Wait, are we talking about the early Brittany or the more recent "hey, how much of a crazy person can I be" Brittany? Because I would argue that the early Brittany probably had a lot of help getting onto the national stage. However, the recent "crazy" Brittany probably managed that all by her lonesome!
By functional I mean in the scope of the serious political landscape of the state, pursuing a separation from the USA is never going to make it past the laugh and a "yea right" stage.
I would argue that just because a person would want a state to separate from the USA doesn't mean they are anti-USA. Perhaps their own self-interests are served better by an independent state? If I like avocados and I decide I want to grown my own in Alaska, it doesn't automatically mean that I'm against the California Avocado Growers association, is it?;-)
Unfortunately for many, the party in question happens to maintain platforms on many issues, not just whether Alaska should succeed. Sometimes those issues happen to be the hot-button issues for folks - less government, etc. Although a few might hold that Alaska would be better off on it's own, I doubt that most hold that part of the platform as the core as why they voted for, or are a member of that particular party. I am a registered Republican yet I disagree with a good deal of the party platform. Why stay in the party? Because my hot button issues are addressed by their platform more than the alternatives.
With respect to "no worse than any other Alaskan" my intent was to convey that there can often be a sense that Alaska gets the raw end of the deal on the national political stage - eg. that it's ignored. This can lead to jokes about "going our own way" but I'd bet dollars to donuts that if it came down to it, Alaskans are Americans first and Alaskan's second. All this being immaterial of course, as it's illegal to succeed so attempts to do so in an imaginary distant future will likely not get very far unless there's a change in the US constitution.
Generally we're not talking the mainstream here. Alaska is a small place and there is a sense that people are entitled to their own political opinions independently of whether you think of them as a "friend" or not. This is why I don't think there is cause to put much stock into Palin's husband's onetime membership in one particular party.
As to the Couric interview, she didn't show her best, certainly! I plan to vote for other party - something I planned before her nomination - but nothing McCain/Palin have shown me has changed my mind thus far.
She's no more a separatist than any other Alaskan. There is not a functioning separatist movement in Alaska any more than there is in Texas (which has it's groups claiming that the state is a republic not a state and there-fore should stand on its own). Efforts to create one in order to paint Palin in a bad light are simplistic and misinformed.
As for being an idiot, I disagree. She's managed to leap herself onto the national stage in a relatively short time period. I don't think it has been a carefully planned assault, but certainly she has managed to accomplish some quirky set of actions that have enabled her to reach this point. I've no doubt there are thousands of other budding politicians out there on city/county and state levels who are trying to do the same and yet there she is.
However, that being said, I don't think she's really the type we want in the VP role right now. Nothing to do with her experience, imho, but perhaps more to do with her social/moralistic convictions.
I personally don't follow the confusion over what this box is. They indicate it has "router like" login - if they use Cisco's, it's most likely an old cisco terminal server plugged in somewhere. If they can reach it on the network, I'm having a hard time understanding why they can't narrow down where it is. I'm guessing they don't physically label their hardware? What?! I mean, if you can traceroute to it, you can get a MAC address which will give you the device mfg. From there it's a matter of following the cables form the last hop surely to likely boxes. What the hell am I missing here?
Perhaps the article is overly simplistic in its description. Perhaps they've done all this and still can't find it. The MAC address has been changed or tracing 900 cables is taking them a while or something. But I still wouldn't be talking to the press admitting my own departments incompetence. I mean sheesh!
Clancy games don't have "interesting and unique" weapons (like the needler) because they are supposed to be grounded in the weaponry of today (or a few years into the future). Thus the limits on standard gunpowder charged projectile spitting guns. Perhaps one day Clancey will start writing science fiction and we will see a Rainbow Twelve team with terro-pulse rifles and magna-grenades.
His cancer was "cured" with surgery and radiation therapy. Having been though the same, I doubt he feels any effects from that now. The possibility the cancer spread is present, but quarterly monitoring will usually turn that up - and in his case the cancer was caught very early on reducing the likelyhood that it had a chance to spread. It's unlikely his appearance is related to his original illness/treatment.
