The first words were "Contact light. Ok, engines off". Then, "Houston...".
They even got is wrong on a Final Jeopardy once.
"The name of this city was the first word spoken on the moon."
Really? What did they contact, then?
From playing the silly computer game "Lander", I would hypothesize that the engines are turned off before landing. "Contact" could mean either that there was a probe sticking out from the bottom of one of the lander's feet that had contacted the ground, or "contact light" could have meant that there was a light which was warning of imminent contact. Of course, it could also mean that they just made contact, and that it was a light (i.e. not a forceful) contact.
This is not proof, or even evidence; merely reasonable doubt.
To put it into context, its owned by Murdoch (like the Times), so think of the Sun as a slightly more intellectual version of Fox News.
They're both Rupert Murdoch. Just because the Sun has a British accent doesn't mean that they're more intellectual. Do you fall for this one at parties, too?
Since a constantly increasing amount of currency is chasing a limited amount of goods the value of the currency is constantly falling.
I disagree. Once a mile is spent, it ceases to circulate in the system.
Similarly, miles are created only when money is spent on a ticket, roughly on scale with the value of the ticket. One would expect that the price of the ticket includes a profit margin that can be applied towards any miles which are redeemed.
Further, the cost of goods sold (at least for profitable companies) is lower than the price. Although the profit margin for airfares is low, many airfare rewards programs (and pretty much all non-airfare rewards programs) have a very wide array of lower-price consumer goods which can be redeemed. These things are produced for pennies on the dollar.
Lastly, for rewards programs such as the "Air Miles" rewards programs and store rewards cards, every item you purchase can be tracked to your account. Maybe this should have been posted on YRO instead.
The next logical step is not an operation on a human in space, but on a small animal (such as a mouse or rat), since it would be disposable if there were complications.
However, the graphicness of animal testing is usually swept under the carpet, and is not inherently compatible with the publicness of recent space missions. The anti-animal-testing lobby will have an easy time of fighting such a test, especially if the scientists want to keep the animal alive for inspection (which begs the question how do you train a rat to urinate into a suction tube).
As for remote surgeries by robot, these have been in development for years, particularly for battlefield implementations.
As for blood, yes that is a problem, as 100% of blood would have to be contained; you couldn't risk it getting into the space-computers or leaving potentially-infectious traces on board. One spurt would be a big challenge.
Slightly off topic, but I've long thought that a good way to protect against credit/debit card fraud/theft is to have a system whereby anytime a purchase is made on your credit card, your bank (that is, the company which issues your credit card, which isn't always ostensibly a "bank") sends a text message to your cell phone as confirmation.
This has two security advantages: (1) it tells you that the company who just swiped (er...read) your card is actually connected to the network, and it isn't only a dummy machine.
(2) if someone makes an unauthorized purchase on your credit card, you know the instant the first purchase attempt is made, not at the next month's statement.
Of course, there are disadvantages: - It wouldn't work for places that still use pen-and-paper credit card slips - This would cost much more for the banking industry to implement than to simply deal with cc/dc fraud after the fact.
Someone earlier mentioned (perhaps not on/.) that we're running out of "First"s for women in space travel. We're also very proud whenever another one can be ticked off the list.
We shouldn't be so proud to parade around these statistics: there's a whole class of them that haven't been touched: "First misson where there are a majority (or at least parity) of women..." Like, what is the most women that there have been in any 7-person STS mission? Two? Maybe three?
Yeah, I know--the same can be said for many elected bodies, professional groups, etc.
Oh well. At least it was good to see another female capcom for STS-115.
The little old ladies behind the voting table will be watching you like a hawk
Riiiiight. So now that we've introduced these fancy technical voting machines, we have to watch people as they vote to make sure they don't tamper with them.
Sorry, that curtain that ensures a secret ballot? Yeah, we need that for...uh...something else now.
Why? Well, there is a direct correlation between bad grades and lack of attendance of lectures even if the notes and powerpoints are posted.
"Direct correlation" means that those with lower attendance *tend to* have lower grades. There are a lot of variables here, including teacher's ability, course content, and student's learning abilities. I've noticed that in my classes there is a direct correlation between whether or not you are caucasian and whether you make it to university, but you don't see us banning non-whites.
Aside from statistical variability, your job is to teach. It is theirs to learn. This involves learning how to learn: if they must discover through failing courses (or perhaps simply getting "bad grades", which I, for one, am comfortable with) that certain learning tactics don't work well, they'd might as learn it, instead of simply being told that they have no alternative to your preferred learning tactic.
Their paper doesn't seem to have "interpretation" problems.
