer is to simply leave it in a gear that you could live without, in a pinch. I always leave my car in 3rd, while parked (yes, with the parking brake on, too). If someone rams me, I can still get home without a third gear (although if someone pushes your car hard enough to strip the gear, there will probably be substantial cosmetic damage as well. But at least you'll still be able to get home).
Java's garbage collection sort of creates a general laziness among some coders who don't clean up because they don't have to.
I could make the same argument about how "variables" have made coders lazy, because we no longer have to address our own memory. Fact is, computers are much, much better at managing memory than a programmer is. The GC is a natural, welcome evolution.
Also, I don't know for sure, but would what happen if two objects referenced each other but nothing else referenced them. Would gc know to follow the links between the two and see that nothing in the main app is using them?
Not to talk down to you, but yes, of course! This is extremely basic, first year translators principles. Translators are highly evolved, very complex and advanced beasts that can easily follow mind-boggling paths of references and quickly reclaim every scrap of unused memory. Don't worry - people have been working on this stuff for decades, and translator theory is an extremely advanced (and interesting) research field unto itself.
...if something bad happened at your LAN party. You'd be insane not to get insurance!
Probably so. You'd be insane not to take out insurance!
Somone is on drugs and dies at your party. You'd be insane not to take out insurance.
it is also thinking about them. You'd be insane to skip insurance!
I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. Could you please clarify whether or not I should take out insurance? Could you do it using terms of relative sanity? Thanks.
No you're not. Or at least, if you are, you're a very bad one. I am not a lawyer, but even I know that the very first thing any real lawyer does when discussing legal issues in a non-professional context (such as Slashdot) is prefix their entire comment with a disclaimer stating to the effect of "the following is not legal advice and should not be taken as such."
Had you said you're a law student, I might have believed that, and assumed that you simply haven't gotten to the part about "professional legal accountability" yet.
I don't want MY tax dollars to be wasted with this nonsense.
Newsflash: Corporations pay taxes too. Ever stop and think that maybe its their taxes that are funding these prosecutions?
I don't want that money wasted prosecuting swappers.
I believe the ??AA themselves are the ones doing the prosecuting, and thus, paying for the litigation. I suppose public dollars may be going towards the defendants' legal bills, but public defenders are relatively cheap, and these are people who, after all, broke the law.
I don't want that money wasted imprisoning swappers.
AFAIK, copyright infringement is a civil crime, not a felony. That means no prison time. They'll be fined. Do you have any evidence to suggest that file swappers are actually being jailed?
I don't care to bear the social costs of ruining the lives of swappers.
"Ruining the lives?" How is a $3000 civil settlement "ruining their lives?" Besides, there's an easy way to avoid having your life "ruined" by a fine: DON'T BREAK THE LAW!
Do you know anything? Everything you said was so far off-base, I can only conclude you are either trolling, or fantastically ignorant. Care to end my suspense?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with cross-dressing. I'm simply saying that in this particular example (1st grade), that's too young to be thrusting these types of issues on first-graders. Just let them learn to read at that age, for goodness sake. Teach them about different sexualities when they're a little older and can understand.
You consider that sick? LOL, take a look what religion did to the world, now thats sick!
While it can't be denied that religion has been, and continues to be, responsible for some of the most horrific actions throughout history, you nevertheless cannot deny the good, kind acts that are done in the name of religion, too. Religion is responsible for more charity and kindness than anything else in the world today. If it weren't for religion, you'd have far more people starving and dying in the streets.
What I think suckered the smart people is the 'sheeple' (or bandwagon effect if you like) - where people left their analytical skills at the door in the mad rush to follow the rest of the herd as it cantered off across the fields.
No, you underestimate people. Everyone saw what was happening, and common sense told us that it was a bubble that wouldn't last. However, some of our friends had gambling instincts and more disposable cash, so they put some money in anyway. Then, the stock defied logic and went up, and our friend doubled his money while we stood on the sidelines telling him that what was happening was impossible.
A few months later, he'd doubled his money again. It was insane. Us "common-sense" folks couldn't understand it. By all history, logic, and reasoning, what was happening shouldn't have been happening. And yet it was, and people were making money hand over fist.
So eventually it did bust. The rules of business weren't re-written, and lots of people lost a lot of money. But there were a few people (we all know some of them) who by insight, or sheer dumb luck, managed to get their chips out in time, and kept their profit.
