padren

I just bought a new Hard Drive, a Western Digital Caviar Green 500GB so I could install Win7 on it without messing up my XP install until I am fully migrated. When I try to install Win7, it tells me it can't on that drive because the drive has problems and might fail soon... then it lets me and gets most of the way - only to crash out due to a missing file or something like that. I'm trying to figure out whether I was just unlucky enough to get a dud drive, or if something else is out of whack and causing the drive not to behave properly. I downloaded a SMART HD app and it generated this report: DiskCheckup Version: DiskCheckup V2.1 Build: 1004 SmartDisk DLL Version: SmartDisk DLL SDK v1.0 Build: 1017 Time of export: 21:51:37 23-Mar-2010 Device ID: 1 Device Capacity: 476937 MB Serial Number: WD-WCAV92805748 Model Number: WDC WD5000AAVS-00N7B0 SMART ATTRIBUTES: ID Description Raw Value Status Value Worst Threshold TEC --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 Raw Read Error Rate 2947 FAIL 42 1 51 N.A. 3 Spin Up Time 3700ms OK 146 145 21 N.A. 4 Start/Stop Count 47 OK 100 100 0 N.A. 5 Reallocated Sector Count 717 FAIL 110 110 140 N.A. 7 Seek Error Rate 0 OK 200 200 0 N.A. 9 Power On Time 7 OK 100 100 0 N.A. A Spin Retry Count 0 OK 100 253 0 N.A. B Calibration Retry Count 0 OK 100 253 0 N.A. C Power Cycle Count 45 OK 100 100 0 N.A. C0 Power off Retract Count 43 OK 200 200 0 N.A. C1 Load/Unload Cycle Count 73 OK 200 200 0 N.A. C2 Temperature 36 C OK 107 105 0 N.A. C4 Reallocation Event Count 311 OK 1 1 0 N.A. C5 Current Pending Sector Count 541 OK 194 186 0 N.A. C6 Uncorrectable Sector Count 0 OK 100 253 0 N.A. C7 UltraDMA CRC Error Count 0 OK 200 200 0 N.A. C8 Write Error Count 0 OK 100 253 0 N.A. Those two FAIL statements give me the impression it's a bad disk, but I honestly have no idea how to read these things and read some other people posting freaked out SMART results only to get back "oh it's fine don't worry" anyway. I just bought it today so I figure the odds of getting a bad disk out of the box are pretty low - hence I want to be sure. Any suggestions? I've tried 4 times and I still can't install Win7.

I think it would help if we could distill down the exact behaviors involving opinions that cause concern and the desired remedies - I like The Bear's Key's example and I think it fits, but we won't get anywhere if we don't agree on what scope we are talking about. 1) An opinion is stated to emphasize point of view so people are aware of where they are coming from, for better or worse: I would consider this the most honest and reasonable reason to share an opinion - if you are in a debate about the death penalty and someone explains their aunt was murdered and the guy who was executed for the crime was later found innocent then regardless of the intensity their experience is nothing but anecdotal and carries very little weight... but it may explain why they feel the way they feel about the topic, and why they aren't likely to budge. It would be easy to jump on them for all kinds of "Appeal to..." fallacies but often that isn't why they are sharing it - they just want you to know where they are coming from. 2) If they are saying that your argument is invalid and using their opinion as a basis (lets say in the above example, they think your experience is too limited to weigh as much as theirs) then it's important to point out their conclusions are irrelevant as opposed to wrong. There's no need to say "So we should all just go with what you believe then just because you think your experience is more personal?" when you can simply say "For every person who draws your conclusion for your experience, there are others who had similar ones that drew different ones - and neither contribute objective facts to the debate." 3) They are disrupting a debate by trying to use their opinion as a "sacred cow" knowing full well it won't help them win but will tick off someone else. Since this is a type of trolling, responding in kind can only exasperate the situation. They need to be called on it, and I think people do a good job of this. Anyway, my point is there are many ways that opinions can come up in a debate, and we should be pretty clear about (1) The context it comes up in and (2) what we feel needs to be done differently in the future. If we can clarify this it'll give us something to talk about other than the general abstract facets of the topic.

