"Ads can be annoying and overdone, but they are a product of a free capitalistic society. Considering the available societal alternatives (China, Myanmar, and Cuba come to mind), I'll take a few ads and nearly constant product placement. Besides, I didn't buy a Tivo for nothing!"
It's not an either/or situation. It's totally feasible to have a free capitalistic society without unregulated advertising. In fact, unregulated advertising hurts capitalism.
A central pillar of capitalism (from Adam Smith's original work) is that people buy things they need or desire. If people are tricked into buying things they don't need or desire (whether via deception, lies, force or just clever advertising), then classical capitalist theory breaks down and the efficiency which makes capitalism great, goes out the window!
You must have been using some expensive extract. I've been 'homebrewing' for years and must have saved a small fortune during that time. I've even made some cash a few times selling the odd gallon to mates and such. I sometimes use grain but most of the time I just use malt extract because I'm lazy.
All in all I reckon an average batch using purchased extract costs me around half that of the same amount of averaged-priced beer. A massive saving for someone who drinks as much beer as I do!
"Difference is the US is setting the state so Iraq has political and economic self-determination."
Except of course when it comes to Oil, Iraq's most important economic resource. Fat chance they will be allowed to sell theirs to Russia or China, no matter what price they're offered.
"China is now gearing up faster in the military front faster than anybody has over the last 100 years. That includes Hitler's build up in 1934-46, and FDR's 2 year build-up"
Huh? In the mid 1930's Germany was producing hundreds of attack subs a year, hundreds of aircraft a year and thousands of tanks! Unless China has hundreds of secret military factories, they are not even coming close to matching Nazi Germany's militarism.
If you consider how old most of China's current military hardware is (nearly all their current navy is from the Cold War era), it's not particularly surprising they are using their new-found wealth to upgrade some very old kit.
Those figure aren't bad for electricity production really. Power plants of any type always take decades to break-even because they just cost so much to build.
It should be added that the comparative cost of onshore wind farm construction is increasingly somewhat less than more traditional power plants, e.g. (gas & coal).
I don't know if the summary has changed, but for me it reads:
"The man credited with inventing the Web at CERN, Tim Berners-Lee, has made a statement on the 15th anniversary of the Web's initial code release that the Web is still in its infancy."
I am a fan of the iPhone, but even I must admit, typing on it is definitely not as easy as on phones with real keypads.
I used to type at least twice as fast (if not more) on my old Nokia. I do love my iPhone, but I find myself calling rather than texting people because like Nullav, I miss the "tactile feedback" of a normal keypad.
The British people can have a monarch if they want, who are you to decide their form of governance? Britain was a republic for several decades during the 1600's before deciding to reinstate their monarch.
Personally, I'd rather a king I trusted and who had his realm's best interests in mind then a bunch of corrupt politicians willing to change laws for whichever companies 'donate' to their campaign fund.
...and if it isn't your lawyer would be able to get you off on a clear technical breach of law.
Sorry if that doesn't sound paranoid enough to go with the flow here.
"The difference is DNA is more than an identifying trait. DNA defines your physical characteristics - the basis of you."
You are mistaking DNA with DNA profiles - which is what the government want.
DNA profiles are more like an md5 hash of your data (i.e. DNA) rather than all the actual data which makes up you. Storing all that data would require absolutely immense processing and storage capabilities which simply don't exist. Besides, it will be a long, long time before DNA can be properly "read" and not just "compared" (which DNA analysis basically consists of at present).
A DNA profile can identify you and basic traits but it can't "identify tendency to irrational behaviors" etc.
Huh? what a load of meaningless cr@p.
Please define what you mean be "power". Is it military power? electrical power? financial power?
Who are you referring to when you say "state"? the police? the FBI? the IRS?
In what basic way do you fear they will make "use of that power over you"?
If you cannot answer these questions than you have a clear-cut case of paranoia.
Or just perhaps the ship sank because it had a massive hole gouged into its side by an iceberg!
As you say, there are so many variables, yet these people claim to have detected subtle flaws in 100 year old rivets which have spent nearly all that time 2 miles underwater.
Personally I think this whole story is based on the flimsiest evidence, run away with by Discovery channel to give the viewer a "new" reason for the disaster at the end of the documentary as they often do.
"The advantages of the 787 so ridiculously out class it's peers"
Huh? it's just a 737 but a little longer and full of Chinese plastic. Now the 737 was a darn good player in its day, but there is no way it still "ridiculously out class it's peers" even with better (but eye-wateringly expensive) materials and engines.
