Comment Re:Emergency? (Score 1) 120
You don't need a CS education to slaughter chickens. Google on "Arkansas Tyson Chicken" to see what I mean.
Probably anyone in Arkansas who earns a CS degree . . . ends up moving somewhere else anyway.
You don't need a CS education to slaughter chickens. Google on "Arkansas Tyson Chicken" to see what I mean.
Probably anyone in Arkansas who earns a CS degree . . . ends up moving somewhere else anyway.
profits go to politicians, losses are socialized. Pretty Soviet.
Actually, that pretty much describes what happened in the US, with the Wall Street and US auto industry bailouts.
Is anyone here old enough to remember who Matthias Rust is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
The wacky German young hobby pilot flew a Cessna from Finland to Russia in the late 80's . . . and landed it in Red Square. Of course, without any permission from Russia. Way back then, folks also thought that the stunt might have started a new, fresh and funky, World War.
Well, the Russian military noticed the airplane, but figured that one little Cessna would not be the way that the decadent West would choose to attack them. Also, the Generals figured that the pilot or passengers were Soviet VIPS, who had had a few too many, and nobody dared to give the order to shoot it down.
Gorbachev used the event to re-assign a bunch of Air Defense generals to latrine duty in Siberia.
Anyway, I'm thinking that a swarm of drones descending on North Korea would result in a wave of confusion, but not another World War.
Teaching a child about people burning other people alive isn't as easy as it sounds.
Yes, but it develops into a very effective parenting tool:
"You will eat your spinach! Otherwise, you will be sent to the Islamic State, where they will cook you in a cage alive, and then eat you!"
"With spinach."
If Greece goes the Euro goes. (Actually if any Eurozone country goes the Euro goes).
I believe that the Greeks are overplaying their hand here. A few years ago, this might have been true, but now, international financial institutions have had time to prepare for the "Grexit" as a seriously possibility and create contingency plans.
Greece is less than 2% of the Eurozone economy. If Frace, Spain or Italy jumped . . . then they would have a problem. The Euro will survive a "Grexit", and be probably come out stronger, because the world financial markets will see the Eurozone as an organization that will not tolerate financial "fudge." And that the Eurozone is committed to keep the Euro a "hard" currency.
Let's face it . . . why are the Greeks in the EU anyway? They aren't really European . . . they sit at the butt-end of the Balkans, as one English diplomat put it, "half Byzantine, half Turkish by temperament." And why are the Turks in NATO? Turkey . . . and North Atlantic?
Well, if we take a look at a map, we'll see that Greece and Turkey together control the strategic Bosporus and Dardanelles Straits. These were important during the Cold War, when the EU and the USA were fearful of the Tartar hordes of the USSR sailing through. This is the only reason that the EU wanted them in.
After World War II, the Greeks were very close to flipping over to Communism. Well, the voters of Greece have now done it. I worked with a couple of guys from Greece a few years ago. They voted early, and voted with their feet. One works in Ireland now, the other in Spain.
Plus Greece cannot be kicked out of the Eurozone by anyone. Actually there isn't a provision for such a thing in the treaties that implement the Eurozone.
Just do a search on Google news on "Grexit". You will learn how this can happen:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8fd55736-ae0a-11e4-919e-00144feab7de.html
So what? This is not news for nerds.
Actually there are some nerds here who work managing data centers . . . and some of them have the pleasure of being invited into high level management meetings every month when the power bill comes in, to explain why the electricity bill is so high.
The gag is . . . I have actually met some low level managers who would write a business plan proposal, when they heard that electricity in Greece is free.
But the really, really, REALLY cool thing about nerds . . . is that we can discuss ANYTHING into being a nerd issue. If Slashdot posted a story about Justin Bieber breaking his leg while falling into Kim Kardashian's ass crack . . . well, first someone would post a response titled, "I am an Certified Expert Celebrity Ass Spelunker!" Then someone would post that they are currently working on a post-doc on the abstract quantum fractal geometry of female posteriors.
