I hadn't thought of that before. Israel really did get the geopolitical shaft on that one: shoved right into one of more difficult to inhabit regions of the world, surrounded by ill-wishers and displaced populations, and not even getting a piece of the one resource that makes the area worth being in.
Suck. That's one game of Civ3 I don't want to play.
They're not in the retail or jewelry-crafting business, but you can be assured that your local craftsman's diamonds are from DeBeers or otherwise affected by their price-fixing.
Unless he has connections sneaking the jewels from the Russian mines or something, in which case, good for him.
Accountability? Is that why every software license since, what was it, Visicalc?, has contained the much beloved phrase ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY in caps?
As soon as I'm able to claim damages for software failures, then I'll buy that as a reason to go with a proprietary product. Otherwise its a non-argument.
That's not to say, of course, that you're not right about Oracle. It's pretty darn good a what it does. But that's what you should look at when choosing a piece of software -- not some notion of manufacturer accountability. There are only two ways to take a software vendor to task: bad PR and not buying their (very expensive) product again.
Re:what a bunch of morons you all are
on
Penguin Airlines
·
· Score: 1
And apparently the Los Angeles suburbs can't be much bothered to know much about the world than can be learned from the movies and People.
Of course, what I wrote above is a stupid statement too: try a regional Turing test sometime, and I'm pretty sure nobody would really be able to tell the difference between a room full of people from the cities of California, Texas, Florida, Missouri, Illinois, or wherever.
And just try telling the difference between Houston and LA when you step through my random-teleportation-to-LA-or-Houston machine.
Re:what a bunch of morons you all are
on
Penguin Airlines
·
· Score: 1
Oh come now. Taking over a ten-seat business jet is about as glamorous as taking over a bus. Or maybe your SUV. Flights like this have been taking place for a long time now, and have garnered very little in the way of trouble, especially since (a) they aren't all that good for going to whatever crappy far-away destination you might want and (b) don't really provide a suitable body count for dastardly purposes. Ground based car bombs are likely to be much more efficient.
In fact, heavy use of air-taxi type services would almost entirely obviate the threat of air-based terrorism or crime, at least for domestic flights where such things are efficient. And if you really want such a plane, it's easier to charter a flight and etherize the pilot when he comes out to greet you than go through with the whole ski-mask approach.
I'll betcha the IR reflectivity of an eyeball is different from that of an eyelid. And cheap IR sensors and emitters are all over the place -- for which you can thank your remote control.
The tough part is getting something to process the signals (and then doing the signal processing), but I'm sure something like that could be found readymade too... maybe Dallas Semiconductor?
As much evidence? Not so far as I can see -- and I'd love to see some. Most of it seems to be half-thought-out criticisms of evolutionary theories, semantic wrangling, and claims of evidence. And that really doesn't cut it.
In any case "creationism" was and is not "thrown out categorically". It's a very modern conceit to think so. I might remind that it (or some sort of similar idea) was the dominant idea in the west for at least a thousand years. Among some groups of people, you might even be able to claim four thousand years or more. It's hardly a case of off-hand dismissal. I'm pretty sure that the evidence was on hand when the theory of evolution was first introduced, and remains so.
Besides, the whole "Creation Science" thing is doomed in the first place. It's trying to play the science game against science, and frankly, that's not going to work. Play to your strengths.
If I understand correctly, the barley *was* the control. It's light on glucose, but still food, which helps narrow down possible reasons why this works as it does.
'Course it doesn't help if you don't really count barley as food.
I think maybe we'd know what's up when the "enemy" drives several missile cruisers to our various coasts. I'm doubtful that nukes can be put on a cruise missile of any appreciable range anyway. If you're talking regular old cruise missiles, we threw a whole bunch of those at Iraq and they aren't quite "wiped out".
Besides, when did knocking out Dallas contribute to armageddon? It would just make people have to use an alternate route to get to Houston. Besides, effectively eliminating *any* Texas city would require more than one tactical nuke.
It's a shame that primary school students aren't liberal or daring enough at that age to do the whole "resistance" thing. I know if they tried something so ridiculous here at Rice, the whole place would go ballistic; I'm sure that's the case at most other higher learning institutions. Of course, it's easier when you're going to school voluntarily. You try to give me a badge to wear and I'll throw it away (in little bitty pieces) before I leave the room. But then college students can always transfer to a less fascist school. Public school, well, you're just stuck.
It seems that there really ought to be a whole lot more noise about this whole thing in that school. Maybe they're picking their battles, which is smart, but the whole corporate-branded-photo-ID-badge thing is absolutely horrendous. And I'd let them confiscate an empty backpack every day rather than use a clear one. But then, I didn't do anything when they installed video cameras in my old high school except complain.
Of course, I knew they'd never actually figure out how to use the silly things. (I could've taken the entire system down for days by walking into the front office and hitting the EJECT button.)
Just smile and wave at the cameras, carry a briefcase, and constantly leave your badge in your dirty laundry. Some would call it non-violent resistance. I call it work-arounds.
Slashdot Mirror
That's nice and all, but there's something wrong with the pretty pictures on their website:
They're talking *on phones*.
I guess you don't usually look stupid enough, so they make you have a handset too.
Where's the built-in microphone?
Blast you! I was going to post that. Footfall is a seriously bad-ass book.
And that sentence is one of greatest uses of onomatopoeia ever written.
I hadn't thought of that before. Israel really did get the geopolitical shaft on that one: shoved right into one of more difficult to inhabit regions of the world, surrounded by ill-wishers and displaced populations, and not even getting a piece of the one resource that makes the area worth being in.