What I'm getting at is, it wasn't some kind of "herd mentality," as you claim, but rather, people were making tons and tons of money in a market that we were trying to tell them couldn't exist. Yet it was. And it kept doubling. So they could listen to us and not make money, or they could put their money in and double it in 6 months. THAT is why people invested in such a crazy market. It was WORKING for a while.
I, and others, were able to see through the hype and stupidity during the bubble, and see what companies had real value, which didn't, which were over-valued, and in some cases, which were under-valued.
Oh if only we'd all listened to you! We were all fools! Thank you for showing us how stupid and naive we are, and conversely, what an insightful visionary you are! We'll never doubt you again!
Pardon me for paraphrasing. I am getting so sick of you naive, shortsighted, hippy kids blindly bashing the big, evil, faceless "corporations." Open your eyes. You are living in a capitalist society. Don't like it? A photo and a bit of paperwork, and you can be on your way to a new life in China or North Korea.
Do companies exist to make money? Yes. Do they try to maximize their profits and return-on-investment for their shareholders? Of course.
But what people like you don't seem to understand is that these aren't a bunch of faceless suits, they are people like you and me. If you own a 401(k) (and it sounds like you are too young to be there yet), then you are a shareholder. People like your parents, your coworkers, are the investors that these companies are answering to. If these companies didn't do everything reasonable to make a profit, then these retirees and investors (i.e., you, me, our parents) dump their stock and switch to someone with better revenue forecasts.
Do companies use every tax loophole available to them to increase profits? Yes, of course! So do I! When I do my taxes each spring, I declare every single write-off I am legally entitled to. It's just common sense. Why wouldn't you? Would you pay extra tax just out of the kindness of your heart? Of course not! Then why would you expect a corporation to do it?
A corporation is not a bunch of faceless, hive-minded "good-'ol-boys" in a locked-up boardroom on the 100th floor, making decisions to sacrifice babies for increased profits. It's just a bunch of harmeless MBA's doing what they do best: marketing, accounting, sales, and whatever else their business entails.
In summary, it just bugs me when I see hypocrites like you lashing out at "corporations" when you don't even really seem to understand where your retirement investment is going to come from. Guess what - it'll be those very same corporations, and you'll be demanding profits.
Government should not be in business of "saving" failing companies like that money they sunk into the airlines after 9/11.
Why not? After all, 9/11 itself was a direct result of that very same government's corrupt, arrogant, and misguided foreign policy. Why shouldn't they foot the bill to help clean up the mess they created?
The recession begin Oct 2000, not Mar 2001. Note the DJ from the era.
You probably already know this, but just in case anyone else reading is confused, the stock market has absolutely nothing at all to do with "recessions." Recessions are defined as 3 consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth. It has no root at all in any stock markets. Stock markets could be going gangbusters, but if the GDP slips 3 quarters in a row, we're in a recession. Conversely, the stock market could be nosediving for a year, but as long as the GDP manages to keep squeaking ahead by even a fraction of a percent, then you are not technically in a recession (this was the scenario in Canada during the bust - we were never actually, officially, in a "recession").
Canadian Airlines didn't get bought up by new smaller carriers. If you're going to go on an anti-union rant at least have your facts straight.
My facts are straight. While its true that Air Canada did legally merge with (read: takeover) Canadian Airlines, it is also true that WestJet, CanJet, and JetsGo all use former aircraft, equipment, and employees of Canadian. Air Canada eliminated and sold off substantial portions of Canadian's assets, due to the large amount of overlap and redundancy that results from two International carriers merging.
Why is the givt afraid to let the market pick a winner as it will anyway?
Canada used to have 2 major, cross-country airlines: Canadian Airlines, and Air Canada. Canadian went bankrupt (thanks to shortsighted, greedy unions) and was broken up into a bunch of pieces that were bought up by new, smaller, short-haul carriers. After that, Air Canada was the only airline that could fly you from coast-to-coast, and internationally.
Enter the unions again. This time, demanding more money from an Air Canada that is already obviously bleeding red ink. Unions don't care. They just want money. So the ticket sellers go on strike. This, of course, exasperates Air Canada's predicament, and they predicably declared bankruptcy. Did I mention how much I despise unions?
