Almost all the blue prints for new building go through a Vastu consultant who makes sagely pronouncements like, "The place to eat should not be in southwest quadrant", "The sleeping quarters should not be directly connected to the entrance" and many other rules. Many Indian owned software companies actually send blueprints to India and get modified by these Vastu experts. One case I know personally the Vastu expert objected to the boardroom door opening from left to right and demanded it be changed. When it opened to the right the door went flush with a wall providing fast
access to the room. After the change, after they installed the conf table and chairs, people have to get past the door squeeze between a chair and the end of the door to occupy half the seats in the table. It is dangerous. If there is a fire alarm people cant get out in a hurry. They spent 0.5 million dollars in fees to the expert and to the building owner in modification costs.
Vastu is not just for the building. My dad would not sleep with his head to the South. Had to completely rearrange the bedroom furniture to accommodate him. If only all the Vastu rules were so easy and painless to implement...
These spammers operate on ridiculously low cost for sending mail. Increasing the cost of sending email is neither viable nor desirable. The best option is to increase the cost of benefitting from replies. Only one in a million or two emails produce a prospect for the spammer right now. Just
imagine some bots that reply to these spams with bogus phone numbers or credit card numbers. So he now gets 100 or 1000 replies for a million emails he/she is sending out. One or two, at the most, would be real b00bs replying and the rest would be bogus. Now the problem of filtering out bogus replies from real replies is on his end. Just increase the cost just a little. The bogus replies need not be impossible to spot. All we have to do is to increase the cost of processing replies. That will put a dent into spam ops.
If some activists get some action from the credit card companies, phone companies and FBI and set up honeypot phone numbers, bank account, credit card numbers to trap the spammers at the point where they try to cash in, that would be nice.
Nah, you cant sell the bootleg diamonds at the street corner. But conmen, sorry, conpersons would buy these artificial ones, get someone to etch microtags on them and come up with a good cover story, "well, my client, who wishes to be anonymous, is under some financial strain and would like to unload some of the diamonds, without attracting the paperazzi, and you know how difficult it is these days to have some privacy. They are DeBeers Genuine Advantage program pieces with microtags and all. You can test them with your own gemmologist and all, after all we trust you implicitly. And you can have them for half the DeBeers price."
Rich b00bs will fall for the line. They fall for Nigerian generals smuggling 10.3 million dollars out of Ivory Coast. They fall for forged cheque cashing schemes. They even fall for "I am a rich heir, stuck in a Mexican prison, please get me out" telegrams.
Ofcourse, I dont care conpeople con richpeople. But eventually this will be one more thing that the DeBeers cant control.
How long will it be before people etch numbers on the artificial diamonds? Does DeBeers numbers have checksums? Even then if you buy one diamond from DeBeers and churn out multiple copies including the serial numbers, who could tell them apart? Of course it would be unethical and no would create bootleg diamonds, no sireebob no way. People would only make bootleg cisco routers and Lord Of The Rings DVDs. Diamonds, no way. yeah. sure.
What happened to the old fashioned way of sending sales reps with blond bombshell "assistants" to get these 20 bozos and ply them with wine and fine food and golf outings and "business" trips to Cayman islands? Reminds me of a spoof ad for an insecticide:
User Guide to Unisys Mosquito Killer
1. Catch the mosquito and pluck its wings so it does not fly away.
2. Lay the mosquito on its back and tickle its feet.
3. When the moquito opens its mouth to laugh, dump the Unisys Mosquito Killer into its mouth.
Sometimes Sun gets the market share and its siblings vanish into obscurity. Or Sun loses marketshare and DOS or Windows become the star of the show and Sun fades into obscurity. Nothing new. Happens all the time.
I am not finding fault with Indian media for their outing of the misdeeds of Hindu holymen. That is very appropriate. But they are not unbiased or even handed. The media and the govt is so scared of touching off sectarian violence they just dont report the misdeeds of the mullahs and the priests. That allows the violent criminals to seize power and control of these minority institutions. The poor muslims and christians are really the victims on multiple counts. Their voice is hijacked by the less than holy leaders. The deafening silence on the misdeeds of the minority leaders by the media creates so much anger towards the entire minority communities by the majority and the circle of hatred perpetuates.
