The Nautilus of Verne's novel was not nuclear.
It is stated explicitly in the novel:
"Professor," said Captain Nemo, "my electricity
is not everybody's. You know what sea water is
composed of. In a thousand grams are found 96 1/2
per cent of water, and about 2 2/3 per cent of
chloride of sodium; then, in a smaller quantity,
chlorides of magnesium and of potassium, bromide
of magnesium, sulphate of magnesia, sulphate and
carbonate of lime. You see, then, that chloride
of sodium forms a large part of it. So it is this
sodium that I extract from sea water, and of which
I compose my ingredients, I owe all to the ocean;
it produces electricity, and electricity gives
heat, light, motion, and, in a word, life to the Nautilus."
The idea that the Nautilus was atomic is most
likely from the Disney adaption, which implied,
though never stated, the boat was nuclear powerd.
How long before these things can power my
handheld?
Screw that. How long before they can power an
artificial heart!?
A completely self-contained, reliable, artifical
heart available off-the-shelf and requiring no
external battery pack or management would be a
sea change in modern medicine. Jean-Luc Picard
lives! Wonder what brand he uses?
No, no, no. The on-going efforts to build
Daleks is the next step in a long line of attempts to
exterminate humanity. Robotic dinosaurs are
just for running after screaming people and
eating the ones that separate from the group
for no apparent reason...
Yes, a sample return. That's the ticket.
Of course, if there is life in that sample,
we've just brought it to Earth. But, hey, it'll
be a gov't project, I'm sure it won't escape the
lab. Of course, all those gov't-run nuclear
weapons facilities managed to leak significant
radiation into the environment - but I'm sure
that's an isolated incident. 'course NASA did
manage to crash probes on other planets...but
I'm sure landing a probe a second time in a
mission, and on Earth - well, they'll be extra
careful, right? I'm sure the risk is really
very minimal.
The only reason this suggestion that we trust
gov't bureaucrats with alien bacteria doesn't
leave me quaking in my bed is that
I'm reasonably certain such bacteria will not
be dangerous to Earthly life. But mark my words,
son, if you sample return and there is Martian
bacteria in the sample, it'll leak. Guaranteed. I have
that much faith in bureacrats.
Health insurance? Money for property taxes,
local school taxes, sales taxes - especially
when they go way up because so many people
have followed your example that the income
tax take drops and the need arises to "develop
new sources of revenue" - as the saying goes?
Also, subsistance farming looks charming, but
it's far more labor-intensive than most people
realize. That's why agro-businesses developed
in the first place. You might make it work if
you shared labor with a number of other people
in rotation. That's been shown to work - to a
degree. They're called communes.
I don't think so. For me, this scheme simply means I won't ever bother to download and try part 1, let alone pay for it. If all three parts eventually become available, perhaps then. Until then, it's a sucker bet, and I don't take sucker bets. Even if by some miracle, "enough" people pay Stephen for his novel, the next one to try it will fail, refuse to write the ending of the novel, and the scheme will never work again.
Jon says: >what really terrifies the renegade wing of the >mutants and motivates them to wipe out the human >race as it's constituted isn't some powerful >enemy, but pending legislation in Congress, one >of the world's least effective and menacing >institutions.
Jon, while there is little doubt that Congress is ineffective in many of its actions, there is also little doubt that despite that - in fact, in no small degree because of that - it must be counted amongst the most menacing outfits in human history.
One need only look at the CDA and the DMCA as the most recent examples of Congress's on-going mission to shred the Constitution and eliminate its protections. If that is not menacing then it must be said we don't know what menacing is. Hitler's power came from the people and the gov't that supported him regardless of how insane or odious he was. If he had taught us nothing else Clinton has taught us that it could happen here as well. Luckily Clinton, bad as he is, is no Hitler. We might not be so lucky the next time we decide to keep a cad in office.
>NY a few years ago sent unmarked police cars to >Reading PA (big outlet town), marked down NY >license plates, then sent the owners a friendly >reminder that purchases from PA have to pay NY >sales tax.
Mass and NH went one better in a similar round some years ago. NH's liquor taxes are far lower than Mass's, so border liquor store parking lots are well-stocked with cars bearing Mass license plates at all times. Michael Dukakis, then governor of Mass, had the bright idea of setting up a Mass state police agent at each border store to radio license numbers of Mass cars to marked chase cars stationed at the borders - who then run down and ticket people for "bootlegging" illegal booze, thus getting not only the tax, but a hefty fine for avoiding the tax. Meldrim Thompson, then-governor of NH, called Dukakis about this scheme and told him to knock it off. Dukakis refused. The next day, NH State Police arrested each and every Mass statie in a NH liqour store parking lot, charged them with loitering, and impounded their cars. The scam ended that day, though they had to pay NH some hefty fines.