Anyway, it would be unacceptable for the last remaining truly national airline to evaoporate, so the government stepped in with some subsidies and loans. Air Canada has been able to come out of bankruptcy protection through some creative financing from international investors, but for now, they're barely hanging on by a thread. Without the government intervention, we'd have lost our last national airline, and you would no longer be able to fly from coast-to-coast without the hassle of dealing with multiple stopovers and different ticket agents. Of course, without union intervention, none of this mess would have happened in the first place, but unions neither see it that way, nor care. As long as they squeeze more water from that rock, they don't care if it destroys the rock in the process. They're incapable of thinking that far ahead. If they had the intelligence that would grant them such foresight, they wouldn't be stuck in the sort of blue-collar labor that typically spawns unions in the first place. They'd instead have a nice white-collar job, where they're actually paid what they're worth, rather than some artifically-inflated value that their union was able to extort from their employer for them.
Sorry, I got a little off-topic there. All unions should be destroyed. They have outlived their usefulness, and are hindering natural capitalistic market forces.
I don't know about you, but I'd be a hell of a lot more willing to donate if I wasn't so busy making ends meet on what little of my earnings government "allows" me to keep.
Surely, you realize that you only feel that way because you're accustomed to the current level of taxation, and anything less would feel like a "relief," right? I mean, if your taxes were suddenly reduced to 40%, would you say "Hallelujah, I'm donating half of my bonus 10% to charity!" ? I doubt it. You'd get used to 40%, spend the extra cash on a slightly bigger house and a slightly nicer car, then complain that you're overtaxed again, a few years down the road.
This argument can be logically extended through having your taxes reduced to 30%, 20%, and even 10%. You'd still groan and complain about having 1/10th of your income accosted by the government, and you'd claim that if they didn't take so much, you'd donate more to charity.
I'm not saying this would happen rapidly. It would happen over a period of decades. But no matter what the taxation level, people would get used to it, adjust their spending habits so that they're always living at the very edge of their means (or even slightly beyond it, thanks to credit), and complain about not having enough money. It's not just you, it's human nature. People just plain aren't as charitable as you seem to think they are.
I may be posting too late to get an answer, but there are a few physics-related questions I've always wondered about, and thought maybe the fellow geeks here could postulate some solutions/answers.
1. - Does gravity travel faster than light? If the sun were to disappear instantaneously, would Earth continue to travel in a curved orbit for another 9 minutes (the time it takes light to reach Earth from the Sun), or would we immediately begin traveling in a straight line?
2. - Faster-than-light travel? If I send an object in one direction at 0.75*c (3/4 the speed of light), and another object in the opposite direction, also at 0.75*c, aren't they traveling apart from each other at 1.5*c? That is, aren't they traveling faster than light, relative to each other? How is that possible under Einstien's theory of General Relativity? Isn't this situation supposed to be impossible?
3. - Faster-than-light communication? If I had a steel rod that was 4,000 miles long, and I pushed on one end of it, would a spectator at the other end see their end of the rod move simultaneously, or would something about relatively cause a delay? If I rigged up an optical transmitter and receiver at both ends, couldn't this facilitate "faster-than-light" communication? That is, say I had an LED facing upwards, and an optical reciever hanging overtop of it, reading the light from the LED. When the rod is overtop of the LED, it is blocking the light, and the sensor reads a '0'. If I move the rod forward a bit, it is no longer obscuring the LED, and the receiver reads a '1'.
Now, if at the other end, I have a similar setup (simply inverted), couldn't I achieve faster-than-light communication by moving the rod back and forth? Couldn't the movement at the other end, blocking and un-blocking the LED (and then inverted) be used to transmit binary data?
Is there something in "Relativity" that says this wouldn't work? Ignoring the practical limits (how do you get such a long steel rod, how much would it weight, etc.), could this actually facilitate faster-than-light communication?
In case it wasn't obvious, that Anonymous Coward was not actually me. Cute attempt at impersonation though.
Re:this guy WRITES QUIZ SOFTWARE FOR A LIVING
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They Killed Ken!
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I would imagine that they are treated as highly confidential, and only entered into the database shortly before the show is filmed, probably only 1 or 2 people other than the question researchers having seen them before this happens.
Very unlikely. Think of the logistics of it. Even if they were only "entered into the database shortly before the show is filmed," where are they entered from? Notes and papers in front of them? The questions must be created and researched well in advance, to ensure they are (above all else) correct. Remember on Millionaire, when the question was, "What does the '.com' in internet addresses mean?" The contestant correctly guessed "Commercial," but the answer the host had (and that was programmed into the computer) was "Company." They sent the guy home, then later realized they were wrong, and apologized.