Errr, I these cars were leased, not sold. GM did that so that they could get them all back and deal with maintenace issues at the same time. See the Wikipedia entry for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_EV1.
Yep - I plan on running though. I'm going to take the place of that old guy, camping out in the capitol building, with all those cats. Hopefully I can get Jessica 6 to come with me.
But what do they live off? We can't all just order takeout. Somebody has to go out and work the farms, mine the minerals, run the factories, and do all the other stuff we need to do to make a living. To do all the things you do to support all the people we have, you need a whole planet, not just some tiny corner of it.
The machines can do it. Come on, I'm looking forward to some of that free love like in Logan's Run.
What a bunch of bull. By your reasoning all the guys who work on mainframes or large systems during the day couldn't be considered good IT folks 'cause they don't have one to play with at home. I can tell your hiring experience encompasses a wide range of infrastructure support people. (It's a generalization, but I stand by it.) Shoot, the best guys I've seen hired didn't obsess over the same crap at home as they had at work, they had other interests. Doesn't mean they weren't expert in their field. It actually made them better at IT at as they weren't 2 dimensional morons.
Unlikely. Look, take the point of view of a drug lord. You spend big bucks, forgo the latest model Gulfstream and with an eye to the future, you buy, coax, bribe, kill and otherwise scratch yourself out a tunnel. The tunnel promises big efficiencies in your business. It is a good thing.
Now, along comes Mr. so-and-so who is looking for a way to move an undisclosed cargo into the US. Are you going to risk your newly built tunnel on this? No way Jose! You're not in the smuggling business, you're in the drug business. The draw-backs are potentially enormous, even if you don't suspect Mr. so-and-so is actually a front man for a terrorist organization. And if you do suspect that, the draw-backs are even greater. Distributing drugs is one thing, helping to smuggle terror weapons is a whole different ball game. One likely to change your enemy from the DEA to a smart-missle launched from a drone at 5 thousand feet.
Naw, I think that as a king-pin in a cartel that's had the gumption and where-with-all to build such a tunnel in the first place, you're not going to risk it on any undisclosed cargo / customers. And if you do offer safe passage to any cargo that's not yours, you're going to make damn sure you know what's going through your tunnel. Do you want anthrax released into your biggest market? Hell no! My guess is that drug cartels as a whole are pretty much anti-terror.
Seriously. Buy your own server. Hell, start your own data center. IT loves it when some other department helps them out by getting things done themselves. I mean, as an IT guy, why should I have to do everything. Let the other departments get their own production systems if they like. When the time comes to integrate things, we'll figure it out somehow. And I love it when some group has spent big bucks for something that doesn't work! Gives me a challenge to figure out - like how to fix some now critical system that never did what is was supposed to - and do it without any budget. Whooo-eeee, I remember why I joined this group now! Hot damn!
Well, I could certainly be called optimistic, but I don't believe I'm dreaming. Microsoft has deeper pockets than Sega / Dreamcast ever did, and I think they have bigger reasons to make things work. I also think more players (manufacturers) will be coming into the market, but I don't think they will be smaller companies as in the past, but bigger companies ready to carve out a chunk of what is surely a huge market. Sony, well, they have the lead now, no one disputes that, but I don't see them as infallible. Obviously the same can be said for Microsoft. We should revisit this discussion in 1 year and see where things stand.:-)
Your last question ignores the whole problem of early adoption not to mention the bad press they received for their supply problems. When supply picks up and we get past the whole "I heard you can't find them" phase, then we can see how they are doing against their sales projections. It's too early to tell on that front. If the PS3 shipped tomorrow, their situation would be worse. I've talked with two big game companies recently about their PS3 development efforts and both are still in the early stages with the best hope efforts at being able to ship by December, but no promises. One said their major sports line won't ship until end of first quarter '07.
Microsoft is in the home "living room entertainment" market for good now. They will figure out a way to make it profitable. The current XBox 360 platform requires them to get a lot of games published for their platform to make a profit on it. I don't see a problem with this approach. Sony is doing the same thing with the PS3 and no one is talking about them bowing out of the market.
