/Agree.. I think Obamacare did not go far enough. The truth of the matter is that healthcare is balloning and eventually it will burst, with or without obamacare, but everyone will blame it on obamacare anyway. Also.. how is insurance different than taxes? I pay money out of my hard earned salary to pay for the cancer, heart disease, and diabetes of others. My employer even pays for some of it.. sounds like a tax eh? Free market? LOL i get whoever my employer has contracted with. Get my own insurance? -dont get the subsidy from my employer, the plans are confusing and hard to compare, and i got denied anyway because of previous conditions (migrains).

Actually sugar would be cheaper than corn syrup if it was no longer subsidised. You can read about the gory details here. Maybe we should stop subsidising the local farmers for our own health?

HOLY FUCK YOUR MATH IS SHITTY!

"The truck burning 14.28 gallons of diesel generates about 145 grams of CO2. [1]"
-that's 145 Kilograms you fuck! And you have not included the return trip of the tanker as has been discussed already, making it 290 Kilograms of CO2!.

"The energy losses for the transmission line (considering it comes from coal) generates about 7 tonnes of CO2. [2]"
-Where the fuck do you get that from?? And it doesn't even make sense with your later comparisons!

"A BMW 5 Series 520i would be able to drive about 915.294 miles with that gasoline. [4] Driving these miles, it would release about 91 metric tonnes of CO2 (in the streets)."
-With 10,000 gallons of gasoline..
10000 * 3.78541 liters per gallon = 37854.1 liters * 7km per liter = 264,978.70 km *163 grams CO2 per km / 1000000 = 43,190 kg of CO2

43,190 kg + 290 kg = 43,480 kg or 43.480 metric tonnes of CO2
You have also forgotten that gasoline/petrol is refined from oil, and that the refining process uses some percentage of energy and releases CO2 and sulfur. I cannot find any info on the refining cost.

So how does that compare with the Tesla?
Lets make it easy by comparing the grams of CO2 produced for each km according to the BMW literature.. 163 grams/km.
From your own citations, the Tesla has a 60kW or 85 kW battery. -I know nothing about charging of batteries, but they are rated at 370km for the 60 and 480km for the 85. The 60kW is less efficient so I will use that.
60/370 = 0.162162 kW per km.
Accounting for transmission loss and charging loss, .162162 / .8 /.9925 = 0.204234461 kW per km if produced at a plant and transmitted (see previous discussions and citations)

So how much CO2 produced? 2.08 lbs per kW according to your source.
2.08 * 0.204234461 = 0.424807679 lbs CO2 per km
BUT WAIT! THERES MORE! lets convert the pounds to kg
0.424807679 lbs * 0.453592 kg per pound = 0.192689365 kg CO2 per km.

OUCH! According to this (which is highly subjective) A Tesla running on coal-powered electricity produces 19% more CO2 than the BMW.
-But to compare apples to apples.. an oil fired plant about matches the BMW.
And of course a Natural Gas fired plant allows the Tesla to net 30% less Co2 emissions.
We wont even get into carbon-free power sources like solar, wind, water, etc!

Also, I would think that the cost of upgrading IE6 or any outdated software increases as time goes by.

1. There would be increased compatibility issues.
2. Increasing training for major differences.
3. Increasing hardware requirements. -Lets face it, software gets more bloated as time goes on. Making a big change means you will have to upgrade a majority of systems.
4. Decreasing available knowledge. -Older systems are less well known by the general IT population.

I honestly believe in regular upgrades. But too frequent can also be problematic. And some major versions are painful to implement. (im pointing at you Vista)
Perhaps there is a moors law applicable to upgrades?

Of course aliens are not interested in us. Just look at this thread. Not one intelligent comment.

The author kinda rambles. But I think his point is that what we want from alien interaction right now is to learn lots of cool stuff.
That boils down into three categories.. 1. Super powerful energy sources. 2. Control of time, space, and gravity. 3. Unlimited life/food etc.