Also, Alex must see the questions well in advance, so he can have a chance to practice the pronounciation. He reads the questions from notes in front of him, not directly off of the monitors.
And finally, while this may just be the way the show is edited, it appears that Alex often even begins reading the question a fraction of a second before they are displayed on the board, which is a hint that he has them in front of him, on notecards. These notecards must be printed up before the show, presumeably well in advance, to avoid such screw-ups like running out of notecards or printer ink. Also, note that 5 shows are taped a day. That's an awful lot of questions to enter into "the database" right before taping starts on that day.
"All right, smartypants, how do you think they do it then?", you're probably asking right about now. Well, I can only speculate, but I would guess that they have a team of 3 or 4 full-time staff members, each of whom probably have very diverse specializations (i.e., there's probably a math/science guy/gal, a history/geography guy/gal, an English literature/art history guy/gal, etc.), who sit around all day, coming up with these questions, thoroughly researching the answers, making sure the spellings are correct, and entering them into a large database, tagged with keywords for categories. This database likely has thousands upon thousands of questions, so even if you were able to gain access to it, the sheer volume of information would be impossible to memorize, without actually becoming an expert on the topic, in which case you don't really need to cheat in the first place!
As each show is prepared, the categories are chosen, and questions that match keywords associated with the episode's chosen categories ("Religion," "Potent Potables," etc.) are randomly chosen from the database, and the database entries are tagged with a timestamp, indicating the last time they were used on an episode, to prevent the same questions from appearing multiple times in back-to-back episodes. Questions that have been used more than a certain number of times are automatically purged from the database.
And in other news, the "Planet of the Apes" is Earth, Bruce Willis is a ghost, John Shooter is just a figment of Johnny Depp's imagination, much like Tyler Durden was a figment of Ed Norton's imagination. Actually, Norton's played a few roles in which a mind-job occurs, such as "Primal Fear", where his character gets away with murder by convincing everyone (including the viewer) that he has multiple personaly disorder. Even his own lawyer, Richard Gere, doesn't find out until after he's already helped his client get off the hook.
No doubt the ratings have shot thru the roof, as well as the advertising revenue.
Jeopardy doesn't get the ad revenue; the TV stations do. Jeopardy is a syndicated TV show, which means that networks sign a contract at the beginning of the season. $3 million for 100 shows, or something like that. If the ratings go up during the season, that's great for the network (because they can charge more for advertising time), but the producers of Jeopardy don't see any of that. They've already signed their contract, and are delivering the agreed-upon number of shows for the agreed-upon sum of money.
Now, next season, the show's producers may be able to cite the increased ratings as a factor in requesting a higher-paying contract this time. However, given that the whole "Ken" thing is really just an unusual, one-time curiousity, it'd be hard for Jeopardy's producers to convince the networks that the increased ratings will stick for the entire upcoming season.
What I'm saying is, the networks are profiting from this much more than the show itself, so no, it wouldn't make much sense for Jeopardy producers to "rig" the show to keep Ken around. The networks would have a lot more motive for such manipulation than the producers, but the networks have no control at all over how the show is produced, so it'd be impossible for them to carry out such meddling.
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This is why I repeatedly say that 9/11 could never happen again with boxcutters. People will fight back. The pilots will resist.
I don't know that that's necessarily a valid leap of logic. In the once example in which the passengers did fight back (i.e., Pennsylvania), everybody still died. I don't think that 9/11 guaranteed that in the future, every hijacking will necessarily be met with resistance.
In all likelyhood is a person is on a plane and it crashes the person is dead.
That's not true. The majority of plane crashes do not result in fatalities.
If this can help us spark a little interest in would-be voters, why not do it.
Because you're infusing ignorant, uninformed, angst-ridden teens with a last-minute burst of misplaced civic pride. Suddenly, they feel like they should vote, but they have no idea who to vote for. They didn't watch the debates, they don't read the paper, and they have no idea where any of the candidates stand on any issues, save for perhaps one or two "wedge" issues that may be important to them (to the exclusion of other, more important issues. For example, what's more important? Gay marriages or medicare for seniors? Which do you think a 19-year old cares about?)
It's dangerous to encourage uninformed people to vote. At best, they guess right and vote for a good candidate. At worst, they're canceling out the vote of an informed person who actually took the time and effort to research the candidates and platforms. Democracy is too important to be left to ignorant, apathetic people.
