Hate to undo my mod points for this, but I think you're horribly off base. As someone who works in a very dangerous industry where safety is a big deal (container shipping), I can see the point of it. You point out that it selects for drug users who are good at passing screens, the counter to that is that it weeds out people too stupid to either pass screens or not do drugs. Whether or not they get past it by being proactive and not doing drugs, or being proactive and finding a way through the screening process, the fact remains that both examples are proactive and demonstrate higher intelligence than someone who simply doesn't give a damn.
In an industry where one mistake can result in a pancaked human being under a 40,000 lb box and there are frequent traffic issues on container terminals that we try to engineer out, we can't just wait for an incident to happen and say "you shouldn't have been drunk." That's irresponsible, spiteful, a bad way to do business, and a bad way to treat your worker. The role of an HSSE worker is to stop accidents before they happen, and drug screenings are one of the many tools in that box to get irresponsible people out of a dangerous environment.
The space under bridges is very narrow in a lot of the major ports of the world. During low tide, sometimes there's only 2-3 feet of clearance. I think not accounting for the lift of the wings from the wind is something not many people would account for.
I should know I use to be one and I was the "odd man out" that would notice these things and say something.
(emphasis added)
I see this line of thinking a lot, and there's a key factor people tend to forget. There's a reason you've moved on to bigger and better things, and a reason some people continue to do that menial work for a decade. When you hire low wage employees for a while, you begin to realize that any "good find" won't be there for long, because they're meant for something more important.
You know, there was a series on National Geographic recently called "Brain Games" that significantly increased my humility regarding my memory and other aspects of my brain. One episode was centered around memory, and they surprised a group of volunteers with a mocked robbery and investigation. Part of the investigation was the perp lineup, and a lot of people chose the wrong person because they simply associated them with the scene. Turns out he was a bystander. That episode was really worth watching, puts your memories in perspective and makes you a lot more forgiving of misunderstandings.
March Madness is notoriously hard to predict, partly because of the number of teams involved and also because of the single elimination system that I love so much. Its prevalent in few sports and makes each game mean a lot more, also opening the door for cinderalla to take her 15 minutes of fame. 7-game playoff rounds like they have in Baseball and the NBA tend to nullify those outliers. I honestly think that's a big reason for the success of the NFL too - every game and every play means a hell of a lot more when the best possible record is 19-0.
I've been talking into my android phone for almost two years in normal speech for various uses, mostly in maps. Its simply another case of putting together existing features and pushing it through marketing as the latest and greatest, just like facetime (skype) and their new commercials touting their 8mp camera on the 4S.
I don't really have a problem with apple being a solutions company, which is all fine and dandy, I have a problem with them having no sense of humbleness. They refuse to be forthright with mistakes like antennagate and their monitor problems, and act like they are the first to market with these features and that they're revolutionary. The worst part is people believe it and repeat it. Its like they create the perfect critical mass of ignorance with outright lies, which I find repulsive. I think its a major reason why the brand is so polarizing.
The leg movement and stability control on that thing is unnerving. I think its a case of movement being the cause of an uncanny valley rather than appearance.
While true you're assuming that this is targeting a fully (70%) loaded ship. It's not. This product is targeting ships returning often with a small fraction of their cargo hold full, or do you think the USA has a massive export industry to places like China?
But you do raise another interesting concern, how do you get the containers back to the USA? If a full container ship travels to the USA and takes back to China 4 or 5 times as many empties as it took over eventually the empties will start collecting at terminals of countries with huge export and little import trade.
A lot of times this is helped by complex trade lanes as well as what these major exporters are actually sending. The average weight of a container coming out of china is significantly lower than the average weight of containers coming out of the US, thus the weight constraints aren't as big of a hindrance. This is also helped by complex trade lanes and flexed vessels to alleviate bottlenecks.
The way containerships are built now, empties are frequently used to balance the weight distribution of the vessel. Folding them up won't create more capacity because they aren't built with the expectation of being loaded to the brim with fully loaded containers, and condensing empties creates space but condenses weight. A containership taking on full loads will only hit about 70% of its slot capacity due to weight constraints.
Also, wear and tear on moving parts in the shipping industry should not be overlooked. Twist locks, the things that lock containers together on ships, are very simple mechanisms that are built with extreme robustness. Doesn't matter, they constantly break and have to be replaced during ship operations. This solution is much more suscpetible to breakage than twist locks.
