Vatican City? Before you claim it's not a country, the CIA apparently considers it to be one, at least in some ways, in its World Factbook. It lists the government of the Holy See and lists it last in the country comparison by area.
This would be a great precident too, if the courts could be used to actually force politican to uphold campaign promises.
No, it would lead politicians to give even vaguer statements of their proposed policies than they do now, so as to avoid saying anything that could legally be construed as a promise. It would also probably lead to politicians using more "weasel words", like "I want to cut taxes during my first term in office.' That's not a PROMISE to cut taxes, though it kind of sounds like a promise; it's expressing a DESIRE to cut taxes.
There's also the problem that a person can make a promise that he or she cannot fulfill. For instance, using a US example, if a presidential candidate promised to cut taxes by 50% on every American but Congress laughed in their face after they were elected and proposed such a change to the tax code, could a court force the President to do what he or she does not have the legal authority to do? Sure, the President could ASK Congress but the decision is ultimately up to them. Could the courts force Congress to uphold the presidential candidate's promise? Neither of those seem palatable.
Perhaps if politicians actually waited until 2016 to start campaigning for 2016, we wouldn't already be sick and tired of the election and might be willing to answer questions about it. Instead, if we think of President Obama's term as a year they've started showering us with ads for Christmas and it's only late July or early August. Frankly I feel like awarding each of the candidates a load of coal or perhaps reindeer dung in their stockings.
There's a classic document appropriately titled What Every Computer Scientist Should Know About Floating-Point Arithmetic. The "Special Quantities" section discusses plus and minus 0, denormal numbers, infinity, and NaN and offers some rationales for why those special values exist in IEEE floating-point arithmetic.
How does this work with backups? I have trouble believing that they flush their backups after three months. In which case an FOI request ought to require them to pull the files from backup. Which ought to mean that they've only massively increased the cost of complying with the requests.
Which means a higher cost they can pass on to the person or organization filing the FOI request, which makes it more expensive to dig into the government's dirty laundry. If you filed an FOI request for a document and was told it cost $5, would you pay? What if you were told it costs $50? How about if it cost $500?
So instead of a car thief just stealing your car by taking the keys from your hand or pocket, now they're going to have to chop off whatever body part contains the RFID tag that unlocks it. May I suggest installing the RFID tag in the tips of your fingers, to minimize the tissue loss? As an added benefit to RFID at/in your fingertips, after a couple robberies you'll be able to nail the Onion Knight (from Game of Thrones) Halloween costume!
Thus anyone can count the public votes and you can check your own vote by checking the public vote based on the number you have stored and then comparing the gibberish and checksum to your gibberish and checksum and if need be unencrypt your hidden vote and compare.
And the person who threatened to harm you or your family or fire you from you job unless you voted the way they wanted, or who offered to pay you after the election if you voted the way they wanted, can do the same by requesting that you provide them that secret information or allow them to look over your shoulder as you check your vote.
Or create a separate role-based rather than individual-based email account (say widgetPolisher@yourcompany.com) that your manager owns (so it persists even after you've left) and to which you forward emails (ideally to be automatically filtered into categories) that are relevant to your work. That way you don't need to worry about forgetting to delete a personal item and having it forwarded on to your replacement.
Diphtheria has a very serious "side effect", and I suspect the percentage of patients who develop it is larger than the percentage that react to the vaccine. Wikipedia says:
"Diphtheria is fatal in between 5% and 10% of cases. In children under five years and adults over 40 years, the fatality rate may be as much as 20%.[17] In 2013 it resulted in 3,300 deaths down from 8,000 deaths in 1990.[6]"
Sure, most folks just want their facebook and online shopping... most of the time. However, there is still a not-insubstantial percentage of folks who want to have a means of using their computer while it is off the network.
And there are some people for whom that is not a want but a NEED.
The computer of a programmer working on the design of a new piece of classified military hardware isn't going to be able to connect to the open Internet. If the security of the system is sufficiently important, the machine may not be allowed to connect to any network at all.
Develop a drilling or excavation machine that can operate mostly autonomously (ideally, using something like industrial lasers to avoid mechanical wear on the drilling apparatus) and send one or more to Mars several years/decades ahead of when you want to send the humans. Have them drill at a downward angle into the side of a crater, and once you've gone sufficiently far then start having them dig or drill to the side. Ideally, by the time the colonists reach Mars all they need to do is install airlocks at the entrances, pump in breathable air, and maybe knock down the (hopefully thin, by this point) walls between the side tunnels so you don't have to go outside to visit the neighbors. There may be some leaks but hopefully the colonists can make some sort of cement out of the Martian dirt to plug them.
