Some people look at a thing and ask "Why?", others ask "Why not?" No one is claiming it's useful today, it needs work. But it shows one way we might go with virtual machine technology, and it's certainly worth a look.
You have to take into account the reputation of the people doing the research. That is why this article's tone is an example of the very thing it is decrying. It takes global warming as a given and assumes anyone against it is influenced by ideology - yet the credibility of all climatological science has been called into question by their own people. It has been shown that sampling techniques varied across the history of the data set. It has been shown that the data was manipulated and the original data "lost" (or, worse, not released because of fear it will be "misinterpreted"). The global warming people have to make their case again and this time do it above-board - and not using gov't grants, because the all of the reasons put forth for why their conclusions are not being questioned all hinge on their desire for funding.
Yeah, we have the anti-evolution lunatics and the like, but they have no connection with the Tea Party. This is just another attempt to tar the people who believe the Founding Fathers may have been right about freedom. And, yes, that is subversive - after all, those people are remembered for starting a war against a King by Divine Right...
...is that Rep. Giffords hadn't even arrived at the hospital before one of her aids appeared on FOX and CNN blaming the Tea Party. Never mind that the whole POINT of the Tea Party is to work within the system, any excuse to vilify them, even a mass shooting of one's boss and innocent bystanders, must be used. What was that Democratic motto Beck was castigated for mentioning? Oh, yes, "Never let a good crises go to waste."
My sympathy to Rep. Giffords and the other victims of this tragedy. Now let us ALL learn the lesson, monsters are made, not born, and as a culture we continue to operate the monster factory. Can we drop the "Socialism at any cost" on one side and "Democrats are evil cockroaches" on the other? Please?
...sadly, you are incorrect. While you may view "Network Neutrality" this way (and most hackers, including me, would agree with you, by the way), the sad fact is, Democrats in general and Liberals in particular do not. Limbaugh is correct, "Network Neutrality" has become a trojan horse to try to silence conservatives by forcing "equal time" laws to apply to the web. "Net neutrality" as most technical types understand it has been, as I have stated before, entirely subverted to serve a different objective, one that is equally discriminating as network non-neutrality would be.
I'm sorry, but it's a fact: when a politician latches onto your favorite catchphrase you must understand what they really mean by it. Right now there are three different definitions of "net neutrality" - ours, the Democrats, and the Republicans. If you use the phrase you must understand not only your own meaning, but the meaning it will imply to anyone you speak to.
Guys, you really need to start parsing these kinds of statements. What a hacker means by "net neutrality", what a politician means by "net neutrality" and what corporations mean by "net neutrality" are three completely disjoint sets. And of the three, the hacker's definition is not the one anyone in this debate is using. The question is not really net "neutrality" but instead "who will control the net and to whose ends".
A seasteading site could be augmented by zepsats - hot air ballon "satellites" which would use solar power to maintain altitude and hover at assigned sites where they would TOR to any sites within range and relay to each other. Such units could have considerable range. Individually they'd be cheap - almost disposable - and would form the backbone of a truly free network.
...and cheaper to just set up their own micronation platform using something like http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Making_an_Island/Construction_Guides? All they'd need is a relatively shallow site not in territorial waters. A (largely) unmanned site could be left sealed tight when heavy weather is coming, and could otherwise be maintained by a couple of guys. Armed guys, copyright law being what it is. But, hey, machine guns would be legal! http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2010/tle551-20100103-03.html
...let's be honest here. Franken wants what all liberals do - they want to control everything you see and read. To them "net neutrality" means on-line and radio are to become all liberal all the time. Talk radio, the internet, and FOX are the only media outlets not controlled by liberals - and "net neutrality" is how they are going to fix that. If you want proof of this, ask Mr. Franken how he feels about net neutrality with respect to tcp/ip protocols. You will get either a blank look (he's not a bright man) or you will see a sudden and savage about-face to race to protect "intellectual property" loaded with assumptions about who should get such protection by looking at the list of contributors to his war chest.