The only thing these containers do is make trade lane management more fluid and make empty storage more efficient for shipping terminals/container yards, but at the cost of equipment maintenance, labor, and reliability. The costs won't offset the benefits until the worldwide port infastructure or shipping capacity is bursting at the seams (creating space issues and a premium on crane productivity). That simply isn't the case.
Freight rail serves the heartland and branches from major ports, not New York. Chinese cargo does not come to NY from LA, it goes through the Suez on vessels and up past Europe or through the Panama Canal (smaller vessels here). Change New York to Chicago and you'll be correct.
I hate being blunt, but you are flat out wrong, sir. Your wikipedia article is referring to US domestic shipping, which essentially means feeder vessels and barges. Less than 500 TEU in size (somtimes even 100 TEU). To put it in perspective, domestic shipping accounts for less than 5% of all water-borne shipping in the US. International containerships that call US ports average anywhere from 3000TEU to 13000TEU in size, resulting in significant efficiency gains. Not only that, your study is from 2004 and there's been a 20% improvement in fuel efficiency on container ships with the advent of better maritime paint that prevents barnacle growth and water resistance, as well as slow steaming (think the efficiency gains of your car from running at 50mph vs 80mph). The end result is container shipping being almost 5x more efficient than rail travel. Yes, I work in the industry.
The biggest misconception with Andriod is that its only better for tinkerers. I have one and have never rooted or done anything fancy to it, but I still prefer it. Why? If I do decide I want to tinker or mess around with something, I have that option even without root. Apple is about the Jobs Way or the Highway. To put it simply, I don't like being told what I can and can't do by an obsessive control freak. That aside, I multitask extensively and Apple's definition of multitasking, after testing, makes me want to punch babies. Android handles it far more seamlessly and it makes more sense for my procedural nuances and thought process.
To open up the car analogy, the iPhone's hood is bolted down while mine has a lever. While I may not have to access it often, the fact that I don't have access can't be used against me as leverage, like Apple does. 'Against me' doesn't have to be direct - Apple is using their locked down system against you all the time. The fact that they force a certain cut on sales and are draconian in their app store means you're paying higher costs for books than you should be. It also means you don't have access to perfectly viable alternatives to apps donned with the Apple logo, because people aren't allowed to compete on their closed APIs. In essence, its almost exactly what MS did with IE6...how can you not find that disgusting?
I think the URL bar ideas stem from the reduction of vertical screen real estate, primarily as a result of the Widescreen adoption. Rather than using the same vertical resolution, screens have smushed down on average, making vertical real estate extremely valuable. This problem is also exacerbated by the ubiquity of tabs. Unfortunately, there's no good way to make text vertical, so I think that's where this idea comes from.
Maybe they could just make it like the default menu bar settings in a lot of new browsers, where they don't appear until you press alt? That way you aren't getting rid of it but allow more real estate for those that need it. Of course, this is already an option so maybe they are trying to be more extreme in their attempts to get rid of it. A rollover on the left side of the screen that pops out with a bar for both search and URL could be a possibility.
You wanna hear some real crap? I bought a bluray player, and the firmware update removed the ability to play DVDs (firmware update being required to play newer movies). It even says that the player will require physical maintenance to restore it on Samsung's troubleshooting. Guess what? They want to charge me $160 to fix it, and three tech support avenues later they are still dodging my contention of the charges.
Hooray for taxing DRM, in a literal sense. Well, those bastards at Samsung will certainly be getting negative press from me on any mention of Bluray online as a result.
much agreed. The thing that made the level in Thief so scary, in my opinion, was contrast. It was in a game not focused on horror and surrounded by levels not focused on horror. The gameplay expectactions in The Cradle level were also significantly different than others: like you said, the entire first half didn't have any enemies, but you expected them so you were scared shitless at all the noises. Horror games desentitize you after about 2 hours to their implementation, as well as the fact that most of them are FPSes and you can "conquer" that horror as you go. The Cradle level was different in that it beat you over the head with the horror shovel for 1.5 hours and then let you on your way. Once you finally started to feel comfortable you were done. Also, even fully stocked, you didnt' have enough anti-zombie ammunition to actually clear the place and run around comfortably, so like you said, you can't just "kill it if it moves."
I don't think its the fake guitar aspect of it, but the fact that it was milked into a dry carcass so quickly. The overexposure has left a bitter taste in people's mouth. I feel they could have made successful games every couple years for two decades or more if they didn't flood the market and turn it into a gimmick.