The one year lead Microsoft's November launch gave them over the expected PS3 launch will give them the time they need to get a wide platform of games in place. That's a big advantage Sony had last time around. As the home entertainment system converges with things like the stereo and the home PC, I think Microsoft has the advantage. At some point customers are going to be picked up that aren't primarily gamers, at when that happens, I think XBox will be well placed to take the lead in the (by then) home entertainment system category.
In any case, this is all speculation and we'll just have to wait and see. I would be amazed if things unfold just how one camp (MS) or the other (Sony) would like.
Well, what does "blown it" mean to you? That they don't/won't have some sort of insurmountable lead over Sony when Sony finally ships their PS3? That's not their goal. The goal is to be the next gen gaming platform available for as long as possible. This gives them numbers and it gives them titles. Sure, the launch could have gone better. Several big name developers pushed off their game release dates until spring. Japan sales have been probably disappointing. Manufacturing shortages have resulted in negative publicity as folks try to get their hands on one. On the other hand, Sony seems to be having trouble bringing their unit to market (was expected July, now November) which will help Microsoft. And the more people buy in the interim, the more exposure Microsoft will have.
I don't expect even a year lead to give Microsoft the win - Sony has S.E. Asia and the numbers there for Sony and Nintendo are huge. But, if, by the time PS 3 comes out, Microsoft has a solid number of units sold and a good number of games out, that will help them in their marketing. I think their XBox Live network is going to be a really big selling point as well, something that Sony has yet to match.
Nah, the people buying these things for a premium on EBay were mostly pre-Christmas "gotta have one" folks. I know, I was almost one. Post Christmas, why risk EBay scammers, paying extra for shipping, and no a "no returns" policy when you can walk down too CostCo and buy one off the shelf. Sure, there are some stores that haven't met their waiting list demand, but in chatting with my XBox friends, all have been able to find units in stores lately without having to wait 3 days for some idiot to ship you his. Plus, we now have a better idea what games are worth playing now and what are coming out soon. The impetus for "must have 360 now" has been shifted to "must have 360 at time of favorite-game-title launch". A lot of the games people are waiting for are still a month or more away. I know I still spend 70% of my xbox time playing non-360 games.
I find it dissapointing that CNet goes for the sensational headline and in the process reports factually incorrect news. The Post did not shut down the Blog - with all it's old media vs. new connotations. They turned off comments on their blog - quite a different story. I read lots of blogs that don't allow comments - I don't find that to be a big deal. While it is always nice to comment on a story directly, the web, with it's blogosphere linking, now avails anyone of the chance to post a comment to their own blog or to a blog linking to the story in question.
But the more frequent sensationalistic nature of how web news sites - whether owned by tradiational media or new - attempt to twist the story into something reactionary - that's a story I find no one writing about and one worth discussing.
If you look at (what I presume to be) the original article on the NY Times website, you see that they use a quite different headline "Paper Closes Reader Comments on Blog, Citing Vitriol" vs. what CNet puts on their version of the exact same story with the same author "Paper decides to close blog, citing vitriol".
Nah, Sony executives have already stated publicly that they have no intentions for a centralized game play service. Part of the problem is that some game manufacturers (like EA) have started to invest big dollars in setting up these services since Sony has not. Sony's take is that online players tend to play online for specific games. Thus they (Sony) are willing to let the game manufacturers shoulder the burden of building and maintaining online services infrastructure for now. I'm sure by the time PS4 rolls around, it will be a big enough deal that Sony will work out a stake in it, but I don't think you'll see Sony tackle that for PS3.
There are other reasons as well - having to do with where the core base of customers is for Sony (Asia) vs Microsoft (North America) and how game machines are perceived within the company (think of Microsoft's current focus on the Internet). I don't think Sony is being stupid about this, they have simply done the analysis and for these (and I'm sure other) reasons have decided against a centralized system.
Nah, it will be the religious nuts who oppose this. "We can't replace what God made" will be their mantra. In the US at least it will be a long long fight. Major suckage for those of us who could use a new kidney or such. (Not that I'll be around to see the benefits.)
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Wait, are we talking about the early Brittany or the more recent "hey, how much of a crazy person can I be" Brittany? Because I would argue that the early Brittany probably had a lot of help getting onto the national stage. However, the recent "crazy" Brittany probably managed that all by her lonesome!