Or it may have been contamination from the fracking process. Emphasis on the "may". It would be nice to do a little more investigation to determine where the contaminants actually came from. If it was a one-time accident (the leak in the storage tank) then the levels of the contaminants are unlikely to rise (assuming the accident doesn't recur) and the further investigation should show that. In that case, there doesn't seem to be any further action required (other than making sure the accident doesn't recur.) If it was a result of the ongoing fracking process, and an investigation of the process shows "bugs" that caused the contamination, the company should be required to fix those bugs in the process or otherwise improve the process to avoid or reduce further contamination.
This investigation detected the odor of smoke in the air. It may be from a birthday candle or it may be from a house burning down. We probably should figure out which of those is happening.
We have a lot of diesel vehicles in the world. Finding a fuel that can replace diesel created by processing oil from the ground will allow those vehicles to remain in service, instead of being junked and replaced by hybrids or electric vehicles. [Eventually, they will break down and need to be replaced, but that can be a gradual process.] I'm pretty sure it's easier to convince someone "the stuff coming out of the diesel pump looks and smells different, but it still works" than "you need to replace your existing vehicle."
Send a likeness of your kids to your parents so the grandparents can see what their grandchildren look like in 3D. Yes, a photograph would do just as well, but there will be some who prefer the 3D representation.
Grandparents can send their likeness to their grandchildren so that even if the grandkids don't see their grandparents often, they'll still know what they look like.
Cosmetic surgeons can print out a "before" statue, make some changes to the model, and print out an "after" statue to give clients a chance to see what their new faces or bodies will look like in 3D rather than just on a monitor.
Related to the above, "save state" for your physical appearance. If you scan in your face and body and then suffer a disfiguring accident you can use the scanned data as a template for the cosmetic surgeon to put you back together. This would probably be limited, at first, to people like actors and actresses, models, athletes in sports where there's a high risk of facial injury (boxing, hockey, American football), or the military who either have a lot invested in their looks or are more likely to suffer disfigurement due to the nature of their work.
Grave markers that look like the person whose grave they mark, or hollowed-out 3D portraits to hold cremated remains as urns.
On a more whimsical note:
Custom awards. 3D print out an Oscar with an actor's face in place of the blank face. Or a sports team where each player poses for their own custom trophy.
A family with many children could turn them into a set of nesting dolls with each child's doll nesting inside their immediately older sibling's doll.
How about we redirect some of the defense budget into this social sciences research (in the name of "being able to better detect suspicious behavior on the part of a potential terrorist at an airport" if we need to motivate it to the "Won't someone please think of the terrorists" crowd?)
By one set of measurements on the Wikipedia page, we spend about 4 and a half times what China does in military spending. We outspend China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, the UK, France, Japan, India, Germany, and South Korea COMBINED. If we redirected or cut 10% from the military budget, we would "only" outspend China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, the UK, France, Japan, and India. I wouldn't think Germany and South Korea are huge threats to the US.
By the other list on that page, we only outspend China 2.8 to 1, we outspend China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, France, the UK, and India combined and cutting our spending by 10% would cause us to outspend China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, France, and the UK.
One way to be consistent is for Canada to increase the length of their copyright terms to match everyone else's. Another way to be consistent is for everyone else to decrease the length of their copyright terms to match Canada's.
And even if she didn't want to risk allowing a virus sent to her personal email account to infect her secure phone via the other email client, you don't need to check your personal email every other minute. If there's a critical or time-sensitive personal issue about which Secretary Clinton needs to know, phones have this wonderful capability. You can send it a voice message; in fact, people now may not know or remember this but phones even allow two-way verbal communication!
Why not find some way to get them onto the sites of the ISPs' websites themselves? Or even better, the copyright holders' sites -- do they look at the lists closely enough to avoid smacking themselves upside the head? If they're using a "spray and pray" style of takedown, perhaps they will miss one or two of their own URLs.
I think the best solution is to head to a harbor. I don't know how fast or how well a zombie can swim, but I'd bet it's slower than and not as well as a ship can sail. A decent sized ship with fishing gear could fish for food and send out "landing parties" (where absolutely no one wears red) to raid the coast for supplies as needed. If it's large enough (think yacht) those landing parties could even rescue survivors and keep them in quarantine (separate locked cabin, trailing the ship in a lifeboat, etc.) for a time to ensure they're not infected before letting them join the normal complement.
Slashdot Mirror
Vatican City? Before you claim it's not a country, the CIA apparently considers it to be one, at least in some ways, in its World Factbook. It lists the government of the Holy See and lists it last in the country comparison by area.
Maybe Switzerland?
This would be a great precident too, if the courts could be used to actually force politican to uphold campaign promises.