Doesn't this really all boil down to the context of the discussion? If a question is raised that involves whether federal funds should be spent on abortions under certain conditions it seems fair for someone to say that in their opinion that should never be allowed, or the opposite. People's gut reactions are a real factor politically on this issue and it doesn't really matter if a voter backs their opinions or not - they'll still vote by them. That said, all someone's unsubstantiated opinion says is that they have an unsubstantiated opinion. They are saying how they "feel" about something and that doesn't build a case one way or another in terms of trying to uncover the most logically and factually consistent approach to a problem. When someone randomly states an opinion but can't back it up I think the best approach is to get them to clarify the intent of the comment... are they saying "I hear what you are saying, but I feel a stalemate coming on since I just can't help but to disagree" or are they taking an "appeal to authority" approach of saying their opinion is more important than all the facts you've brought up? Consider if someone brought up a perfectly logical argument as to why it's beneficial to lie, cheat and kill. Regardless of how good they are at making their argument or how hungover you are, you probably won't be won over just because they have good debating skills. You may hope to be able to argue them under the table, but if you couldn't for whatever reason, you'd probably state that in your opinion you just can't agree with them regardless of whether you could back it up. It's good for people to state their opinions and clarify where logic isn't enough to change their minds. As long as they don't try to insist on their opinion carrying "debating weight" in their argument's favor as if it was substantiated by facts, there really is no harm. It's just a matter of context and function.

What I dislike is that a super-majority is required to do anything when one team refused to play at all. It's not like all progress froze over every time Republican's had the majority but failed to achieve a super-majority... do you think that is because the Republicans promoted bipartisan legislation, or because Democrats were at least willing to consider voting in favor of Republican legislation? My issue really is with the expectation that "the Democrats should be able to get at least something done considering they did win a super-majority" and their failure is due to their ineffectiveness. It's an unfair burden when it requires 100% unanimous agreement of sixty because you can be 100% certain that all the Republicans will oppose even moderate or "not right wing enough" legislation. To be clear, I didn't say "give them a 70 vote majority" I said to give 10 more votes of breathing room, which includes Republicans - just that they would have to be willing to consider non-right wing solutions. As much as I'd like to see Health Care Reform pass, I'd be happier to see it fail despite getting 10 Republican votes. Just to see that ten individual Republicans can vote outside the party line would make me feel better about the health of this democracy than any legislation could. Unfortunately, precisely because the "unilateral, ideological opposition of the GOP" has been so absolute, those moderate Democrats now cannot disagree without derailing all progress. Also, consider just how insane the pressure must be from lobbyists who already fund a good chunk of a lot of their campaigns - they can lean on any single Democrat to get them to cast a single vote that has huge historical significance. Any vote against stops any legislation. That's far too powerful for any individual - it pretty much ensures nothing can get done. It's not about having 70 clones that think the same - It's about being able to have 10% dissent within the majority party and yet still be able to pass legislation. Here's 12 Democrats that voted for Bush's tax cuts in 2001. Granted, I don't see any Republican Nays in there but they did get 62 votes, an effective super-majority and all because 12 Democrats voted with them. Yet, the idea of 12 Republicans voting for a vaguely liberal bill is a forgone conclusion - count on zero instead.

Just as a point of interest, when a super-majority requires unanimous agreement of every single one of sixty individuals it's pretty much given that nothing can get done. What would we expect the Supreme Court to ever pass if every ruling had to be 9-0? If there was even ten votes of breathing room (whether Republicans who actually thought for themselves or more Democrats or Independents) and they were still this useless, I'd concede your point but unanimous agreement is a pretty tall order.

Maybe you can help me figure this out - but why is the threat of a Filibuster worth cringing from for the Democrats? Strom Thurmond holds the record at 24 hours and 37 minutes over the Civil Rights Act, so why can't Democrats just force the issue? If the Republicans want the bad press of breaking the nation's Filibuster Record over something as benign as a deficit taskforce they can have it. As it stands, it's like the Democrats found a drowning baby, but won't pull it out of the water because "the Republicans are threatening to drown it if they do."

Another possible explanation is the density of roots/canopy structures respond to strain in general, which is generally caused by gravity. Gravity does not tend to change on Earth, but a more versatile response mechanism would allow a tree to adapt with different thickness/weight of branches which would dramatically impact the strain and necessary root structure to support it. So, being able to respond to a "range of strain" would have the side effect of being able to cope with zero G better. It's also worth noting that growing plant seeds in micro-g has continued to be problematic, so to draw a conclusion from a handful of tree seedlings sounds like it would be cherry-picking examples that fit a singular conclusion. As to the OP: As already stated, we are genetically so identical to all the other species on the planet (including amoebas) it really makes the most sense that we originated on Earth. Secondarily - if Aliens were buzzing around us and watching us... they obviously don't want us to notice them since they don't come out and greet us. At the same time, if you can travel interstellar distances can't you drive without headlights on your spaceship?? It's safe to say that any interstellar space-faring species would either be entirely noticed because they want to be, or entirely unnoticed. The other prospect is they don't care either way and we just don't matter to them, but then we probably aren't seeded by them in that case.