The 1/3 weight savings are yet to be demonstrated and half the delays are being caused by engineers realizing theres simply no way they can achieve the claims previously made by Boeing's marketing department.
I downloaded the BBC comedy "Ideal" the other night, don't think I've ever seen anything so damn funny! Good to watch a comedy without that irritating canned laughter that seems to have affected every last American sitcom these days.
'Average life span' can be extremely misleading due to the high levels of infant mortality which really hit average life span figures hard.
Even in ancient times there are records of people living to 100 and it wasn't that uncommon for many to live into their 50's, 60's and even 70's. It's just that for everyone who lived to 70, several would also die at an age of only 6 months or so.
The interpretations are what the physical evidence points to, it was almost certainly a religious structure after all. Are you suggesting we should ignore the large body of physical evidence in favor of the more stereotypical, 'ruthless barbarian' society advanced by the invading Romans?
From a factual point of view, there isn't really any evidence at all of widespread 'war slaves' etc. being used by the stone age tribes of north-western Europe. It's the sort of thing which is quite easy to research. In Egypt, the Mediterranean and particularly, the middle-east, there is lots of archaeological evidence of an ancient mass slave trade. Before the Roman invasion there has not been found hardly any slavery equipment in north-western Europe, which you would expect to find if there was wide-spread slavery.
...and if the people who build extremely important parts of those "weapons capable of killing millions" can't even send those parts to the correct part of the world, it is a worrying display of incompetence.
Unless I'm mistaken, 500 day flights are only possible once every so often, normally it takes much longer. Constructing a base on Mars would require regular trips, waiting several years for each launch window would make progress extremely slow.
"So, in short, this nuke-fuse story is weird, and I can't figure out why it's getting reported."
It could be something to do with the utter incompetence displayed by people handling weapons capable of killing millions and what are meant to be amongst our country's most closely guarded technology. So I think it's pretty obvious why the mainstream news outlets reported it.
Not sure why it's on Slashdot though, hardly "news for nerds". Then again, a lot of non-"news for nerds" stories are on Slashdot these days and with an election approaching I fear this is only going to get worse.
"And, hey, never mind the potential usefulness. Aren't you the least bit curious?"
Indeed I am curious, but that doesn't require me to falsely claim NASA invented half the new technologies of the 20th century just to secure them funding. That's really no better than the previous sarcastic suggestion to secure funding by claiming there's terrorists or WMDs on mars.
NASA should be given credit where due and the various scientists from around the world who actually invented those technologies attributed to NASA should receive the credit for their discoveries.
The mere fact that they can pull you over and delay your day is over-powering enough, IMO.
Maybe, I'm not going to deny for once second you don't get some idiot traffic cops. But it has absolutely no relation to the issue of federal wiretapping.
As you say, cops can delay you for upto an hour or two and get away with it. Instituting a wiretap is completely and utterly different. It's like saying the cop who pulled you over on the way to the movies could have decided to through you in jail for 5 years without reason...it simply isn't up to them or even anyone in their department.
Wow, they can run your license plates through their system, big deal (and not really anything to do with "domestic spying", unless you seriously think police shouldn't be able to lookup number plates!). Besides, finding out where someone driving their car lives isn't exactly difficult for anybody to do if they have the time and inclination to follow them around.
That IS just a standard case of harrassement, the fact the perpetrator is a police officer is of little consequence (except when it comes to determining their sentence). If the entire police precinct or FBI department was corrupt then it's a different story, but lets not enter the world of paranoid schizophrenics. Besides, if you told a news reporter you would then be in line to make millions.
To get an actual wiretap on you the police officer would have to go through a whole load of processes involving managers who are constantly required to justify expenses (every wiretap costs tens of thousands of dollars and usually a lot more). The instant it's found out he is illegally organizing the wiretap he would be fired, no question about it.
The victim of any such crime would have to be either extremely stupid to not get the police officer sent down.
Face it, we all have some things we would like to keep private, and they can always make you a bad guy.
ow you are diverging onto a completely separate issue, the "dirty laundry" issue. An Ex making you out to look like a bad guy has absolutely nothing to do with federal wiretapping programs.
It's easy to criticize anything if you ignore important details about technical implementation and safeguards.
"Its still more than you get on the Discovery Channel anymore..."
Agreed. Discovery Channel no longer seem to show science programs of post-kindergarten level anymore.
If I see one more 'professor' explaining a concept which most 6-year olds would find obvious, as if the concept is something the viewer may struggle to grasp, I think I'm going to be sick.
Slashdot Mirror
Right, so the hotter climates - which the English crave and all those countries just happen to have - wouldn't be anything to do with it?