Do remember that this is the very same political party whose president criticized SCOTUS - in public - for asserting that people, even people in corporations other than unions or political action groups, cannot be held silent by the government since the 1st amendment - whose first and only function IS to protect political discourse - forbids them to do so. Said President then promptly promising to "re-apply" the principle - censorship - once again. Hey, the 1st amendment is not that hard to figure out, they KNEW that law was unconstitutional the day they passed it, and they will know it still when they pass the replacement. Cynically they realize that all they need to do to end-run the Constitution is to pass a law abrogating part of it, and then defend it to the death, appeal, appeal, appeal, delay, delay, delay, lawyer, lawyer, lawyer and when SCOTUS finally smacks 'em down again, go ahead and pass the exact same bill over again with different wording, and let the process repeat. Who cares if it makes lawyers filthy, stinking rich? The Trial Lawyer's Association will insure that only truly liberal viewpoints will be permitted, and they get paid too. Sweet deal.
Do not believe liberals when they say "new neutrality". Please. It's just a code word for censorship. And we are too much like China all ready. We have already hit most of the marks to a dictator-driven social "democracy" - the end of privacy, the disarming of the public, the control over individual lives, regulation of speech and the media, selective reporting, the list goes on and on.
Now I expect this will be modded down troll, but I feel better having at least I've pointed out - again - that we are patching our political dike using handfuls of C4 (all of which we bought with Chinese credit...), so when it blows up I'll be in a cabin somewhere, sitting on a pile of MRE's, cleaning my guns, and watching "Tremors" episodes on my solar-powered DVD - with occasional breaks to look at all the surprised faces when it comes THEIR turn to be rounded up. And I swear to God, when they start rounding up all those liberal Jews who voted for Obama, I am going to laugh myself until I hiccup. Jews are supposed to be smart, but they never did figure out that the only Americans who support Israel are the Republicans.
Fraken as a senator - its surreal to the point of absurdity. He was never funny as a comedian but he's a laugh riot now...
Oooohh...this is a toughie. Highly toxic material, slapped onto a drinking glass. Cadmium. Oh! Cadmium charm bracelets! Could it be China? Again? Why don't we learn?
As raising the CAFE has proven time and again, every time they are raised, they have the effect of increasing the amount of time older, less-efficient cars will remain in service, instead of being replaced with newer, more fuel-efficient models, and, once again, the country's overall average mileage will shrink. Way to go. Of course, once they ram cap-and-trade through the way they did health care, no one but Donald Trump, the President, and Congress will be able to drive. So much for sticking it to those rich people.
...that the more we slow down traffic "for safety" the more incidents of "road rage" we generate by forcing people to drive longer? What good is all this safety going to do if the guy behind me snaps and tries to ram past on the shoulder?
The principle problem with gov't today is the level of frustration it creates in people. That is the real source of the anger in the country, and the real genesis of the Tea Party. People are already at the breaking point, why does anyone think that making the problem worse is going to make us safer?
Every trait has a tradeoff. Evolution has no master plan, it has no absolutes, the superiority of one trait over another depends on environment and luck. It is not an accident that sickle-cell is a prevalent trait amongst those of recent african descent. Environmentally, living in africa presents a greater likelihood of dying from malaria. The sickle-cell trait protects the individual from malaria. In that population, it's a survival trait, as I said, in spite of that fact that getting copies of it from both parents is fatal. It is statistics, my friend.
Outside of Africa, particulary north European types, malaria is not a big issue. Sickle-cell in THAT population is NOT a survival trait, and is slowly disappearing amongst people of african descent who live in the north. They are also getting whiter, since black skin protects from heavy sun in africa but entirely blocks the diminished wavelengths needed to produce vitamin D in the skin, thereby causing rickets, a particular scourge of black people, especially nursing black mothers, and one reason why many countries add vitamin D to milk. Blackness is not a useful survival trait in northern climes.
Human evolution is a fascinating subject. You would do well to study it before demonstrating such cocky stupidity in public again.