What do you get if you divide the circumference of a pumpkin by its diameter? PUMPKIN PI

Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't the big issue that there is a demand for cheap, untaxed illegal labor? If every illegal immigrant became legal overnight and documented, reported income etc etc then they would probably move up to a better jobs, but wouldn't there still be the same companies they used to work for actively hunting out and trying to find specifically illegal (well, anyone under the table willing to work for next to nothing) workers? It seems to me that is the biggest factor in the "invisible hand" driving illegal immigration. They don't come in and "take our jobs" with ultra competitive high quality / cheap rates but fill a rather specific niche of labor - a niche according to the laws of this country should not exist (violates minimum wage laws, OSHA, no SS etc). Honestly, I think we need to treat immigration as one issue, and at the same time increase the penalties on failure to report/adhere to minimum wage laws for employers - regardless of whether they pay illegal immigrants or born citizens. We could "finesse" adherence so the cost of business is accurately represented (some are trapped in a "do or die" competitive cycle of having to hire under the table in certain industries... so it takes a bit of sensitivity to correct). The way it is now - if parts of the economy depend on illegal labor, we can spend all the money we want to kick illegals out or "kick them up" to legitimate wage jobs, but the economy that depends on cheap labor will keep trying to fill that gap until it's corrected.

If there was a cobblestone alleyway that my drunken New Years accolades could echo through they would be echoing through it right now as I stumbled, wishing you all a great 2010!

I have to agree with this and the really interesting thing is, at the time that all four planes on 9/11 were in the air passengers it was business as usual to go along with hijackers, and before flight 93 could be used as a weapon against a building the tactic was already obsolete. In terms of how fast we as a society were able to communicate and adapt organically to a completely new threat under such extreme conditions (while locked in the back of a plane in the air) is in my opinion, pretty impressive. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedJust an interesting twist on this one: http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/northwest-flight-253-al-qaeda-leaders-terror-plot/story?id=9434065 Art therapy for terrorist suspects? Can we upgrade this to Legendary Fail yet?

The cost of making a generic only includes reverse engineering an already researched medication and modifying it slightly, usually by substituting a synthetic for one component or such. Generics directly drive up the price of non-generics because they have to recapture their investment and clear a profit before generics hit the market and their sales plummet. Granted, the amount new drugs have to capture to be "profitable" includes insane net profit levels to be considered industry standard, but the brand name vs. generics pricing disparity is pretty plain.

It looks like things aren't settling down at all in Iran, with protests becoming violent and looking a lot more like something out of Greece not so long ago. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8432047.stm?ls Due to the media blackout everything comes from video on cell phones and isn't verified by news agencies, but it really looks like things are heating up big time. I previously thought things were settling down, but it looks like the opposite is happening. Any thoughts on how this will play out?

Just one caveat - buying and negotiating with pharmaceutical companies as a block to get better prices is not a silver bullet. If the companies base their research costs and profits off of the US market and the money they can make domestically, they can afford to get into secondary markets at a lower cost because all the core investments are paid for in their primary US market. If we refuse to pay the amounts needed to make the drug profitable domestically, and profits from overseas sales don't dent the core costs then we'd be in serious trouble. In other words, simply having a tool to cut a huge swath of their profits away from them does not magically save money anymore than a Union striking and winning "super free medical and free cars for all employees" magically cause those to spring into existence. However, the pharmaceutical industry is far from hurting and is in fact one of (if not the) most profitable industry in the country. Just as an objective free market analysis - doesn't it seem odd that the most profitable (net profit) industry also happens to be selling a product that consumers are struggling desperately to pay for, and often suffer health-wise to go without? Doesn't that seem to imply something is just a little out of whack? That's after the cost of marketing and research, and to me it implies a failing of the free market for such a disparity to exist: consumers desperately want to pay less and are looking for every option on the free market to do so... yet the profit margin for that consumable goes up and up. That disparity implies something is wrong with the invisible hand. With regards to Bascule's comment on name-brand vs. generic drugs: There is a pretty major "hiccup" in the way regulations work here... if you can reverse engineer a drug and make something a tiny bit different that does the same thing, you can sell that as a generic and bypass the patent laws at the fraction of the cost of the original research. As such, the "life cycle" to make back the initial investment isn't about the expiration of the patent, but until generics are reverse engineered and decimate your sales. This means any new drug has to cost far more than it should because if they don't recoup the costs within that shrinking "time till generics hit" timespan they are simply screwed. So generics are cheaper because it's cheaper to figure out what someone smarter than you did and rip them off, than do something novel yourself and try make enough money to pay for it before someone rips you off. And yet - all that said - it's still one of the most profitable industries in the world, so what this really says is they do manage to get ahead on all this volatility. They do have to really charge more because of rip off generics - but probably not nearly as much as they do or they wouldn't be so super profitable. This is why it's such a tangled mess as they do have legitimate concerns and reasons to charge more (mitigate risk), but they are still in the business of maximizing profits at all cost and don't owe the consumer anything and owe the stockholders everything. If they mitigate that risk well the stockholders get the excess, as the consumers already paid to handle the contingency of a fast to market generic risk that never materialized. Just a last note on the pharmaceuticals - does anyone know how much they spend on marketing? I only have anecdotal experiences but it creeps me right out when I go to the doctor and every single calendar, pen, pen holder, sticker and notepad is some piece of pharma swag. It seems entirely out of control to me, and the last thing a doctor needs to do is have the drugs they prescribe influenced by marketing. We don't tend to think of advertising as a huge influence but people wouldn't spend millions if they don't expect to see millions in net gains for the expense. The idea of doctors getting caught up in the whirlwind of the "Medirol Generation" marketing blitz runs completely counter to the sort of judgment they should be using when prescribing medications. I can't help but to think it's a factor that needs to be reigned in severely.

