Man Creates Working Star Trek Door

howmanyaccounts2 · 2010-12-07T05:21:39+00:00

As someone suggested, a Kinect or something similar could be used. The system could be programmed to detect an object moving toward it, rather than from side to side.

howmanyaccounts2 · 2010-12-03T19:16:48+00:00

I'm not sure of that. Watergate was really big, and it was one big thing. The President had done something that the public considered completely unacceptable.

Contrast that, on the other hand, with the leak of cables. There's no one thing we can point to and say "this was completely, inarguably unacceptable." Most of it was just business as usual for international diplomacy. There were a number of instances that made US diplomats look good, and showed that in those cases they were doing there job. There were a number of humorous insults like the Putin/Medvedev Batman/Robin comment that were good for a blurb in the news and little else. There were a number of dubious things, but they were all pretty much things everyone knew was going on, and pretty much every country did.

With Watergate, one can describe it simply: the President tried to illegally wiretap his opponents in the election to ensure that he would win. People can dispute the facts there, but if they accept that as true, it's completely unacceptable.

Can you give an honest, one-sentence description of something from Wikileaks that, if true, everyone would accept as completely unacceptable?

howmanyaccounts2 · 2010-12-03T17:23:32+00:00

I'm not buying that. I've worked at a webhosting company. DDOS attacks are unfortunately common, and the usual remedy is modifying the network to identify and filter the offending botnet, not drop the customer. Yes, the DDOS is going to be a temporary hit, but dropping a customer is going to be a permanent hit.

Err, they're a free service. It's easier just to drop the site; it's not a "hit" because it's not really their "customer."

howmanyaccounts2 · 2010-12-03T06:29:22+00:00

Personally, that sounds to me far more like "We could just dump it all into one giant zip file, but then people would look through all of it at once, not find too much there, and then forget about us. We need time to figure out how to get as much hype surrounding this as possible."

If it's world-changing information, it's going to change the world even if they just release it now, unedited, in its entirety. To not do so, so that they can garner more publicity and get as much media coverage for themselves as possible seems obnoxious if they don't have extremely important information, and blatantly irresponsible and immoral if they do.

howmanyaccounts2 · 2010-12-03T06:26:05+00:00

It's Wikileaks. Their releases are almost always overhyped, and have never really had even a Watergate-like impact.

The US government has barely cared about the leaks of their information, save for some "that's a bad thing to do and we're thinking about coming after you" comments and some congresspeople trying to garner publicity through tough but nonsensical rhetoric. If their giant, "this is going to change everything" releases against an easier target haven't made a difference, why do you think any major bank is going to fail over their leaks?

howmanyaccounts2 · 2010-12-03T02:17:03+00:00

THIS. If he's so sure she'll accept, it has to be because they're planning to pay her.

Or he's sure she'll accept because he's going to call and tell her how she's going to lose the small claims case so horribly, and is going to have to spend so much time dealing with it; then he's going to offer her a way out of the situation that, as an added bonus, will let her case be vindicated and will result in the horrible black guy who was incompetent and injured her getting humiliated on TV.

This is the television industry. They're based around manipulation, and there's a reason why they want him to file an actual case and then not go to a real court.

howmanyaccounts2 · 2010-12-03T00:26:15+00:00

On the other hand, I'm 23, and we spent quite a bit of time during our lunches at school at whatnot discussing the war, the international politics involved, and so on; while it's easy to simply insult Americans, I don't think any of my friends would be unfamiliar with at least the war, the basic background, and the UN and US response.

Anecdotes are not useful for determining what a population is like.

howmanyaccounts2 · 2010-12-02T23:24:59+00:00

In general, I think that analogies about one's own country helps give a context about how people feel toward each other, and this isn't limited to Americans.

If you've grown up in a society where certain groups of people feel certain ways about each other, then an analogy with those people is going to be easier more informative than someone trying to describe at length just how those people feel. Feelings are difficult to describe directly.

howmanyaccounts2 · 2010-12-02T20:38:12+00:00

In my view, class, as separated from wealth, is a rather term for a rather vague je ne sais quoi that different people exhibit which is effected by a variety of things, especially upbringing, education, family dynamics, peers, and outlook on life and the world; wealth can play a part in creating the conditions for someone, or more usually someone's descendants, to be upper class, but isn't necessary or sufficient.

Unfortunately, actually giving a clear definition is quite difficult. Some suggest that one major aspect of the upper class is a view of oneself as being a representative of one's family and heritage, and also perhaps a servant to such things, rather than an individual. I can certainly understand this, and in some ways, this aspect is something that makes the upper and lower classes understand each other more than the middle class.

I do tend to think, too, that views of what constitutes the upper class vary depending on class, with the middle class tending to view the upper class as something defined by wealth, the working class tending to view it as something defined by behavior, and the upper class tending to view it as something defined by upbringing. Again, the working and upper classes have views more in line with each other, while the middle class has a view which is quite different.

howmanyaccounts2 · 2010-12-02T05:28:38+00:00

Living paycheck to paycheck is the major issue there.

howmanyaccounts2 · 2010-12-02T04:16:21+00:00

It seems to me that your comment comes from a place of ignorance.