So-called color "blind" men have frequently been shown to have advantages in seeing through camouflage in a natural environment - a useful trait for hunting. Like sickle-cell anemia and attention "deficit disorder", these "disabilities" turn out to have survival advantages for the species. In sickle-cell just one copy of the gene makes the owner more resistant to malaria, and so is a net win for species survival even though those who inherit two of them die. Attention "deficit disorder" - a short attention span and high distractability - makes it possible to be more aware of everything going on in the environment around you - like the prey lurking under a bush, the odor of a big cat, or that (possibly fatally-infected) fly landing on you, all things that a highly focused individual might miss in concentrating on chipping his flint. Many such traits are still in the gene pool for a reason.
The FDA was a good idea that has already overreached. It has added so much cost and delay to the development of new drugs and new treatments that its opportunity cost is almost literally too large to calculate. People die while it dithers. Most of the progress in HIV came only when its rules were loosened to permit faster tracks for drugs that combat it. So don't hold it up as an example of great government.
Oh and by the way the FDA does not test for mad cow disease. You're only safe from that because you live in America.
> You'd think with a UID that low you'd have learned something by now...
...is more government power. Once the national ID is in place it will be expanded. First ID, then driver's license, then credit card, then key card, and so on, and it will not be long before the United States government has a record of everything you buy, every place you enter or leave, every place you can enter, and, eventually, everything you do or say. This is not a slippery slope argument because we are already far down that slippery slope sliding on our asses at bewildering speed to the rocks at the bottom. Picture yourself living in a world where everything you do or say or possibly, not too long hence, even think, is being continuously monitored by the almighty government. This isn't just a conspiracy theory any more. It's a policy. A $500 ticket every time your car drifts a couple of miles an hour over the speed limit, spot checks scanning your (effectively naked) body for weapons or contraband, not just at airports but lots of other places that "need security", the government monitoring your fat intake, your cholesterol level, how well your kidneys function, how much nicotine is in your blood. Don't think so? Socialized medicine is all the excuse needed to directly regulate everything you eat, everything you drink, every product you ingest, rub on, carry.
We live in a country with literally millions of pages of laws, rules, regulations, and requirements that apply to every citizen. Now picture what it will be like when the government is finally able to completely enforce every single tiny, seemingly inconsequential rule, law, regulation, or requirement that's on the books. Tell me how anyone will be able to get through a day without being cited for multiple violations of laws that you can't even know exist because no one can read that much material.
I'm sorry. That's not a free country. That's not America. That's not what our forefathers wanted to leave for their posterity. And it's no place I want to live. So where will we be able to go, those of us who still want freedom or privacy or the right to make decisions for ourselves? Why do any of you even want to live in such a country? Make no mistake. That is where Obama is going to end us up. If he's elected to a second term, you will see all of the above put into place.
And Congress did not "give us" the right to medical care. Rights are intrinsic to each and every person, they cannot be granted and when they are taken away there is tyranny. Rights are negative things, we need them so we can stop other people from doing things to us that we don't like. When you turn a right around and make it a positive thing, like the "right of medical care" then you also put into place a requirement of service from someone else to implement that right. You're "right" then enslaves that person. That's not freedom. And that's a fact.
> the US has its own largely untapped reserves that could safeguard future tech innovation
Oh, sure, that'll help. With the lunatic left running things we will never manage to open another mine - no matter how crucial the material might be to "future tech". In fact, it's usefulness in future tech is probably proportional to the amount of protest it will create at proposals to mine it.
> the accumulated knowledge on this subject is already sufficient > to say that commercial fusion power will never become a reality.
In the veriest fraction of a second that this idea becomes Conventional Wisdom, the first commercially-viable fusion reactor will start up without a hitch.
Libertarian thought is not incompatible with open source, in fact it is incompatible with closed source, since libertarian thought is primarily concerned with protecting people's rights. The problem comes with those who have not analyzed the subject deeply and jump to the conclusion that the rights that need protecting are not the consumers but the purveyors of software. In the case of software this is deeply incorrect, open source software is, defensibly, the only really open market for software, any other version admits of using tricks to lock people into compartmentalized monopolies, which are anathema to libertarian thought.
I wish I could be when it comes to Washington. Just once.
None of this is rocket science people. Google up a pair of drawings of the Raptor and Lightning to the same scale and look for yourself.
