Yes but... that is "justice" for you. He committed the worst, most heinous crime in our court system... he refused the plea deal.
Seriously... 2 years to 18... he is quite litterally getting 16 more years and a lifelong sex offender registration... because the prosecutor was insulted and wanted to become the persecutor.
That said, no defense of this guys actions, he is clearly off his rocker. That still doesn't make this response appropriate
Or put another way, he could have had 1/9th the sentence if he agreed to let the prosecutor pad had stats without forcing him to do his job. I don't think the 18 years is too high, but the 2 year offer was too low.
In the meantime, where are all the 'WiFi wants to be free; I run an open access point for the neighborhood' folks?
Why not repeal the mandate to require 1.6 gal/flush toilets?
We heard the same lame arguments against that back then, but guess what? IT WORKED!!!
Sure, it worked, if you sell plungers. Toilets today are crap. (Pun intended.)
I'd ask if your claim that 1.6 gal/flush toilets "work" means you're offering to come over the plunger every time my low-flow toilet gets clogged, but I'm worried you'd be eying my shower head while you're in there.
I'm not performing a scientific study, but I have replaced enough CFLs that disposal is an issue. Many of them don't last years. And those that don't go, in the trash and out to the landfill.
It's a chain-of-ownership issue here. If NASA loaned the rock to the museum for display, and they accidentally tossed it out, NASA still owns it, all the way to the dump and beyond. Just because you lose track of something doesn't mean you don't own it anymore. You have to give it away, sell it, transfer it, abandon it, or have it confiscated, to lose ownership over it. Valuable things are rarely donated to museums, they are more often put on exhibit on a temporary or permanent basis.
My understanding is stolen property is returned to the original owner where possible. It doesn't matter if it was sold 2 or 3 times down the line already, if that car was stolen from someone then those poor buyers are SOL and the owner gets the car back.
Are you saying Nixon stole the rock from NASA when he gave it to the governor of Alaska? Because I think people want to know if their president was a crook, and Nixon was not...
Anyway, back to this topic - who was the NYC mayor at the time when this ridiculous project started I wonder? Oh wait, Bloomberg has been the mayor of NYC since 2002 and this project started in 2003. So where was he all the time when the costs overran by x2, by x3, by x5, is the magic number for a politician to look at some cost overruns only when they exceed the x10 estimate?
People blame corporations and businesses for waste and fraud, but at least corporations and businesses have to extract their money from customers (well, unless they are government protected monopolies of-course) by selling products that customers want.
BTW, from TFA but not included in the summarys:
The recent indictment of SAIC's leader project manager on the CityTime job, Gerard Denault, as well as the guilty plea to criminal charges made by SAIC systems engineer Carl Bell, who designed the software, are "extremely troubling and raise questions about SAIC's corporate responsibility and internal controls to prevent and combat fraud," he added. Denault and Bell were charged with were charged with taking kickbacks, wire fraud and money laundering.
Also recently indicted were Reddy and Padma Allen, a couple who head up New Jersey systems integrator TechnoDyne, which was SAIC's primary subcontractor on the CityTime project. Federal authorities allege that the Allens and others conducted an elaborate overbilling and kickback scheme that siphoned millions of dollars from the project.
Federal authorities have also contended that SAIC had received a whistleblower complaint about the project as far back as 2005, Bloomberg said in the letter. "It is unclear what SAIC did at that time to investigate these serious allegations."
And Bloomberg is a billionaire. He's not some ivory tower academic or career politician. He's supposed to know better.
I worked for a small company that was bought by a slightly less small company which was then gobbled up by SAIC. Anyone who didn't have their life savings wrapped up in the venture from starting the original small company got the heck out of there.
1. The devil is in the details. Every different department has their own rules. Every different union (police, teachers, janitors, etc) has their own rules for vacation, holidays, overtime, etc. Every manager has their own little pet feature they want included, and no one puts a foot and down and says, "no!"
2. Such projects are always contracted to outside firms, who have absolutely no interest in getting these things done. Not done well, not done on time and in budget, just 'done'.
They took a $60 M project and collected $600 M. How much do you think SAIC would have collected if the project wrapped up in 2005?
I am not an accountant, but I'm guessing that figure is less than if they draw the project out for 6 more years.
sometimes, the fuzziness in Google's interpretation of your search terms means that it's difficult to find what you want. E.g. I recently needed to find a combination like A[0-9A-Z]123. As far as I know, this is impossible with Google. Also punctuation is sometimes a vital part of the search term, but gets ignored by Google.
