You're arguing against Tokamak fusion. But what about, say, HiPER? Looks to me to be a much more comercializeable approach, yet it's still "mainstream" fusion, just a slight variant on inertial confinement ala NIF to make it much smaller / cheaper / easier to have a high repeat rate (smaller compression pulse + heating pulse rather than a NIF-style super-massive compression pulse). The only really unstudied physics aspect is how the heating pulse will interact with the highly compressed matter; NIF and pals have pretty much worked out the details of how laser compression works out. Beyond this, pretty much everything else is just engineering challenges for commercialization, such as high repeat rate lasers, high-rate hohlraum injection and targeting, etc.
I've often thought (different topic) about how one can get half or more of fusion's advantages via fission if you change the game around a bit. Fusion is promoted on being passively safe (it's very hard to keep the reaction *going*, it really wants to stop at all times), it leads to abundant fuel supplies, and there's little radioactive waste (no long-term waste). But what about subcritical fission reactors? Aka, a natural uranium or thorium fuel target being bombarded with a spallation neutron source. Without the spallation neutrons, there's just not enough neutrons for the reaction, so the second the beam gets shut off, the reactor shuts down, regardless of what else is going on. It'd be a fast reactor, aka a breeder, aka, your available fuel supplies increase by orders of magnitude. And your long-term waste would be much, much less in a well-designed reactor. Spallation neutron sources have long been proposed as a way to eliminate long-lived nuclear waste by transmuting it into shorter-lived elements.
I agree that Chrome browser has a generally pleasant interface (to the point that other browsers feel cluttered, to me). However, look at everything else Google touches. It's always cluttered, clunky, and misleading. G+, youtube, youtube mobile clients, youtube clients on consoles and roku and other devices. Google Docs. Even Gmail to a degree. Google has two things that are pleasing as interfaces: Chrome and Google.com's main page. Everything else feels like an engineer tossed it together in a day after working on the backend for two years.
Granted, this is but one man's opinion. Maybe everyone else loves these interfaces...?
I'm fine with subscriptions. I would rather pay $5/mo to RDIO for access to their massive library than buy music. What could that $60/yr get me? Four CDs? No thanks.
On the other hand, they're all missing a lot of content, too. It's frustrating to really want one chunk of music and simply not be able to get it. And, of course, no subscription service gives you Led Zep or Beatles and AC/DC and so on, it seems.
I just don't know that I'd give Youtube $10/mo. Double the price.. for what is probably a weaker selection (and one that is probably geared more toward Gaga, Bieber, PewDiePie fans).
Plus, Youtube means Youtube/Google interface. Fuck that. RDIO isn't great, but at least it wasn't designed by Google's interface guys. *shudder*
Have you ever written C code which uses a switch statement based on what type a struct/union is and calling the relevant code for it?
No. When I use structures as objects (which is often), they almost always contain a pointer to a block of general methods appropriate to that structure, as well as containing any methods unique to the object, all of which are called through the object/structure, so it would be unusual, at least, to be testing the object type in order to choose an object-specific procedure to call. However, I do mark each object type with a specific ID and serial as they are created, along with a tag indicating what procedure created them, as these things facilitate some very useful memory management and diagnostic mechanisms.
Have you ever used qsort?
I am aware of qsort. But I have my own multi-method sort library that I use. Most of them locate the comparison mechanisms they are to use through the procedures specified by the objects they are asked to sort. Likewise list management, memory management, certain types of drawing primitives and image processing primitives, image handling mechanisms, associative storage, basically anything I have run into that I thought likely I would need more than once. I am positively locked into the idea that if I write it, I can fix it, and the number of bugs and problems that fall into the "maybe they'll fix the library someday" class are greatly reduced. I'm a little less picky if I have the source code to a capability I didn't actually write and can supply my own version if and as needed. A good example of something like that is SQLite. Actually having the source code and compiling it in reduces my inherent paranoia to a somewhat duller roar.
Ha. Funny. Thank you, didn't know that.
People owning and running businesses should be allowed to choose whith whom they associate and do business and then the ones which discriminate against otherwise good, paying customers can rightfully go under instead of being propped up by the policies of the state.
That's precisely the kind of thinking that led to child labor in factories and mines; it is also why we have to subsidize low paying jobs through our taxes so people can survive at a (somewhat) more reasonable level. It is what led to "whites only" and "separate bathrooms"; It is why the male/female employment ratios are so skewed; it is why older engineers are replaced by younger ones who know far less and don't have families to support; it is why the EPA, or something like it, really needs to exist. And so on.