No, it would lead politicians to give even vaguer statements of their proposed policies than they do now, so as to avoid saying anything that could legally be construed as a promise. It would also probably lead to politicians using more "weasel words", like "I want to cut taxes during my first term in office.' That's not a PROMISE to cut taxes, though it kind of sounds like a promise; it's expressing a DESIRE to cut taxes.
There's also the problem that a person can make a promise that he or she cannot fulfill. For instance, using a US example, if a presidential candidate promised to cut taxes by 50% on every American but Congress laughed in their face after they were elected and proposed such a change to the tax code, could a court force the President to do what he or she does not have the legal authority to do? Sure, the President could ASK Congress but the decision is ultimately up to them. Could the courts force Congress to uphold the presidential candidate's promise? Neither of those seem palatable.
Perhaps if politicians actually waited until 2016 to start campaigning for 2016, we wouldn't already be sick and tired of the election and might be willing to answer questions about it. Instead, if we think of President Obama's term as a year they've started showering us with ads for Christmas and it's only late July or early August. Frankly I feel like awarding each of the candidates a load of coal or perhaps reindeer dung in their stockings.
There's a classic document appropriately titled What Every Computer Scientist Should Know About Floating-Point Arithmetic. The "Special Quantities" section discusses plus and minus 0, denormal numbers, infinity, and NaN and offers some rationales for why those special values exist in IEEE floating-point arithmetic.
How does this work with backups? I have trouble believing that they flush their backups after three months. In which case an FOI request ought to require them to pull the files from backup. Which ought to mean that they've only massively increased the cost of complying with the requests.
Which means a higher cost they can pass on to the person or organization filing the FOI request, which makes it more expensive to dig into the government's dirty laundry. If you filed an FOI request for a document and was told it cost $5, would you pay? What if you were told it costs $50? How about if it cost $500?
So instead of a car thief just stealing your car by taking the keys from your hand or pocket, now they're going to have to chop off whatever body part contains the RFID tag that unlocks it. May I suggest installing the RFID tag in the tips of your fingers, to minimize the tissue loss? As an added benefit to RFID at/in your fingertips, after a couple robberies you'll be able to nail the Onion Knight (from Game of Thrones) Halloween costume!
Thus anyone can count the public votes and you can check your own vote by checking the public vote based on the number you have stored and then comparing the gibberish and checksum to your gibberish and checksum and if need be unencrypt your hidden vote and compare.
And the person who threatened to harm you or your family or fire you from you job unless you voted the way they wanted, or who offered to pay you after the election if you voted the way they wanted, can do the same by requesting that you provide them that secret information or allow them to look over your shoulder as you check your vote.
Or create a separate role-based rather than individual-based email account (say widgetPolisher@yourcompany.com) that your manager owns (so it persists even after you've left) and to which you forward emails (ideally to be automatically filtered into categories) that are relevant to your work. That way you don't need to worry about forgetting to delete a personal item and having it forwarded on to your replacement.
Diphtheria has a very serious "side effect", and I suspect the percentage of patients who develop it is larger than the percentage that react to the vaccine. Wikipedia says:
"Diphtheria is fatal in between 5% and 10% of cases. In children under five years and adults over 40 years, the fatality rate may be as much as 20%.[17] In 2013 it resulted in 3,300 deaths down from 8,000 deaths in 1990.[6]"
Naked Roseanne Barr eating weird Boy Choi? (DO NOT WANT)^20, pass the jumbo bottle of brain bleach please.
Sure, most folks just want their facebook and online shopping... most of the time. However, there is still a not-insubstantial percentage of folks who want to have a means of using their computer while it is off the network.
And there are some people for whom that is not a want but a NEED.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...
The computer of a programmer working on the design of a new piece of classified military hardware isn't going to be able to connect to the open Internet. If the security of the system is sufficiently important, the machine may not be allowed to connect to any network at all.
Develop a drilling or excavation machine that can operate mostly autonomously (ideally, using something like industrial lasers to avoid mechanical wear on the drilling apparatus) and send one or more to Mars several years/decades ahead of when you want to send the humans. Have them drill at a downward angle into the side of a crater, and once you've gone sufficiently far then start having them dig or drill to the side. Ideally, by the time the colonists reach Mars all they need to do is install airlocks at the entrances, pump in breathable air, and maybe knock down the (hopefully thin, by this point) walls between the side tunnels so you don't have to go outside to visit the neighbors. There may be some leaks but hopefully the colonists can make some sort of cement out of the Martian dirt to plug them.
The Forth day was yesterday. Today is the 5th.