I notice Slashdot has become quite distinctly looney-left itself. Despite Obama's trillion dollar deficient in his first 6 months in office, the complete failure of his "stimulus" package (which was really just Democratic pork in a very large barrel), the certain knowledge that his health care "reform" will add another $1.5 trillion dollars minimum to gov't spending - and yet whenever I mention any of this, it's modded "troll". I knew Obama himself was thin-skinned, but I thought slashdotters prided themselves on their ability for reason and logic.
About the Levin-McCain Amendment - simply because I blame Democrats more than Republicans doesn't mean I blame Republicans any less than they deserve. Bad as liberal democrats are, they could not have done this much damage without help. I didn't vote for McCain because I thought he would be a great President, I knew perfectly well he'd be mediocre at best. I voted for McCain because I thought Obama would bankrupt the country and destroy the economy with huge tax increases, throwing us into a depression worse than the 1930s. Anybody still want to debate that? Hmm? But I don't need to argue it. One day Real Soon Now you'll be sitting around the unemployment office waiting for some career bureaucrat with an enviable medical plan, and you'll remember what I said. So will those who modded me "troll".
Yeah, people like me are always right. It's a pretty easy trick, though. You just need to read your history and listen to what people are saying when they run for office. Obama is doing nothing he didn't promise to do. The only difference is that now people are starting to realize, now that they are running out of everyone else's money, who's going to pay for it.
Hey, guys, it's all good for me. I have a heart condition and I'm on disability. YOU are going to be paying for MY meds, not the other way around. $700 a month for byetta alone. New pacemaker every five years. I'm paying my own way now, but I won't be if Obama gets his way. I'll get to pocket what I'm spending on insurance and you can support me.
Go head. Troll that. But you'll still pay. Oh, you'll pay.
Slashdot Mirror
Some people look at a thing and ask "Why?", others ask "Why not?" No one is claiming it's useful today, it needs work. But it shows one way we might go with virtual machine technology, and it's certainly worth a look.
> It is cool as a tech demo, and as a benchmark, but I don't really see it being useful.
How useful is a baby?
You have to take into account the reputation of the people doing the research. That is why this article's tone is an example of the very thing it is decrying. It takes global warming as a given and assumes anyone against it is influenced by ideology - yet the credibility of all climatological science has been called into question by their own people. It has been shown that sampling techniques varied across the history of the data set. It has been shown that the data was manipulated and the original data "lost" (or, worse, not released because of fear it will be "misinterpreted"). The global warming people have to make their case again and this time do it above-board - and not using gov't grants, because the all of the reasons put forth for why their conclusions are not being questioned all hinge on their desire for funding.
Yeah, we have the anti-evolution lunatics and the like, but they have no connection with the Tea Party. This is just another attempt to tar the people who believe the Founding Fathers may have been right about freedom. And, yes, that is subversive - after all, those people are remembered for starting a war against a King by Divine Right...
...is that Rep. Giffords hadn't even arrived at the hospital before one of her aids appeared on FOX and CNN blaming the Tea Party. Never mind that the whole POINT of the Tea Party is to work within the system, any excuse to vilify them, even a mass shooting of one's boss and innocent bystanders, must be used. What was that Democratic motto Beck was castigated for mentioning? Oh, yes, "Never let a good crises go to waste."
My sympathy to Rep. Giffords and the other victims of this tragedy. Now let us ALL learn the lesson, monsters are made, not born, and as a culture we continue to operate the monster factory. Can we drop the "Socialism at any cost" on one side and "Democrats are evil cockroaches" on the other? Please?
...sadly, you are incorrect. While you may view "Network Neutrality" this way (and most hackers, including me, would agree with you, by the way), the sad fact is, Democrats in general and Liberals in particular do not. Limbaugh is correct, "Network Neutrality" has become a trojan horse to try to silence conservatives by forcing "equal time" laws to apply to the web. "Net neutrality" as most technical types understand it has been, as I have stated before, entirely subverted to serve a different objective, one that is equally discriminating as network non-neutrality would be.
I'm sorry, but it's a fact: when a politician latches onto your favorite catchphrase you must understand what they really mean by it. Right now there are three different definitions of "net neutrality" - ours, the Democrats, and the Republicans. If you use the phrase you must understand not only your own meaning, but the meaning it will imply to anyone you speak to.