Business, large and small, incorporated or not, as entities, resemble people only to the degree that most of them, left unregulated, exhibit sociopathy and/or psychopathy. History has shown this explicitly, time and time again. No one is guessing about this: the facts have been in for a long time, and new facts consistent with the old continue to arrive with distressing regularity.
The idea that business, left to its own discretions, will do the right thing is nothing more than a fantasy. Unregulated business is a very bad idea, and further, the premise that bad businesses will automatically fail because customers will do the right thing is equally bankrupt, and for many of the same reasons. Large numbers of people are both selfish and disinterested in the welfare of others.
Yes but that doesn't make the intestines a sexual organ.
Any body part with nerve endings and/or usable contact surfaces can be brought into play in sexual relations under the right circumstances. This has nothing do do with the gender of the party or parties involved. The fact that you don't know these things speaks very poorly about your competence and experience in the sexual arena.
Please take a minute and 45 seconds to absorb the following (quite funny) video:
Yes, it's still going strong (and particularly hot right now!)
Hansel? Is that you?
Wouldn't it more useful for it to be set in silicone?
Intend to stay abreast of the spec, do you?
I like to stay as close to the metal as I can get. I'd use assembler, but many of my projects are cross platform, so c it is.
Wrong, you're talking about charge 2 on the EAW, which is only a molestation charge, not rape. charge 4 on the EAW is the rape charge and concerns a different woman. All of the charges are:
1. On 13th – 14th August 2010, in the home of the injured party [name given] in Stockholm, Assange, by using violence, forced the injured party to endure his restricting her freedom of movement. The violence consisted in a firm hold of the injured party’s arms and a forceful spreading of her legs whilst lying on top of her and with his body weight preventing her from moving or shifting.
2. On 13th – 14th August 2010, in the home of the injured party [name given] in Stockholm, Assange deliberately molested the injured party by acting in a manner designed to violate her sexual integrity. Assange, who was aware that it was the expressed wish of the injured party and a prerequisite of sexual intercourse that a condom be used, consummated unprotected sexual intercourse with her without her knowledge.
3. On 18th August 2010 or on any of the days before or after that date, in the home of the injured party [name given] in Stockholm, Assange deliberately molested the injured party by acting in a manner designed to violate her sexual integrity i.e. lying next to her and pressing his naked, erect penis to her body.
4. On 17th August 2010, in the home of the injured party [name given] in Enkoping, Assange deliberately consummated sexual intercourse with her by improperly exploiting that she, due to sleep, was in a helpless state. It is an aggravating circumstance that Assange, who was aware that it was the expressed wish of the injured party and a prerequisite of sexual intercourse that a condom be used, still consummated unprotected sexual intercourse with her. The sexual act was designed to violate the injured party’s sexual integrity.
Please follow the case better if you wish to comment about it.
Once again, Assange fanboys go all out to dismiss the rape charge against him without even knowing enough about it to even keep the two women involved straight.
There are two women involved here: AA and SW (and no, their names haven't been scrubbed, but it's a sick testament to our society than rather than letting justice run its course, everyone wants to lead a personal witch hunt against the accusers, and I certainly won't help enable it). AA is the one who tweeted (but not what you said she tweeted) and who has been to cuba and wrote a blog (which doesn't say what you say it said). SW is a low-level museum worker who did none of the above. The rape charge only applies to SW. There are no rape charges concerning AA, only three lesser charges - 1x unlawful sexual coersion and 2x molestation.
The fact that you don't know even this most fundamental basic aspect of the case yet want to pontificate about it speaks volumes as to how much you are just willing to assume the innocence of Assange and that the women are just lying sluts trying to set up an innocent man. Which always happens with famous people and their fans. When you hear people talking about "rape culture", that's a very big part of it.
Now, let's correct your misrepresentation of the facts in detail.
1) There are no rape charges concerning AA. She described a series of unpleasant experiences, first to friends, later to police, involving the pinning of her down to try to force sex, her consent in exchange for the use of a condom which she feels he deliberately broke, and his repeated acts at later periods such as rubbing his naked genitals against him after she had told him no. She became so uncomfortable around him that she moved out of her own apartment to avoid him. The events therein form the basis of the unlawful sexual coersion and molestation charges. The tweet in question was not "Julian is FANTASTIC", it was "Sitting outdoors at 02:00 and hardly freezing with the world's coolest smartest people in the world". She was at a party full of political activists, one of the people there being Julian. At the same party, according to testimony collected by the police, she warned a friend about Julian.