Actually, if you do some reading up on the 1995 Quebec referendum, you'll find that there is some of this.
But what I really wanted to comment on is how there is so much emphasis put on Canada's as the primary alternative to the U.S. style of voting. There was one comment on Germany's voting system.
How about we hear from a Chinese Slashdot poster about the voting system in their country?
I live in Toronto, and the elections held in Canada use paper.
I dunno about Toronto, but in Ottawa, municipal elections use Diebold voting machines. A friend of mine has been working on Freedom of Information requests on the things for over a year with no success.
For the most recent (paper-based) federal elections, I worked for Elections Canada at one of the polls. Candidates sent scrutineers/representatives to oversee the counting of the ballots and the election process in general, but are prohibited from advertising in any way during the elections process, and are prohibited from touching the ballots during counting.
One interesting note (aside from the international observers who came in from the U.S. and the Russian Federation) was that small grassroots parties, as well as large parties with no chance of winning this particular riding, didn't have any scrutineers/representatives at our poll.
As many comments here have mentioned, this is not about assigning reliability to *people*, but to *content*.
When I view a wikipedia article, I am oblivious to whether there is an edit war (unless there is a "content is disputed" tag on it), or even if someone wrote that the number of elephants has tripled when in fact it hasn't. While erroneous elephantite information may be reverted in five minutes, I'm still looking at the wrong information.
Currently, the only way for a user to see if this is the case is by looking at the history. However if a paragraph was changed back and forth 50 times, it only shows up as the initial and end state for the selected edits. I'd have to manually look at each edit, see what changes have been made, and keep a mental track of them.
The proposed system, while flawed, is a step towards removing this block. As TFA states, it's about indicating the *probability* that information is correct, not about carving it in stone.
Slashdot Mirror
From playing the silly computer game "Lander", I would hypothesize that the engines are turned off before landing. "Contact" could mean either that there was a probe sticking out from the bottom of one of the lander's feet that had contacted the ground, or "contact light" could have meant that there was a light which was warning of imminent contact. Of course, it could also mean that they just made contact, and that it was a light (i.e. not a forceful) contact.
This is not proof, or even evidence; merely reasonable doubt.
- RG>
If you liked that post, you should submit it to www.seenonslash.com
- RG>
My, goodness, this is an outrage!
I will continue to...not...use...livejournal...
- RG>
This is great! I was getting tired of the limited selection of Swedish cooking shows on Youtube.
- RG>
No, the summary is simply leaving out an intermediate conclusion. It should say:
Why should what's funny in Shanghai be funny in Stockholm?
It isn't [necessarily].
That's why a local alernative is more funny than the global Youtube.
It took me a minute to understand it, too. Probably lost in translation.
- RG>
Not to mention the fact that there is a photo in the first link...identical to the one that Roland advertises in the second link.
- RG>
They're both Rupert Murdoch. Just because the Sun has a British accent doesn't mean that they're more intellectual. Do you fall for this one at parties, too?
- RG>
I disagree. Once a mile is spent, it ceases to circulate in the system.
Similarly, miles are created only when money is spent on a ticket, roughly on scale with the value of the ticket. One would expect that the price of the ticket includes a profit margin that can be applied towards any miles which are redeemed.
Further, the cost of goods sold (at least for profitable companies) is lower than the price. Although the profit margin for airfares is low, many airfare rewards programs (and pretty much all non-airfare rewards programs) have a very wide array of lower-price consumer goods which can be redeemed. These things are produced for pennies on the dollar.
Lastly, for rewards programs such as the "Air Miles" rewards programs and store rewards cards, every item you purchase can be tracked to your account. Maybe this should have been posted on YRO instead.
- RG>
Maybe we could get them to change a lightbulb?
- RG>
Sorry, I don't think we're talking about the same HP. Do you mean Hewlett Packard, the company that sells printer ink cartridges?
Since when does their business model include selling computers? Wouldn't that just take away from their black, yellow, cyan, and magenta gold?
- RG>
- RG>
The next logical step is not an operation on a human in space, but on a small animal (such as a mouse or rat), since it would be disposable if there were complications.
However, the graphicness of animal testing is usually swept under the carpet, and is not inherently compatible with the publicness of recent space missions. The anti-animal-testing lobby will have an easy time of fighting such a test, especially if the scientists want to keep the animal alive for inspection (which begs the question how do you train a rat to urinate into a suction tube).
As for remote surgeries by robot, these have been in development for years, particularly for battlefield implementations.
As for blood, yes that is a problem, as 100% of blood would have to be contained; you couldn't risk it getting into the space-computers or leaving potentially-infectious traces on board. One spurt would be a big challenge.