Out of curiosity, aren't people still smuggling condoms filled with drugs in their stomachs and all that? I can only assume that since these terrorists utilize such crude and ultimately ineffective mechanisms that it's a lot harder to swallow explosives but I can't imagine why.

Actually I would suspect that living cells are far more resilient than that. On the one hand they are a delicate balance of microscopic functions, but they also survive massive strains, have a pretty impressive capacity for self repair, and can endure many things. While too much radiation exposure causes cancer, we also can be exposed to enough x-rays safely that they are standard in the medical industry. I think the brain could be a little difficult, as getting every atom to have the right number of electrons would both have to be precise, and deal with a rapidly changing system. How would you "map" a computer ram chip if the 1s and 0s are changing so fast that by the time you map the last bit the first half of them have changed? Getting an exact instantaneous snapshot would be very difficult. Aside from that, the reconstruction method as SH3RL0CK mentions would not be building the person 'in freeze' but while the laws of physics are still acting on the reconstructed molecules. Blood in veins are under pressure, and until the whole is built it will want to splurt out everywhere. Additionally, building anything tends to have an effect on what is immediately near it (it takes energy to place something/bond something at a location, which causes heat loss/entropy) and the build process would have to be very very fine tuned to prevent already constructed elements from changing as a result of constructing it's new neighbors. And of course, beaming and space and distances really makes it all very far fetched as a technology.

Wouldn't you know "enough" though to build a replica at the atomic scale? As far as I know there is no reason to believe anything within the mechanics of a human being relies on the state of matter where uncertainty becomes an issue. It wouldn't be any different than producing a replica of a computer chip, just on a far larger scale and to a much higher resolution - but not that small.

You can go your whole life without driving a car, and your entry costs at age 50 don't have any real impact vs if you started getting car insurance at 20. With health insurance: It's illegal to let someone die in the street outside a hospital. If you don't have insurance while you are healthy, you may save yourself some money but it is at the expense of a society that will have to try to help you when you do get sick. It's a huge cost increase for these people yes - 8% is not small. It's already being paid though, just not in any sensible way.

I honestly think it's the wrong approach. The issue of terrorism is global and pervasive, and charities supporting the victims of terrorism should also be global... not Muslim based or based on any other definable subsection of humanity. I really think the problem stems from two main factors: 1) Some Islamic societies that condemn radical Islam/terrorism are often (legitimately) criticized for other social issues, such as respect of individual freedom and the rights of women. While those criticisms are fair, it also makes it easy to conflate the two. 2) Many people looking at Muslim cultures are frankly too lazy or judgmental and have already made up their minds. It seems that even if enough Muslims were able to do enough to convince bigots that they aren't their enemy, it doesn't really address the underlying issue of bigotry in the first place. 3) From what I can tell at least, while the denouncing of 9/11 and other terrorist attacks seems to be the norm there are places that get stickier. The Palestinian / Israeli conflict is an example where many prominent Muslims sympathize with the Palestinians to the point of trying to frame all actions as anything but Terrorism. No matter how badly the UK did things in Northern Ireland (and not saying they did - not opening that debate either way) it is unequivocal that the IRA resorted to Terrorism. My point being: No matter what any group in Ireland did to promote the peace, if that group was unwilling to acknowledge that the IRA tactics were Terrorism they wouldn't have any credibility. In summary, I really don't think Muslims should worry about improving their image - they should (with the rest of us) worry about improving their lives, and the lives of everyone else on this rock. The charity you mention is a good idea - but it should be organized by across all religious and ethnic lines, and not tied to any subset.