2) She did not file a rape complaint. All of the testimony speaks to that she went to the police to support SW in her going to the police to report a rape by bringing up what Julian had done to her. Which is only what a person would expect. SW had already at that point, according to testimony, been telling friends and family that she'd been raped by Julian. SW's goal in going, however, was not prosecution but to try to force Julian to take an STD test. AA's blog (again, NOT SW, who the rape charge is about) entry was something she copied years ago from someone else about how to break an ex boyfriend up with his new girlfriend, and the first two rules basically sum up as "don't do it". And seriously, do you honestly think if millions of fanboys combed through everything you've ever written on the net that they couldn't find something to attack your character with?
3) See my reply to the post above yours, and pay particular attention to the fact that the Svea Court of Appeals has already reviewed all evidence in a full court hearing with testimony from Assange's attorneys and ruled against him, and the Swedish Supreme Court refused Assange's appeal.
4) How does a person "convince" a person of anything while they're asleep? Is Assange capable of doing Inception?
5) Again, you're talking about AA, not SW. The attacks against AA are the most ridiculous six degrees of separation thing I've seen in ages. It's something penned by Israel Shamir, a famously misogynistic and antisemitic author, as well as being the guy who's famous as being the person who gave unreleased Wikileaks information to the dictator of Belarus which he then used in a purge of political opponents (google "Israel Shamir" and "Belarus"). The argument he posted on Counterpunch basically goes like this: AA once wrote articles in support of democracy in Cuba for a journal, and that journal was run by a group, which is connected to another group, which is connected to another guy, that a Wordpress blog says is a CIA agent; and that the group she worked with a women's rights/democracy group in cuba which is connected to a group in Miami that once held a parade that a guy who tried to blow up a plane in Cuba marched in (Maria Carey marched in the same parade). Wow, I'm sold, clearly a CIA agent! And let me guess: the CIA planted SW as a low-level museum worker afraid of unprotected ages ago because their CIA psychics forsaw the day when there would be a guy named Julian Assange who would find her attractive and sleep with her unprotected?
Nobody has backed out of anything. Both women still have legal representation pushing the case forward. They've been trying to stay out of the public eye, but one made a remark on a blog half a year ago about how she was a victim of sex crimes and the perpetrator still hasn't been brought to justice and his fans keep making excuses for him. Does that sound like having "backed out of said accusations" to you?
No, it's not "his word against hers". The Svea Court of Appeals has found probable cause for rape, and the Supreme Court upheld it, does that sound like "his word against hers"?
Just what we know from what's leaked so far, which is just a fraction of the evidence: everyone whose close to SW has testified that she's had a lifelong paranoia about unprotected sex. Her former boyfriend of 2 1/2 years testified that when they were together it was "unthinkable" to her, that not only did it never happen, but she even made him get STD tested before protected sex. As for the night in question, here's the leadup that neither Assange nor his legal team have issued any dispute to: that he and SW went home together, where they were making out and she repeatedly refused the unprotected sex that Assange sought. He reluctantly consented to protected sex at least once. Assange's attorney even described (while trying to claim that there was no rape) that his client was "pushing the boundaries of what she felt comfortable with", so there's no dispute to this, Assange's team admits to it. In the morning Assange sent her out to buy him breakfast. Here we have phone records, SMS records, and interviews with those talked to to back up SW's report, and no dispute registered from Assange's team: that she complained bitterly about how mad she was getting at Assange for repeatedly trying to F* her unprotected against her will and for bossing her around. In line she also ran into her brother, who described her as looking very upset when the conversation turned to Assange. She returned home with the food; they ate, and she fell asleep.
Now, that entire thing thusfar is not disputed by any party. What Assange's team claims happened next is that she was "half awake" and consented to unprotected sex (what she says, and told many people before going to the police station, is that she woke up to him doing it). Let's reiterate: the woman with an extreme lifelong paranoia about unprotected sex who was immediately before falling to sleep complaining to her friends about Assange trying to have unprotected sex with her and bossing her around, suddenly wakes up and says "Let's f*** without protection".
Is it any wonder the guy keeps losing legal cases?
I'm against violence in general, actual rape,
No, when you automatically believe everything you hear about a guy accused of rape because you like the guy and assume any charges against him are a giant conspiracy, and calls F*ing a person while they're a sleep in a manner they expressly prohibited "stuck his boner in a place that it shouldn't have been", an act that one can "hardly blame the person who did it" - you're nothing but an enabler.
So you think that money is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked what is the root of money? -- Ayn Rand