Is there a search engine that allows for this type of exact searches? One that uses grep syntax would be ideal.
Word up. How would you search for a phrase which include double quotes?
Is it just me, or is Google Maps a usability nightmare?
At the top of the window you're losing a good deal of space to menus, search box, some other buttons. Do we really need all that white space around the search box?
On the left, there's the directions, My Maps, and other text. Why isn't this resizable, rather than just opened or closed?
Then there's the map itself. Was the UI designed by the same folks who put logos and ads over TV shows? There's the pan control--covering the map; the zoom control--covering the map; the traffic button--covering the map; the idiotic satellite/map button--covering the map. Why is that thing so big? The satellite button is about 3 times the size of the traffic button. 2 extra letters, 3 times the size.
After all the junk, the window is about 40% useful map.
If anyone still remembers, the simplicity of Google's front page was in stark contrast to Yahoo's front page. Now with all the scripts and garbage running in the background, gone are the days of going to google.com and just start typing. Now it's, wait for the page to finish loading so the first 3 or 4 letters I type aren't lost. The UI is still simple, but what's going on behind the scenes? It's a logo and a text box; why does it take so long to load?
Why do Google Maps look like it should be Yahoo! Maps circa 1999?
Is it in the rules of these competitions that entries shall conform to the terms of software licenses?
If so, ban the cheater. (After establishing his code does in fact incorporate code from other sources and that he has violated the terms of the license on that code.)
If not, sounds like the situation Moryath described above. He was too good, so a few spoiled brats are taking their chess sets and going home.
Came here to post the same thing. I found a USB stick in a restaurant near a college campus. I plugged it in to see if I could identify the owner to return. Yes, I realize the dangers of accessing strange memory. Why do you think I used my computer at work rather than expose my home system?
I blame the corporate IT folks. If you don't want people using the USB ports on your computers, why do you your computers have functioning USB ports?
Really? My doc prescribed me Fioricet (Same thing, plus caffeine) for my migraines. Doesn't even put a dent in them... Nasty as it is, the best way I've found to deal with them is to lie in a scalding bath until I puke, then immediately take an Aleve liqui-gel.
Oddly, the puking part is not optional for the treatment to work...
This is completely anecdotal and non-scientific, but...
I get the type of migraines that get worse and worse until I puke. Then they quickly (within minutes) go away. Ibuprofen (Advil) helps if I take 1000 mg very early when I first feel the smallest inkling of a headache coming on. After that, the best thing is either ride it out or take a percocet. Thanks to the war on drugs, I don't want to ask my doctor for narcotics or explain how I know it will help. (I've never tried a hot bath.)
But as for the LSD thing, when I was younger migraines were a weekly occurrence, going back further than I can remember. My parents say they couldn't figure out why I was frequently barfing as a baby, until I could talk and let them know my head hurt.
It got a little better at puberty, maybe to more a monthly issue than weekly. Since college, it's been more of a once or twice a year issue. (On the flip side, it's now worse when it does happen.)
Part of that may just be my body changing as I age. And part of that may be 100-or-so hits of LSD I did over a 2 year period of college. I definitely did not have any migraines during that period.
As someone on the lighter end of the headache scale, I say migraines should be a "hall pass" from any drug laws. Narcotics, LSD, whatever. If it helps the headaches, I say it should be legal.
My wife gets a little freaked when she sees how sick I get, but I have family who have it much worse--partial blindness, loud auditory hallucinations, extreme light sensitivity. Migraines are no joke.
That seems a little odd; even if these machines were as bad as the worst-proposed worst-case, it should take years for any cancer to develop because of them.
My first thought exactly. The TSA has been around less than 10 years. And the new machines are even newer. I can think 2 more likely explanations.
First, clusters happen. The statistically unlikely thing would be if cancer was perfectly distributed geographically throughout any state, county, planet, etc.
Second, these are crap jobs. And a daily commute to Logan is not something most people would choose. Maybe these are people in poor health predisposed to disease because of poor nutrition & health care due to economic factors--the same factors that lead them to take TSA jobs.
Third, Maybe it's bad air in the big dig tunnels leading to Logan. Has anyone checked taxi drivers who do daily routes to Logan?