The first is that there's typically not a lot of mechanical advantage and/or pad area in the e-brake. Accordingly, they can't produce a whole lot of braking force. Most cars are quite capable of driving through their e-brake.
Then the brake is calibrated incorrectly. If I haul on my parking brake handle, at any speed, the rear brakes lock up solid. And they stay that way until I release the brake. Granted, my car is front-wheel drive. I'm sure it would be a different case in a rear-wheel drive vehicle. However, I really doubt that my little Honda Civic's engine has enough power to actually accelerate the vehicle while the rear brakes are completely locked up.
That said, if someone were to try to push your car, your engine would indeed be damaged, so do not put a gear when it is not needed.
No, do put it in gear while parked, all the time. While it is true that if your car were to receive a forceful push, you'd damage the gear, the answer is to simply leave it in a gear that you could live without, in a pinch. I always leave my car in 3rd, while parked (yes, with the parking brake on, too). If someone rams me, I can still get home without a third gear (although if someone pushes your car hard enough to strip the gear, there will probably be substantial cosmetic damage as well. But at least you'll still be able to get home).
Java's garbage collection sort of creates a general laziness among some coders who don't clean up because they don't have to.
I could make the same argument about how "variables" have made coders lazy, because we no longer have to address our own memory. Fact is, computers are much, much better at managing memory than a programmer is. The GC is a natural, welcome evolution.
Also, I don't know for sure, but would what happen if two objects referenced each other but nothing else referenced them. Would gc know to follow the links between the two and see that nothing in the main app is using them?
Not to talk down to you, but yes, of course! This is extremely basic, first year translators principles. Translators are highly evolved, very complex and advanced beasts that can easily follow mind-boggling paths of references and quickly reclaim every scrap of unused memory. Don't worry - people have been working on this stuff for decades, and translator theory is an extremely advanced (and interesting) research field unto itself.
...if something bad happened at your LAN party. You'd be insane not to get insurance!
Probably so. You'd be insane not to take out insurance!
Somone is on drugs and dies at your party. You'd be insane not to take out insurance.
it is also thinking about them. You'd be insane to skip insurance!
I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. Could you please clarify whether or not I should take out insurance? Could you do it using terms of relative sanity? Thanks.
I am a lawyer,
No you're not. Or at least, if you are, you're a very bad one. I am not a lawyer, but even I know that the very first thing any real lawyer does when discussing legal issues in a non-professional context (such as Slashdot) is prefix their entire comment with a disclaimer stating to the effect of "the following is not legal advice and should not be taken as such."
Had you said you're a law student, I might have believed that, and assumed that you simply haven't gotten to the part about "professional legal accountability" yet.
I don't want MY tax dollars to be wasted with this nonsense.
Newsflash: Corporations pay taxes too. Ever stop and think that maybe its their taxes that are funding these prosecutions?
I don't want that money wasted prosecuting swappers.
I believe the ??AA themselves are the ones doing the prosecuting, and thus, paying for the litigation. I suppose public dollars may be going towards the defendants' legal bills, but public defenders are relatively cheap, and these are people who, after all, broke the law.
I don't want that money wasted imprisoning swappers.
AFAIK, copyright infringement is a civil crime, not a felony. That means no prison time. They'll be fined. Do you have any evidence to suggest that file swappers are actually being jailed?
I don't care to bear the social costs of ruining the lives of swappers.
"Ruining the lives?" How is a $3000 civil settlement "ruining their lives?" Besides, there's an easy way to avoid having your life "ruined" by a fine: DON'T BREAK THE LAW!
Do you know anything? Everything you said was so far off-base, I can only conclude you are either trolling, or fantastically ignorant. Care to end my suspense?
Cross-dressing 1st grade teachers don't harrass people in the streets, so they're absolutely fine.
Prematurely introducing 6-year olds to confusing sexual-identity issues isn't harming them?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with cross-dressing. I'm simply saying that in this particular example (1st grade), that's too young to be thrusting these types of issues on first-graders. Just let them learn to read at that age, for goodness sake. Teach them about different sexualities when they're a little older and can understand.
You consider that sick? LOL, take a look what religion did to the world, now thats sick!
While it can't be denied that religion has been, and continues to be, responsible for some of the most horrific actions throughout history, you nevertheless cannot deny the good, kind acts that are done in the name of religion, too. Religion is responsible for more charity and kindness than anything else in the world today. If it weren't for religion, you'd have far more people starving and dying in the streets.
