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Whatever this man means by the word "community" - it is not what most humans understand it to be.

If you're paying some people to participate, they will not be there for community. In fact, having a mixed paid/volunteer crowd creates a situation where it is almost impossible to maintain community activities without significant hiding of information. Either you have a group who gives freely and members benefit from the giving, or you have people who are being paid to contribute and they run a cost/benefit in their head for their time to participate. You really can't have both simultaneously and keep the group together.

See a recent talk I gave on what a community really is http://tinyurl.com/22j9fy

If PS3 has showed us a lesson, is that we need a new metric for "x millions sold" with game consoles, that is, "x millions sold minus y millions returned after being unable to sell them at ebay for a premium price".

No, seriously, most PS3 were bought for reselling, while most wii's are bought for playing. And it, for me, it's a pretty big difference.

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Wouldn't be an easier method to sell more to try not to overprice the ink for their printers than to spy on others business?

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People trying an experiment involving using the microwave at full power can get into trouble!

At least they didn't try to dry their dogs and cats.

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Didn't I see that in a movie once...?

http://tinyurl.com/2lcruk

It wasn't Oww...
http://tinyurl.com/ykftcb

Yes, but that is then a problem with the security of the operating system (which we already have), and the quality of the mail client software - and not just a gray Bayesian filtering problem that we are already losing.

Also, my suggestion above does not preclude current spam filtering.

Moving forward we MUST write software that is more robust against viruses. We've known this all along, but there has not been enough of a financial motivation or liability for software providers to include real prevention against viruses in the process of writing and deploying software. We do know how to do this, it's just harder that your typical - 2-month-out-the-door software dev. cycle.

After writing the post above, I put together my thoughts in a more coherent form in a (shudder) Microsoft Word Document: http://tinyurl.com/ytg78j Spam is not really my area of expertise, so I'd appreciate feedback.

Thousands of nuts, bolts, gloves and other debris from space missions form an orbiting garbage dump around Earth, presenting a hazard to spacecraft. Some of the bits and pieces scream along at 17,500 mph.

A 1999 study estimated there are some 4 million pounds of space junk in low-Earth orbit, just one part of a celestial sea of roughly 110,000 objects larger than 1 centimeter -- each big enough to damage a satellite or space-based telescope. (excerpted from http://tinyurl.com/56tzo )

Here's where it gets interesting. Anticipating just such an offensive capability from china, many military satelites are hardened against laser and EMP damage. Which leaves kinetic attack as the simplest, most effective mode of disabling a satellite.

The problem is, it creates enough floating crap in orbit that any real attempt to disable US orbital capabilities will effectively eliminate huge swaths of orbital real estate for hundreds and thousands of years.

For this reason, many have been trying to phase out Kinetic Energy ASAT programs. With the chinese regard for the environment well evidenced on the ground, its not likely they'll be shying from the simplest means of retiring another nation's offending satellites.

FYI, I put your numbers into a calculator here:

http://tinyurl.com/ydzspv

You can play around with different refresh rates, color depth, etc.

I think you do understand the harm that can be done by looking at a female nipple. Ok, seeing people get shot might be pretty bad, but a female nipple is much worse. People should be SHOT if they willingly expose them or look at them.

http://tinyurl.com/yfdv5j is just a disaster waiting to happen

You could just buy the Craftsman CompuCarve: http://tinyurl.com/ykqkkt

For $1800, you get a 3D carbide-tipped carving machine that will work in word or plastic.
It can handle work pieces up to 14.5 inches wide, 5 inches high, and up to six feet or so in length. Its working depth is one inch.