How do "black people" help white supremacists overcome the negative reputation that "black people are all crack smoking car jacking gang members" and other stereotypes? To conflate the Taliban with say, the general population of Indonesia is about as inaccurate, considering there are over 200 million Muslims in that country and it's hardly known for terrorism. It's important to look at the beholder, not just the beheld in this sort of situation. I don't think most people really view Islam as a violent terrorism-centric religion, and those that do aren't going to be swayed by a few groups protesting. If anything those people will only condemn the groups that don't. They'd see this a group helping in Indonesia and say "Why aren't them Indian Muslims doing anything about it?" as if people there, predominantly severally under-resourced somehow owe the rest of the world just because of their religion. They really don't, anymore than the Vatican owes the world reparations for the actions of the IRA.

Honestly I am not so sure. I've always had pretty "recession resistant" work and I've only just started to become worried. I'm with a small NY web development company, and I've seen a huge spike lately in people just not paying for work done - upwards of 90% trying to make deals and delay and flat out dodge. The prospect conversion rate has also taken a hit, which does happen this time of year. We mostly build websites for the jewelry industry and they say they are sitting on their hands waiting for the rush that normally starts right after Halloween. This is all anecdotal of course, but it's got me worried that a lot of people have been running the "recession marathon" and are starting to really show signs of fatigue. I worry a lot of people are waiting for their next meal with the assumption of holiday spending and it won't be there. To be honest I don't know what the official holiday spending indicators look like but I can say just personally the last month has made me go from rather smug to scared to death about the economy and it's effect on my ability to make ends meet.

First of all, I was not asking you to go look up 32 'good' republicans or trying to put any onerous weight on you to prove your point. Someone mentioned that if you did find 32 of them that would prove your point, but that's not the only way for you to do so. I only asked why you felt compelled to make the statement you did, and I did not suggest you did so irrationally or without merit. You said what you said for a reason and I genuinely respected your argument - for you to lump me in with "attacks" on your arguments is unfair. You considered the angles. You drew the conclusion. You posted for argument. I was not interested in all the angles that prove your argument that would make others happy - just the ones you considered to draw the conclusion you stated. It wasn't personal, it wasn't an attack, and it wasn't implying your argument was baseless. You said something that I was curious about and I wanted clarification as to how you came to that conclusion. We do this all the time in discussions. There is nothing disingenuous about it, and we ask that of just about everyone here. While I could quite likely challenge that I don't want to go there - I do want to say that the issue I had with your comments had nothing to do with ideology or politics. I took issue with your assertion of an opinion used as a counter-point, that you felt entitled to not clarify. Technically that is okay, as long as you clarify you wish to retract the opinion as support within the discussion (you still can use it personally) and I wholeheartedly understand sometimes someone just doesn't want to go into it that deeply - it may not be worth the time and energy. Instead I felt you were grandstanding that others were wrong to ask you to clarify and were attacking your opinion. I can understand why you felt upset based on some of the comments people made and it would be fair to respond to those comments - but you took it out of proportion and got upset about the wrong thing. You attacked the validity of a process of discussion, one that is vitally important to any discussion. No one can deny your opinions and you are right about that, but people are allowed and must at times request clarifications on how you back up an argument, even if that is formed from an opinion. Discussions fail otherwise.

To more aptly convey this specific level of awesomeness you speak of, could you describe it... in the form of a haiku perhaps? In the interest of clarity.

On that note: I think it's a great oversight or sadly, a great overestimation of the public to actually have this summit in the bloody winter of all times. If it was held in Arizona in the summer, sweaty newscasters would be dramatically talking about how "..and here it's safe to say the rising heat is on everybody's mind, back you to Jim." ... and people would be sitting at home saying "...that poor reporter girl sure looks uncomfortable in that sun... I hope they do fix that weather thing soon... poor dear."

When you state an opinion as support for an argument or a counter-argument you can expect people to request clarification so as to quantify it and therefore use it in the discussion. What pray tell, is the point of sharing an opinion that has no quantifiablity? If no one can understand the basis of your argument (because it's a opinion that does not need to be defended) then it has no relevance. If you aren't willing to share the basis of your argument then what are we doing here?