Understood, thanks for the reply, I just missed the sarcasm. I get frustrated hearing negative diatribes so frequently when I haven't experienced the negatives myself in four different companies. In my experience, all its taken in any case of someone taking shortcuts is for one person to address it and its crushed. As much as one bad person can be a cancer, one honest person can keep pretty much everyone within two to three layers of them in check as long as the corporate culture officially supports their uprightness. So far, I haven't found a corporate culture that officially supports the bad behavior we hear about in the news.
I had something similar happen with my bluray player, been fighting Samsung for almost a month about it. You have to install updates to play the new movies, and the update breaks the ability for the bluray player to play DVDs. They want to charge me $160 per device (3 players!) to fix functionality that their update broke. I think I'm getting my point across to everyone I talk to, but it has to get "elevated" and they never contact me back. Its BEYOND frustrating and they've probably screwed thousands of people with the exact same BS.
Don't take this as a personal slant, but have you had a job in any major profession outside of teaching? A lot of teachers live in a bubble and assume stuff like this based on overexposure to bad news as well as superimposing their pessimism on the world around them. Some of the examples you used make sense (Asking a friend, use of internet), but the others are way off base. Am I missing the satire, are you basing this off of a bad work experience, or are you delusional?
The bad apple is the exception, not the rule...it just receives more attention.
Yes, it is a problem with the public transport, however, it is not cost effective to implement public transport in the manner you suggest for such a small city that covers a huge land area. Land is cheap and available, and the roads are sufficient. There is no reason to build high-rises everywhere except for location benefits, so there is a lot of sprawl and it makes public transportation less efficient. Older cities or cities with boundary constraints have logical reasons for their density, my city really only became big after the advent of cars. You see the exact same phenomenon in China's newer cities - cities built for the most flexible mode of transportation, cars, unless density makes public transportation necessary. Don't get me wrong - I do like public transportation in the bigger cities I've visited, but it is not worth the cost or benefit in a city with this population density.
This is not about public transportation, my original reply is directed at the notion that everyone should be required to drive manuals because its "safer" (which is an anecdotal bullshit assumption since no study to date has been able to prove it). The population group I'm talking about is capable of driving, but uncomfortable driving a manual.
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Hate to undo my mod points for this, but I think you're horribly off base. As someone who works in a very dangerous industry where safety is a big deal (container shipping), I can see the point of it. You point out that it selects for drug users who are good at passing screens, the counter to that is that it weeds out people too stupid to either pass screens or not do drugs. Whether or not they get past it by being proactive and not doing drugs, or being proactive and finding a way through the screening process, the fact remains that both examples are proactive and demonstrate higher intelligence than someone who simply doesn't give a damn.
In an industry where one mistake can result in a pancaked human being under a 40,000 lb box and there are frequent traffic issues on container terminals that we try to engineer out, we can't just wait for an incident to happen and say "you shouldn't have been drunk." That's irresponsible, spiteful, a bad way to do business, and a bad way to treat your worker. The role of an HSSE worker is to stop accidents before they happen, and drug screenings are one of the many tools in that box to get irresponsible people out of a dangerous environment.
Yo Dawg, I heard you like National Security, so we put National Security in your National Security so you can get arrested while you arrest.
The space under bridges is very narrow in a lot of the major ports of the world. During low tide, sometimes there's only 2-3 feet of clearance. I think not accounting for the lift of the wings from the wind is something not many people would account for.
I should know I use to be one and I was the "odd man out" that would notice these things and say something.
(emphasis added)
I see this line of thinking a lot, and there's a key factor people tend to forget. There's a reason you've moved on to bigger and better things, and a reason some people continue to do that menial work for a decade. When you hire low wage employees for a while, you begin to realize that any "good find" won't be there for long, because they're meant for something more important.
You know, there was a series on National Geographic recently called "Brain Games" that significantly increased my humility regarding my memory and other aspects of my brain. One episode was centered around memory, and they surprised a group of volunteers with a mocked robbery and investigation. Part of the investigation was the perp lineup, and a lot of people chose the wrong person because they simply associated them with the scene. Turns out he was a bystander. That episode was really worth watching, puts your memories in perspective and makes you a lot more forgiving of misunderstandings.
March Madness is notoriously hard to predict, partly because of the number of teams involved and also because of the single elimination system that I love so much. Its prevalent in few sports and makes each game mean a lot more, also opening the door for cinderalla to take her 15 minutes of fame. 7-game playoff rounds like they have in Baseball and the NBA tend to nullify those outliers. I honestly think that's a big reason for the success of the NFL too - every game and every play means a hell of a lot more when the best possible record is 19-0.