Perhaps because I usually mark spam as 'spam' immediately, that counts as reading or responding.
Why wasn't your spam marked as spam already? Maybe unless your account is brand-new or something (and the filter hasn't been trained yet), it shouldn't be showing up in your inbox at all.
That's really a question for the folks at Gmail. I've had my current gmail address since 2005, and make liberal use of the 'report spam' button. (It's right next to delete.) Yet I still get spam in my inbox (and priority inbox the few times I checked it).
Priority inbox doesn't work like that. It looks at what emails have been read immediately and responded to quickly in the past to try and predict how important new emails are. If you immediately open Google's mails it will think they are important to you and put them in the priority category. If you do the same with Groupon they will end up in there too.
It is the opposite of spam filtering and uses the same techniques. Instead of deciding what is crap it decides what is important.
Maybe that's how the priority inbox works in theory. In reality, my priority inbox was always full of spam. And I don't mean commercial emails that I've subscribed to. I mean full on, enhance your manhood online pharmacy spam. Perhaps because I usually mark spam as 'spam' immediately, that counts as reading or responding.
I never really got the usefulness of the priority inbox. I have a place for important emails. It's called my inbox.
So I'm not the only one not on the Onion bandwagon.
I see the Onion as one (early) stage of internet/web usage.
The first stage is getting an email address. At this point, getting and forwarding jokes and humorous links is a novelty.
Then one day, someone forwards you a link to an Onion story. It used to be the big gateway story was "local man reports bowl is cashed." I have no idea what the current gateway story is.
Anyway, you follow the link and laugh at the story. So much so that you continue to read all the current stories, infographics, and what-not.
So now the Onion is on your daily reading list. It's great--it's edgy, it's funny, it's hip without taking itself too serious.
At some point some foreign language news service picks up an Onion story, not understanding the site is humor and parody. The story gets passed around for a couple hours before someone traces it back to its origin. And now you're edgy because you're 'in' on the joke.
Then 4 to 6 months goes by. Maybe 9 if you're slow or easily amused. And you start to realize, all these stories are just slight twists on the same theme. It's the same jokes, day after day. Yes, they are funny jokes. But not that funny.
Looking back, you realize the Onion has about 1 or 2 months of good material (if that much). It's good material, so you still laugh the 2nd time around. But eventually, even the funniest joke gets old if it gets told enough times.
Then you're done with the Onion and never look back. Then it's on to lol catz or Fark or whatever.
If you've never heard of the Onion, by all means, check it out. Very funny stuff.
However, if after a few months, you're still going back to the Onion, I don't know what to say. You probably watch Leno, too.
Here's a thought for a Super Hero film.. someone suddenly is born with super powers/finds a rune which grants powers/is bitten by a radioactive leech/what have you, they're SUPER now, in some capacity. They are the only one like them in the world of ordinary mortals. Have them explore their own moral code with what they could get away with or what wrongs they could right ("That b**tard Gahaffi, I'll just fly over and grab him and take him to the Hague! Up, up and away!") and finally have the film end on a note of remorse, loss or even death - (what will the world do now that Superperson is dead?)
I'd like to see that.. done in a very serious manner, not with a bunch potty humor and in-jokes.
Isn't that what Hancock did? Not 100% serious, but it did look at real-world consequences such as, yes Superman you stopped the train before it hit the car stalled on the tracks. Now can you help us clean up the wreck of a train that suddenly goes from 60 MPH to 0?
You complain about cheap but poorly made items, and then shop at Walmart?
You're part of the problem. (On re-reading, I see you only use Walmart for price comparison. So IF you shop at Walmart, you're part of the problem.)
I feel your pain. I went through 3 pairs of Levis jean that each lasted less than 6 months. I remember as kid wearing the same pair of jeans every day until I outgrew them. And when I stopped outgrowing jeans, they would last years. Now that I'd only wear jeans on the weekends, I'd be lucky to get more than 2 score wearings.
Is my experience related to Levis not being made in the USA anymore? I don't know. What do I know is, I don't buy jeans anymore--Levis or other brand.
There are quality goods out there--made to last and clothes that last more than a couple washings. It's takes a little research and sometimes trial and error, but they are out there. And they don't always cost more. That's the sad part, sacrificing quality does not always translate to any cost savings.
Because you may be lazy, which I'm guessing due to making assumptions that 30 seconds of googling can debunk, I'll quote a bit for you...