Guys, you really need to start parsing these kinds of statements. What a hacker means by "net neutrality", what a politician means by "net neutrality" and what corporations mean by "net neutrality" are three completely disjoint sets. And of the three, the hacker's definition is not the one anyone in this debate is using. The question is not really net "neutrality" but instead "who will control the net and to whose ends".
> You should be honoured that he called you an idiot
Priceless.
A seasteading site could be augmented by zepsats - hot air ballon "satellites" which would use solar power to maintain altitude and hover at assigned sites where they would TOR to any sites within range and relay to each other. Such units could have considerable range. Individually they'd be cheap - almost disposable - and would form the backbone of a truly free network.
...and cheaper to just set up their own micronation platform using something like http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Making_an_Island/Construction_Guides? All they'd need is a relatively shallow site not in territorial waters. A (largely) unmanned site could be left sealed tight when heavy weather is coming, and could otherwise be maintained by a couple of guys. Armed guys, copyright law being what it is. But, hey, machine guns would be legal! http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2010/tle551-20100103-03.html
...let's be honest here. Franken wants what all liberals do - they want to control everything you see and read. To them "net neutrality" means on-line and radio are to become all liberal all the time. Talk radio, the internet, and FOX are the only media outlets not controlled by liberals - and "net neutrality" is how they are going to fix that. If you want proof of this, ask Mr. Franken how he feels about net neutrality with respect to tcp/ip protocols. You will get either a blank look (he's not a bright man) or you will see a sudden and savage about-face to race to protect "intellectual property" loaded with assumptions about who should get such protection by looking at the list of contributors to his war chest.
Do remember that this is the very same political party whose president criticized SCOTUS - in public - for asserting that people, even people in corporations other than unions or political action groups, cannot be held silent by the government since the 1st amendment - whose first and only function IS to protect political discourse - forbids them to do so. Said President then promptly promising to "re-apply" the principle - censorship - once again. Hey, the 1st amendment is not that hard to figure out, they KNEW that law was unconstitutional the day they passed it, and they will know it still when they pass the replacement. Cynically they realize that all they need to do to end-run the Constitution is to pass a law abrogating part of it, and then defend it to the death, appeal, appeal, appeal, delay, delay, delay, lawyer, lawyer, lawyer and when SCOTUS finally smacks 'em down again, go ahead and pass the exact same bill over again with different wording, and let the process repeat. Who cares if it makes lawyers filthy, stinking rich? The Trial Lawyer's Association will insure that only truly liberal viewpoints will be permitted, and they get paid too. Sweet deal.
Do not believe liberals when they say "new neutrality". Please. It's just a code word for censorship. And we are too much like China all ready. We have already hit most of the marks to a dictator-driven social "democracy" - the end of privacy, the disarming of the public, the control over individual lives, regulation of speech and the media, selective reporting, the list goes on and on.
Now I expect this will be modded down troll, but I feel better having at least I've pointed out - again - that we are patching our political dike using handfuls of C4 (all of which we bought with Chinese credit...), so when it blows up I'll be in a cabin somewhere, sitting on a pile of MRE's, cleaning my guns, and watching "Tremors" episodes on my solar-powered DVD - with occasional breaks to look at all the surprised faces when it comes THEIR turn to be rounded up. And I swear to God, when they start rounding up all those liberal Jews who voted for Obama, I am going to laugh myself until I hiccup. Jews are supposed to be smart, but they never did figure out that the only Americans who support Israel are the Republicans.
Fraken as a senator - its surreal to the point of absurdity. He was never funny as a comedian but he's a laugh riot now...
Oooohh...this is a toughie. Highly toxic material, slapped onto a drinking glass. Cadmium. Oh! Cadmium charm bracelets! Could it be China? Again? Why don't we learn?
As raising the CAFE has proven time and again, every time they are raised, they have the effect of increasing the amount of time older, less-efficient cars will remain in service, instead of being replaced with newer, more fuel-efficient models, and, once again, the country's overall average mileage will shrink. Way to go. Of course, once they ram cap-and-trade through the way they did health care, no one but Donald Trump, the President, and Congress will be able to drive. So much for sticking it to those rich people.
