Beyond the first step of using fire-resistant materials in building your home, the second step is yearly maintenance of the brush surrounding your property. CA is supposed to have semi-annual brush fires to clear out brush as a natural cycle, so if we humans don't want fires, we need to do it ourselves. In the case of the Malibu fire, there was at least one resident who talked on the news about how a fire inspector came by a couple months ago and told him to clear the area behind his property. He did (though one can make the argument that he has the money to afford laborers) and he watched the fire come up just behind his house and stop because there wasn't sufficient fuel.
The point is that people who live in CA, especially those who live in areas with lots of brush, need fire resistant housing, annual brush clearing, and homeowners insurance with good coverage (we have other disasters out here too). We need family evacuation plans.
The hope is that the may be the or one of the few steps necessary to making water desalination reasonable on a massive level. For example, the Western States of the US are in constant bickering over limited water rights. This and similar technologies may bring water desalination costs down to a point where such worries about fresh water are unnecessary.
I know a lot of people love to point to conservation, but cities like Los Angeles are already conserving a lot of water. Urban areas in California only use around 10% of fresh water in the state, with agriculture using most of the rest.
If terrorists poisoned Canadians and Wisconsins with this, would the people be frightened and angry or would be happy that they could break out their shorts in the middle of winter?
They're ALL great games! They all belong in the pantheon of Greatest Games for different reasons. Just because you prefer one over the other doesn't mean that everything else is crap in comparison.
Deus Ex: A great political thriller with a plot that actually changed in response to your actions.
Half-Life: Extremely well polished conventional shooter that aimed for immersion and realistic goals (activate generator rather than finding keycards).
System Shock 2: Immersive and harrowing. Complex and realistic. Fantastic.
Bioshock: System Shock 2's successor, NOT sequel. The classic "shock" elements streamlined and blended with political and economic philosophy.
I love every one of those games. It's not necessary to bash Bioshock because you can no longer carry food around with you or to bash Deus Ex because your progression through a linear game (SS2 was linear too) was controlled more because they were telling a story. How about we discuss why System Shock was great rather than why other things sucked (when they didn't).
I think it's great that Slashdot has a politics section. Most people, let alone Americans are not informed about the political process on a daily basis. With the internet, people are able to be highly selective about the information that passes in front of them, in some ways making it more difficult to keep people informed or even interested politics. Sure there's "trolling" in the comments, but that's par for the course with any discussion. If Slashdot can put a couple political articles before a few more apathetic internet users per day and get them to debate it, the site has done a great service for both nerds and democracy.
Perhaps you guys could explain the problems you're having with Ubuntu a little bit more? I've been seriously considering Ubuntu as of late (I even booted with a LiveCD) and either need to make enough room for a partition or use an older computer. But it's these sorts of discussions that cause me trepidation. I like to hear what's wrong with something before I engage with it, it lets me consider whether I can handle those difficulties. With Windows, I know all the things that are wrong with it and how to deal with them, but reading you all talk about regressions and difficulties with install packages makes me a bit wary.
The student who was tasered repeatedly in the UCLA library close to a year ago was resisting arrest by not moving. Despite not struggling, it seems the cops will taser you for just disrespecting them or making them work harder to arrest us. Pigs.
These companies are finally allowing people to play these great, (some) historic games without the legal ambiguities of abandonware hanging around their neck. For us old farts and the occasional curious young gamer, being able to play C&C95 at any time is not only a great marketing tool for EA, but it is an important piece of gaming history that is now freely available. GJ to EA (for once) and Ubisoft.
Oh, and not to snub Prince of Persia: I love PoP:SoT, which has a significant place in the history of platformers, and hope that it will eventually be phased to freeware (I understand the ads for now, due to bandwidth costs).
So if those damned fraternity pledges flush a cherry bomb down the drain, not only do I have to worry about my toilet exploding upwards but NOW I have to worry about my Internet going out as well???