By functional I mean in the scope of the serious political landscape of the state, pursuing a separation from the USA is never going to make it past the laugh and a "yea right" stage.
I would argue that just because a person would want a state to separate from the USA doesn't mean they are anti-USA. Perhaps their own self-interests are served better by an independent state? If I like avocados and I decide I want to grown my own in Alaska, it doesn't automatically mean that I'm against the California Avocado Growers association, is it? ;-)
Unfortunately for many, the party in question happens to maintain platforms on many issues, not just whether Alaska should succeed. Sometimes those issues happen to be the hot-button issues for folks - less government, etc. Although a few might hold that Alaska would be better off on it's own, I doubt that most hold that part of the platform as the core as why they voted for, or are a member of that particular party. I am a registered Republican yet I disagree with a good deal of the party platform. Why stay in the party? Because my hot button issues are addressed by their platform more than the alternatives.
With respect to "no worse than any other Alaskan" my intent was to convey that there can often be a sense that Alaska gets the raw end of the deal on the national political stage - eg. that it's ignored. This can lead to jokes about "going our own way" but I'd bet dollars to donuts that if it came down to it, Alaskans are Americans first and Alaskan's second. All this being immaterial of course, as it's illegal to succeed so attempts to do so in an imaginary distant future will likely not get very far unless there's a change in the US constitution.
Generally we're not talking the mainstream here. Alaska is a small place and there is a sense that people are entitled to their own political opinions independently of whether you think of them as a "friend" or not. This is why I don't think there is cause to put much stock into Palin's husband's onetime membership in one particular party.
As to the Couric interview, she didn't show her best, certainly! I plan to vote for other party - something I planned before her nomination - but nothing McCain/Palin have shown me has changed my mind thus far.
She's no more a separatist than any other Alaskan. There is not a functioning separatist movement in Alaska any more than there is in Texas (which has it's groups claiming that the state is a republic not a state and there-fore should stand on its own). Efforts to create one in order to paint Palin in a bad light are simplistic and misinformed.
As for being an idiot, I disagree. She's managed to leap herself onto the national stage in a relatively short time period. I don't think it has been a carefully planned assault, but certainly she has managed to accomplish some quirky set of actions that have enabled her to reach this point. I've no doubt there are thousands of other budding politicians out there on city/county and state levels who are trying to do the same and yet there she is.
However, that being said, I don't think she's really the type we want in the VP role right now. Nothing to do with her experience, imho, but perhaps more to do with her social/moralistic convictions.
I personally don't follow the confusion over what this box is. They indicate it has "router like" login - if they use Cisco's, it's most likely an old cisco terminal server plugged in somewhere. If they can reach it on the network, I'm having a hard time understanding why they can't narrow down where it is. I'm guessing they don't physically label their hardware? What?! I mean, if you can traceroute to it, you can get a MAC address which will give you the device mfg. From there it's a matter of following the cables form the last hop surely to likely boxes. What the hell am I missing here?
Perhaps the article is overly simplistic in its description. Perhaps they've done all this and still can't find it. The MAC address has been changed or tracing 900 cables is taking them a while or something. But I still wouldn't be talking to the press admitting my own departments incompetence. I mean sheesh!
Hear hear! Lol.
Errr, yes they can. For instance, been a nuisance on a plane of a particular airline? They can refuse your future business.
Clancy games don't have "interesting and unique" weapons (like the needler) because they are supposed to be grounded in the weaponry of today (or a few years into the future). Thus the limits on standard gunpowder charged projectile spitting guns. Perhaps one day Clancey will start writing science fiction and we will see a Rainbow Twelve team with terro-pulse rifles and magna-grenades.
Oh come on, parent is funny - someone mod up.
His cancer was "cured" with surgery and radiation therapy. Having been though the same, I doubt he feels any effects from that now. The possibility the cancer spread is present, but quarterly monitoring will usually turn that up - and in his case the cancer was caught very early on reducing the likelyhood that it had a chance to spread. It's unlikely his appearance is related to his original illness/treatment.