BTW, though the new CompuCarve is getting all the press this week, it's really just a Sears branded version of the CarveWright, which has been out for over a year: http://www.carvewright.com/

Re: Plenty of spam seems to be coming from those IPs {Seems I was auto edited? (does not like the less than & greater than brackets)} Check these links, http://groups.google.com/groups?as_q=&as_epq=64.23 3.182.185&as_ugroup=news.admin.net-abuse.*&scoring =d http://tinyurl.com/yn2ghp http://snipurl.com/16uf2 http://moensted.dk/spam/?addr=64.233.182.185 http://groups.google.com/groups?as_q=&as_epq=193.2 52.22.249&as_ugroup=news.admin.net-abuse.*&scoring =d http://tinyurl.com/yfglt2 http://snipurl.com/16ufd http://moensted.dk/spam/?addr=193.252.22.249 Re: The big question will always be whether Google were informed that one of their servers were abused, or they were just blatantly added to SORBS blacklist. Likely both. I have been privy to some google / gmail mail server admin correspondence, they have been working on improving their outbound filtering (for the last 2 years?) and seem to have made a dent, but by no means have they stopped emitting spam. I suspect most DNSbls that use spam traps, don't bother telling the ISP about the abuse _before_ listing the IP, as by the time the ISP's abuse desk gets around to reading & acting on the e-mail, the spam run to thousands? millions? has already completed. (Most using DNSbls as part of their spam control, are hoping the DNSbl sees the spam before it gets to their server.)

Re: Plenty of spam seems to be coming from those IPs {Seems I was auto edited? (does not like the less than & greater than brackets)} Check these links, http://groups.google.com/groups?as_q=&as_epq=64.23 3.182.185&as_ugroup=news.admin.net-abuse.*&scoring =d http://tinyurl.com/yn2ghp http://snipurl.com/16uf2 http://moensted.dk/spam/?addr=64.233.182.185 http://groups.google.com/groups?as_q=&as_epq=193.2 52.22.249&as_ugroup=news.admin.net-abuse.*&scoring =d http://tinyurl.com/yfglt2 http://snipurl.com/16ufd http://moensted.dk/spam/?addr=193.252.22.249 Re: The big question will always be whether Google were informed that one of their servers were abused, or they were just blatantly added to SORBS blacklist. Likely both. I have been privy to some google / gmail mail server admin correspondence, they have been working on improving their outbound filtering (for the last 2 years?) and seem to have made a dent, but by no means have they stopped emitting spam. I suspect most DNSbls that use spam traps, don't bother telling the ISP about the abuse _before_ listing the IP, as by the time the ISP's abuse desk gets around to reading & acting on the e-mail, the spam run to thousands? millions? has already completed. (Most using DNSbls as part of their spam control, are hoping the DNSbl sees the spam before it gets to their server.)

These "good works" are part of the war against the people.
Vaccines are not good for you.
Do some research, hippie children.
Cancer viruses, aids, mercury etc.
Wake up!
http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardtruth/pop ulationcontrolagenda2.htm
http://tinyurl.com/mku2l

Alcohol-detecting ignition interlocks are all the rage in the war on drunk driving. Toyota is preparing a triple-whammy system for deployment at the end of 2009: automated analysis of hand sweat, erratic steering and even out-of-focus pupils, although I wouldn't call it "failsafe" as many reports do.

http://tinyurl.com/yfyldy

Electronic distractions are more easily eliminated. All that's needed is elementary communication between distracting devices and cars. When the wheels are turning, only 911 calls are allowed. No Bluetooth, no WiFi, no TV signals or DVD playing, etc. Exceptions for AM/FM and satellite radio stations that pledge to play only commercial-free pre-1990 formats. ;-)

I think everyone is racing with Sun on (high end) server markets, all enterprise sites and existing server customers seem to love Sun Niagara CPU especially because of heat and performance per watt stuff.

" The entire chip consumes a maximum of 72 watts, considerably less than rivals such as Intel's Xeon, which consumes 110 to 165 watts."

That monster runs 32 threads btw.