...that the more we slow down traffic "for safety" the more incidents of "road rage" we generate by forcing people to drive longer? What good is all this safety going to do if the guy behind me snaps and tries to ram past on the shoulder?
The principle problem with gov't today is the level of frustration it creates in people. That is the real source of the anger in the country, and the real genesis of the Tea Party. People are already at the breaking point, why does anyone think that making the problem worse is going to make us safer?
I wonder if you realize how foolish you sound.
Every trait has a tradeoff. Evolution has no master plan, it has no absolutes, the superiority of one trait over another depends on environment and luck. It is not an accident that sickle-cell is a prevalent trait amongst those of recent african descent. Environmentally, living in africa presents a greater likelihood of dying from malaria. The sickle-cell trait protects the individual from malaria. In that population, it's a survival trait, as I said, in spite of that fact that getting copies of it from both parents is fatal. It is statistics, my friend.
Outside of Africa, particulary north European types, malaria is not a big issue. Sickle-cell in THAT population is NOT a survival trait, and is slowly disappearing amongst people of african descent who live in the north. They are also getting whiter, since black skin protects from heavy sun in africa but entirely blocks the diminished wavelengths needed to produce vitamin D in the skin, thereby causing rickets, a particular scourge of black people, especially nursing black mothers, and one reason why many countries add vitamin D to milk. Blackness is not a useful survival trait in northern climes.
Human evolution is a fascinating subject. You would do well to study it before demonstrating such cocky stupidity in public again.
So-called color "blind" men have frequently been shown to have advantages in seeing through camouflage in a natural environment - a useful trait for hunting. Like sickle-cell anemia and attention "deficit disorder", these "disabilities" turn out to have survival advantages for the species. In sickle-cell just one copy of the gene makes the owner more resistant to malaria, and so is a net win for species survival even though those who inherit two of them die. Attention "deficit disorder" - a short attention span and high distractability - makes it possible to be more aware of everything going on in the environment around you - like the prey lurking under a bush, the odor of a big cat, or that (possibly fatally-infected) fly landing on you, all things that a highly focused individual might miss in concentrating on chipping his flint. Many such traits are still in the gene pool for a reason.
The FDA was a good idea that has already overreached. It has added so much cost and delay to the development of new drugs and new treatments that its opportunity cost is almost literally too large to calculate. People die while it dithers. Most of the progress in HIV came only when its rules were loosened to permit faster tracks for drugs that combat it. So don't hold it up as an example of great government.
Oh and by the way the FDA does not test for mad cow disease. You're only safe from that because you live in America.
> You'd think with a UID that low you'd have learned something by now...
I have.
...is more government power. Once the national ID is in place it will be expanded. First ID, then driver's license, then credit card, then key card, and so on, and it will not be long before the United States government has a record of everything you buy, every place you enter or leave, every place you can enter, and, eventually, everything you do or say. This is not a slippery slope argument because we are already far down that slippery slope sliding on our asses at bewildering speed to the rocks at the bottom. Picture yourself living in a world where everything you do or say or possibly, not too long hence, even think, is being continuously monitored by the almighty government. This isn't just a conspiracy theory any more. It's a policy. A $500 ticket every time your car drifts a couple of miles an hour over the speed limit, spot checks scanning your (effectively naked) body for weapons or contraband, not just at airports but lots of other places that "need security", the government monitoring your fat intake, your cholesterol level, how well your kidneys function, how much nicotine is in your blood. Don't think so? Socialized medicine is all the excuse needed to directly regulate everything you eat, everything you drink, every product you ingest, rub on, carry.
We live in a country with literally millions of pages of laws, rules, regulations, and requirements that apply to every citizen. Now picture what it will be like when the government is finally able to completely enforce every single tiny, seemingly inconsequential rule, law, regulation, or requirement that's on the books. Tell me how anyone will be able to get through a day without being cited for multiple violations of laws that you can't even know exist because no one can read that much material.