Fair enough. After posting that comment, I noticed these bitcoin stories have their own/. icon. Clicking that icon brought me to list stories, including one from November 2010 which has a few links to places where one can spend bitcoin.
Getting use in meatspace Manhattan is something. On the flip side, there are about a brazillion restaurants in Manhattan. That there's 1 accepting bitcoin doesn't shock me. But you gotta start somewhere, right?
Bitcoin also represents two other major breakthroughs that have been dreamed about since the Internet gained public awareness: viable microtransactions, and electronic payments sans middlemen and fees.
So where can I spend bitcoin? Where are the retailers that will exchange bitcoin for goods and services?
Bitcoin is not a commodity (medium), currently has low utility but high value, I do believe it is currently inflated.
How does bitcoin have high value? In these daily bitcoin threads I've seen mention of using it for illicit money laundering, and there are the exchanges where I can change bitcoin in to US dollars and the reverse.
What else can I do with bitcoin? What retailer will exchange bitcoin for goods or services? I must be missing those links in these threads. If you gave me any amount of bitcoin, the only thing I would think to do with it would be to offer it back to you for sale. It would be only worth what you pay me. If you refused to buy them, I'd throw them away. They aren't worth the drive space it would take to save the file.
The more I learn about bitcoin, the more it sounds like baseball cards or beanie babies or pogs. There's a market that drives up the value, until the thing falls out of favor, and suddenly it's worthless.
The difference is bitcoin comes from GPU computations rather than a private manufacturer. And the scheme for prevented fraud is different.
The US dollar is different because the US government supports it. Gold is different because, no matter what its utility to the man on the street and no matter that its price will fluctuate, there is several thousand years of history that says gold will always be worth something in trade.
Bitcoin is just a digital beanie baby. Limiting the total number of bitcoin or having a hash to prevent counterfeiting doesn't change that fact. There were limited edition beanie babies with special authentication tags. The issue with the beanie baby market wasn't that there were too many, or counterfeiting was rampant.
The issue with the beanie baby market is it was just a fad. Fads end. And as soon as the beanie baby fad ended, the market crashed.
Early bitcoin "investors" are trying to start a fad. It's the "pump" phase of "pump and dump". The folks in bitcoin now may be able to cash out at a profit, but as a long term financial system, it makes as much sense as putting your retirement funds in to beanie babies.
If somebody provided a public online exchange for WoW gold, Blizzard would take them down. The system of exchange for out of game items is completely underground and Blizzard can confiscate said gold. Where as Bitcoin is encouraged to be traded and there are multiple exchanges and parallels the Forex spot market. The freedom to move the currency is a significant factor in it's value.
Also the value of WoW gold is tied to in game activities. The value of Bitcoin is tied to anything that accepts it. WoW gold would be a lot more valuable if you could legitimately buy anything with it for which a merchant exists.
So basically, WoW gold is harder to move around, since it isn't sanctioned for use outside the game. But WoW gold has more value, since it can be used by anyone inside the game.
While bitcoin can be freely traded, but there really isn't much to do with it.
I think another poster hit the nail on head comparing bitcoin to baseball cards.
As much as the Bitcoin stories are getting a little much we are seeing the birth of something completely new; A medium of exchange that is independent of any government.
How is bitcoin different from, for example, WoW gold? Isn't this just some form of in-game currency without the game?
Fine, so replace the question with 1950, or 1940. There have been airlines for a long time and I'm sure they were able to board planes before they had computers.
Remember the recent story on the Harvard entrance exam from thousands of years ago? I do, and I don't recall too many people bragging about how well they would have done on the Latin and Greek sections. Does that mean thousands of years ago people were geniuses, and the modern/. poster is an idiot?
No. It just means people don't routinely study Latin and Greek anymore.
Likewise, whatever system the airlines were using pre-networked computers may very well work today to keep things moving. Except no one working the terminal remembers that system.
So are you proposing the hundreds of people working the terminal reinvent that pre-computer system? Each one on their own? Or shall they all abandon the stranded passengers, and come together to devise a replacement for the down systems?
Remember, those folks who ran things without computers, they still had training and a system provided for them. They weren't just making things up on the fly.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes but... that is "justice" for you. He committed the worst, most heinous crime in our court system... he refused the plea deal.
Seriously... 2 years to 18... he is quite litterally getting 16 more years and a lifelong sex offender registration... because the prosecutor was insulted and wanted to become the persecutor.