Errr, I these cars were leased, not sold. GM did that so that they could get them all back and deal with maintenace issues at the same time. See the Wikipedia entry for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_EV1.
Yep - I plan on running though. I'm going to take the place of that old guy, camping out in the capitol building, with all those cats. Hopefully I can get Jessica 6 to come with me.
But what do they live off? We can't all just order takeout. Somebody has to go out and work the farms, mine the minerals, run the factories, and do all the other stuff we need to do to make a living. To do all the things you do to support all the people we have, you need a whole planet, not just some tiny corner of it.
The machines can do it. Come on, I'm looking forward to some of that free love like in Logan's Run.
What a bunch of bull. By your reasoning all the guys who work on mainframes or large systems during the day couldn't be considered good IT folks 'cause they don't have one to play with at home. I can tell your hiring experience encompasses a wide range of infrastructure support people. (It's a generalization, but I stand by it.) Shoot, the best guys I've seen hired didn't obsess over the same crap at home as they had at work, they had other interests. Doesn't mean they weren't expert in their field. It actually made them better at IT at as they weren't 2 dimensional morons.
Thanks for that. Now I can say I actually learned something interesting today. Hurrah!
Unlikely. Look, take the point of view of a drug lord. You spend big bucks, forgo the latest model Gulfstream and with an eye to the future, you buy, coax, bribe, kill and otherwise scratch yourself out a tunnel. The tunnel promises big efficiencies in your business. It is a good thing.
Now, along comes Mr. so-and-so who is looking for a way to move an undisclosed cargo into the US. Are you going to risk your newly built tunnel on this? No way Jose! You're not in the smuggling business, you're in the drug business. The draw-backs are potentially enormous, even if you don't suspect Mr. so-and-so is actually a front man for a terrorist organization. And if you do suspect that, the draw-backs are even greater. Distributing drugs is one thing, helping to smuggle terror weapons is a whole different ball game. One likely to change your enemy from the DEA to a smart-missle launched from a drone at 5 thousand feet.
Naw, I think that as a king-pin in a cartel that's had the gumption and where-with-all to build such a tunnel in the first place, you're not going to risk it on any undisclosed cargo / customers. And if you do offer safe passage to any cargo that's not yours, you're going to make damn sure you know what's going through your tunnel. Do you want anthrax released into your biggest market? Hell no! My guess is that drug cartels as a whole are pretty much anti-terror.
Seriously. Buy your own server. Hell, start your own data center. IT loves it when some other department helps them out by getting things done themselves. I mean, as an IT guy, why should I have to do everything. Let the other departments get their own production systems if they like. When the time comes to integrate things, we'll figure it out somehow. And I love it when some group has spent big bucks for something that doesn't work! Gives me a challenge to figure out - like how to fix some now critical system that never did what is was supposed to - and do it without any budget. Whooo-eeee, I remember why I joined this group now! Hot damn!
Well, I could certainly be called optimistic, but I don't believe I'm dreaming. Microsoft has deeper pockets than Sega / Dreamcast ever did, and I think they have bigger reasons to make things work. I also think more players (manufacturers) will be coming into the market, but I don't think they will be smaller companies as in the past, but bigger companies ready to carve out a chunk of what is surely a huge market. Sony, well, they have the lead now, no one disputes that, but I don't see them as infallible. Obviously the same can be said for Microsoft. We should revisit this discussion in 1 year and see where things stand. :-)
Your last question ignores the whole problem of early adoption not to mention the bad press they received for their supply problems. When supply picks up and we get past the whole "I heard you can't find them" phase, then we can see how they are doing against their sales projections. It's too early to tell on that front. If the PS3 shipped tomorrow, their situation would be worse. I've talked with two big game companies recently about their PS3 development efforts and both are still in the early stages with the best hope efforts at being able to ship by December, but no promises. One said their major sports line won't ship until end of first quarter '07.
Microsoft is in the home "living room entertainment" market for good now. They will figure out a way to make it profitable. The current XBox 360 platform requires them to get a lot of games published for their platform to make a profit on it. I don't see a problem with this approach. Sony is doing the same thing with the PS3 and no one is talking about them bowing out of the market.