Their customers seems to adopt when its available http://preview.tinyurl.com/y6z3z6 (CNET story)

Nearly 200 state-owned enterprises have yet to be privatized, corruption is widespread, bureaucracy is burdensome, and much economic activity occurs in the informal sector. In addition, taxation is unevenly enforced, the judiciary is overwhelmed, and key sectors of the economy remain closed to foreign investment...The judicial system does not offer a high level of property protection....Ethiopia's cumbersome bureaucracy deters investment...corruption imposes a serious burden on economic activity.

Oxfam argues that royalty fees from the trademark, estimated to be over $80 million per year, would go to the coffee bean growers -- the poor farmers of Ethiopia.

This is far from the truth. Most of the money would siphoned off and goes to foreign bank accounts belonging to close family members of Meles Zenawi and Sheik Al Amoudi who control much of the country's agricultural, mining, transportation and other industries. The rest would go to the Federal Police and the Agazi death squads, the regime's instruments of repression.

Oxfam cannot claim to be ignorant of the fact that the Ethiopian dictatorship of Meles Zenawi is one of the most corrupt and murderous governments in the world.

Yes, indeed, you need a passport. Starting in January, a passport will be required even from citizens of Canada, Mexico, and other countries where it was previously not required. As for knowing your plans, many visitors to the US not only need a passport, but also have to apply in person at a US Consultate or Embassy to obtain a visa. The visa application requires you to tell the US government when you are traveling, how you are planning to get here, when you are going to leave, and how you are going to support yourself during your stay. (Once you get here, though, you won't be under constant surveillance and your money will go much further than in many other places, even in expensive NYC and San Francisco.) As an American, I feel badly about the hassle, and wish that our government would reduce the barriers for international visitors. It may come as a small consolation that the US government has become aware of the need to improve the situation. Perhaps things will improve with the new Congress. Potential visitors should keep in mind that most residents of coastal cities have consistently voted heavily against the Bush Administration and their supporters. In the 2004 election, Bush received only 15% of the vote in Manhattan and San Francisco and less than 10% in Washington, DC. He wouldn't do that well today, so visitors will have no trouble in finding a sympathetic ear as they describe what they had to do to get here. We'll do our best to make you feel welcome.

Nixon's pardon lead directly to George H.W. Bush as head of the CIA, laying the groundwork for the Iran-Contra war, Reagan's gross budget cuts leading to the second highest deficit in US history and a complete break with the social compact making the US a 1st world nation with a 3rd world population.

Close to 1/4 of the population of the US has no medical coverage. Chances are better than 50% that of those US Citizens who have medical coverage that a major illness or accident will still force them bankrupt due to "uncovered costs."
The bankruptcy code has been changed to grossly favor creditors and a bankrupt individual will spend up to 5 years in a court-supervised plan to pay back creditors.

The Courts and laws of this nation have created a corporation-friendly / federalized system that grossly limits what we can do. The "class action fairness act" made it impossible for a national class action to rest where a person suffers a "small loss" - such as the telephone E-911 fee where MILLIONS of individuals lost about $112.00/yr to their telephone company. We recovered that one - but the laws now permit companies to steal hundreds of millions of dollars a nickel at a time and have almost no real concern for legal liability.

Big Military Contractors, Big Oil and Big Pharma are the top industrial moneymakers in the US (with financial "services" following close). By far the Military Contractors take more away from our economy than they inject and, at root, they will be our downfall.

The level of political sophistication of the general public has to be at the lowest level in our national history. There are no "civics" courses in high school and most citizens couldn't tell you what the tripartite government branches are, who is next in succession after the VP, the names of the Supreme Court Justices (and, who appointed them and how old they are - a hint - all of the younger ones are very, very far to the right).

We refight battles won in the Courts over and over again. The Scopes trial should have ended any of the Intelligent Design BS and that case was tried in 1925! ( see, http://tinyurl.com/u9d2q/ ) Two weeks ago the Supreme Court revisited affirmative action AGAIN. Twelve (12%) percent of the US population are direct descendants of slaves and, on the whole, Blacks die younger, have an 80% chance of spending time in prison, are paid less - usually much less - for the same work - and politicians still play the "race card" and IT STILL WORKS.