That said, no defense of this guys actions, he is clearly off his rocker. That still doesn't make this response appropriate
Or put another way, he could have had 1/9th the sentence if he agreed to let the prosecutor pad had stats without forcing him to do his job. I don't think the 18 years is too high, but the 2 year offer was too low.
In the meantime, where are all the 'WiFi wants to be free; I run an open access point for the neighborhood' folks?
Why not repeal the mandate to require 1.6 gal/flush toilets?
We heard the same lame arguments against that back then, but guess what? IT WORKED!!!
Sure, it worked, if you sell plungers. Toilets today are crap. (Pun intended.)
I'd ask if your claim that 1.6 gal/flush toilets "work" means you're offering to come over the plunger every time my low-flow toilet gets clogged, but I'm worried you'd be eying my shower head while you're in there.
Good. I thought I was the only one.
I'm not performing a scientific study, but I have replaced enough CFLs that disposal is an issue. Many of them don't last years. And those that don't go, in the trash and out to the landfill.
It's a chain-of-ownership issue here. If NASA loaned the rock to the museum for display, and they accidentally tossed it out, NASA still owns it, all the way to the dump and beyond. Just because you lose track of something doesn't mean you don't own it anymore. You have to give it away, sell it, transfer it, abandon it, or have it confiscated, to lose ownership over it. Valuable things are rarely donated to museums, they are more often put on exhibit on a temporary or permanent basis.
My understanding is stolen property is returned to the original owner where possible. It doesn't matter if it was sold 2 or 3 times down the line already, if that car was stolen from someone then those poor buyers are SOL and the owner gets the car back.
Are you saying Nixon stole the rock from NASA when he gave it to the governor of Alaska? Because I think people want to know if their president was a crook, and Nixon was not...
Oh wait.
But that's what you get for trying, sued
So that's why after he rescued it he immediately returned it to the relevant interested parties rather than keeping it for himself? Oh wait...
It was in the trash. Apparently he was the relevant interested party.
Why not retain ownership, but lend it to the museum for display? Win/Win
I'm too busy for code reviews.
And yet I'm guessing there's time to it right the second time. How much time is spent on patches and bug fixes?
Maybe if you had code reviews, you'd be less busy.
Anyway, back to this topic - who was the NYC mayor at the time when this ridiculous project started I wonder? Oh wait, Bloomberg has been the mayor of NYC since 2002 and this project started in 2003. So where was he all the time when the costs overran by x2, by x3, by x5, is the magic number for a politician to look at some cost overruns only when they exceed the x10 estimate?
People blame corporations and businesses for waste and fraud, but at least corporations and businesses have to extract their money from customers (well, unless they are government protected monopolies of-course) by selling products that customers want.
BTW, from TFA but not included in the summarys:
The recent indictment of SAIC's leader project manager on the CityTime job, Gerard Denault, as well as the guilty plea to criminal charges made by SAIC systems engineer Carl Bell, who designed the software, are "extremely troubling and raise questions about SAIC's corporate responsibility and internal controls to prevent and combat fraud," he added. Denault and Bell were charged with were charged with taking kickbacks, wire fraud and money laundering.
Also recently indicted were Reddy and Padma Allen, a couple who head up New Jersey systems integrator TechnoDyne, which was SAIC's primary subcontractor on the CityTime project. Federal authorities allege that the Allens and others conducted an elaborate overbilling and kickback scheme that siphoned millions of dollars from the project.
Federal authorities have also contended that SAIC had received a whistleblower complaint about the project as far back as 2005, Bloomberg said in the letter. "It is unclear what SAIC did at that time to investigate these serious allegations."
And Bloomberg is a billionaire. He's not some ivory tower academic or career politician. He's supposed to know better.
I worked for a small company that was bought by a slightly less small company which was then gobbled up by SAIC. Anyone who didn't have their life savings wrapped up in the venture from starting the original small company got the heck out of there.
1. The devil is in the details. Every different department has their own rules. Every different union (police, teachers, janitors, etc) has their own rules for vacation, holidays, overtime, etc. Every manager has their own little pet feature they want included, and no one puts a foot and down and says, "no!"
2. Such projects are always contracted to outside firms, who have absolutely no interest in getting these things done. Not done well, not done on time and in budget, just 'done'.
They took a $60 M project and collected $600 M. How much do you think SAIC would have collected if the project wrapped up in 2005?
