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Comment Re:Broken Style (Score 2) 154

The Anthropocene Epoch ended when the Bad Slashdot Style Epoch began after the following style code was introduced:

#comments { clear:both; display:block; position:relative; padding: 0; margin: 0 0 0 122px; padding-right: 1.5em;z-index:1;}

Get rid of the 122px left margin--it's wasting a lot of space.

Thank you I thought it was one of my script blockers acting up.

Comment Zawinski's Law (Score 1) 553

Christ almighty, this beast is a fucking monster. What's next, a shell and a userland?

No it will expand until it can read mail.

Zawinski's Law of Software Development

        “Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can.”

Comment Re:What's next? (Score 1) 496

"Funding for science under Republic administration's has been historically higher than other Democrats."

Perhaps you don't understand that the Administrations do not set the budget and that Congress controls the purse strings. While the White House can ask for whatever it wants in a budget, Congress gets to do whatever they want and then send it back to the president to sign or veto.

You giving credit to President Bush for things he didn't do...

Firstly I am not making that claim noted astrophysicist and cosmologist Neil deGrasse Tyson did, I only quoted his answer he gave to a question on politics and science funding.

Secondly I am, contrary to your claim, well aware of who makes the budget, but you sir seem to be unaware of your resent political history, so lets look at the congressional make-up during Bush’s tenure in office shall we.

2001–2003 Senate - Democrats 50 Republicans 50 Independent 0 - House - Democrats 212 Republicans 221 Independent 2
2003–2005 Senate - Democrats 48 Republicans 51 Independent 1 - House - Democrats 205 Republicans 229 Independent 1
2005–2007 Senate - Democrats 44 Republicans 55 Independent 1 - House - Democrats 202 Republicans 231 Independent 1 Vacant 1
2007–2009 Senate - Democrats 49 Republicans 49 Independent 2 - House - Democrats 233 Republicans 198 Independent 0 Vacant 4
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/...

For all but one year of Bush's presidency both the House and the Senate were controlled by the Republicans. So the party that increased funding of NASA, NIH, and Nation Science Foundation was the Republicans as they controlled the budget for 7 out of 8 years.

If you wish to educate us all, the least you could do is have a passing knowledge in the subject.

I suggest that when you want to attack someone for not knowing their basic civics that you youself know what you are talking about.

Comment Re:What's next? (Score 0) 496

You know many people insult the republicans fo being Anti Science but what do scientists like Neil Degrass Tyson say

what is your measure op support for science? Is what anybody says, or is it where money gets spent. Basically in Washington it's where money gets spent. Sensibly cuz thats kinda the a point of congress, to spend the three trillion dollars that is the budget each year and how you spend it is the portfolio what defines this nation. Period.
If you ask people, someone from the far left;
"Tell me about Bush and science"
He'll tell you; "oh he hates science, the republicans hate science" and get all excited like.
So alright well what about it give me examples and get basically only three examples you get his record on the environment and stem cells... this pretty much kinda it. And that's given as the example of the republicans having a war on science. Meanwhile over that time the budget for the NIH, the National Institute of Health, tripled over that time. The budget for that National Science Foundation went up by like 40 percent, over that time the budget for NASA went up by about 20 percent not as much as we all wanted but it went up.
During the Clinton administration the budget for NASA dropped by 25 percent over those eight years. So then you look at the issues that Bush was resistant to scientifically and the all traceable to his the fundamentalist Christian electorate that help to get him into office in the first place so makes complete sense that that's what his posturing would be.
I was even surprised by that. I was standing in the middle now just watching politics unfold. That's the politics of it. You can go to Washington and say it's all this politics, because it is all politics its Washington DC.
As an academic, I came to it first as an academic, and I said that there is a problem, here because the it gets so political. To an academic politics is a boundary it is a barrier between where you are and where you wanna land. In Washington it is the currency. Once you understand then navigate like that.

Okay the Dover Pennsylvania trial on intelligent design everyone on the left was worried because the judge presiding over it was bush appointed. I spent enough time with republicans by then and understood the system, so I was not worried at all. And know I have to remind you there was a court case where the the school board wanted to introduce what's called intelligent design to the science classroom. Intelligent design is the premise that there's some things in nature that are not accountable by scientific means and they must have a divine or they would say a intelligence greater than humans that made it happen. which isn't science it is religion basically okay. So therefore doesn't belong in the science put it wherever else it doesn't on the science classroom.
So as thats a whole other the conversation.
So I wasn't worried at all about the setback. I just chilled out.
Funding for science under Republic administration's has been historically higher than other Democrats. Knowing this and knowing that in innovations in science and technology are the engines of economic growth as they have been since the industrial revolution I new above all else
there is a truth that "No Republican wants to die poor."
Therefore if you start bringing things that are not science into a science classroom, you undermine the science curriculum, preventing America from being leaders in science evermore and then you end up dying poor.
and if you read the the court case as written by the judge it is an example in in scientific pedagogy I recommend you take it up online it's brilliantly written says what science is and what isn't and ID is not science. So I don't think it was the black hole of science that everyone says. What one should argue is, one should not politicise science. And that's a different argument from saying that science was not treated with higher budgets because in fact it was.

Comment Re:Meh (Score 1) 220

If they had any principles they wouldnt be using an apple device.

Not always for example my father has to have a iPhone because the vendor that provides the automation platform his business depends on only releases their app for remote manegment on iOS and WIndows phone with an Android one in development supposedly for the last 4 years or so. So he had choice between a Windows phone 7 and iPhone. Neither are good options, so he picked the less shitty of the two.

Comment Re:Why? (Score 1) 163

You're not thinking like someone who has to deal with the general public.

People who read slashdot can easily rattle off some semi-accurate estimates for how much bandwidth a particular online activity consumes. Load BBC News? Less than 1mb (I hope). Listen to a streamed MP3 of a pop hit? Probably 3-4mb. Watch a 40 second video? Maybe 5-8 megabytes. Windows update? Errrmm ..... maybe 20-30? Stream a full TV episode. Multiple gigabytes.

In my experience a episode of 20 minutes at 720p is about 700mb and 480p of same length it 350mb but varies with format and encoding.

Comment Re:Dupe (Score 1) 840

My "actual data" would of course entail my relatives and friends, who indeed can "fix shit", while the current generation is mostly useless in that regard. Can't solder, can't crimp, can't change an oil filter or even headlight bulb, can't measure nor cut nor fasten lumber, etc. etc.

And for every millennial who can't change an oil filter or fasten lumber there is a 50 year old who can't program their digital clock or reconfigure their new cellphone without waiting for their kids to come home for the holidays. Different generations have different skills, and they usually align with the skills that were useful to them in their early life.

I think it depends on what people in that generation they look at, for example even though I am a member the described generation I can and have soldered electronics back to working order and spliced electrical cables, I can do minor car maintenance/repair and do complete teardowns of small engines (lawn mower, chainsaws etc) and fix them, I can build cabinetry and have roofed a building including making new trusses from scratch. I also know a number of survival/primitive skills, (rope making, fishing, trapping, fire building (sans matches and lighter) edible pants, etc. But then again I had parent that made me go into a scouts like groups and insisted that I take some practical classes in high school like small engines and made me learn to replace all of the fluids, spark plugs distributer and such before I could learn to drive. Then I have friends that look at everything as a magic black box that does things for the; then they take them to repair shoppes or buy new one when it stops. The big problem I see is people that have aren't taught the skills not because they are incompetent or uninterested but because then never were put it a situation to learn how and the up front cost to learn now it much higher because classes aren't free after high school and all there time is taken up working when classes are available.

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