Suck. That's one game of Civ3 I don't want to play.
DeBeers is most certainly not a monopoly.
It's a cartel. Which is even worse.
They're not in the retail or jewelry-crafting business, but you can be assured that your local craftsman's diamonds are from DeBeers or otherwise affected by their price-fixing.
Unless he has connections sneaking the jewels from the Russian mines or something, in which case, good for him.
I dunno... I suspect anyone who would suggest otherwise is simply far too lucky.
Accountability? Is that why every software license since, what was it, Visicalc?, has contained the much beloved phrase ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY in caps?
As soon as I'm able to claim damages for software failures, then I'll buy that as a reason to go with a proprietary product. Otherwise its a non-argument.
That's not to say, of course, that you're not right about Oracle. It's pretty darn good a what it does. But that's what you should look at when choosing a piece of software -- not some notion of manufacturer accountability. There are only two ways to take a software vendor to task: bad PR and not buying their (very expensive) product again.
And apparently the Los Angeles suburbs can't be much bothered to know much about the world than can be learned from the movies and People.
Of course, what I wrote above is a stupid statement too: try a regional Turing test sometime, and I'm pretty sure nobody would really be able to tell the difference between a room full of people from the cities of California, Texas, Florida, Missouri, Illinois, or wherever.
And just try telling the difference between Houston and LA when you step through my random-teleportation-to-LA-or-Houston machine.
Oh come now. Taking over a ten-seat business jet is about as glamorous as taking over a bus. Or maybe your SUV. Flights like this have been taking place for a long time now, and have garnered very little in the way of trouble, especially since (a) they aren't all that good for going to whatever crappy far-away destination you might want and (b) don't really provide a suitable body count for dastardly purposes. Ground based car bombs are likely to be much more efficient.
In fact, heavy use of air-taxi type services would almost entirely obviate the threat of air-based terrorism or crime, at least for domestic flights where such things are efficient. And if you really want such a plane, it's easier to charter a flight and etherize the pilot when he comes out to greet you than go through with the whole ski-mask approach.
I'll betcha the IR reflectivity of an eyeball is different from that of an eyelid. And cheap IR sensors and emitters are all over the place -- for which you can thank your remote control.
The tough part is getting something to process the signals (and then doing the signal processing), but I'm sure something like that could be found readymade too... maybe Dallas Semiconductor?
As much evidence? Not so far as I can see -- and I'd love to see some. Most of it seems to be half-thought-out criticisms of evolutionary theories, semantic wrangling, and claims of evidence. And that really doesn't cut it.
In any case "creationism" was and is not "thrown out categorically". It's a very modern conceit to think so. I might remind that it (or some sort of similar idea) was the dominant idea in the west for at least a thousand years. Among some groups of people, you might even be able to claim four thousand years or more. It's hardly a case of off-hand dismissal. I'm pretty sure that the evidence was on hand when the theory of evolution was first introduced, and remains so.
Besides, the whole "Creation Science" thing is doomed in the first place. It's trying to play the science game against science, and frankly, that's not going to work. Play to your strengths.
Bah! Take a look at Boromir's gauntlets and tell me that the movie doesn't pay tremendous attention to detail.
It may not be able to come out and say it, but in its attention to detail, it's every bit a impressive as the books.
I mean, come now, they speak Elvish (and well) in a time where it's rare for the bad guys in a WWII movie to speak aught but English.
Although I do have to say that Boromir and Aragorn are a good deal more wild looking than I would have thought. Long hair is not good for fighters.
Try about:mozilla as a URL in Mozilla. Quite amusing. Is it truly an easter egg? In truth I don't know if a bug report counts as documentation.
If I understand correctly, the barley *was* the control. It's light on glucose, but still food, which helps narrow down possible reasons why this works as it does.
'Course it doesn't help if you don't really count barley as food.
You assume, of course, that
(1) they remember, and
(2) they pay attention to who gets the Nobel Prize.
I think (1 AND 2) is pretty unlikely.
I think maybe we'd know what's up when the "enemy" drives several missile cruisers to our various coasts. I'm doubtful that nukes can be put on a cruise missile of any appreciable range anyway. If you're talking regular old cruise missiles, we threw a whole bunch of those at Iraq and they aren't quite "wiped out".
Besides, when did knocking out Dallas contribute to armageddon? It would just make people have to use an alternate route to get to Houston. Besides, effectively eliminating *any* Texas city would require more than one tactical nuke.
It's a shame that primary school students aren't liberal or daring enough at that age to do the whole "resistance" thing. I know if they tried something so ridiculous here at Rice, the whole place would go ballistic; I'm sure that's the case at most other higher learning institutions. Of course, it's easier when you're going to school voluntarily. You try to give me a badge to wear and I'll throw it away (in little bitty pieces) before I leave the room. But then college students can always transfer to a less fascist school. Public school, well, you're just stuck.
It seems that there really ought to be a whole lot more noise about this whole thing in that school. Maybe they're picking their battles, which is smart, but the whole corporate-branded-photo-ID-badge thing is absolutely horrendous. And I'd let them confiscate an empty backpack every day rather than use a clear one. But then, I didn't do anything when they installed video cameras in my old high school except complain.
Of course, I knew they'd never actually figure out how to use the silly things. (I could've taken the entire system down for days by walking into the front office and hitting the EJECT button.)
Just smile and wave at the cameras, carry a briefcase, and constantly leave your badge in your dirty laundry. Some would call it non-violent resistance. I call it work-arounds.