I am not an accountant, but I'm guessing that figure is less than if they draw the project out for 6 more years.
sometimes, the fuzziness in Google's interpretation of your search terms means that it's difficult to find what you want. E.g. I recently needed to find a combination like A[0-9A-Z]123. As far as I know, this is impossible with Google. Also punctuation is sometimes a vital part of the search term, but gets ignored by Google.
Is there a search engine that allows for this type of exact searches? One that uses grep syntax would be ideal.
Word up. How would you search for a phrase which include double quotes?
Is it just me, or is Google Maps a usability nightmare?
At the top of the window you're losing a good deal of space to menus, search box, some other buttons. Do we really need all that white space around the search box?
On the left, there's the directions, My Maps, and other text. Why isn't this resizable, rather than just opened or closed?
Then there's the map itself. Was the UI designed by the same folks who put logos and ads over TV shows? There's the pan control--covering the map; the zoom control--covering the map; the traffic button--covering the map; the idiotic satellite/map button--covering the map. Why is that thing so big? The satellite button is about 3 times the size of the traffic button. 2 extra letters, 3 times the size.
After all the junk, the window is about 40% useful map.
If anyone still remembers, the simplicity of Google's front page was in stark contrast to Yahoo's front page. Now with all the scripts and garbage running in the background, gone are the days of going to google.com and just start typing. Now it's, wait for the page to finish loading so the first 3 or 4 letters I type aren't lost. The UI is still simple, but what's going on behind the scenes? It's a logo and a text box; why does it take so long to load?
Why do Google Maps look like it should be Yahoo! Maps circa 1999?
Is it in the rules of these competitions that entries shall conform to the terms of software licenses?
If so, ban the cheater. (After establishing his code does in fact incorporate code from other sources and that he has violated the terms of the license on that code.)
If not, sounds like the situation Moryath described above. He was too good, so a few spoiled brats are taking their chess sets and going home.
Came here to post the same thing. I found a USB stick in a restaurant near a college campus. I plugged it in to see if I could identify the owner to return. Yes, I realize the dangers of accessing strange memory. Why do you think I used my computer at work rather than expose my home system?
I blame the corporate IT folks. If you don't want people using the USB ports on your computers, why do you your computers have functioning USB ports?
Really? My doc prescribed me Fioricet (Same thing, plus caffeine) for my migraines. Doesn't even put a dent in them... Nasty as it is, the best way I've found to deal with them is to lie in a scalding bath until I puke, then immediately take an Aleve liqui-gel.
Oddly, the puking part is not optional for the treatment to work...
This is completely anecdotal and non-scientific, but...
I get the type of migraines that get worse and worse until I puke. Then they quickly (within minutes) go away. Ibuprofen (Advil) helps if I take 1000 mg very early when I first feel the smallest inkling of a headache coming on. After that, the best thing is either ride it out or take a percocet. Thanks to the war on drugs, I don't want to ask my doctor for narcotics or explain how I know it will help. (I've never tried a hot bath.)
But as for the LSD thing, when I was younger migraines were a weekly occurrence, going back further than I can remember. My parents say they couldn't figure out why I was frequently barfing as a baby, until I could talk and let them know my head hurt.
It got a little better at puberty, maybe to more a monthly issue than weekly. Since college, it's been more of a once or twice a year issue. (On the flip side, it's now worse when it does happen.)
Part of that may just be my body changing as I age. And part of that may be 100-or-so hits of LSD I did over a 2 year period of college. I definitely did not have any migraines during that period.
As someone on the lighter end of the headache scale, I say migraines should be a "hall pass" from any drug laws. Narcotics, LSD, whatever. If it helps the headaches, I say it should be legal.
My wife gets a little freaked when she sees how sick I get, but I have family who have it much worse--partial blindness, loud auditory hallucinations, extreme light sensitivity. Migraines are no joke.
That seems a little odd; even if these machines were as bad as the worst-proposed worst-case, it should take years for any cancer to develop because of them.
My first thought exactly. The TSA has been around less than 10 years. And the new machines are even newer. I can think 2 more likely explanations.
First, clusters happen. The statistically unlikely thing would be if cancer was perfectly distributed geographically throughout any state, county, planet, etc.
Second, these are crap jobs. And a daily commute to Logan is not something most people would choose. Maybe these are people in poor health predisposed to disease because of poor nutrition & health care due to economic factors--the same factors that lead them to take TSA jobs.