What I think suckered the smart people is the 'sheeple' (or bandwagon effect if you like) - where people left their analytical skills at the door in the mad rush to follow the rest of the herd as it cantered off across the fields.
No, you underestimate people. Everyone saw what was happening, and common sense told us that it was a bubble that wouldn't last. However, some of our friends had gambling instincts and more disposable cash, so they put some money in anyway. Then, the stock defied logic and went up, and our friend doubled his money while we stood on the sidelines telling him that what was happening was impossible.
A few months later, he'd doubled his money again. It was insane. Us "common-sense" folks couldn't understand it. By all history, logic, and reasoning, what was happening shouldn't have been happening. And yet it was, and people were making money hand over fist.
So eventually it did bust. The rules of business weren't re-written, and lots of people lost a lot of money. But there were a few people (we all know some of them) who by insight, or sheer dumb luck, managed to get their chips out in time, and kept their profit.
What I'm getting at is, it wasn't some kind of "herd mentality," as you claim, but rather, people were making tons and tons of money in a market that we were trying to tell them couldn't exist. Yet it was. And it kept doubling. So they could listen to us and not make money, or they could put their money in and double it in 6 months. THAT is why people invested in such a crazy market. It was WORKING for a while.
I, and others, were able to see through the hype and stupidity during the bubble, and see what companies had real value, which didn't, which were over-valued, and in some cases, which were under-valued.
Oh if only we'd all listened to you! We were all fools! Thank you for showing us how stupid and naive we are, and conversely, what an insightful visionary you are! We'll never doubt you again!
Get off your horse, snarky prick.
which inevitably leads to a lack of knowledge regarding other countries (even Canada and Mexico).
To be fair though, <OB_SIMPSONS>it's easy to miss Canada, all tucked away down there.</OB_SIMPSONS>
You: "Corporations are evil."
Pardon me for paraphrasing. I am getting so sick of you naive, shortsighted, hippy kids blindly bashing the big, evil, faceless "corporations." Open your eyes. You are living in a capitalist society. Don't like it? A photo and a bit of paperwork, and you can be on your way to a new life in China or North Korea.
Do companies exist to make money? Yes. Do they try to maximize their profits and return-on-investment for their shareholders? Of course.
But what people like you don't seem to understand is that these aren't a bunch of faceless suits, they are people like you and me. If you own a 401(k) (and it sounds like you are too young to be there yet), then you are a shareholder. People like your parents, your coworkers, are the investors that these companies are answering to. If these companies didn't do everything reasonable to make a profit, then these retirees and investors (i.e., you, me, our parents) dump their stock and switch to someone with better revenue forecasts.
Do companies use every tax loophole available to them to increase profits? Yes, of course! So do I! When I do my taxes each spring, I declare every single write-off I am legally entitled to. It's just common sense. Why wouldn't you? Would you pay extra tax just out of the kindness of your heart? Of course not! Then why would you expect a corporation to do it?
A corporation is not a bunch of faceless, hive-minded "good-'ol-boys" in a locked-up boardroom on the 100th floor, making decisions to sacrifice babies for increased profits. It's just a bunch of harmeless MBA's doing what they do best: marketing, accounting, sales, and whatever else their business entails.
In summary, it just bugs me when I see hypocrites like you lashing out at "corporations" when you don't even really seem to understand where your retirement investment is going to come from. Guess what - it'll be those very same corporations, and you'll be demanding profits.
Wake up and lay off.
Government should not be in business of "saving" failing companies like that money they sunk into the airlines after 9/11.
Why not? After all, 9/11 itself was a direct result of that very same government's corrupt, arrogant, and misguided foreign policy. Why shouldn't they foot the bill to help clean up the mess they created?
The recession begin Oct 2000, not Mar 2001. Note the DJ from the era.
You probably already know this, but just in case anyone else reading is confused, the stock market has absolutely nothing at all to do with "recessions." Recessions are defined as 3 consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth. It has no root at all in any stock markets. Stock markets could be going gangbusters, but if the GDP slips 3 quarters in a row, we're in a recession. Conversely, the stock market could be nosediving for a year, but as long as the GDP manages to keep squeaking ahead by even a fraction of a percent, then you are not technically in a recession (this was the scenario in Canada during the bust - we were never actually, officially, in a "recession").
Canadian Airlines didn't get bought up by new smaller carriers. If you're going to go on an anti-union rant at least have your facts straight.