We are buried in two intractable wars with no real end in sight. We spend more on the military that all of the rest or the world does, combined. We are the world's largest weapons manufacturer and we sold the weapons to Iraq that are killing our troops today.

(**I'm so damn fed up with the press using the term "IED" - those "IEDs" are nothing but regular HE howitzer shells delivered to their targets without using the howitzer - we knew where ever single one was stored before we invaded - but we didn't do a damn thing to destroy the weapons caches and now we pay the price for the foolish decisions of the arrogant Bushies**)

Triangulation, single-issue voters and jingoism win elections at at time when vote-stealing is at at an all time high to boot. At least four governors have plead guilty to misdemeanors (that should have been charged as felonies and cost them their elected office); the 109th Congress will go down in history as one of the most corrupt since the Teapot Dome Scandal (and that was another Oil Industry scandal - 1922) under President Warren G. Harding.

The overall savings rate of US Citizens is NEGATIVE and we are ripe for a major economic downturn - possibly as bad as 1929 - perhaps worse. Take a look at the Katrina survivors and guess what plans are in place in the event of a major stock downturn: nothing.

The environment, the economy, our international standing, public health, political health and judicial health have all taken the back seat to the interests of the top 5% of the US population.

Thank you Mr. President Ford - the only unelected Executive in US history - you made all of this possible. Take your bow.

ETS has a couple references related to the creation of the ICT Literacy Assessment.

  http://tinyurl.com/fq757

And to your point, the panel guiding the assessment agrees with your observation.

  ICT literacy cannot be defined primarily as
  the mastery of technical skills. The panel
  concludes that the concept of ICT literacy
  should be broadened to include both critical
  cognitive skills as well as the application of
  technical skills and knowledge. These cognitive
  skills include general literacy, such as reading
  and numeracy, as well as critical thinking and
  problem solving. Without such skills, the
  panel believes that true ICT literacy cannot
  be attained.

The thing that caught my attention is that the CSU@Sacramento might require this assessment for admission. I suspect many other colleges & universities are considering the same.

I wonder what sort of changes can happen (and when and where) to make this less embarrassing on a global scale.

Buy yours today!

I don't kill my wife... like other people

Ah, score another for the good old social engineering that made it posible to obtain the domain without having the rigts to it.

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As you might have guessed the parent's link tinyurl.com/y99lcg actually leads to http://www.assfistinganalfisting.com/gaping-a
nal-holes/gaping_asses.jpg

Tinyurl is dead unless they write themselves some extensions to popular browsers that enable hover previews like http://tinyurl.com/preview.php

They've got a CAVE TROLL

I am a gaming snob... I also like to have fun. Fluxx is not a game that I find fun so it would certainly not be a game that I'd introduce people to gaming with... especially when there are about 1,000 better choices. Besides the fun and new gamer factor, I'd say that the "game" is not a game. It is a futile exercise... much like that other Stoner game called Grass, or Uno for that matter. For good suggestions I'd start here:

http://tinyurl.com/snsc9

I agree that elevators should be our focus. But we don't have to stop manned flight to do that. If our "leaders" got behind the research needed here then parallel efforts at unmanned probes, keeping the ISS up and taking the good research already done into elevators and extending it could all be done. But we have to explain that "mankind needs this" for reasons a-z. We need fewer BBall stars and more -leaders- getting kids into science classes and research companies working together on carbon tethers and anchor points. A lot of the work has been done, maybe part of the problem is that we don't recognize the people already involved.
http://tinyurl.com/y9d3km

Ray Kurzweil has written YAB (yet another book) on a similar subject. It is quite an interesting read about how evolution in the universe is an exponential curve, and that we are just on the cusp, or knee, of it going up. In there, he has pages and pages of supporting data relating to nanotech and bionanotech. It is a good read.