Third, Maybe it's bad air in the big dig tunnels leading to Logan. Has anyone checked taxi drivers who do daily routes to Logan?
Why wasn't your spam marked as spam already? Maybe unless your account is brand-new or something (and the filter hasn't been trained yet), it shouldn't be showing up in your inbox at all.
That's really a question for the folks at Gmail. I've had my current gmail address since 2005, and make liberal use of the 'report spam' button. (It's right next to delete.) Yet I still get spam in my inbox (and priority inbox the few times I checked it).
Priority inbox doesn't work like that. It looks at what emails have been read immediately and responded to quickly in the past to try and predict how important new emails are. If you immediately open Google's mails it will think they are important to you and put them in the priority category. If you do the same with Groupon they will end up in there too.
It is the opposite of spam filtering and uses the same techniques. Instead of deciding what is crap it decides what is important.
Maybe that's how the priority inbox works in theory. In reality, my priority inbox was always full of spam. And I don't mean commercial emails that I've subscribed to. I mean full on, enhance your manhood online pharmacy spam. Perhaps because I usually mark spam as 'spam' immediately, that counts as reading or responding.
I never really got the usefulness of the priority inbox. I have a place for important emails. It's called my inbox.
So I'm not the only one not on the Onion bandwagon.
I see the Onion as one (early) stage of internet/web usage.
The first stage is getting an email address. At this point, getting and forwarding jokes and humorous links is a novelty.
Then one day, someone forwards you a link to an Onion story. It used to be the big gateway story was "local man reports bowl is cashed." I have no idea what the current gateway story is.
Anyway, you follow the link and laugh at the story. So much so that you continue to read all the current stories, infographics, and what-not.
So now the Onion is on your daily reading list. It's great--it's edgy, it's funny, it's hip without taking itself too serious.
At some point some foreign language news service picks up an Onion story, not understanding the site is humor and parody. The story gets passed around for a couple hours before someone traces it back to its origin. And now you're edgy because you're 'in' on the joke.
Then 4 to 6 months goes by. Maybe 9 if you're slow or easily amused. And you start to realize, all these stories are just slight twists on the same theme. It's the same jokes, day after day. Yes, they are funny jokes. But not that funny.
Looking back, you realize the Onion has about 1 or 2 months of good material (if that much). It's good material, so you still laugh the 2nd time around. But eventually, even the funniest joke gets old if it gets told enough times.
Then you're done with the Onion and never look back. Then it's on to lol catz or Fark or whatever.
If you've never heard of the Onion, by all means, check it out. Very funny stuff.
However, if after a few months, you're still going back to the Onion, I don't know what to say. You probably watch Leno, too.
Here's a thought for a Super Hero film .. someone suddenly is born with super powers/finds a rune which grants powers/is bitten by a radioactive leech/what have you, they're SUPER now, in some capacity. They are the only one like them in the world of ordinary mortals. Have them explore their own moral code with what they could get away with or what wrongs they could right ("That b**tard Gahaffi, I'll just fly over and grab him and take him to the Hague! Up, up and away!") and finally have the film end on a note of remorse, loss or even death - (what will the world do now that Superperson is dead?)
I'd like to see that .. done in a very serious manner, not with a bunch potty humor and in-jokes.
Isn't that what Hancock did? Not 100% serious, but it did look at real-world consequences such as, yes Superman you stopped the train before it hit the car stalled on the tracks. Now can you help us clean up the wreck of a train that suddenly goes from 60 MPH to 0?
You complain about cheap but poorly made items, and then shop at Walmart?
You're part of the problem. (On re-reading, I see you only use Walmart for price comparison. So IF you shop at Walmart, you're part of the problem.)
I feel your pain. I went through 3 pairs of Levis jean that each lasted less than 6 months. I remember as kid wearing the same pair of jeans every day until I outgrew them. And when I stopped outgrowing jeans, they would last years. Now that I'd only wear jeans on the weekends, I'd be lucky to get more than 2 score wearings.
Is my experience related to Levis not being made in the USA anymore? I don't know. What do I know is, I don't buy jeans anymore--Levis or other brand.
There are quality goods out there--made to last and clothes that last more than a couple washings. It's takes a little research and sometimes trial and error, but they are out there. And they don't always cost more. That's the sad part, sacrificing quality does not always translate to any cost savings.