I've been talking into my android phone for almost two years in normal speech for various uses, mostly in maps. Its simply another case of putting together existing features and pushing it through marketing as the latest and greatest, just like facetime (skype) and their new commercials touting their 8mp camera on the 4S.
I don't really have a problem with apple being a solutions company, which is all fine and dandy, I have a problem with them having no sense of humbleness. They refuse to be forthright with mistakes like antennagate and their monitor problems, and act like they are the first to market with these features and that they're revolutionary. The worst part is people believe it and repeat it. Its like they create the perfect critical mass of ignorance with outright lies, which I find repulsive. I think its a major reason why the brand is so polarizing.
The leg movement and stability control on that thing is unnerving. I think its a case of movement being the cause of an uncanny valley rather than appearance.
While true you're assuming that this is targeting a fully (70%) loaded ship. It's not. This product is targeting ships returning often with a small fraction of their cargo hold full, or do you think the USA has a massive export industry to places like China?
But you do raise another interesting concern, how do you get the containers back to the USA? If a full container ship travels to the USA and takes back to China 4 or 5 times as many empties as it took over eventually the empties will start collecting at terminals of countries with huge export and little import trade.
A lot of times this is helped by complex trade lanes as well as what these major exporters are actually sending. The average weight of a container coming out of china is significantly lower than the average weight of containers coming out of the US, thus the weight constraints aren't as big of a hindrance. This is also helped by complex trade lanes and flexed vessels to alleviate bottlenecks.
The way containerships are built now, empties are frequently used to balance the weight distribution of the vessel. Folding them up won't create more capacity because they aren't built with the expectation of being loaded to the brim with fully loaded containers, and condensing empties creates space but condenses weight. A containership taking on full loads will only hit about 70% of its slot capacity due to weight constraints.
Also, wear and tear on moving parts in the shipping industry should not be overlooked. Twist locks, the things that lock containers together on ships, are very simple mechanisms that are built with extreme robustness. Doesn't matter, they constantly break and have to be replaced during ship operations. This solution is much more suscpetible to breakage than twist locks.
The only thing these containers do is make trade lane management more fluid and make empty storage more efficient for shipping terminals/container yards, but at the cost of equipment maintenance, labor, and reliability. The costs won't offset the benefits until the worldwide port infastructure or shipping capacity is bursting at the seams (creating space issues and a premium on crane productivity). That simply isn't the case.
Freight rail serves the heartland and branches from major ports, not New York. Chinese cargo does not come to NY from LA, it goes through the Suez on vessels and up past Europe or through the Panama Canal (smaller vessels here). Change New York to Chicago and you'll be correct.
I hate being blunt, but you are flat out wrong, sir. Your wikipedia article is referring to US domestic shipping, which essentially means feeder vessels and barges. Less than 500 TEU in size (somtimes even 100 TEU). To put it in perspective, domestic shipping accounts for less than 5% of all water-borne shipping in the US. International containerships that call US ports average anywhere from 3000TEU to 13000TEU in size, resulting in significant efficiency gains. Not only that, your study is from 2004 and there's been a 20% improvement in fuel efficiency on container ships with the advent of better maritime paint that prevents barnacle growth and water resistance, as well as slow steaming (think the efficiency gains of your car from running at 50mph vs 80mph). The end result is container shipping being almost 5x more efficient than rail travel. Yes, I work in the industry.
The biggest misconception with Andriod is that its only better for tinkerers. I have one and have never rooted or done anything fancy to it, but I still prefer it. Why? If I do decide I want to tinker or mess around with something, I have that option even without root. Apple is about the Jobs Way or the Highway. To put it simply, I don't like being told what I can and can't do by an obsessive control freak. That aside, I multitask extensively and Apple's definition of multitasking, after testing, makes me want to punch babies. Android handles it far more seamlessly and it makes more sense for my procedural nuances and thought process.
To open up the car analogy, the iPhone's hood is bolted down while mine has a lever. While I may not have to access it often, the fact that I don't have access can't be used against me as leverage, like Apple does. 'Against me' doesn't have to be direct - Apple is using their locked down system against you all the time. The fact that they force a certain cut on sales and are draconian in their app store means you're paying higher costs for books than you should be. It also means you don't have access to perfectly viable alternatives to apps donned with the Apple logo, because people aren't allowed to compete on their closed APIs. In essence, its almost exactly what MS did with IE6...how can you not find that disgusting?