There is communal violence that boils over and riots take place. The law enforcement is generally weak and the police is corrupt. Poor people organize themselves to protect themselves. It is usually by religion or language or caste. Here again criminals seize control of these local communities and wage turf battles. The Hindu-on-Muslim violence gets lots of media play. There is as much Kannada-on-Tamil and Tamil-on-Kannada violence in Bangalore. Language based violence.
Or there is High-caste-on-low-caste violence in Bihar/Uttar Pradesh. There is Muslim-on-Hindu violence in Kashmir. Kashmir valley Hindus have been ethnically cleansed. There is Hindu-on-Muslim violence in Gujarat. There is Communist-Maoist-on-rich-landlord violence in Andra Pradesh.
Basically it is a poor country, rapidly growing up. The Indian middle-class alone is bigger than Europe market wise. The real estate prices are soaring. Some group that pitched tents and built shanty towns decades ago on godforsaken desolate spots are suddenly sitting on land currently valued at millions of dollars. Local gangster spark riots, burn the shantytown to evict them. The resident fight back. When the groups fighting are organized on caste or language basis, usually there is no media attention. Just another set of street gangs fighting turf war. If the groups were organized along religious line, it gets internation media play.
You might disagree with this picture. But please dont call it overly rosy picture painted by Thomas Friedman in The world is flat
RSF seems to be an organization of narcisstic reporters thinking big of themselves.
It ranks India 105, mainly because it thinks one big Govt of India banned or censored the publication of the Danish Mohammad cartoons. What really happened was real vote bank politics very familiar to most Americans. India is a democracy with about 85 Hindus, 12% Muslims and the rest Christians and other smaller minorities. The Muslims vote as a block and all the political parties fall all over themselves, including the ruling Congress Party [*] to get that vote block. Hindu vote is split midway and the Muslims form the swing vote minority. State governments would routinely ban anything that offends Muslims and Christians. Or anything the self proclaimed leaders of Christians and Muslims declare that offends them. There is open season on Hindus. India should rank much closer to USA in this respect.
If you look at the way Indian media portrays Hindus, Hindu deities and Hindu practices, something startling will emerge, which is again familiar to most Americans. Lurid details about financial, sexual and criminal activities by Hindu holymen is order of the day. A Muslim painter painted Hindu goddess of learning in the nude and all these reporters staunchly defended the freedom of expression of the artist, much like they defended the disgusting portrayal of Christ in a dirty bodily fluid in USA. Infact the mainstream Indian media's treatment of Hindus identical to the mainstream American media's portrayal of Christians in USA
As for exposing corruption of the politicians, they record politicians taking bribes in hidden camera and broadcast it in National News. The only difference between India and USA is that, in India there is no Fox News for Hindus. But rest assured, it will come soon. Robert Murdoch owns quite a few networks there, and there is this seething discontent among the Hindus for being constantly portrayed negatively. It is a free market there. Someone is bound to serve that market.
PS: The ruling party Congress is headed by a Roman Catholic Italian woman, widow of an assassinated ex Prime Minister. The President of India is a Muslim, nuclear/rocket scientist nominated to that office by the previous government largely declared to be a Hindu nationalist party. The previous defence minster was George Fernandes, a Christian. A country of 1 billion, 85% Hindu, 12% Muslim routinely elevates microscopic minority people (present Prime Minister is a Sikh) to the highest offices. When you despair about democracy, take heart. If Democracy can thrive in such a poor country like India, it can thrive anywhere.
Well, I dont mind them cloning cows as long as they let me buy the cloned cow products with money cloned by me in the basement with the scanner and the printer.
19 Billion dollars is just chump change for Shell and other oil companies. In the last run up of gas prices to 3.50$ a gallon, they made 10 billion dollars in profit per quarter. Come on. Get real.
