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Comment Re:Ready, set, go! (Score 1) 60

Personally, I prefer using a little bit of it for both.

In case you haven't noticed, the world is a messed up place. If we, as a country, don't have the ability to kill people efficiently, and in large numbers, we likely wouldn't exist as a country. Someone else, willing to spend money on killing people, would come in and take over.

As for welfare - I like the sig for "shutdown -p now" - "I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization." I'm not saying that we should support a professional welfare class, but we should make sure everyone has BASIC needs so they don't decide to start mugging people and robbing houses to avoid starvation..

DRM

Submission + - Dragon Age DRM Servers Down 1

Bender0x7D1 writes: It seems BioWare is having server issues, leaving them unable to authorize downloadable content to their Dragon Age players. According to their forum players have been unable to access their content since Friday, and it may not be resolved for another day. Players are understandably upset about the issue, but are even more upset that there is no official comment by BioWare forcing them to rely on other players for information.
Transportation

What Happens If You Get Sucked Out of a Plane? 327

astroengine writes "We've all wondered about it. When flying at 30,000ft, you look around the cramped economy class cabin thinking 'I wonder if I'd survive being sucked out of this plane if a hole, say, just opened above my head?' That's probably around the time that you should fasten your seat belt. According to medical experts interviewed by Discovery News in the wake of the Southwest Airlines gaping hole incident, the rapid depressurization, low oxygen levels and freezing cold would render you unconscious very quickly. Assuming you don't get chopped in half as you exit through the hole and hit the tail, you'd be long dead before you hit the ground. Nice."

Comment Re:Whatever everyone else is doing (Score 1) 717

It was a one-way, three-lane road, but everybody was driving as if it were two extra-wide lanes. I don't know how it started. I don't know how it kept going.

I'm guessing it got started from people being nervous and staying away from the edges of the road and each other. Someone in the right-most lane doesn't know where the shoulder begins, since it's covered with snow, and they move a few feet away "just to be safe" which puts them into the middle lane. The other lane of traffic is avoiding the people drifting into the middle lane, and wants to avoid the median shoulder so calls it a compromise by basically driving down the center of the median and left-most lane.

The reason it continues it you end up with ruts in the snow that people keep following to get better traction.

I've seen something similar in the midwest where 2-lane highways become 1-lane highways because everyone is driving down the middle of the road to minimize the odds they slide into a ditch.

Comment Re:*HOW* Much?! (Score 1) 279

Half a billion dollars? Are you fucking kidding me?!

That only sounds like a lot. If a university with 50,000 faculty, staff and students announces a $1 million dollar upgrade it wouldn't seem too bad. Now multiply that by 6,000 to account for a US population of 300 million people and you would get to $6 billion. So, half a billion is pretty reasonable.

Also, since you mentioned iPads - there is a world of difference between enterprise equipment and commercial equipment. You might not care if your system dies due to a failed power supply, but these servers can't go down. Which means redundant power supplies that are hot swappable. Plus you are going to have multiple drives with hardware RAID that are also hot swappable. You might think enterprise equipment isn't needed or is too expensive - until you have to tell your boss 50,000 people aren't going to get their checks on time since a server went down.

Comment Re:Correct perspective: This is a cost SAVINGS dev (Score 0) 782

So if we are using (expensive) TOW missiles to clear entire buildings, how does an AT4 cause too much damage in urban fighting? Not to mention the CS variant is specifically designed for use in an urban environment.

Also, one important purpose of the attack helicopter is to get around (over) all those OTHER pesky buildings that ruin the line-of-sight to the target. Plus, the TOW is guided, (unlike the AT4 - but not the new XM25), greatly reducing the chance of missing the target and hitting the window beside it where a family is cowering on the floor. However, the TOW range is far greater than the XM25 (4500 meters), and the explosive payload is also far greater.

Even with the new weapon system, I don't see the TOW going away any time soon.

Comment Re:Erm...what? (Score 3, Interesting) 360

Now, I am not a lawyer, but it seems that all of your points are flawed due to one fact: You are allowed to represent yourself.

  • No religious exemption needed. If you don't want a lawyer, do it yourself.
  • You can hire anyone you want to testify or be your administrative assistant. They can't act in the courtroom as a lawyer or associate, but they can hand you notes on what to do/say if needed.
  • No association required if you represent yourself.
  • Assuming you aren't a lawyer, you have a non-lawyer representing you.

Also, as a side note, don't try turning a courtroom into a political statement. If you annoy the judge, they can fine you or imprison you for contempt of court.

Comment Re:Thanks Congressman Ron Paul (R)! (Score 1) 741

Here's some big differences:

  • Your cars are a lot nicer than the cars back in the early 70s. They probably have power locks, power windows, air conditioning, surround sound, far more safety features (air bags are expensive) and maybe some nice features like heated seats.
  • You, and your kids, probably have a bigger/nicer TV, DVD player, satellite/premium cable, and a game console.
  • You have at least one computer at home - unless you post to Slashdot from work.
  • Plus, you are paying tuition/housing for two kids in college - and college tuition increases have exceeded inflation for decades.

Really, if you wanted to be in that comfortable middle class like your dad, you would probably have to give up a lot of comforts they just didn't have back then - and it's a lot nicer to have air conditioning instead of a fan.

Also, you might want to recheck your definitions. I'm guessing that you are spending a lot of money that you don't have to if you are only living a "boring" middle-class life. Or, you might not realize what a middle-class life actually is. The middle class doesn't have everything they want, but they do have everything they need - plus a little left over for nice things on occasion.

Middle-class vacations back in the 70s was loading the family in the car and driving to visit relatives and staying with them to save costs. (Although camping was a good alternative.) Flying somewhere and staying in a hotel was definitely a sign of being upper-middle-class at the very least. Plus, do you buy designer clothes or buy "regular" brands? Middle-class is picking up your day-to-day clothes at Target or Walmart, not Macy's or a specialty store. Plus, the middle class does things like clip coupons, wait for sales or other things to stretch their dollar.

Comment Minimalist approach (Score 4, Interesting) 366

My first line of defense is that I try to keep things to a minimum. If I have more than 3 things going on, I will delay most of them and do a mediocre job on the others because I'm not focused.

However, to answer your question, the best strategy I've ever used was a single notebook to track everything. Every item gets a bullet and every day gets a new page. If something didn't get done, it gets rewritten on the page for the next day. That means everything is in one place and having to rewrite the items every day is annoying, so items I don't really care about will be dropped from the list. If necessary, the bullets can reference outside information like, "Implement request in John's email 'Need a favor' received on 10/24/2010."

If you decide to resurrect an old project, you can flip through the notebook to find the bullet items regarding that project to help get yourself back up to speed.

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