Methane is an organic material. Organics are one of the key building blocks of life. In fact, it is one of many byproducts of life processes. An abundance of organic material bodes well for finding life (probably bacterial) on Titan.
The question is whether life arose there on its own or was seeded by wayward asteroids and comets.
Though organic matter is the basis of life, it does not guarantee that life would exist. It is just a type of matter composed of carbon-based molecules. Is there carbon out there? You bet. That means that organic matter will also exist out there in space.
Colin Powell was crucified for claiming the existence of WMDs in Iraq. It took a couple years, but we never found the smoking gun. Don't be too quick to jump on the first piece of evidence you find.
When you have an industry with high entry costs due to infrastructure needs, you are going to end up with only a few companies after the shakeout occurs. Therefore, any policy that is designed to enable consumer choice and universal access is only useful to create an environment where competition will briefly flourish before degrading to the same old 2 or 3 dominant companies own the entire market.
If the government truly wants to encourage competition, they would provide funding to under-performing companies and startups. This would lower the entry costs and provide a balance to the giants who would normally run roughshod over the smaller guys.
They could at least give the semblance of rights to their citizens by putting up monitoring software and only catching the offenders. Like they do with the traffic cameras.
The list probably won't include porn, so that's a good thing. However, it will probably include hate sites. This makes it a serious crackdown on the freedom of speech. It's exactly this kind of thoughtcrime persecution that our American founders fled from those 250 years ago.
Does the distro work with your printer without any complicated installation procedures? Does the distro work with your audio hardware without any complicated installation procedures? Does the distro switch between all the resolutions supported by your video hardware? Does the distro have a reasonably good package installation mechanism? Does the distro support your applications without special package installation requirements?
If the answer is affirmative to all of the above, then you've got yourself a winner. It's very cool how Ubuntu has essentially forced every other distro to get up to speed on these seemingly basic features. Otherwise, the distros are just flavored differently. It's all the same under the hood.
Don't fall for the crap that network bandwidth is somehow limited because of usage problems. That's never been the issue with AT&T's network. The problem is simply that they don't have enough cell tower capacity to handle that many simultaneous users. This is why your phone service cuts out in very crowded areas.
So if a bunch of people simultaneously try to use the network, the cells will max out and a lot of people will be out of coverage, but the network as a whole will continue to run just fine.
Getting AT&T to increase cell density is a nice goal, but so is getting cells to remote areas. It's a matter of priorities, but a covered area that has insufficient capacity is better than an uncovered area with zero capacity.
Anyone have any recommendations for what I ought to show my 6, 4, and 3 year old
Yes. Show them this post in about 15 years. Think back about how much wonderment you expected them to have when you unwrapped that expensive laundry rack and took them outside in the bitter cold to fight with each other over control of the eyepiece only to have it break off in the 3 year old's greasy hands. Then regale them with the story of how you tried to fix it right there in the snow while they shivered and whined and tried to go back inside the house but you wouldn't let them because, dammit, there is so much cool stuff to see and just wait a damned minute while you put that goddamn eyepiece back on the.. Oh fuck, now you've cut yourself on the plastic shards of the broken socket. And everyone can laugh as you all remember together the Christmas daddy spent in the hospital getting stitches and treatment for frostbite.
Such dark nebulae were once thought to be 'holes in the sky', empty areas of space where there are no stars and so our view was out into the void beyond. We now know that this is not the case and the dark nebulae are dense, dusty clouds that obscure our view of the stars beyond.
If what we think is a vast expanse of nothing is actually full of dust and other "real" matter, I wonder if this could account for the gravitational effects of so-called "dark matter".
It's strangely appropriate that Neo, when he went to see the Oracle to find out that he is The One, was also shown that the reality he was constantly presented with was simply a computer manipulation. This is why "there is no spoon" was such a critical piece of the Matrix puzzle. There may be no spoon, but there can still be a fork.
The Oracle told Neo that he wasn't The One, but the Oracle was lying and just telling him what he needed to hear. The One knows that there is a fork, even if the Oracle leads him astray.