You see, if someone...say, the EFF...were to put the cphack sources up for download, and Microworks were to threaten to sue them... then (IANAL) it seems to me that the EFF would now have grounds to sue _Microworks_ - for violation of contract. And it seems to me the first order of business would be to point out the irrevocable nature of the GPL to the judge and get themselves one of corporate America's favorite legal toys: a restraining order telling Microworks to stop harrassing their licensees...
With text they cannot be indexed by search engines, which means drug questions from people looking for answers will never be directed to their site.
And without text, they are opening themselves up to an Americans With Disabilities lawsuit. Even if they win, they'll lose far more in legal fees than they would spend properly tagging the site - especially considering that they will tag the site dooner or later.
...about Mr. Katz, but his ability to take somethings as common and obnoxious as a pointless flame and turn it into a thought-provoking piece on freedom of speech _is_ the mark of a real writer. Agree with him or not, he performs a service.
>Why should we let people drive at all? Clearly, >on the whole, they suck at it. Driving is betting one's life on one's driving skills. I'm prepared to do that. Flying is betting one's life on a aerospace engineer's design skills. I'm prepared to do that. Being driven by software is betting one's life on some programmer's programming skills. I'm not prepared to do that. Not now, not ever. Not without a fucking _huge_ revolution in the art of dependable software design - and good as open source is, even that still ain't good enough. And I can all but guarantee that even that modest engineering improvement will not be applied to such a system. Bottom line for YOUR idea: MS Driver 2000. Yeah, sure, I'm going to trust THAT. NOT!
>It seems pretty clear to me that it would violate >our 4th, 5th, and 14th amendment rights... So does photocop and civil forfeiture, but that didn't stop them from doing it here.
There is one overwhelming reason why one should consider Linux for such a naive user - the same reason I plan to turn my computer-illiterate cousin loose on a Linux system - she's gonna ask _me_ for help. Not the manufacturer, not any user group, not MS, not the cute octagenarian across the street. And I don't care to try to talk her through some ticklish and ultimately futile piece of Windoze trivia - even presuming I could figure it out, which half the time I can't in Windows. With Linux I can telnet or ssh in, do what needs to be done, and get out faster and easier for ME _and_ for my cousin.
Slashdot Mirror
...I thought they hated Tcl! God knows
they've fired or alienated into quitting
enough of their Tcl people.
It is stated explicitly in the novel:
"Professor," said Captain Nemo, "my electricity
is not everybody's. You know what sea water is
composed of. In a thousand grams are found 96 1/2
per cent of water, and about 2 2/3 per cent of
chloride of sodium; then, in a smaller quantity,
chlorides of magnesium and of potassium, bromide
of magnesium, sulphate of magnesia, sulphate and
carbonate of lime. You see, then, that chloride
of sodium forms a large part of it. So it is this
sodium that I extract from sea water, and of which
I compose my ingredients, I owe all to the ocean;
it produces electricity, and electricity gives
heat, light, motion, and, in a word, life to the Nautilus."
The idea that the Nautilus was atomic is most
likely from the Disney adaption, which implied,
though never stated, the boat was nuclear powerd.
handheld?
Screw that. How long before they can power an
artificial heart!?
A completely self-contained, reliable, artifical
heart available off-the-shelf and requiring no
external battery pack or management would be a
sea change in modern medicine. Jean-Luc Picard
lives! Wonder what brand he uses?
export PS1='^[]0;`hostname -s`:`pwd`^G> '
where ^[ is "ctrl-v esc" and ^G is "ctrl-v ctrl-g".
This gives just:
> _
On the command line, but it puts the hostname and current directory in the titlebar.
No, no, no. The on-going efforts to build Daleks is the next step in a long line of attempts to exterminate humanity. Robotic dinosaurs are just for running after screaming people and eating the ones that separate from the group for no apparent reason...
...what too often happens to the great majority of kids damaged by our school systems that don't go the way Dylan and Klebold did.
The only reason this suggestion that we trust gov't bureaucrats with alien bacteria doesn't leave me quaking in my bed is that I'm reasonably certain such bacteria will not be dangerous to Earthly life. But mark my words, son, if you sample return and there is Martian bacteria in the sample, it'll leak. Guaranteed. I have that much faith in bureacrats.
Thought they were here for our women. I was going to send them Janet Reno...
Also, subsistance farming looks charming, but it's far more labor-intensive than most people realize. That's why agro-businesses developed in the first place. You might make it work if you shared labor with a number of other people in rotation. That's been shown to work - to a degree. They're called communes.