Thirty seconds of googling produced this
Because you may be lazy, which I'm guessing due to making assumptions that 30 seconds of googling can debunk, I'll quote a bit for you...
Fair enough. After posting that comment, I noticed these bitcoin stories have their own /. icon. Clicking that icon brought me to list stories, including one from November 2010 which has a few links to places where one can spend bitcoin.
Getting use in meatspace Manhattan is something. On the flip side, there are about a brazillion restaurants in Manhattan. That there's 1 accepting bitcoin doesn't shock me. But you gotta start somewhere, right?
Bitcoin also represents two other major breakthroughs that have been dreamed about since the Internet gained public awareness: viable microtransactions, and electronic payments sans middlemen and fees.
So where can I spend bitcoin? Where are the retailers that will exchange bitcoin for goods and services?
Bitcoin is not a commodity (medium), currently has low utility but high value, I do believe it is currently inflated.
How does bitcoin have high value? In these daily bitcoin threads I've seen mention of using it for illicit money laundering, and there are the exchanges where I can change bitcoin in to US dollars and the reverse.
What else can I do with bitcoin? What retailer will exchange bitcoin for goods or services? I must be missing those links in these threads. If you gave me any amount of bitcoin, the only thing I would think to do with it would be to offer it back to you for sale. It would be only worth what you pay me. If you refused to buy them, I'd throw them away. They aren't worth the drive space it would take to save the file.
The more I learn about bitcoin, the more it sounds like baseball cards or beanie babies or pogs. There's a market that drives up the value, until the thing falls out of favor, and suddenly it's worthless.
The difference is bitcoin comes from GPU computations rather than a private manufacturer. And the scheme for prevented fraud is different.
The US dollar is different because the US government supports it. Gold is different because, no matter what its utility to the man on the street and no matter that its price will fluctuate, there is several thousand years of history that says gold will always be worth something in trade.
Bitcoin is just a digital beanie baby. Limiting the total number of bitcoin or having a hash to prevent counterfeiting doesn't change that fact. There were limited edition beanie babies with special authentication tags. The issue with the beanie baby market wasn't that there were too many, or counterfeiting was rampant.
The issue with the beanie baby market is it was just a fad. Fads end. And as soon as the beanie baby fad ended, the market crashed.
Early bitcoin "investors" are trying to start a fad. It's the "pump" phase of "pump and dump". The folks in bitcoin now may be able to cash out at a profit, but as a long term financial system, it makes as much sense as putting your retirement funds in to beanie babies.
If somebody provided a public online exchange for WoW gold, Blizzard would take them down. The system of exchange for out of game items is completely underground and Blizzard can confiscate said gold. Where as Bitcoin is encouraged to be traded and there are multiple exchanges and parallels the Forex spot market. The freedom to move the currency is a significant factor in it's value.
Also the value of WoW gold is tied to in game activities. The value of Bitcoin is tied to anything that accepts it. WoW gold would be a lot more valuable if you could legitimately buy anything with it for which a merchant exists.
So basically, WoW gold is harder to move around, since it isn't sanctioned for use outside the game. But WoW gold has more value, since it can be used by anyone inside the game.
While bitcoin can be freely traded, but there really isn't much to do with it.
I think another poster hit the nail on head comparing bitcoin to baseball cards.
As much as the Bitcoin stories are getting a little much we are seeing the birth of something completely new; A medium of exchange that is independent of any government.
How is bitcoin different from, for example, WoW gold? Isn't this just some form of in-game currency without the game?
Fine, so replace the question with 1950, or 1940. There have been airlines for a long time and I'm sure they were able to board planes before they had computers.
Remember the recent story on the Harvard entrance exam from thousands of years ago? I do, and I don't recall too many people bragging about how well they would have done on the Latin and Greek sections. Does that mean thousands of years ago people were geniuses, and the modern /. poster is an idiot?
No. It just means people don't routinely study Latin and Greek anymore.
Likewise, whatever system the airlines were using pre-networked computers may very well work today to keep things moving. Except no one working the terminal remembers that system.
So are you proposing the hundreds of people working the terminal reinvent that pre-computer system? Each one on their own? Or shall they all abandon the stranded passengers, and come together to devise a replacement for the down systems?
Remember, those folks who ran things without computers, they still had training and a system provided for them. They weren't just making things up on the fly.