This is a cost effective way of doubling the lavatory facilities on the space station, without incurring additional training or development costs. Even if some argue whether the technology is worth $19 million, it's not like the money is going somewhere other than back into the Russian Space Program.
It seems at least that this Congress has finally heard the call for more solid science. http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/2 1/1926222 The House Appropriations Subcommittee halted funding for any manned Mars mission R&D and upped funding for the rest of NASA's far more productive research. I for one have been complaining for the last couple years about Bush's unfunded mandate and am glad that the Appropriations Committee has a bit more sense this time around.
The point is that if Apple had designed the phone properly with an easily replaceable battery, none of that work would be required and you could be replacing the battery for more like $20-40, not to mention you'd be able to keep extra batteries around to swap around if that's your thing.
I really think that it's absurd that Apple chose to make the battery non-user-replaceable. I mean, there's a reason every phone in the history of cell phones has let you replace the battery yourself, it just makes sense.
As a Mac defender listed above, the battery life for the iPhone is impressive for what seems to be a very thin device. However, based on those numbers, it still has only about a day's worth of battery life at most-- and those stats are based on a brand-new battery. I guess the people who like to carry around extra batteries for their phones are simply going to find a couple hours of downtime to charge up their iPhone when it dies at 3pm. And those people who want to get their phone back up to 10 hrs of standby time (!) are simply going to have to fork out the $87 when their non-user replaceable battery begins losing its charging capacity.
Yeah, thanks to Apple and it's plan of integrated, hard to replace batteries, instead of dead batteries ending up in landfills, landfills will be much more pleasant to look at as they're filled with dead iPhones and iPods.
Apple scores again with its secret plan for city beautification!
Although I agree with you in the thought that JFK was not as great of a president as most think, I believe that Bush ranks highly in the coliseum of bad presidents. The bad presidents of the 19th century, though often inept and corrupt, had the courtesy and the understanding of the limited scope of their office. The going trend for presidents at that time was to do very little and to act as little as possible, meaning that despite being bozos, they usually left it up to Congress to decide the fate of the country. Even Warren Harding, who competes with Bush Jr. for the crown of Worst US President Ever, was quoted as saying "I am not fit for this office and never should have been here." At least the one man who may exceed Bush in incompetence knew about it!
Bush has significantly expanded the powers of the executive office for the worse. He's significantly eroded our civil liberties and privacy. He has wrecked this country's reputation. He has appointed two members of the SCOTUS that already have an appalling track record. He dragged us into a war where only the most ardent of ostriches still think we can get out of it with a nebulous "victory". Not only is Bush worse than Harding, Polk, Buchanan, Fillmore, Grant, etc., but his offenses are worse than the sum of theirs combined.
Just make everyone's address public and verified, so if they cheat, we can drive over to their house and beat the crap out of them. There's real social accountability.
Before we deploy this, could we make sure the safety systems work? Otherwise, I don't know how many crappy stories we'd hear about being trapped by them due to the commonly occurring alien weapon, energy burst, or 19th-century super-villain.
What an arrogant view of the world, to think that your "enjoyment" is more valuable than the preservation of an ecosystem. I don't think you're worth more than a lizard or a bird, how's that?
We need to preserve these islands for their scientific and historical value. Preservation means limiting human impact. If you want to "enjoy" the islands, do so via low-impact guided tours or by watching Discovery HD.
Just think, if Americans have plentiful cheap fruit, what would that do for our health? Longer life expectancies and lower health care costs from Americans being able to afford fruits in their diets rather than artery clogging, cheap Mc-Meals. Any way we can improve the productivity and efficiency of producing and distributing food, especially healthy food, should be seriously considered. Think of all the billions of dollars that would be saved by not spending money on diet pills if apples weren't $3 per pound at Ralphs/Kroger.
If we can get such a huge benefit from putting telescopes out at Lagrange points, which I've heard are perfect for this sort of stuff, why are we thinking about investing in a complicated array on the moon (whose gravity well always adds to costs)? Is there some benefit to having this lunar based liquid telescope aside from sounding completely awesome? I can't remember correctly, but is James Webb going to L2 or something? If so, then at least we have one (upcoming) reasonably placed spaced telescope- why not make more of them?