OK, if you want to nitpick, H2 is not a primary fuel. You need some other energy source to create it. So it is more like electricity than crude oil. Of course, H2 will become a primary fuel the day we start mining Jupiter and Saturn for H2.
Just as I posted I realized that the 15% will be lost when the H2 is used to generate electricity at the plant, the same line loss. So the line loss idea is really a wash.
We should recognize that there are two distinct energy sectors, and one is in crisis and the other one has some breathing space for a smooth landing.
The fixed or stationary energy use, at homes, offices, and factories is not in as much of a crisis as the transportation sector. For electricity generation, there are alternatives like coal (yeah, it is dirty), or nuclear (yeah, most people fear it) or tar sands (yeah, it is expensive to recover) or wind (yeah, it has some problems), solar (yes, it needs high investment). There are problems, but USA is self suffiicient in them, and we wont be held hostage by foreign powers. There is breathing space to develop really good alternatives.
On the other hand, in the transportation sector is in crisis already. So much of personal transportation depends on gasoline and freight depends on diesel and air transportation depends on kerosene. No serious alternatives are emerging and the time is running out on those sectors. Most predictions of peak oil is around now or 2010. Even the most optimistic estimates about the Hydrogen powered cars or biodiesel driven trucks talk about widespread adaptation around 2020.
America is particularly vulnerable to this energy crisis. It is not as densely populated like Europe or Urban India and China. It is not easy to switch USA to use electricity driven public transportation. So much of the economy depends on the high home values of the sprawled cities and the humongous fleets of trucks delivering goods. So much of the infrastructure is built around the idea it is very cheap to transport goods over 100s of miles. And America is not self sufficient in this energy sector. This is a grave crisis.
At night, the actual load is much less than the peak capacity. Fine. Why make hydrogen at home? Make it at the powerplant to save the 15% line loss and make 15% more H2.
I think most people including the poster and the scientists have confused the cause with the effect. People with lower cognitive function, dont realize they are full and have eaten enough and hence eat more and become fat. [Mods, please forgive my pathetic attempt at humor.]
Many users have found, to their dismay, that the documents they sent has complete unlimited unedit buffers and the reciepient can actually unwind the doc and see previous versions of the document!!. Some stupid companies "redact" information by setting the background font to be black. All you need to do is to select all text and suddenly the redacted text is readable, albeit in weird colors. There was high profile unintended release [/.ers dont even think of making a joke here on that phrase] of information.
FWIW one of the new features of Office 2005 or whatever MSFT calls its latest version is that, you can "purge history".
Could you get your wife to read /.?
on
IT and Divorce?
·
· Score: 1
That way you both would be on the same page. You can post your thoughts. Friendly mods will give mod points. And may be you will resolve differences amicably like other/.ters. You just look at our history. AAPL vs MSFT solved. IE vs FF solved. You are right in asking for advice here.
The neutral point of view advocated by Wikipedia gives undue prominance to nutcase theories. For example giving Geocentric Universe Theory and Heliocentri Universe Theory equal weightage is completely unfair to HUT. Everyone agrees with this. But then why should everyone agree that Intelligent Design Theory should get equal treatment compared to the Theory of Evolution?
Equal time to unfair arguments is unfair to fair arguments.
You spelt God without proper capitalization. That is an even greater sin than drawing a cartoon of His Prophet (peas be upon him). Brace yourself buddy, anytime now millions of people will march in the streets of Karachi, Pakistan protesting this grave insult.
OK OK I give up. Just run a story "Everything is linked to Global Warming" and be done with the whole thing. So far only NFL quarterbacks having motorcycle accidents seems to be the only thing not linked to global warming.
Slashdot Mirror
Vastu is not just for the building. My dad would not sleep with his head to the South. Had to completely rearrange the bedroom furniture to accommodate him. If only all the Vastu rules were so easy and painless to implement ...
That will be added things you get from a CD.
If some activists get some action from the credit card companies, phone companies and FBI and set up honeypot phone numbers, bank account, credit card numbers to trap the spammers at the point where they try to cash in, that would be nice.