The one year lead Microsoft's November launch gave them over the expected PS3 launch will give them the time they need to get a wide platform of games in place. That's a big advantage Sony had last time around. As the home entertainment system converges with things like the stereo and the home PC, I think Microsoft has the advantage. At some point customers are going to be picked up that aren't primarily gamers, at when that happens, I think XBox will be well placed to take the lead in the (by then) home entertainment system category.
In any case, this is all speculation and we'll just have to wait and see. I would be amazed if things unfold just how one camp (MS) or the other (Sony) would like.
Well, what does "blown it" mean to you? That they don't/won't have some sort of insurmountable lead over Sony when Sony finally ships their PS3? That's not their goal. The goal is to be the next gen gaming platform available for as long as possible. This gives them numbers and it gives them titles. Sure, the launch could have gone better. Several big name developers pushed off their game release dates until spring. Japan sales have been probably disappointing. Manufacturing shortages have resulted in negative publicity as folks try to get their hands on one. On the other hand, Sony seems to be having trouble bringing their unit to market (was expected July, now November) which will help Microsoft. And the more people buy in the interim, the more exposure Microsoft will have.
I don't expect even a year lead to give Microsoft the win - Sony has S.E. Asia and the numbers there for Sony and Nintendo are huge. But, if, by the time PS 3 comes out, Microsoft has a solid number of units sold and a good number of games out, that will help them in their marketing. I think their XBox Live network is going to be a really big selling point as well, something that Sony has yet to match.
Nah, the people buying these things for a premium on EBay were mostly pre-Christmas "gotta have one" folks. I know, I was almost one. Post Christmas, why risk EBay scammers, paying extra for shipping, and no a "no returns" policy when you can walk down too CostCo and buy one off the shelf. Sure, there are some stores that haven't met their waiting list demand, but in chatting with my XBox friends, all have been able to find units in stores lately without having to wait 3 days for some idiot to ship you his. Plus, we now have a better idea what games are worth playing now and what are coming out soon. The impetus for "must have 360 now" has been shifted to "must have 360 at time of favorite-game-title launch". A lot of the games people are waiting for are still a month or more away. I know I still spend 70% of my xbox time playing non-360 games.
I find it dissapointing that CNet goes for the sensational headline and in the process reports factually incorrect news. The Post did not shut down the Blog - with all it's old media vs. new connotations. They turned off comments on their blog - quite a different story. I read lots of blogs that don't allow comments - I don't find that to be a big deal. While it is always nice to comment on a story directly, the web, with it's blogosphere linking, now avails anyone of the chance to post a comment to their own blog or to a blog linking to the story in question.
But the more frequent sensationalistic nature of how web news sites - whether owned by tradiational media or new - attempt to twist the story into something reactionary - that's a story I find no one writing about and one worth discussing.
If you look at (what I presume to be) the original article on the NY Times website, you see that they use a quite different headline "Paper Closes Reader Comments on Blog, Citing Vitriol" vs. what CNet puts on their version of the exact same story with the same author "Paper decides to close blog, citing vitriol".
Way to insert yourself into the news, CNet.
More corrections:
You mistyped the number of Apple employees - roughly 15,000 (not 75,000).
Nah, Sony executives have already stated publicly that they have no intentions for a centralized game play service. Part of the problem is that some game manufacturers (like EA) have started to invest big dollars in setting up these services since Sony has not. Sony's take is that online players tend to play online for specific games. Thus they (Sony) are willing to let the game manufacturers shoulder the burden of building and maintaining online services infrastructure for now. I'm sure by the time PS4 rolls around, it will be a big enough deal that Sony will work out a stake in it, but I don't think you'll see Sony tackle that for PS3.
There are other reasons as well - having to do with where the core base of customers is for Sony (Asia) vs Microsoft (North America) and how game machines are perceived within the company (think of Microsoft's current focus on the Internet). I don't think Sony is being stupid about this, they have simply done the analysis and for these (and I'm sure other) reasons have decided against a centralized system.
Nah, it will be the religious nuts who oppose this. "We can't replace what God made" will be their mantra. In the US at least it will be a long long fight. Major suckage for those of us who could use a new kidney or such. (Not that I'll be around to see the benefits.)