We are very close to having strong AI, nanotech in our bodies, and greatly enhanced information sharing / intelligence - all the research is well under way with positive results thus far.

http://tinyurl.com/ygmtxw (amazon.com)

It's not a case of "should", we all know the patent office thinks any patent with the word "computer" in it is novel and deserves the filing fee.

eg. A quality Microsoft patent Another quality Microsoft patent

It's not a case of "should", we all know the patent office thinks any patent with the word "computer" in it is novel and deserves the filing fee.

eg. A quality Microsoft patent Another quality Microsoft patent

Look to the Social Security Administration for when you are required to provide your SSN.
http://tinyurl.com/ygvvct ssa.gov (the real URL is governmentally long)

Live Bookmarks

Thanks for pulling this together. I whipped up a quick chart to help visualize the difference. It's amazing how many DSs were sold! Nearly double the PSP and almost 5x the PS3.

Regarding firearms: I recall a press report where some small towns instituted a curfew that required women to be armed when out after dark. Although prosecutions for going unarmed seem unlikely the incidence of rape in public places is somewhat diminished. This recent story is about a town with an ordinance proposed that requires a firearm in every home http://www.fox12news.com/Global/story.asp?S=543703 3 . Several towns require this. Here's an older story about one in Georgia with rather predictable results: http://tinyurl.com/yldlze . From that article:

After the law went into effect in 1982, crime against persons plummeted 74 percent compared to 1981, and fell another 45 percent in 1983 compared to 1982. And it has stayed impressively low.

Numerically, there are about as many firearms in America as there are Americans : http://www.netscape.com/viewstory/2006/08/16/almos t-every-american-has-a-gun/ . I recall seeing pistols, rifles and shotguns on sale in a gas station in Flagstaff, Arizona. While product placement right next to the tequila was probably inappropriate, the sight was not shocking to the locals.

Are citizens not allowed arms in your country? Why? What could possibly be the reason for that?

I work in a RFID related start-up and I can assure you that putting the RFID tags in the plates just doesn't make sense, is just like adding a control number to the plate... what you want to know is if the plates correspond to the car, not a second way of identifying the plates!!!

They should add the tag into the inners of the car, so they can detect when a detected RFID value and the plate don't match. It's a lot more useful, IMHO.

Also I found funny to see the specs of the RFID chips (tags, as we know them) of 100 meters and ten years of battery, are exactly the same as ours... it would be priceless to discover reading Slashdot that our American partners are doing extra hours without telling my boss!!!

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Good catch, thanks. I should have combined it company-wide in the beginning, I was focused on just the next-gen consoles.

I updated the numbers and it actually looks like Sony actually pulled in the most revenue overall!

sony = ps3 + ps2 + psp = 254,150,000
microsoft = xbox360 = 200,000,000
nintendo = wii + nintendo_ds + gba = 236,900,000

Surprising, huh? Of course, the ps2 sales may be cannibalizing possible ps3 sales.

I do find this amusing though. Third place, how humble.

Google - 11:54pm
Enables users to search the Web, Usenet, and images. Features include PageRank, caching and translation of results, and an option to find similar pages.
www.google.com/ - 5k - Dec 5, 2006 - Cached - Similar pages

I plugged in the numbers into an editable chart (shameless plug for my site! :)

xbox360 = 500k * 400 = 200,000,000
ps3 = 200k * 600 = 120,000,000
wii = 500k * 250 = 125,000,000
ps2 = 500k * 129 = 64,500,000
nintendo_ds = 600k * 129 = 77,400,000
psp = 350k * 199 = 69,650,000

Based off pure revenue, Microsoft appears to take the lion's share with 30%. But as we all know, revenue and profit are quite different. You can play around with the numbers above to get a feel for who's coming out ahead - I may have a mistake in my formulas.

At Columbine 15 people died. Compare and contrast with the numbers in these stories.