Or it may have been contamination from the fracking process. Emphasis on the "may". It would be nice to do a little more investigation to determine where the contaminants actually came from. If it was a one-time accident (the leak in the storage tank) then the levels of the contaminants are unlikely to rise (assuming the accident doesn't recur) and the further investigation should show that. In that case, there doesn't seem to be any further action required (other than making sure the accident doesn't recur.) If it was a result of the ongoing fracking process, and an investigation of the process shows "bugs" that caused the contamination, the company should be required to fix those bugs in the process or otherwise improve the process to avoid or reduce further contamination.
This investigation detected the odor of smoke in the air. It may be from a birthday candle or it may be from a house burning down. We probably should figure out which of those is happening.
We have a lot of diesel vehicles in the world. Finding a fuel that can replace diesel created by processing oil from the ground will allow those vehicles to remain in service, instead of being junked and replaced by hybrids or electric vehicles. [Eventually, they will break down and need to be replaced, but that can be a gradual process.] I'm pretty sure it's easier to convince someone "the stuff coming out of the diesel pump looks and smells different, but it still works" than "you need to replace your existing vehicle."
Send a likeness of your kids to your parents so the grandparents can see what their grandchildren look like in 3D. Yes, a photograph would do just as well, but there will be some who prefer the 3D representation.
Grandparents can send their likeness to their grandchildren so that even if the grandkids don't see their grandparents often, they'll still know what they look like.
Cosmetic surgeons can print out a "before" statue, make some changes to the model, and print out an "after" statue to give clients a chance to see what their new faces or bodies will look like in 3D rather than just on a monitor.
Related to the above, "save state" for your physical appearance. If you scan in your face and body and then suffer a disfiguring accident you can use the scanned data as a template for the cosmetic surgeon to put you back together. This would probably be limited, at first, to people like actors and actresses, models, athletes in sports where there's a high risk of facial injury (boxing, hockey, American football), or the military who either have a lot invested in their looks or are more likely to suffer disfigurement due to the nature of their work.
Grave markers that look like the person whose grave they mark, or hollowed-out 3D portraits to hold cremated remains as urns.
On a more whimsical note:
Custom awards. 3D print out an Oscar with an actor's face in place of the blank face. Or a sports team where each player poses for their own custom trophy.
A family with many children could turn them into a set of nesting dolls with each child's doll nesting inside their immediately older sibling's doll.
How about we redirect some of the defense budget into this social sciences research (in the name of "being able to better detect suspicious behavior on the part of a potential terrorist at an airport" if we need to motivate it to the "Won't someone please think of the terrorists" crowd?)
By one set of measurements on the Wikipedia page, we spend about 4 and a half times what China does in military spending. We outspend China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, the UK, France, Japan, India, Germany, and South Korea COMBINED. If we redirected or cut 10% from the military budget, we would "only" outspend China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, the UK, France, Japan, and India. I wouldn't think Germany and South Korea are huge threats to the US.
By the other list on that page, we only outspend China 2.8 to 1, we outspend China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, France, the UK, and India combined and cutting our spending by 10% would cause us to outspend China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, France, and the UK.
You might want to read about what the FDA says about the mercury concentration in vaccines. I suspect kids may get more mercury in their fish sticks (fish fingers) than in their vaccines.
How about paying royalties to the painter based on the number of people that walk or drive by and look at my house?
One way to be consistent is for Canada to increase the length of their copyright terms to match everyone else's.
Another way to be consistent is for everyone else to decrease the length of their copyright terms to match Canada's.
And even if she didn't want to risk allowing a virus sent to her personal email account to infect her secure phone via the other email client, you don't need to check your personal email every other minute. If there's a critical or time-sensitive personal issue about which Secretary Clinton needs to know, phones have this wonderful capability. You can send it a voice message; in fact, people now may not know or remember this but phones even allow two-way verbal communication!
Why not find some way to get them onto the sites of the ISPs' websites themselves? Or even better, the copyright holders' sites -- do they look at the lists closely enough to avoid smacking themselves upside the head? If they're using a "spray and pray" style of takedown, perhaps they will miss one or two of their own URLs.
Or given classified documents to his biographer. I hear that you can just plead guilty to a misdemeanor in that case.
I think the best solution is to head to a harbor. I don't know how fast or how well a zombie can swim, but I'd bet it's slower than and not as well as a ship can sail. A decent sized ship with fishing gear could fish for food and send out "landing parties" (where absolutely no one wears red) to raid the coast for supplies as needed. If it's large enough (think yacht) those landing parties could even rescue survivors and keep them in quarantine (separate locked cabin, trailing the ship in a lifeboat, etc.) for a time to ensure they're not infected before letting them join the normal complement.
No, he is not Canadian. According to Wikipedia and one of the articles referenced as a source in the Wikipedia article, he was born in New York City.