My facts are straight. While its true that Air Canada did legally merge with (read: takeover) Canadian Airlines, it is also true that WestJet, CanJet, and JetsGo all use former aircraft, equipment, and employees of Canadian. Air Canada eliminated and sold off substantial portions of Canadian's assets, due to the large amount of overlap and redundancy that results from two International carriers merging.
Why is the givt afraid to let the market pick a winner as it will anyway?
Canada used to have 2 major, cross-country airlines: Canadian Airlines, and Air Canada. Canadian went bankrupt (thanks to shortsighted, greedy unions) and was broken up into a bunch of pieces that were bought up by new, smaller, short-haul carriers. After that, Air Canada was the only airline that could fly you from coast-to-coast, and internationally.
Enter the unions again. This time, demanding more money from an Air Canada that is already obviously bleeding red ink. Unions don't care. They just want money. So the ticket sellers go on strike. This, of course, exasperates Air Canada's predicament, and they predicably declared bankruptcy. Did I mention how much I despise unions?
Anyway, it would be unacceptable for the last remaining truly national airline to evaoporate, so the government stepped in with some subsidies and loans. Air Canada has been able to come out of bankruptcy protection through some creative financing from international investors, but for now, they're barely hanging on by a thread. Without the government intervention, we'd have lost our last national airline, and you would no longer be able to fly from coast-to-coast without the hassle of dealing with multiple stopovers and different ticket agents. Of course, without union intervention, none of this mess would have happened in the first place, but unions neither see it that way, nor care. As long as they squeeze more water from that rock, they don't care if it destroys the rock in the process. They're incapable of thinking that far ahead. If they had the intelligence that would grant them such foresight, they wouldn't be stuck in the sort of blue-collar labor that typically spawns unions in the first place. They'd instead have a nice white-collar job, where they're actually paid what they're worth, rather than some artifically-inflated value that their union was able to extort from their employer for them.
Sorry, I got a little off-topic there. All unions should be destroyed. They have outlived their usefulness, and are hindering natural capitalistic market forces.
I don't know about you, but I'd be a hell of a lot more willing to donate if I wasn't so busy making ends meet on what little of my earnings government "allows" me to keep.
Surely, you realize that you only feel that way because you're accustomed to the current level of taxation, and anything less would feel like a "relief," right? I mean, if your taxes were suddenly reduced to 40%, would you say "Hallelujah, I'm donating half of my bonus 10% to charity!" ? I doubt it. You'd get used to 40%, spend the extra cash on a slightly bigger house and a slightly nicer car, then complain that you're overtaxed again, a few years down the road.
This argument can be logically extended through having your taxes reduced to 30%, 20%, and even 10%. You'd still groan and complain about having 1/10th of your income accosted by the government, and you'd claim that if they didn't take so much, you'd donate more to charity.
I'm not saying this would happen rapidly. It would happen over a period of decades. But no matter what the taxation level, people would get used to it, adjust their spending habits so that they're always living at the very edge of their means (or even slightly beyond it, thanks to credit), and complain about not having enough money. It's not just you, it's human nature. People just plain aren't as charitable as you seem to think they are.
I may be posting too late to get an answer, but there are a few physics-related questions I've always wondered about, and thought maybe the fellow geeks here could postulate some solutions/answers.
1. - Does gravity travel faster than light? If the sun were to disappear instantaneously, would Earth continue to travel in a curved orbit for another 9 minutes (the time it takes light to reach Earth from the Sun), or would we immediately begin traveling in a straight line?
2. - Faster-than-light travel? If I send an object in one direction at 0.75*c (3/4 the speed of light), and another object in the opposite direction, also at 0.75*c, aren't they traveling apart from each other at 1.5*c? That is, aren't they traveling faster than light, relative to each other? How is that possible under Einstien's theory of General Relativity? Isn't this situation supposed to be impossible?
3. - Faster-than-light communication? If I had a steel rod that was 4,000 miles long, and I pushed on one end of it, would a spectator at the other end see their end of the rod move simultaneously, or would something about relatively cause a delay? If I rigged up an optical transmitter and receiver at both ends, couldn't this facilitate "faster-than-light" communication? That is, say I had an LED facing upwards, and an optical reciever hanging overtop of it, reading the light from the LED. When the rod is overtop of the LED, it is blocking the light, and the sensor reads a '0'. If I move the rod forward a bit, it is no longer obscuring the LED, and the receiver reads a '1'.