- RG>
Slightly off topic, but I've long thought that a good way to protect against credit/debit card fraud/theft is to have a system whereby anytime a purchase is made on your credit card, your bank (that is, the company which issues your credit card, which isn't always ostensibly a "bank") sends a text message to your cell phone as confirmation.
This has two security advantages:
(1) it tells you that the company who just swiped (er...read) your card is actually connected to the network, and it isn't only a dummy machine.
(2) if someone makes an unauthorized purchase on your credit card, you know the instant the first purchase attempt is made, not at the next month's statement.
Of course, there are disadvantages:
- It wouldn't work for places that still use pen-and-paper credit card slips
- This would cost much more for the banking industry to implement than to simply deal with cc/dc fraud after the fact.
- RG>
Someone earlier mentioned (perhaps not on
We shouldn't be so proud to parade around these statistics: there's a whole class of them that haven't been touched: "First misson where there are a majority (or at least parity) of women..." Like, what is the most women that there have been in any 7-person STS mission? Two? Maybe three?
Yeah, I know--the same can be said for many elected bodies, professional groups, etc.
Oh well. At least it was good to see another female capcom for STS-115.
- RG>
Keep in mind that not everyone has an internet connection (hispeed or otherwise) permanently connected to their *COUGH*.
- RG>
As an environmentalist and Pastafarian concerned about global warming, I appreciated the section on the three "arr"s.
- RG>
I Am Not A Palaeontologist, but I'd date Microsoft at about 1997.
- RG>
This just goes to show you how useful technology is becoming for real-life scenarios.
MS sued over Xbox live? Tremendous progress! I mean, you don't see many law suits taking place over AIM, TTY, or even IRC!
- RG>
Riiiiight. So now that we've introduced these fancy technical voting machines, we have to watch people as they vote to make sure they don't tamper with them.
Sorry, that curtain that ensures a secret ballot? Yeah, we need that for...uh...something else now.
- RG>
One problem my organization has is we keep forgetting passwords that are rarely used.
a ny Name]'s_Passwords
My suggestion is to post it to http://en.wikipedia.org/index.php/List_of_%5BComp
You'll never lose your password again--guaranteed!
- RG>
"Direct correlation" means that those with lower attendance *tend to* have lower grades. There are a lot of variables here, including teacher's ability, course content, and student's learning abilities. I've noticed that in my classes there is a direct correlation between whether or not you are caucasian and whether you make it to university, but you don't see us banning non-whites.
Aside from statistical variability, your job is to teach. It is theirs to learn. This involves learning how to learn: if they must discover through failing courses (or perhaps simply getting "bad grades", which I, for one, am comfortable with) that certain learning tactics don't work well, they'd might as learn it, instead of simply being told that they have no alternative to your preferred learning tactic.
- RG>
Actually, if you do some reading up on the 1995 Quebec referendum, you'll find that there is some of this.
But what I really wanted to comment on is how there is so much emphasis put on Canada's as the primary alternative to the U.S. style of voting. There was one comment on Germany's voting system.
How about we hear from a Chinese Slashdot poster about the voting system in their country?
- RG>
So who'd ya vote for then? ;)
- RG>
I dunno about Toronto, but in Ottawa, municipal elections use Diebold voting machines. A friend of mine has been working on Freedom of Information requests on the things for over a year with no success.
For the most recent (paper-based) federal elections, I worked for Elections Canada at one of the polls. Candidates sent scrutineers/representatives to oversee the counting of the ballots and the election process in general, but are prohibited from advertising in any way during the elections process, and are prohibited from touching the ballots during counting.
One interesting note (aside from the international observers who came in from the U.S. and the Russian Federation) was that small grassroots parties, as well as large parties with no chance of winning this particular riding, didn't have any scrutineers/representatives at our poll.
- RG>
RTFA.
As many comments here have mentioned, this is not about assigning reliability to *people*, but to *content*.
When I view a wikipedia article, I am oblivious to whether there is an edit war (unless there is a "content is disputed" tag on it), or even if someone wrote that the number of elephants has tripled when in fact it hasn't. While erroneous elephantite information may be reverted in five minutes, I'm still looking at the wrong information.
Currently, the only way for a user to see if this is the case is by looking at the history. However if a paragraph was changed back and forth 50 times, it only shows up as the initial and end state for the selected edits. I'd have to manually look at each edit, see what changes have been made, and keep a mental track of them.
The proposed system, while flawed, is a step towards removing this block. As TFA states, it's about indicating the *probability* that information is correct, not about carving it in stone.
- RG>