Rich b00bs will fall for the line. They fall for Nigerian generals smuggling 10.3 million dollars out of Ivory Coast. They fall for forged cheque cashing schemes. They even fall for "I am a rich heir, stuck in a Mexican prison, please get me out" telegrams.
Ofcourse, I dont care conpeople con richpeople. But eventually this will be one more thing that the DeBeers cant control.
How long will it be before people etch numbers on the artificial diamonds? Does DeBeers numbers have checksums? Even then if you buy one diamond from DeBeers and churn out multiple copies including the serial numbers, who could tell them apart? Of course it would be unethical and no would create bootleg diamonds, no sireebob no way. People would only make bootleg cisco routers and Lord Of The Rings DVDs. Diamonds, no way. yeah. sure.
User Guide to Unisys Mosquito Killer
1. Catch the mosquito and pluck its wings so it does not fly away.
2. Lay the mosquito on its back and tickle its feet.
3. When the moquito opens its mouth to laugh, dump the Unisys Mosquito Killer into its mouth.
Sometimes Sun gets the market share and its siblings vanish into obscurity. Or Sun loses marketshare and DOS or Windows become the star of the show and Sun fades into obscurity. Nothing new. Happens all the time.
There is communal violence that boils over and riots take place. The law enforcement is generally weak and the police is corrupt. Poor people organize themselves to protect themselves. It is usually by religion or language or caste. Here again criminals seize control of these local communities and wage turf battles. The Hindu-on-Muslim violence gets lots of media play. There is as much Kannada-on-Tamil and Tamil-on-Kannada violence in Bangalore. Language based violence. Or there is High-caste-on-low-caste violence in Bihar/Uttar Pradesh. There is Muslim-on-Hindu violence in Kashmir. Kashmir valley Hindus have been ethnically cleansed. There is Hindu-on-Muslim violence in Gujarat. There is Communist-Maoist-on-rich-landlord violence in Andra Pradesh.
Basically it is a poor country, rapidly growing up. The Indian middle-class alone is bigger than Europe market wise. The real estate prices are soaring. Some group that pitched tents and built shanty towns decades ago on godforsaken desolate spots are suddenly sitting on land currently valued at millions of dollars. Local gangster spark riots, burn the shantytown to evict them. The resident fight back. When the groups fighting are organized on caste or language basis, usually there is no media attention. Just another set of street gangs fighting turf war. If the groups were organized along religious line, it gets internation media play.
You might disagree with this picture. But please dont call it overly rosy picture painted by Thomas Friedman in The world is flat
It ranks India 105, mainly because it thinks one big Govt of India banned or censored the publication of the Danish Mohammad cartoons. What really happened was real vote bank politics very familiar to most Americans. India is a democracy with about 85 Hindus, 12% Muslims and the rest Christians and other smaller minorities. The Muslims vote as a block and all the political parties fall all over themselves, including the ruling Congress Party [*] to get that vote block. Hindu vote is split midway and the Muslims form the swing vote minority. State governments would routinely ban anything that offends Muslims and Christians. Or anything the self proclaimed leaders of Christians and Muslims declare that offends them. There is open season on Hindus. India should rank much closer to USA in this respect.
If you look at the way Indian media portrays Hindus, Hindu deities and Hindu practices, something startling will emerge, which is again familiar to most Americans. Lurid details about financial, sexual and criminal activities by Hindu holymen is order of the day. A Muslim painter painted Hindu goddess of learning in the nude and all these reporters staunchly defended the freedom of expression of the artist, much like they defended the disgusting portrayal of Christ in a dirty bodily fluid in USA. Infact the mainstream Indian media's treatment of Hindus identical to the mainstream American media's portrayal of Christians in USA
As for exposing corruption of the politicians, they record politicians taking bribes in hidden camera and broadcast it in National News. The only difference between India and USA is that, in India there is no Fox News for Hindus. But rest assured, it will come soon. Robert Murdoch owns quite a few networks there, and there is this seething discontent among the Hindus for being constantly portrayed negatively. It is a free market there. Someone is bound to serve that market.