Perhaps a plea for less hyperbole is out of place in a thread with this much political slant, but I can hope.

Since you mention the view from the outside, this is interesting - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Pakistan :

Despite their prominence in the media, little is known about just how much influence madrassahs have in Pakistan.

In modern times that a culture is so closed to outsiders that "little is known" about such an important subject is itself telling.

The code is extremely clever. Net: It finds the inverse square root [1/sqrt(n)] using a great initial guess and one iteration of Newton's approximation method. It avoids excessive division, the square root operation, and multiplication, which are computationally expensive.

I'm not an expert, but heres how I understand it:

1. Background: Newton's method finds roots of any function
------

What does factoring an equation have to do with finding 1/sqrt(n)? A lot. Give me a number n. I now make the function

f(x) = 1/sqrt(x) - n

Notice that when you find an x where f(x) = 0, it means x is the inverse square root of n:

f(x) = 0
1/sqrt(x) - n = 0
1/sqrt(x) = n
x = 1/sqrt(n)

In other words, I need to find the root of that equation. Newton's method lets you do this by picking a starting value, seeing how far off you are, and getting closer and closer with each iteration. There's more info online. With Newton's method, call your initial guess "g". An better approximation for the root is

guess_new = g - f(g)/f'(g)

In our case, f(x) = 1/x^2 - i (where i is the initial value, as seen in the code). We use the power rule to see that f'(x) = -2x^-3, and plug it into the guess_new equation above:

guess_new = x - (1/x^2 - i)/-2x^-3
guess_new = x(1.5 - ix^2)

which is exactly what the code above has. If you keep plugging "guess_new" back in the equation, you can get closer and closer to the answer.

Here is a demo of multiple iterations to find inverse square: http://tinyurl.com/vh7hg/ Try plugging in different initial guesses (.2, .4, .8) to see how it converges. With me so far? Newton's method finds roots, and finds them fast if given a good guess.

2. Now our problem becomes: How can we make a good guess?
------

If we had a lot of time, we could just pick a random number and keep iterating using the method above. But that would be slow - we want a *good* guess.

Well, our best guess for the inverse square root is the inverse square root itself! What's a good way to get 1/sqrt(n)?

This is the first level of magic. Assume you have a number in exponent form, like this:

10^6 = 1 million

If you want to find the regular square root of 1 million, just divide the exponent by 2.
sqrt(10^6) = 10^(6/2) = 10^3 = 1 thousand.

If you want the *inverse* square root, divide the exponent by -2 to flip the sign.

invsqrt(10^6) = 10^(6/-2) = 10^-3 = 1/thousand

Ok so far? Our goal is to divide the exponent of i (our number) by -2 to get a really awesome guess for Newton's approximation method.

3. Floats are stored in mantissa-exponent form
------

This is the key. Floating-point numbers have an explicit exponent and mantissa component. Theoretically, we could mask out the bits for the exponent and do division.

But division is expensive; the code uses another clever hack. Shifting bits is the same as dividing by 2 (or 4, 16, or any other power; the remainder is truncated, which is OK for an approximation).

So we can divide by 2 easily. And if we want a negative number, instead of multiplying by -1 (expensive), we can just subtract the number from "0" (cheap).

The program converts the floating point into an integer (using the pointer tricks), shifts the bits by 1 to halve the exponent, and subtracts from "0" (the magic number - hold on) to negate it.

4. Why the magic number 0x5f37...?
------

We can't just subtract from zero, there's too much going on. First, by shifting the bits we mave move some of the exponent bits into the mantissa. Also, there are different cases of odd/even exponents. The paper goes into lots of special cases, I didn't really understand them all first time around. But the magic number tries to minimize errors, and there can be several magic numbers used.