I'm sorry. That's not a free country. That's not America. That's not what our forefathers wanted to leave for their posterity. And it's no place I want to live. So where will we be able to go, those of us who still want freedom or privacy or the right to make decisions for ourselves? Why do any of you even want to live in such a country? Make no mistake. That is where Obama is going to end us up. If he's elected to a second term, you will see all of the above put into place.
And Congress did not "give us" the right to medical care. Rights are intrinsic to each and every person, they cannot be granted and when they are taken away there is tyranny. Rights are negative things, we need them so we can stop other people from doing things to us that we don't like. When you turn a right around and make it a positive thing, like the "right of medical care" then you also put into place a requirement of service from someone else to implement that right. You're "right" then enslaves that person. That's not freedom. And that's a fact.
> the US has its own largely untapped reserves that could safeguard future tech innovation
Oh, sure, that'll help. With the lunatic left running things we will never manage to open another mine - no matter how crucial the material might be to "future tech". In fact, it's usefulness in future tech is probably proportional to the amount of protest it will create at proposals to mine it.
Damn it's embarrassing when we have to look to Europe for a lesson in intellectual freedom!
...after all, we know how much work and deliberation goes into giving these things out...
Like anyone is going to believe that, now.
> the accumulated knowledge on this subject is already sufficient
> to say that commercial fusion power will never become a reality.
In the veriest fraction of a second that this idea becomes
Conventional Wisdom, the first commercially-viable fusion
reactor will start up without a hitch.
Libertarian thought is not incompatible with open source, in fact it is incompatible with closed source, since libertarian thought is primarily concerned with protecting people's rights. The problem comes with those who have not analyzed the subject deeply and jump to the conclusion that the rights that need protecting are not the consumers but the purveyors of software. In the case of software this is deeply incorrect, open source software is, defensibly, the only really open market for software, any other version admits of using tricks to lock people into compartmentalized monopolies, which are anathema to libertarian thought.
> People like you are never wrong.
I wish I could be when it comes to Washington.
Just once.
None of this is rocket science people. Google up a pair of drawings of the Raptor and Lightning to the same scale and look for yourself.
I notice Slashdot has become quite distinctly looney-left itself. Despite Obama's trillion dollar deficient in his first 6 months in office, the complete failure of his "stimulus" package (which was really just Democratic pork in a very large barrel), the certain knowledge that his health care "reform" will add another $1.5 trillion dollars minimum to gov't spending - and yet whenever I mention any of this, it's modded "troll". I knew Obama himself was thin-skinned, but I thought slashdotters prided themselves on their ability for reason and logic.
About the Levin-McCain Amendment - simply because I blame Democrats more than Republicans doesn't mean I blame Republicans any less than they deserve. Bad as liberal democrats are, they could not have done this much damage without help.
I didn't vote for McCain because I thought he would be a great President, I knew perfectly well he'd be mediocre at best. I voted for McCain because I thought Obama would bankrupt the country and destroy the economy with huge tax increases, throwing us into a depression worse than the 1930s. Anybody still want to debate that? Hmm? But I don't need to argue it. One day Real Soon Now you'll be sitting around the unemployment office waiting for some career bureaucrat with an enviable medical plan, and you'll remember what I said. So will those who modded me "troll".
Yeah, people like me are always right. It's a pretty easy trick, though. You just need to read your history and listen to what people are saying when they run for office. Obama is doing nothing he didn't promise to do. The only difference is that now people are starting to realize, now that they are running out of everyone else's money, who's going to pay for it.
Hey, guys, it's all good for me. I have a heart condition and I'm on disability. YOU are going to be paying for MY meds, not the other way around. $700 a month for byetta alone. New pacemaker every five years. I'm paying my own way now, but I won't be if Obama gets his way. I'll get to pocket what I'm spending on insurance and you can support me.
Go head. Troll that. But you'll still pay. Oh, you'll pay.
And I will laugh my ass off.
> How can this counter-intuitive fact be communicated effectively to people unschooled in statistics?
In One Word: it can't.*
*Yes, that's two words, one of which is a contraction. Statistically, it's close enough. And I'm much better at statistics than anyone in Congress.