PS: The ruling party Congress is headed by a Roman Catholic Italian woman, widow of an assassinated ex Prime Minister. The President of India is a Muslim, nuclear/rocket scientist nominated to that office by the previous government largely declared to be a Hindu nationalist party. The previous defence minster was George Fernandes, a Christian. A country of 1 billion, 85% Hindu, 12% Muslim routinely elevates microscopic minority people (present Prime Minister is a Sikh) to the highest offices. When you despair about democracy, take heart. If Democracy can thrive in such a poor country like India, it can thrive anywhere.
Well, I dont mind them cloning cows as long as they let me buy the cloned cow products with money cloned by me in the basement with the scanner and the printer.
a buy one get one free special
Is it IBM-PC compatible?
... but for me it would have only been 299,999,997.
Exxon mobile sold 350 Billion dollars of gas and made 40 Billion in profits.
Shell sold 311 billion dollars and got a profit of 27 Billion Dollars.
If it it only cost 19B$ to build a H2 infrastructure in USA, it is chump change for them.
19 Billion dollars is just chump change for Shell and other oil companies. In the last run up of gas prices to 3.50$ a gallon, they made 10 billion dollars in profit per quarter. Come on. Get real.
OK, if you want to nitpick, H2 is not a primary fuel. You need some other energy source to create it. So it is more like electricity than crude oil. Of course, H2 will become a primary fuel the day we start mining Jupiter and Saturn for H2.
Just as I posted I realized that the 15% will be lost when the H2 is used to generate electricity at the plant, the same line loss. So the line loss idea is really a wash.
The fixed or stationary energy use, at homes, offices, and factories is not in as much of a crisis as the transportation sector. For electricity generation, there are alternatives like coal (yeah, it is dirty), or nuclear (yeah, most people fear it) or tar sands (yeah, it is expensive to recover) or wind (yeah, it has some problems), solar (yes, it needs high investment). There are problems, but USA is self suffiicient in them, and we wont be held hostage by foreign powers. There is breathing space to develop really good alternatives.
On the other hand, in the transportation sector is in crisis already. So much of personal transportation depends on gasoline and freight depends on diesel and air transportation depends on kerosene. No serious alternatives are emerging and the time is running out on those sectors. Most predictions of peak oil is around now or 2010. Even the most optimistic estimates about the Hydrogen powered cars or biodiesel driven trucks talk about widespread adaptation around 2020.
America is particularly vulnerable to this energy crisis. It is not as densely populated like Europe or Urban India and China. It is not easy to switch USA to use electricity driven public transportation. So much of the economy depends on the high home values of the sprawled cities and the humongous fleets of trucks delivering goods. So much of the infrastructure is built around the idea it is very cheap to transport goods over 100s of miles. And America is not self sufficient in this energy sector. This is a grave crisis.
At night, the actual load is much less than the peak capacity. Fine. Why make hydrogen at home? Make it at the powerplant to save the 15% line loss and make 15% more H2.
I think most people including the poster and the scientists have confused the cause with the effect. People with lower cognitive function, dont realize they are full and have eaten enough and hence eat more and become fat. [Mods, please forgive my pathetic attempt at humor.]
FWIW one of the new features of Office 2005 or whatever MSFT calls its latest version is that, you can "purge history".
That way you both would be on the same page. You can post your thoughts. Friendly mods will give mod points. And may be you will resolve differences amicably like other /.ters. You just look at our history. AAPL vs MSFT solved. IE vs FF solved. You are right in asking for advice here.
Equal time to unfair arguments is unfair to fair arguments.
You spelt God without proper capitalization. That is an even greater sin than drawing a cartoon of His Prophet (peas be upon him). Brace yourself buddy, anytime now millions of people will march in the streets of Karachi, Pakistan protesting this grave insult.
OK OK I give up. Just run a story "Everything is linked to Global Warming" and be done with the whole thing. So far only NFL quarterbacks having motorcycle accidents seems to be the only thing not linked to global warming.