Then there was a whole lot of crap about rogue agents in the system, but the whole movie was clearly an allegory about databases and the GPL.
There are plenty of other threads that discuss the technical reasons why the proposed government solution can or can't work. If you feel the need to discuss low pass filters and amplifiers, go ahead and participate over in those "on-topic" threads.
I, for one, refuse to accept that this EU recommendation is anything less than unwanted government intrusion into the personal lives of citizens. Discussion of that and other fanciful (and not so fanciful) solutions to the problem of headphone loudness is what this thread is for.
You know what they say. Don't bring a dog to a catfight.
What you suggest is the Technocrat equivalent of Democrats throwing money at a problem.
Quite the opposite. I am pushing a solution which requires greater personal responsibility on the listener and encouraging a community standards-based policing effort rather than a heavy-handed regulatory action. This is a very Republican solution, actually.
If there was a possibility that you could go deaf because some jackass with a jamming device could blow out your eardrums, do you think you'd be anxious to listen to your iPod at the maximum volume?
A technical problem requires a technical solution.
Instead of forcing media player manufacturers to implement a volume limiter, just force them to include a jamming frequency and allow third parties to sell jammers. When a person feels that someone's music is intruding on their personal space (in a bus, on a train, or anywhere that people are in close contact), a single button press could send a piercing squeal right through whatever audio the earbud guy had playing.
This has two benefits. First, if there are multiple people around and it is difficult to determine who is listening loudly, this gets all of them in one shot. Second, if a person's earbuds are so loud that the sound is invading someone else's personal space, the brief tone should be enough to put their eardrums out permanently.
Don't conflate my question with my stance on the artists' situation. If they've got customers, more power to them. I'm just surprised there are 110,000 artists getting screwed out of revenue. I'd be less surprised if it were merely a handful of indie artists getting screwed.
Talent must be out there, I'm sure. Infinite monkeys, you know.
There is "indie" music which is just as commercial as the popular music genre. Siouxsie and the Banshees comes to mind as something that is "indie" but really pretty mainstream.
Then there is indie music which is really independent. The guy with the Fender down at the tavern or the guy with his Ibanez out on the sidewalk or the crazy New Age woman with long unkempt hair singing at the bottom of the stairs in the subway are all "artists" that come to mind when I think of indie artists.
The difference between these two types is simply the quality of their music. The latter being mostly a mass of untalented hacks.
So when I hear that indie musicians are being somehow screwed out of money, I have to wonder how much money they are really missing out on. Who are their customers? Are there any really good indie artists?
Yes, I'm aware that they have no responsibility to release an Exchange client, but if they are developing a phone that takes the user experience above and beyond the current crop of Android phones or even iPhone (good luck at that), it would be really nice for them to include a good Exchange client.
Then again, they may try to take the phone in a completely different direction. If that's the case, we'll have to wait and see whether it's useful for a very large segment of business users.
I've been quite unimpressed so far with the current Android phones, so I'm very interested in what features Google would add on top of the base Android OS. I'm particularly interested in how they intend to support Exchange users.
Wouldn't you know it. You turn the desert into an environment that supports agriculture and the very thing you got rid of in mass quantities turns out to be the main ingredient in the technology of the future. Doesn't that just rub you the wrong way.
As you mention in your question, your business runs 24/7 and you work 4 days a week, so this likely puts you into the IT department. With all due respect, it's unlikely that your experience to this point has prepared you for people-oriented work. Your managers are setting you up for failure.
Has someone else recently left? Has there been or does there appear to be a project that is destined to fail?
Sorry to say, in this economy, you're pretty much screwed. You'll be fired soon from your current job and there probably won't be another company hiring a sysadmin for a while yet. Good luck.
Slashdot Mirror
Depends on whether those are British billions or normal billions.
http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutwords/billion?view=uk
Methane is an organic material. Organics are one of the key building blocks of life. In fact, it is one of many byproducts of life processes. An abundance of organic material bodes well for finding life (probably bacterial) on Titan.