5. What's the result?
------

The result is that you get a great initial value to

a year ago, they set the delivery date as July 2007.

see http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:R6KUf_0jaakJ: www.ss.ca.gov/elections/vstsummit/presentations/gu ttman_barbara.PPT+eac+tgdc+timeline&hl=en&gl=us&ct =clnk&cd=3&client=firefox-a

or http://tinyurl.com/vvn6t

OK, let's see how we can make currency accessible to the blind with a minimum of government involvement.

A cheap, do-it-yourself, pocket-sized Braille money marker was patented in 1997. But the vendor seems to be out of business, and I can't find a similar product for sale today. Makes me wonder just how painful the problem really is.

http://tinyurl.com/ymsxdo

Today's tech would easily enable a battery-powered money reader and Braille marker about the size of an iPod and costing far less than the $30 for which this non-reading manual embosser was offered. We're talking about an extremely simple optical character recognition subsystem that can read the large unique numerals in the corners of bills, and six solenoid-driven pins to emboss the Braille marks for 1, 5, 10, 20, 50, or 100 (the only denominations currently in production). Stick any or all corner(s) of a bill in the device and it automatically reads and embosses.

I'll wager that such a thing can be built with mail-order parts and open-source software by any State's high school science fair semi-finalist. (Well, maybe not Mississippi's. ;-)

The Treasury should publish standards for such a process, allowing entrepreneurs to build competing devices. Competition will keep prices down and encourage innovation.

Let the IRS give a tax credit to anyone who submits a receipt with his 1040, even if he's not blind. Anyone who chooses to help the blind (and the Treasury) by spending his spare moments embossing currency deserves a tax break, too.

This plan would get the job done faster and at less cost to taxpayers than the bureaucratic alternatives. Also, we'd learn just how badly blind people and their advocates really want Braille-encoded currency.

Novell needed to do some due diligence before they entered this deal. So sad. Where will all their engineers go?

Who needs google? There is always that ./ mob willing to click through any url without giving a second thought, no matter how long the way and how worthless its end.

Be ready for the first Fedora-on-wii videos!

Just kidding, really, but is it feasible? What CPU does it use? Another Power-based from IBM? Has it got lots of ram? And what about the data, how is it fed to the machine?

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Not the superman villain but UK explosive science show 'Braniac: Science Abuse' - they regularly stick stuff in Microwaves, as well as do other things like demolish safes with tanks etc. It's a great show - here are the Microwave clips on Youtube - http://tinyurl.com/y6oan8

>>Along with that, no official rules for the line from Target (read this as ass covering)
>No, read it as "Not their fucking job."

It quickly becomes the retail establishment's FJ when someone is injured in a mad rush for the line. Any manager worth his salt would have set in place clear rules to manage the lines. You are asking for lawsuits if you don't. At one area Wal-Mart, they did not allow a line to form until they announced it on the intercom. Instead of a nice orderly line of 10 people, they ended up with a 100+ gamer mad-dash to the line, with people pushing and shoving and a few minor injuries. Again, any decent manager should have seen that coming and made rules to accomodate the situation.

The good news is that most of the Wal-Mart stores in my area had the lines waiting in the Lawn and Garden area. Several had TV's setup and gamers were hanging out, playing consoles and PSPs (of course), and generally having a good time. The situation was fully under control, there was no pushing and shoving and generally the first 6 in line got PS3's (with vouchers going to the next 4). One local store somehow ended up with 22 Playstations, even the manager admitted that was a complete accident that they got so many. As I understand it, Sony promised Wally-World 10 PS3's each on launch day, and most only got 6. And yes, I managed to get one.

-MJ

GoogleMap: http://tinyurl.com/ts7nh "About 1965, (3) probably in winter (Hoare, 2003), a decision was made to construct a giant rendition of the Readymix company logo virtually exactly halfway along the Eyre Highway, north of the 225 mile peg. ...The diamond, its long axis at a bearing of 82[degrees] true, measured two miles long by one mile high [3.2 x 1.6km, so each side was 1.8km], with each letter being 800x600 feet [240x180m]." Reference: http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286- 9508372_ITM