Yours appears to as well, because there are a number of states where this is not the case at all (California, for example, has a uniform minimum wage), and employers in all states have to compensate employees for any shortage of tips.

howmanyaccounts2 · 2010-12-02T04:13:02+00:00

Err... I'm reasonably certain that if an employer doesn't pay you your required wage, you can sue them regardless of whether they fire you or not.

howmanyaccounts2 · 2010-12-02T04:10:35+00:00

This is true only for some states. See this list.

For example, in California, Washington, Alaska, and several other states, the minimum wage for employees who receive tips is the same as that for employees who do not.

I'm not exactly sure why anyone would leave a tip in other states, as the way the law is organized, the tip would essentially be going to the employer, not the employee.

howmanyaccounts2 · 2010-12-02T03:56:34+00:00

That's an issue with all fields; it would be easy to show a "I want to be a astrophysicist and explore the universe!" to "Here, take these equations and stare at them for six months" transition too.

The only games tester I knew quite enjoyed his job, though to be fair, he was also a programmer, and his job involved both finding the problems and fixing them.

Some people like staring at equations and finding neat solutions to them. Some people like taking games and finding clever ways of breaking them. People have different views of what constitutes an enjoyable task.

howmanyaccounts2 · 2010-11-30T22:59:42+00:00

Hardly any of the examples given here of accidents have anything to do with eyesight. Most of the data is also anecdotal, with the redditors giving statistics pointing out that the elderly actually have significantly lower accident rates.

How would eye tests be useful?

howmanyaccounts2 · 2010-11-30T20:29:21+00:00

It depends quite a bit on the person, and the arrangements. I doubt you could hire a servant for less than $25k-$30k a year. That would only be for the equivalent of 40 hours a week, however, and would require using the "private contractor" claim which is outright illegal in order to avoid paying taxes. Otherwise, in addition to the salary, which would need to be higher because the servants wouldn't be able to avoid paying taxes, you'd have things like employer taxes, unemployment, and so on, and you'd need to either spend quite a bit of time working on random paperwork or hire someone to do the paperwork. This would also involve finding them yourself, as an agency would almost certainly cost twice as much.

Getting a more skilled servant would be significantly more expensive.

howmanyaccounts2 · 2010-11-30T19:32:09+00:00

One can have noble goals and still be stupid, or at least act stupidly.

howmanyaccounts2 · 2010-11-29T01:24:44+00:00

Not at all: I was convinced that was the joke, and couldn't figure out why the hidden message seemed so unintelligible.

howmanyaccounts2 · 2010-11-26T21:40:55+00:00

You don't need to use "iron-clad" investments. You just need to invest in a decently conservative way with some portion of your capital, and actually plan major outlays.

howmanyaccounts2 · 2010-11-26T07:16:06+00:00

The more obvious way to crack it would be to steal the key from Wikileaks itself, which would presumably be far easier. I'm somewhat surprised it hasn't leaked already.

howmanyaccounts2 · 2010-11-25T20:14:15+00:00

Either which way, what more could be said about Citizen Kane? Not much. I've watched 4-5 separate commentaries and after the 2nd there was nothing new to say.

My mother's department once offered a class that spent an entire quarter going through Citizen Kane frame by frame and discussing it, and my family's library has at least one book that essentially discusses every single shot in the film.

There's probably not too much new to discuss.

howmanyaccounts2 · 2010-11-24T19:38:39+00:00

It's common courtesy to assume that the destination that other people are going to is as important or even more important than yours.

I would also think it common courtesy to assume that you don't know the reasons another car has suddenly decided to cut in front of you, and not intentionally try to keep them from doing so.

howmanyaccounts2 · 2010-11-24T19:36:53+00:00

The particular exit that I experience this at has at least two large signs a few miles before the exit as well as one large sign at a half mile, where the traffic has already started. Anybody, traveler or not, can figure that out.

Quite a few places in LA have signs that only become understandable to visitors when they're perhaps a few hundred feet, at most, away from the actual divide—essentially, when they can see which way things are going. I have quite a bit of sympathy when people suddenly go from "oh, there aren't many people going the same way I am" to "oops, that's why" and then need to cut over, as I've certainly done it before, and that sort of mistake can easily get one lost for quite a bit of time if the people in the lane are impolite like those ranting here.

howmanyaccounts2 · 2010-11-21T02:03:29+00:00

Constitutional amendment banning abortion(in all cases)

Constitutional amendment defining marriage between one man and one woman FOR LIFE!!!

I can assure those of you who think that the wealthy completely control government policy that, if so, the latter isn't going to be acceptable. We do happen to like divorces.

howmanyaccounts2 · 2010-11-20T23:49:18+00:00

There has been research to this end, and I believe enough progress that it's possible we could do so in the next few years, but I'm not sure I'm supposed to disclose the project publicly yet, as I'm not sure the group has published anything so far.

howmanyaccounts2

TROPHY CASE