exactly, thank you for the demonstration

no

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

words drift in meaning all the time. nobody owns a language. what a word means is pretty much what people use it for. that's the only rule

as RC aircraft, especially quadcopters, have exploded in popularity, the term drone has come into common use to refer to this burgeoning sector

therefore, drone is a perfectly acceptable term now for this new generation of RC aircraft definition. no other authority needed, because there is no authority at all

neither you nor anyone else can say otherwise

people "misuse" the term hacker too. and certain mentally fragile and rigid, socially maladaptive folk get really upset about the semantic change for some reason. it's alternatively confusing and funny, that people get so upset at the simple and common notion that words change in meaning

don't be bad at adapting to change in your world. the word's new meaning continues on without you, your protestations mean nothing and simply marginalize you

languages are living things, get used to it

show me where and when rights granted to religious, ethnic, and sexual minorities is as good or was better in as large an area for as large a time, in any previous time period or location

it never was. not even remotely close

oh yes, there were fleeting utopian fragile experiments in tiny areas, or fragile decrees by enlightened rulers that the status quo thugs quickly erased

but what we have now is a large amount of dominant powers in the world and large areas of the world granting a robust spectrum of rights, and have been doing so for some time now, extending them every year

the rights we grant people today was never extended to so many, over as wide an area, for as great a time. never. not even remotely as close and not even remotely as robust as the rights we have now

not that our rights aren't threatened today. our rights are always threatened and always will be. rights require maintenance. we don't live in a utopia, and we can certainly do better

but we are definitely doing better than any other time period in any other location, by a long shot

learn your history, don't subscribe to ignorant mythologizing

then you don't know your history

this is not a dating site. if you're interested in such things you should be happy to know that gay rights are increasingly accepted. good luck to you and your romantic interests

there have been exotic glimmers of true fairness and equality, always. but they were on the edges of civilization, were fragile and fleeting, and not enshrined rights hard fought for at the centers of power. now they are

progress is not a straight path, it's two steps forwards and one step back. it will always be a fragile growth prone to breakage and backsliding. and then pick up again and resume

and if some horrible world changing event occurs: an asteroid, a plague, then i am sure we will backslide back into barbarism and lose our progress

but as long as civilization is stable, then we are on a new path of rights we have never, ever had in this world anywhere remotely on this scale before. your exotic historic oddities don't remotely compare

yup

the arc of history is clear: progress is real. it wasn't long ago the idea of gay marriage rights or marijuana legalization seemed distant and impossible

bigots, sexists, racists: they may whine and bitch, or go full douchebag and do immoral things, but their fate is clear and certain: the dustbin of history. they are losing, and they will lose in the end

don't get me wrong, sexists, racists and such losers will always exist. it's just that they will no longer dominate the social, legal, and political status quo like they used to. the fact that they no longer do is, like the arrow of time, proof of the march of history and progress

you will always encounter sexists and racists. a moronic comment on slashdot. a throwaway comment by a loser coworker. a catcall or a tweet from who knows where that momentarily catches your eye

ignore them. they hold no power

such shitbags will always linger like a fungus in a dank basement, the socially malformed pathetics of any society. serious civilization has moved on without them, and will continue to make them more and more irrelevant

like cannibalism and slavery, things that also do still exist, and always will exist, in the dark cracks. but are now an exotic shocking fringe, and no longer dominate our societies

while i agree with you that this story sounds like bs, i despise this "always dealing with rational actors" argument

people do insane things. all the time. if your argument depends upon how someone you don't know is perfectly sane and rational, your argument sucks

Running out of conventional memory? Yeah, I know your pain. Well, I'll tell you a secret. There's this fancy thing called EMM386.. just add it to your CONFIG.SYS after the LOAD=HIMEM.SYS and don't forget to specify DOS=HIGH. It's really that easy and it should get you an easy extra 30 maybe even 45 kB more free RAM.

Cheers.

P.S. MSCDEX is for wimps.

iGadgets make you use iTunes and do that "sync" bullshit, instead of just copying the goddamn files, like you'd do with any sensibly designed device.

There's a lot of wear on the turbine systems. They require weekly to monthly checks of bearings and regular lubrication and maintenance. I doubt that Hoover Dam would operate without maintenance for 50 years just as you could not run a car for a decade without ever changing the oil.

Indeed. I used to work at the Time and Frequency division at NIST, where they keep the master atomic clocks for the US. They had a big room full of 12-volt car batteries to provide backup power to the clocks in case of a power outage.

With no one around to lubricate the bearings and gear trains, I'm guessing that turbines of any sort would freeze up in a few years.

The former Soviet Union built hundreds of automated lighthouses in remote locations powered by radioisotope thermoelectric generators. Those use 90Sr, which has a half-life of 30 years so they can go for many decades. They were installed in the 1970s-90s, so most of them are around one half-life out. They could well continue operating for several decades, but some small solar-powered devices might well outlast them if they aren't damaged too badly by weather over the years.