But an alien life form would already have these things, so why would they be interested at all in 'exploring the universe' when instead they could just sit on their fat happy asses and not worry about a thing ever? -Answer, they don't

Alternatively, in 1000 years (or more likely 10,000-100,000, if we survive that long), we will have all those cool gadgets. Then we will have no need of learning stuff from other aliens, so why would we care? -Answer, we won't.

On a side note, the whole idea of aliens coming to our planet to steal our 'resources' is ludicrous! If they have the technology for interstellar travel, creating unlimited amounts of air/water/etc will be easy. And if there is no real 'secret' to the universe, it would be much more economical to mine metals from asteroids and water from comets or rings. It takes way too much fuel to enter and exit the gravity of a planet.

Thats the PC term now. We dont want those humans feeling targeted by a bias.
So the term "Cyber Criminal" is used instead which is inclusive of bots, ai's, aliens, lawl cats, etc.

Doesnt 10 million euros seem like a very small amount for the city of munich to save?
What is that in percentage to their technology budget?

-I found a reference to their arts budget alone at over 160 million euros:
http://www.muenchen.de/rathaus/home_en/Department-of-Arts-and-Culture/statistics_dates_facts

OH CRAP! He's talking about me!

Senator Roark: Power don't come from a badge or a gun. Power comes from lying. Lying big, and gettin' the whole damn world to play along with you. Once you got everybody agreeing with what they know in their hearts ain't true, you've got 'em by the balls.

I can't wait for this to be on JUDGE JUDY.

Bullshit. If you are posting something both false and with the intent to financially harm another individual or company, you should be accountable for your actions.

For example:
"Lincoln is a Natzi and should be shot in the head"

Is an example of something that one could be held liable for (if lincoln were alive today)

Or if a newspaper were to publish a review like "Apples iPhone is a peice of junk with a 1 inch screen and battery life of 10 minutes and cannot make a call"
They would be in the same boat.

-Now if the original Yelp poster had said "I had a very unpleasant experience and will not use their services again", that would have been fine. Or if she filed charges of theft and the company was found guilty, then she could post what happened.

What I dont get is that the contractor I beleive can remove bad posts if they sign up for Yelp. Maybe they didn't know. Maybe that is not true anymore.

I have seen quite a few old-school 14.4 and 28.8 modems still in use at customers sites.
These are mainly used for the fax capability and are quite reliable over analog lines.

I still have my US Robotics HST V.Everything modem that was the crown of my home system when I was in High School.
Great memories. The BBS's were sooo much faster and easier than the 'internet' back then. File transfers over HTTP were dog slow compare to Z-Modem protocol.

I have had more troubles with new 4-port fax cards that with the old reliables. In any case, I still need to use my old-school AT commands to configure the fax-modems from time to time.

Faxing is a real dinosaur. I believe it goes back to the 1930's when the newspapers used it to transfer images.
We need, need, need some method of standard, secure file/image delivery. It really cannot be that hard.

Mail server 1: Hey are you who I think you are?
Mail Server 2: Here is my card.
Mail Server 1: OK, I want to send this package to you.
Mail Server 2: I am sending you a lockbox.
Mail Server 1: OK, I put my package in and sent it to you. I cannot open it though.
Mail Server 2: Got it. I opened it up and looked at it. Is it 10 inches long and black?
Mail Server 1: Thats it. I will tell my user the package was delivered.
Mail Server 2: Bye!

SMTP is another one of those things that is antiquated and needs update. But one of the problems with updating standards everyone uses is actually getting everyone to change. (see ip4)

isnt there any way of designing parallel or serial interface to a USB disk drive, or a USB memory stick?

(its been a long, long time since i've had my apple iie, so i dont even remember if it had what is considered a serial interface. But I do remember connecting a printer to it.)

Voting machines should work the same way slot machines do: By paying out exactly as the casino owners program them to!

Seriously, check out "Electorial Dysfunction" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3QGtIrLIpk
Toward the end there is a good description of the varied and archaic voting systems that are in use in different states.
BTW I fully agree on these points:
"A valid audit trail, such as a printed ballot the voter can verify; A mechanism for recounting the printed ballots on a machine made by another vendor so the results can be compared; and An audit of the software by an independent third party to insure that the software accurately records and tabulates the voter's true intent."