Slashdot Mirror
Beyond the first step of using fire-resistant materials in building your home, the second step is yearly maintenance of the brush surrounding your property. CA is supposed to have semi-annual brush fires to clear out brush as a natural cycle, so if we humans don't want fires, we need to do it ourselves. In the case of the Malibu fire, there was at least one resident who talked on the news about how a fire inspector came by a couple months ago and told him to clear the area behind his property. He did (though one can make the argument that he has the money to afford laborers) and he watched the fire come up just behind his house and stop because there wasn't sufficient fuel.
The point is that people who live in CA, especially those who live in areas with lots of brush, need fire resistant housing, annual brush clearing, and homeowners insurance with good coverage (we have other disasters out here too). We need family evacuation plans.
The hope is that the may be the or one of the few steps necessary to making water desalination reasonable on a massive level. For example, the Western States of the US are in constant bickering over limited water rights. This and similar technologies may bring water desalination costs down to a point where such worries about fresh water are unnecessary.
I know a lot of people love to point to conservation, but cities like Los Angeles are already conserving a lot of water. Urban areas in California only use around 10% of fresh water in the state, with agriculture using most of the rest.
If terrorists poisoned Canadians and Wisconsins with this, would the people be frightened and angry or would be happy that they could break out their shorts in the middle of winter?
They're ALL great games! They all belong in the pantheon of Greatest Games for different reasons. Just because you prefer one over the other doesn't mean that everything else is crap in comparison. Deus Ex: A great political thriller with a plot that actually changed in response to your actions. Half-Life: Extremely well polished conventional shooter that aimed for immersion and realistic goals (activate generator rather than finding keycards). System Shock 2: Immersive and harrowing. Complex and realistic. Fantastic. Bioshock: System Shock 2's successor, NOT sequel. The classic "shock" elements streamlined and blended with political and economic philosophy. I love every one of those games. It's not necessary to bash Bioshock because you can no longer carry food around with you or to bash Deus Ex because your progression through a linear game (SS2 was linear too) was controlled more because they were telling a story. How about we discuss why System Shock was great rather than why other things sucked (when they didn't).
If that's the case, Pegg would have been more useful on this one episode of Enterprise called "Fusion"-- there were Vulcan zombies!
I think it's great that Slashdot has a politics section. Most people, let alone Americans are not informed about the political process on a daily basis. With the internet, people are able to be highly selective about the information that passes in front of them, in some ways making it more difficult to keep people informed or even interested politics. Sure there's "trolling" in the comments, but that's par for the course with any discussion. If Slashdot can put a couple political articles before a few more apathetic internet users per day and get them to debate it, the site has done a great service for both nerds and democracy.
Seconding! I'd definitely be in line at midnight (if there ever was one) to get a remade Deus Ex, System Shock 2, or Dark Forces (the 1995 original)!
On the contrary, based on how many times my Win98 install would crash per day, I would argue that it was eager to lose my data.
Perhaps you guys could explain the problems you're having with Ubuntu a little bit more? I've been seriously considering Ubuntu as of late (I even booted with a LiveCD) and either need to make enough room for a partition or use an older computer. But it's these sorts of discussions that cause me trepidation. I like to hear what's wrong with something before I engage with it, it lets me consider whether I can handle those difficulties. With Windows, I know all the things that are wrong with it and how to deal with them, but reading you all talk about regressions and difficulties with install packages makes me a bit wary.
The student who was tasered repeatedly in the UCLA library close to a year ago was resisting arrest by not moving. Despite not struggling, it seems the cops will taser you for just disrespecting them or making them work harder to arrest us. Pigs.
This may be the first time that I and organized religion agree: both of us want to punish Sony for almost irrelevant issues!