Now, if at the other end, I have a similar setup (simply inverted), couldn't I achieve faster-than-light communication by moving the rod back and forth? Couldn't the movement at the other end, blocking and un-blocking the LED (and then inverted) be used to transmit binary data?
Is there something in "Relativity" that says this wouldn't work? Ignoring the practical limits (how do you get such a long steel rod, how much would it weight, etc.), could this actually facilitate faster-than-light communication?
In case it wasn't obvious, that Anonymous Coward was not actually me. Cute attempt at impersonation though.
I would imagine that they are treated as highly confidential, and only entered into the database shortly before the show is filmed, probably only 1 or 2 people other than the question researchers having seen them before this happens.
Very unlikely. Think of the logistics of it. Even if they were only "entered into the database shortly before the show is filmed," where are they entered from? Notes and papers in front of them? The questions must be created and researched well in advance, to ensure they are (above all else) correct. Remember on Millionaire, when the question was, "What does the '.com' in internet addresses mean?" The contestant correctly guessed "Commercial," but the answer the host had (and that was programmed into the computer) was "Company." They sent the guy home, then later realized they were wrong, and apologized.
Also, Alex must see the questions well in advance, so he can have a chance to practice the pronounciation. He reads the questions from notes in front of him, not directly off of the monitors.
And finally, while this may just be the way the show is edited, it appears that Alex often even begins reading the question a fraction of a second before they are displayed on the board, which is a hint that he has them in front of him, on notecards. These notecards must be printed up before the show, presumeably well in advance, to avoid such screw-ups like running out of notecards or printer ink. Also, note that 5 shows are taped a day. That's an awful lot of questions to enter into "the database" right before taping starts on that day.
"All right, smartypants, how do you think they do it then?", you're probably asking right about now. Well, I can only speculate, but I would guess that they have a team of 3 or 4 full-time staff members, each of whom probably have very diverse specializations (i.e., there's probably a math/science guy/gal, a history/geography guy/gal, an English literature/art history guy/gal, etc.), who sit around all day, coming up with these questions, thoroughly researching the answers, making sure the spellings are correct, and entering them into a large database, tagged with keywords for categories. This database likely has thousands upon thousands of questions, so even if you were able to gain access to it, the sheer volume of information would be impossible to memorize, without actually becoming an expert on the topic, in which case you don't really need to cheat in the first place!
As each show is prepared, the categories are chosen, and questions that match keywords associated with the episode's chosen categories ("Religion," "Potent Potables," etc.) are randomly chosen from the database, and the database entries are tagged with a timestamp, indicating the last time they were used on an episode, to prevent the same questions from appearing multiple times in back-to-back episodes. Questions that have been used more than a certain number of times are automatically purged from the database.
That's just my guess.
And in other news, the "Planet of the Apes" is Earth, Bruce Willis is a ghost, John Shooter is just a figment of Johnny Depp's imagination, much like Tyler Durden was a figment of Ed Norton's imagination. Actually, Norton's played a few roles in which a mind-job occurs, such as "Primal Fear", where his character gets away with murder by convincing everyone (including the viewer) that he has multiple personaly disorder. Even his own lawyer, Richard Gere, doesn't find out until after he's already helped his client get off the hook.
This is fun! What other movies can we do?
No doubt the ratings have shot thru the roof, as well as the advertising revenue.
Jeopardy doesn't get the ad revenue; the TV stations do. Jeopardy is a syndicated TV show, which means that networks sign a contract at the beginning of the season. $3 million for 100 shows, or something like that. If the ratings go up during the season, that's great for the network (because they can charge more for advertising time), but the producers of Jeopardy don't see any of that. They've already signed their contract, and are delivering the agreed-upon number of shows for the agreed-upon sum of money.
Now, next season, the show's producers may be able to cite the increased ratings as a factor in requesting a higher-paying contract this time. However, given that the whole "Ken" thing is really just an unusual, one-time curiousity, it'd be hard for Jeopardy's producers to convince the networks that the increased ratings will stick for the entire upcoming season.
What I'm saying is, the networks are profiting from this much more than the show itself, so no, it wouldn't make much sense for Jeopardy producers to "rig" the show to keep Ken around. The networks would have a lot more motive for such manipulation than the producers, but the networks have no control at all over how the show is produced, so it'd be impossible for them to carry out such meddling.