Then we would degenerate the whole thread into a pedantic bun fight about tangential issues.
I don't read Slashdot for the news . . . I read it for nerds' opinions on the news.
Let's exploit the already-screwed Greek government for some 'free' CPU time to run your own business..
Actually, I believe a more accurate statement would be that the Greek government has been exploiting the rest of the EU for free money.
But, as the famous economist John Maynard Keynes said, "If I owe the bank 100 pounds . . . I have a problem. If I owe the bank 100,000 pounds . . . the bank has a problem."
Right now, Angela Merkel has a problem, because she guaranteed the German public that all the money that they lent to Greece would be eventually paid back.
Alexis Tsipras has stated that he wants Greece to stay in the Eurozone. I don't believe him. What he wants most, if for Greece to be free from old debts to the EU. The EU is not going write off the old debts, and let Greece stay in the Eurozone. So his other choice would be to let the bus crash and default on the debts. The EU would then have to toss the Greeks out of the Eurozone. Then Tsipras could claim that he wanted to stay in the Eurozone, and that it was the evil EU who kicked them out.
When the Greeks go back to their own Drachma, instead of the Euro, they can then print as many of them as they like. They can distribute them as they wish, and make everyone in Greece rich!
Of course, the Drachmas will be close to worthless on the world financial markets . . . so the Greeks would not be able to purchase things that they think they need from foreign countries . . . like TVs, cars, washing machines, etc.
But at least they would be free from the Euro yoke, and have control over their own fate . . . and have nobody else to blame, if they don't like how it turns out.
The imagery was supposed to be live streamed to the internet, for one thing.
I'm still a little torn on this issue. On one hand, I'm not sure that I am comfortable with Al Gore gazing at my butt while I am lounging outside naked in my backyard.
On the other hand, it seems that Al Gore's satellite would give me the opportunity to moon entire planet . . . !
I'd like to have the chip implanted in my dick. I have a tiny little mind, and am easily amused by puerile shenanigans . . . so whipping out my dick and waving it around to open doors and pay for stuff . . . priceless!
MasterCard, Visa and American Express, please take note of this post! This is the "Innovative Cloud of Internet of Things," that everyone is talking about!
Call me an old geezer, but I definitely have problems with neutrons from another brane taking a leak on my lawn . . .
With all these Braines, shouldn't there be a lot of zombies chasing them around?
And what are the physics of Zombie Neutron interaction?
This might be a question for Buckaroo Banzai, beyond the the eighth dimension . . .
If I am up against any big varmint that walks the face of this planet, I'd choose a Heckler & Koch MP7. Whatever is on the wrong side of the barrel of that . . . doesn't need to be concerned aboutf its retirement fund.
However, you need to be trained and experienced in using the weapon. Otherwise, when you are trying to plink a burglar in your house, you will end up hitting instead:
Your wife.
Your kids.
Your dog.
Any members of the Bush family that are considering to run for President of the US.
Hillary Clinton's granddaughter.
. . . and Barack Obama, as "The Beaver" . . .
It's a frighteningly effective weapon, and cops in the US are probably happy that drug gang folks have not discovered it yet.
Oh, and it has all the three things that the scientist Jared Diamond wrote about in in his book about what makes a successful civilization: Guns, Germans and Steel
"Survival kit contents check. In them you'll find:
- One forty-five caliber automatic
- Two boxes of ammunition
- Four days' concentrated emergency rations
- One drug issue containing antibiotics, morphine,
vitamin pills, pep pills, sleeping pills, tranquilizer pills
- One miniature combination Russian phrase book and Bible
- One hundred dollars in rubles
- One hundred dollars in gold
- Nine packs of chewing gum
- One issue of prophylactics
- Three lipsticks
- Three pair of nylon stockings.
Shoot, a fella' could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff."
"The one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception a neccessity." - Oscar Wilde