The question is whether life arose there on its own or was seeded by wayward asteroids and comets.
The friend is breaking the cardinal rule of pranks. Everyone must get a good laugh *before* spilling the beans.
So to recap:
1) Spit the seed
2) Tweet the deed
3) Spill the beans
Otherwise, the newlyweds are just going to screw elsewhere.
Your Zune usage rubs me the wrong way.
Though organic matter is the basis of life, it does not guarantee that life would exist. It is just a type of matter composed of carbon-based molecules. Is there carbon out there? You bet. That means that organic matter will also exist out there in space.
Colin Powell was crucified for claiming the existence of WMDs in Iraq. It took a couple years, but we never found the smoking gun. Don't be too quick to jump on the first piece of evidence you find.
When you have an industry with high entry costs due to infrastructure needs, you are going to end up with only a few companies after the shakeout occurs. Therefore, any policy that is designed to enable consumer choice and universal access is only useful to create an environment where competition will briefly flourish before degrading to the same old 2 or 3 dominant companies own the entire market.
If the government truly wants to encourage competition, they would provide funding to under-performing companies and startups. This would lower the entry costs and provide a balance to the giants who would normally run roughshod over the smaller guys.
They could at least give the semblance of rights to their citizens by putting up monitoring software and only catching the offenders. Like they do with the traffic cameras.
The list probably won't include porn, so that's a good thing. However, it will probably include hate sites. This makes it a serious crackdown on the freedom of speech. It's exactly this kind of thoughtcrime persecution that our American founders fled from those 250 years ago.
Does the distro work with your printer without any complicated installation procedures?
Does the distro work with your audio hardware without any complicated installation procedures?
Does the distro switch between all the resolutions supported by your video hardware?
Does the distro have a reasonably good package installation mechanism?
Does the distro support your applications without special package installation requirements?
If the answer is affirmative to all of the above, then you've got yourself a winner. It's very cool how Ubuntu has essentially forced every other distro to get up to speed on these seemingly basic features. Otherwise, the distros are just flavored differently. It's all the same under the hood.
Don't fall for the crap that network bandwidth is somehow limited because of usage problems. That's never been the issue with AT&T's network. The problem is simply that they don't have enough cell tower capacity to handle that many simultaneous users. This is why your phone service cuts out in very crowded areas.
So if a bunch of people simultaneously try to use the network, the cells will max out and a lot of people will be out of coverage, but the network as a whole will continue to run just fine.
Getting AT&T to increase cell density is a nice goal, but so is getting cells to remote areas. It's a matter of priorities, but a covered area that has insufficient capacity is better than an uncovered area with zero capacity.
Without the use of a telescope you could show your kids the surface of the sun by creating your own pinhole box.
Yeah, but with a telescope, they could get an even better view of it.
Anyone have any recommendations for what I ought to show my 6, 4, and 3 year old
Yes. Show them this post in about 15 years. Think back about how much wonderment you expected them to have when you unwrapped that expensive laundry rack and took them outside in the bitter cold to fight with each other over control of the eyepiece only to have it break off in the 3 year old's greasy hands. Then regale them with the story of how you tried to fix it right there in the snow while they shivered and whined and tried to go back inside the house but you wouldn't let them because, dammit, there is so much cool stuff to see and just wait a damned minute while you put that goddamn eyepiece back on the.. Oh fuck, now you've cut yourself on the plastic shards of the broken socket. And everyone can laugh as you all remember together the Christmas daddy spent in the hospital getting stitches and treatment for frostbite.
I found this statement very interesting:
If what we think is a vast expanse of nothing is actually full of dust and other "real" matter, I wonder if this could account for the gravitational effects of so-called "dark matter".
We can leave those bits behind.
It's strangely appropriate that Neo, when he went to see the Oracle to find out that he is The One, was also shown that the reality he was constantly presented with was simply a computer manipulation. This is why "there is no spoon" was such a critical piece of the Matrix puzzle. There may be no spoon, but there can still be a fork.