I don't think so. For me, this scheme simply means I won't ever bother to download and try part 1, let alone pay for it. If all three parts eventually become available, perhaps then. Until then, it's a sucker bet, and I don't take sucker bets. Even if by some miracle, "enough" people pay Stephen for his novel, the next one to try it will fail, refuse to write the ending of the novel, and the scheme will never work again.
>what really terrifies the renegade wing of the
>mutants and motivates them to wipe out the human
>race as it's constituted isn't some powerful
>enemy, but pending legislation in Congress, one
>of the world's least effective and menacing
>institutions.
Jon, while there is little doubt that Congress is ineffective in many of its actions, there is also little doubt that despite that - in fact, in no small degree because of that - it must be counted amongst the most menacing outfits in human history.
One need only look at the CDA and the DMCA as the most recent examples of Congress's on-going mission to shred the Constitution and eliminate its protections. If that is not menacing then it must be said we don't know what menacing is. Hitler's power came from the people and the gov't that supported him regardless of how insane or odious he was. If he had taught us nothing else Clinton has taught us that it could happen here as well. Luckily Clinton, bad as he is, is no Hitler. We might not be so lucky the next time we decide to keep a cad in office.
>NY a few years ago sent unmarked police cars to
>Reading PA (big outlet town), marked down NY
>license plates, then sent the owners a friendly
>reminder that purchases from PA have to pay NY
>sales tax.
Mass and NH went one better in a similar round some years ago. NH's liquor taxes are far lower than Mass's, so border liquor store parking lots are well-stocked with cars bearing Mass license plates at all times. Michael Dukakis, then governor of Mass, had the bright idea of setting up a Mass state police agent at each border store to radio license numbers of Mass cars to marked chase cars stationed at the borders - who then run down and ticket people for "bootlegging" illegal booze, thus getting not only the tax, but a hefty fine for avoiding the tax. Meldrim Thompson, then-governor of NH, called Dukakis about this scheme and told him to knock it off. Dukakis refused. The next day, NH State Police arrested each and every Mass statie in a NH liqour store parking lot, charged them with loitering, and impounded their cars. The scam ended that day, though they had to pay NH some hefty fines.
You see, if someone...say, the EFF...were to put the cphack sources up for download, and Microworks were to threaten to sue them... then (IANAL) it seems to me that the EFF would now have grounds to sue _Microworks_ - for violation of contract. And it seems to me the first order of business would be to point out the irrevocable nature of the GPL to the judge and get themselves one of corporate America's favorite legal toys: a restraining order telling Microworks to stop harrassing their licensees...
And without text, they are opening themselves up to an Americans With Disabilities lawsuit. Even if they win, they'll lose far more in legal fees than they would spend properly tagging the site - especially considering that they will tag the site dooner or later.
Stupidity is always its own reward.
...about Mr. Katz, but his ability to take somethings as common and obnoxious as a pointless flame and turn it into a thought-provoking piece on freedom of speech _is_ the mark of a real writer. Agree with him or not, he performs a service.
The hands-down favorite argument of the anti-rights crowd "Your rights end the moment someone else thinks they are inconvenient..."
That's the coldest, cruelist thing I've heard in a long time. That it is correct, well reasoned, and even rational just somehow makes it worse...
>Why should we let people drive at all? Clearly, >on the whole, they suck at it. Driving is betting one's life on one's driving skills. I'm prepared to do that. Flying is betting one's life on a aerospace engineer's design skills. I'm prepared to do that. Being driven by software is betting one's life on some programmer's programming skills. I'm not prepared to do that. Not now, not ever. Not without a fucking _huge_ revolution in the art of dependable software design - and good as open source is, even that still ain't good enough. And I can all but guarantee that even that modest engineering improvement will not be applied to such a system. Bottom line for YOUR idea: MS Driver 2000. Yeah, sure, I'm going to trust THAT. NOT!
>It seems pretty clear to me that it would violate >our 4th, 5th, and 14th amendment rights... So does photocop and civil forfeiture, but that didn't stop them from doing it here.
There is one overwhelming reason why one should consider Linux for such a naive user - the same reason I plan to turn my computer-illiterate cousin loose on a Linux system - she's gonna ask _me_ for help. Not the manufacturer, not any user group, not MS, not the cute octagenarian across the street. And I don't care to try to talk her through some ticklish and ultimately futile piece of Windoze trivia - even presuming I could figure it out, which half the time I can't in Windows. With Linux I can telnet or ssh in, do what needs to be done, and get out faster and easier for ME _and_ for my cousin.