I think the URL bar ideas stem from the reduction of vertical screen real estate, primarily as a result of the Widescreen adoption. Rather than using the same vertical resolution, screens have smushed down on average, making vertical real estate extremely valuable. This problem is also exacerbated by the ubiquity of tabs. Unfortunately, there's no good way to make text vertical, so I think that's where this idea comes from.
Maybe they could just make it like the default menu bar settings in a lot of new browsers, where they don't appear until you press alt? That way you aren't getting rid of it but allow more real estate for those that need it. Of course, this is already an option so maybe they are trying to be more extreme in their attempts to get rid of it. A rollover on the left side of the screen that pops out with a bar for both search and URL could be a possibility.
Sounds to me like they're getting a little concerned about Battlefield 3. It really does have the potential to tank CoD if done right.
You wanna hear some real crap? I bought a bluray player, and the firmware update removed the ability to play DVDs (firmware update being required to play newer movies). It even says that the player will require physical maintenance to restore it on Samsung's troubleshooting. Guess what? They want to charge me $160 to fix it, and three tech support avenues later they are still dodging my contention of the charges.
Hooray for taxing DRM, in a literal sense. Well, those bastards at Samsung will certainly be getting negative press from me on any mention of Bluray online as a result.
much agreed. The thing that made the level in Thief so scary, in my opinion, was contrast. It was in a game not focused on horror and surrounded by levels not focused on horror. The gameplay expectactions in The Cradle level were also significantly different than others: like you said, the entire first half didn't have any enemies, but you expected them so you were scared shitless at all the noises. Horror games desentitize you after about 2 hours to their implementation, as well as the fact that most of them are FPSes and you can "conquer" that horror as you go. The Cradle level was different in that it beat you over the head with the horror shovel for 1.5 hours and then let you on your way. Once you finally started to feel comfortable you were done. Also, even fully stocked, you didnt' have enough anti-zombie ammunition to actually clear the place and run around comfortably, so like you said, you can't just "kill it if it moves."
What an excellent phrase. I'm going to have to use that from now on.
I don't think its the fake guitar aspect of it, but the fact that it was milked into a dry carcass so quickly. The overexposure has left a bitter taste in people's mouth. I feel they could have made successful games every couple years for two decades or more if they didn't flood the market and turn it into a gimmick.
Understood, thanks for the reply, I just missed the sarcasm. I get frustrated hearing negative diatribes so frequently when I haven't experienced the negatives myself in four different companies. In my experience, all its taken in any case of someone taking shortcuts is for one person to address it and its crushed. As much as one bad person can be a cancer, one honest person can keep pretty much everyone within two to three layers of them in check as long as the corporate culture officially supports their uprightness. So far, I haven't found a corporate culture that officially supports the bad behavior we hear about in the news.
I had something similar happen with my bluray player, been fighting Samsung for almost a month about it. You have to install updates to play the new movies, and the update breaks the ability for the bluray player to play DVDs. They want to charge me $160 per device (3 players!) to fix functionality that their update broke. I think I'm getting my point across to everyone I talk to, but it has to get "elevated" and they never contact me back. Its BEYOND frustrating and they've probably screwed thousands of people with the exact same BS.
Don't take this as a personal slant, but have you had a job in any major profession outside of teaching? A lot of teachers live in a bubble and assume stuff like this based on overexposure to bad news as well as superimposing their pessimism on the world around them. Some of the examples you used make sense (Asking a friend, use of internet), but the others are way off base. Am I missing the satire, are you basing this off of a bad work experience, or are you delusional?
The bad apple is the exception, not the rule...it just receives more attention.
The article specifically mentions Japanese releases and sales within Japan. I don't think fansubbing has any relevance in this specific case.
Hey now, there's all kinds of people in this world, you never know...
Yes, it is a problem with the public transport, however, it is not cost effective to implement public transport in the manner you suggest for such a small city that covers a huge land area. Land is cheap and available, and the roads are sufficient. There is no reason to build high-rises everywhere except for location benefits, so there is a lot of sprawl and it makes public transportation less efficient. Older cities or cities with boundary constraints have logical reasons for their density, my city really only became big after the advent of cars. You see the exact same phenomenon in China's newer cities - cities built for the most flexible mode of transportation, cars, unless density makes public transportation necessary. Don't get me wrong - I do like public transportation in the bigger cities I've visited, but it is not worth the cost or benefit in a city with this population density.
This is not about public transportation, my original reply is directed at the notion that everyone should be required to drive manuals because its "safer" (which is an anecdotal bullshit assumption since no study to date has been able to prove it). The population group I'm talking about is capable of driving, but uncomfortable driving a manual.