The Oracle told Neo that he wasn't The One, but the Oracle was lying and just telling him what he needed to hear. The One knows that there is a fork, even if the Oracle leads him astray.
Then there was a whole lot of crap about rogue agents in the system, but the whole movie was clearly an allegory about databases and the GPL.
Sir, I'd appreciate it if you could tell me where to find your lawn. I have the strange urge to get off it.
There are plenty of other threads that discuss the technical reasons why the proposed government solution can or can't work. If you feel the need to discuss low pass filters and amplifiers, go ahead and participate over in those "on-topic" threads.
I, for one, refuse to accept that this EU recommendation is anything less than unwanted government intrusion into the personal lives of citizens. Discussion of that and other fanciful (and not so fanciful) solutions to the problem of headphone loudness is what this thread is for.
You know what they say. Don't bring a dog to a catfight.
What you suggest is the Technocrat equivalent of Democrats throwing money at a problem.
Quite the opposite. I am pushing a solution which requires greater personal responsibility on the listener and encouraging a community standards-based policing effort rather than a heavy-handed regulatory action. This is a very Republican solution, actually.
If there was a possibility that you could go deaf because some jackass with a jamming device could blow out your eardrums, do you think you'd be anxious to listen to your iPod at the maximum volume?
This image describes the general concept:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/saltation/249941924/
A technical problem requires a technical solution.
Instead of forcing media player manufacturers to implement a volume limiter, just force them to include a jamming frequency and allow third parties to sell jammers. When a person feels that someone's music is intruding on their personal space (in a bus, on a train, or anywhere that people are in close contact), a single button press could send a piercing squeal right through whatever audio the earbud guy had playing.
This has two benefits. First, if there are multiple people around and it is difficult to determine who is listening loudly, this gets all of them in one shot. Second, if a person's earbuds are so loud that the sound is invading someone else's personal space, the brief tone should be enough to put their eardrums out permanently.
Don't conflate my question with my stance on the artists' situation. If they've got customers, more power to them. I'm just surprised there are 110,000 artists getting screwed out of revenue. I'd be less surprised if it were merely a handful of indie artists getting screwed.
Talent must be out there, I'm sure. Infinite monkeys, you know.
There is "indie" music which is just as commercial as the popular music genre. Siouxsie and the Banshees comes to mind as something that is "indie" but really pretty mainstream.
Then there is indie music which is really independent. The guy with the Fender down at the tavern or the guy with his Ibanez out on the sidewalk or the crazy New Age woman with long unkempt hair singing at the bottom of the stairs in the subway are all "artists" that come to mind when I think of indie artists.
The difference between these two types is simply the quality of their music. The latter being mostly a mass of untalented hacks.
So when I hear that indie musicians are being somehow screwed out of money, I have to wonder how much money they are really missing out on. Who are their customers? Are there any really good indie artists?
Yes, I'm aware that they have no responsibility to release an Exchange client, but if they are developing a phone that takes the user experience above and beyond the current crop of Android phones or even iPhone (good luck at that), it would be really nice for them to include a good Exchange client.
Then again, they may try to take the phone in a completely different direction. If that's the case, we'll have to wait and see whether it's useful for a very large segment of business users.
I've been quite unimpressed so far with the current Android phones, so I'm very interested in what features Google would add on top of the base Android OS. I'm particularly interested in how they intend to support Exchange users.
Wouldn't you know it. You turn the desert into an environment that supports agriculture and the very thing you got rid of in mass quantities turns out to be the main ingredient in the technology of the future. Doesn't that just rub you the wrong way.
As you mention in your question, your business runs 24/7 and you work 4 days a week, so this likely puts you into the IT department. With all due respect, it's unlikely that your experience to this point has prepared you for people-oriented work. Your managers are setting you up for failure.
Has someone else recently left? Has there been or does there appear to be a project that is destined to fail?
Sorry to say, in this economy, you're pretty much screwed. You'll be fired soon from your current job and there probably won't be another company hiring a sysadmin for a while yet. Good luck.