"Ads can be annoying and overdone, but they are a product of a free capitalistic society. Considering the available societal alternatives (China, Myanmar, and Cuba come to mind), I'll take a few ads and nearly constant product placement. Besides, I didn't buy a Tivo for nothing!"
It's not an either/or situation. It's totally feasible to have a free capitalistic society without unregulated advertising. In fact, unregulated advertising hurts capitalism.
A central pillar of capitalism (from Adam Smith's original work) is that people buy things they need or desire. If people are tricked into buying things they don't need or desire (whether via deception, lies, force or just clever advertising), then classical capitalist theory breaks down and the efficiency which makes capitalism great, goes out the window!
You must have been using some expensive extract. I've been 'homebrewing' for years and must have saved a small fortune during that time. I've even made some cash a few times selling the odd gallon to mates and such. I sometimes use grain but most of the time I just use malt extract because I'm lazy.
All in all I reckon an average batch using purchased extract costs me around half that of the same amount of averaged-priced beer. A massive saving for someone who drinks as much beer as I do!
"Difference is the US is setting the state so Iraq has political and economic self-determination."
Except of course when it comes to Oil, Iraq's most important economic resource. Fat chance they will be allowed to sell theirs to Russia or China, no matter what price they're offered.
"China is now gearing up faster in the military front faster than anybody has over the last 100 years. That includes Hitler's build up in 1934-46, and FDR's 2 year build-up"
Huh? In the mid 1930's Germany was producing hundreds of attack subs a year, hundreds of aircraft a year and thousands of tanks! Unless China has hundreds of secret military factories, they are not even coming close to matching Nazi Germany's militarism.
If you consider how old most of China's current military hardware is (nearly all their current navy is from the Cold War era), it's not particularly surprising they are using their new-found wealth to upgrade some very old kit.
Those figure aren't bad for electricity production really. Power plants of any type always take decades to break-even because they just cost so much to build.
Btw, the costs of building power plants of any type at the moment is rising dramatically: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/10/business/worldbusiness/10energy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
It should be added that the comparative cost of onshore wind farm construction is increasingly somewhat less than more traditional power plants, e.g. (gas & coal).
I don't know if the summary has changed, but for me it reads:
"The man credited with inventing the Web at CERN, Tim Berners-Lee, has made a statement on the 15th anniversary of the Web's initial code release that the Web is still in its infancy."
Which seems a pretty accurate summary.
I am a fan of the iPhone, but even I must admit, typing on it is definitely not as easy as on phones with real keypads.
I used to type at least twice as fast (if not more) on my old Nokia. I do love my iPhone, but I find myself calling rather than texting people because like Nullav, I miss the "tactile feedback" of a normal keypad.
The British people can have a monarch if they want, who are you to decide their form of governance? Britain was a republic for several decades during the 1600's before deciding to reinstate their monarch.
Personally, I'd rather a king I trusted and who had his realm's best interests in mind then a bunch of corrupt politicians willing to change laws for whichever companies 'donate' to their campaign fund.
...and if it isn't your lawyer would be able to get you off on a clear technical breach of law. Sorry if that doesn't sound paranoid enough to go with the flow here.
"The difference is DNA is more than an identifying trait. DNA defines your physical characteristics - the basis of you." You are mistaking DNA with DNA profiles - which is what the government want. DNA profiles are more like an md5 hash of your data (i.e. DNA) rather than all the actual data which makes up you. Storing all that data would require absolutely immense processing and storage capabilities which simply don't exist. Besides, it will be a long, long time before DNA can be properly "read" and not just "compared" (which DNA analysis basically consists of at present). A DNA profile can identify you and basic traits but it can't "identify tendency to irrational behaviors" etc.
Huh? what a load of meaningless cr@p. Please define what you mean be "power". Is it military power? electrical power? financial power? Who are you referring to when you say "state"? the police? the FBI? the IRS? In what basic way do you fear they will make "use of that power over you"? If you cannot answer these questions than you have a clear-cut case of paranoia.
Or just perhaps the ship sank because it had a massive hole gouged into its side by an iceberg! As you say, there are so many variables, yet these people claim to have detected subtle flaws in 100 year old rivets which have spent nearly all that time 2 miles underwater. Personally I think this whole story is based on the flimsiest evidence, run away with by Discovery channel to give the viewer a "new" reason for the disaster at the end of the documentary as they often do.
"The advantages of the 787 so ridiculously out class it's peers"
Huh? it's just a 737 but a little longer and full of Chinese plastic. Now the 737 was a darn good player in its day, but there is no way it still "ridiculously out class it's peers" even with better (but eye-wateringly expensive) materials and engines.