These companies are finally allowing people to play these great, (some) historic games without the legal ambiguities of abandonware hanging around their neck. For us old farts and the occasional curious young gamer, being able to play C&C95 at any time is not only a great marketing tool for EA, but it is an important piece of gaming history that is now freely available. GJ to EA (for once) and Ubisoft. Oh, and not to snub Prince of Persia: I love PoP:SoT, which has a significant place in the history of platformers, and hope that it will eventually be phased to freeware (I understand the ads for now, due to bandwidth costs).
So if those damned fraternity pledges flush a cherry bomb down the drain, not only do I have to worry about my toilet exploding upwards but NOW I have to worry about my Internet going out as well???
I have the exact same problem. When's the hotfix coming out?
This is a cost effective way of doubling the lavatory facilities on the space station, without incurring additional training or development costs. Even if some argue whether the technology is worth $19 million, it's not like the money is going somewhere other than back into the Russian Space Program.
It seems at least that this Congress has finally heard the call for more solid science. http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/2 1/1926222 The House Appropriations Subcommittee halted funding for any manned Mars mission R&D and upped funding for the rest of NASA's far more productive research. I for one have been complaining for the last couple years about Bush's unfunded mandate and am glad that the Appropriations Committee has a bit more sense this time around.
Yeah, thanks to Apple and it's plan of integrated, hard to replace batteries, instead of dead batteries ending up in landfills, landfills will be much more pleasant to look at as they're filled with dead iPhones and iPods.
Apple scores again with its secret plan for city beautification!
Although I agree with you in the thought that JFK was not as great of a president as most think, I believe that Bush ranks highly in the coliseum of bad presidents. The bad presidents of the 19th century, though often inept and corrupt, had the courtesy and the understanding of the limited scope of their office. The going trend for presidents at that time was to do very little and to act as little as possible, meaning that despite being bozos, they usually left it up to Congress to decide the fate of the country. Even Warren Harding, who competes with Bush Jr. for the crown of Worst US President Ever, was quoted as saying "I am not fit for this office and never should have been here." At least the one man who may exceed Bush in incompetence knew about it!
Bush has significantly expanded the powers of the executive office for the worse. He's significantly eroded our civil liberties and privacy. He has wrecked this country's reputation. He has appointed two members of the SCOTUS that already have an appalling track record. He dragged us into a war where only the most ardent of ostriches still think we can get out of it with a nebulous "victory". Not only is Bush worse than Harding, Polk, Buchanan, Fillmore, Grant, etc., but his offenses are worse than the sum of theirs combined.
Just make everyone's address public and verified, so if they cheat, we can drive over to their house and beat the crap out of them. There's real social accountability.
I wholeheartedly agree with your idea, but I think the PS3 is the downside. =P
Before we deploy this, could we make sure the safety systems work? Otherwise, I don't know how many crappy stories we'd hear about being trapped by them due to the commonly occurring alien weapon, energy burst, or 19th-century super-villain.
What an arrogant view of the world, to think that your "enjoyment" is more valuable than the preservation of an ecosystem. I don't think you're worth more than a lizard or a bird, how's that? We need to preserve these islands for their scientific and historical value. Preservation means limiting human impact. If you want to "enjoy" the islands, do so via low-impact guided tours or by watching Discovery HD.
Just think, if Americans have plentiful cheap fruit, what would that do for our health? Longer life expectancies and lower health care costs from Americans being able to afford fruits in their diets rather than artery clogging, cheap Mc-Meals. Any way we can improve the productivity and efficiency of producing and distributing food, especially healthy food, should be seriously considered. Think of all the billions of dollars that would be saved by not spending money on diet pills if apples weren't $3 per pound at Ralphs/Kroger.
If we can get such a huge benefit from putting telescopes out at Lagrange points, which I've heard are perfect for this sort of stuff, why are we thinking about investing in a complicated array on the moon (whose gravity well always adds to costs)? Is there some benefit to having this lunar based liquid telescope aside from sounding completely awesome? I can't remember correctly, but is James Webb going to L2 or something? If so, then at least we have one (upcoming) reasonably placed spaced telescope- why not make more of them?