The 1/3 weight savings are yet to be demonstrated and half the delays are being caused by engineers realizing theres simply no way they can achieve the claims previously made by Boeing's marketing department.
I downloaded the BBC comedy "Ideal" the other night, don't think I've ever seen anything so damn funny! Good to watch a comedy without that irritating canned laughter that seems to have affected every last American sitcom these days.
'Average life span' can be extremely misleading due to the high levels of infant mortality which really hit average life span figures hard.
Even in ancient times there are records of people living to 100 and it wasn't that uncommon for many to live into their 50's, 60's and even 70's. It's just that for everyone who lived to 70, several would also die at an age of only 6 months or so.
The interpretations are what the physical evidence points to, it was almost certainly a religious structure after all. Are you suggesting we should ignore the large body of physical evidence in favor of the more stereotypical, 'ruthless barbarian' society advanced by the invading Romans?
From a factual point of view, there isn't really any evidence at all of widespread 'war slaves' etc. being used by the stone age tribes of north-western Europe. It's the sort of thing which is quite easy to research. In Egypt, the Mediterranean and particularly, the middle-east, there is lots of archaeological evidence of an ancient mass slave trade. Before the Roman invasion there has not been found hardly any slavery equipment in north-western Europe, which you would expect to find if there was wide-spread slavery.
...and if the people who build extremely important parts of those "weapons capable of killing millions" can't even send those parts to the correct part of the world, it is a worrying display of incompetence.
Unless I'm mistaken, 500 day flights are only possible once every so often, normally it takes much longer. Constructing a base on Mars would require regular trips, waiting several years for each launch window would make progress extremely slow.
"So, in short, this nuke-fuse story is weird, and I can't figure out why it's getting reported."
It could be something to do with the utter incompetence displayed by people handling weapons capable of killing millions and what are meant to be amongst our country's most closely guarded technology. So I think it's pretty obvious why the mainstream news outlets reported it.
Not sure why it's on Slashdot though, hardly "news for nerds". Then again, a lot of non-"news for nerds" stories are on Slashdot these days and with an election approaching I fear this is only going to get worse.
"And, hey, never mind the potential usefulness. Aren't you the least bit curious?"
Indeed I am curious, but that doesn't require me to falsely claim NASA invented half the new technologies of the 20th century just to secure them funding. That's really no better than the previous sarcastic suggestion to secure funding by claiming there's terrorists or WMDs on mars.
NASA should be given credit where due and the various scientists from around the world who actually invented those technologies attributed to NASA should receive the credit for their discoveries.
Maybe, I'm not going to deny for once second you don't get some idiot traffic cops. But it has absolutely no relation to the issue of federal wiretapping.
As you say, cops can delay you for upto an hour or two and get away with it. Instituting a wiretap is completely and utterly different. It's like saying the cop who pulled you over on the way to the movies could have decided to through you in jail for 5 years without reason
No they don't, not in the case at point.
Wow, they can run your license plates through their system, big deal (and not really anything to do with "domestic spying", unless you seriously think police shouldn't be able to lookup number plates!). Besides, finding out where someone driving their car lives isn't exactly difficult for anybody to do if they have the time and inclination to follow them around.
That IS just a standard case of harrassement, the fact the perpetrator is a police officer is of little consequence (except when it comes to determining their sentence). If the entire police precinct or FBI department was corrupt then it's a different story, but lets not enter the world of paranoid schizophrenics. Besides, if you told a news reporter you would then be in line to make millions.
To get an actual wiretap on you the police officer would have to go through a whole load of processes involving managers who are constantly required to justify expenses (every wiretap costs tens of thousands of dollars and usually a lot more). The instant it's found out he is illegally organizing the wiretap he would be fired, no question about it.
The victim of any such crime would have to be either extremely stupid to not get the police officer sent down.
ow you are diverging onto a completely separate issue, the "dirty laundry" issue. An Ex making you out to look like a bad guy has absolutely nothing to do with federal wiretapping programs.
It's easy to criticize anything if you ignore important details about technical implementation and safeguards.
Can't we be left to make up our own minds on the validity of their assertion. This isn't Fox News is it?
"Its still more than you get on the Discovery Channel anymore..."
Agreed. Discovery Channel no longer seem to show science programs of post-kindergarten level anymore.
If I see one more 'professor' explaining a concept which most 6-year olds would find obvious, as if the concept is something the viewer may struggle to grasp, I think I'm going to be sick.