"We can't legally tell you to lie to customers, but it's pretty much the only way to make quota."
"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury. I'm not legally allowed to offer you large cash kickbacks for finding in favour of my client, but please take a moment to put your addresses on these envelopes."
Well, by that logic, why use a word processor, when a pen and paper are cheaper?
Because for some things, cheaper isn't always better. And I know that I don't want our boys and girls in space worrying about chasing down an errant log with a handy vac.
Besides, is that handy vac going to fuck up the electronics? How do you dispose of the waste after you've vaccumed it? And so on.
No, he's thinking 'if 'unemployed' is stated as 'is collecting unemployement benefits,' what are you if you're still not working when those benefits run out?'
If out of 100 people, 5 are collecting unemployement benefits, but 5 more have been unemployed for over a year, and have no more benefits to collect, then is your unemployement rate 5 percent, or 10 percent?
Why don't we call George Bush "G-Bu" or Dick Cheney "D-Chay?"
I have a sudden mental image of Dick Cheney, in the appropriate gear, at a DJ station, doing the DJ thing, while Bush is shouting into a microphone, whilst waving his arm in the air and what not, 'DJ D-Chay is in the HIZZOUSE! This is muthafuckin Dubya coming atcha! Everybody say HEY!' and so on.
Kind of disturbing, really.
I've heard it said that in the case of Ms. Lopez, 'J-Lo' is the singer, and 'Jennifer Lopez' is the acctress; two separate personas.
When you get right down to it, though, it's basic human group dynamics; by adopting separate jargon, speech patterns, or naming conventions, your group can differentiate itself from everybody else. Humans like to do that sort of thing.
Second important note; a missed bugfix on a car can result in the death of yourself, or others around you.
A missed bugfix on a Windows 98 machine, these days, probably doesn't mean much. As has been pointed out, a lot of the exploits nowadays are too advanced for Win98 to fall prey to.
I'm reminded of Henry Ford's workers; he paid his employees something like five times the going rate. Partly, this is because he was a real bitch to work for. But he also wanted to make sure that his employees could reasonably hope to buy the cars they were making.
And, if the service is there for business users to check their email, maybe VPN to the office for a bit, and order room service, and you're sucking down ISOs whilst not even in the room, I'd say you're degrading the service for other users.
I've said it before, I'll say it again. In a sane world, any policy put in place to 'prevent another 9/11' should need to satisfactorily answer the question "If we were doing this three years ago, how would it have directly helped to stop 9/11?'
Can't access the cockpit from the cabin? Would have helped prevent 9/11. Checking bank records? Wouldn't of helped. Done.
If the US considers any country which gives aid or comfort to terrorists, to be terrorists, how does it explain all the money Gerry Adams got from American citizens?
There's a reason that a bunch of 'end of the world' movies popped up in the late nineties (Armageddon and Deep Impact come to mind) and there's a reason super-hero movies are so popular now.
You'll also notice that all of the cartoons we watched as kids, both boys and girls, are coming back; Transfomers, He-Man, My Little Pony, Strawberry Shortcake, and so on. Ties into the superhero movie resurgence, too.
Besides, most 'adaptive AI' is of the 'lower the health of the beastie that's whipping the PC's ass' or 'increase it's accuracy to Godlike levels' style.
What it SHOULD be is 'PC likes to crawl along ceiling pipes and rain down death from above, so watch the ceiling' or 'PC goes for head shots for quick kills, so bust out the helmets' or 'PC likes to shoot out the lights, so bring floodlights into a room we think he's going to, wait 45 seconds after he shoots out the lights, and turn them on.'
In-game characters reacting intelligently to what the PC is doing should be the order of the day. Supposedly Splinter Cell 2 does some of this, but I get the feeling lots of it will be pre-scripted; when x number of enemies is killed, do RunToArmorRoomAndGearUp(), for example.
Yes, to a certain point. But I think they still took it too far.
It also doesn't help that a) they have to show you a walkthrough, basically, to get you through the levels, and b) very often, I found, a pole you were supposed to grab was difficult to make out against the wall, or a jump that looked too long was doable, while a jump that was doable looked too long.
The counterpoint to that is that the game has to be perfect, in terms of not punishing you by interface.
Splinter Cell, for example, like many games, had quite a few points where you had to die to figure out how you should have acted. Hell, one of the opening missions, where you need to sneak past some cops shaking down a drunk, there's too much sillyness. The cops can't hear you grunting and wheezing as you go past, hand to hand, but if you climb up too fast, you're hosed.
Prince of Persia: Sands of Time is another example of this.
Next time on...Survivor Mars: After losing a reward challenge, the Bradbury tribe runs out of oxygen. (queue to shots of people suffocating on the Martian plains, under a tribal banner.) Meanwhile, the Heinlien tribe, having run out of food, considers following local custom. (queue to shots of people surrounding a 'discorporated' body, with forks and knives.)
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, it's juror Mindy. :-)
"We can't legally tell you to lie to customers, but it's pretty much the only way to make quota."
"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury. I'm not legally allowed to offer you large cash kickbacks for finding in favour of my client, but please take a moment to put your addresses on these envelopes."
-- quoted (badly) from Dilbert.
Well, by that logic, why use a word processor, when a pen and paper are cheaper?
Because for some things, cheaper isn't always better. And I know that I don't want our boys and girls in space worrying about chasing down an errant log with a handy vac.
Besides, is that handy vac going to fuck up the electronics? How do you dispose of the waste after you've vaccumed it? And so on.
You go try taking a shit, in microgravity, on a toilet you buy from Home Depot.
No, he's thinking 'if 'unemployed' is stated as 'is collecting unemployement benefits,' what are you if you're still not working when those benefits run out?'
If out of 100 people, 5 are collecting unemployement benefits, but 5 more have been unemployed for over a year, and have no more benefits to collect, then is your unemployement rate 5 percent, or 10 percent?
I have a sudden mental image of Dick Cheney, in the appropriate gear, at a DJ station, doing the DJ thing, while Bush is shouting into a microphone, whilst waving his arm in the air and what not, 'DJ D-Chay is in the HIZZOUSE! This is muthafuckin Dubya coming atcha! Everybody say HEY!' and so on.
Kind of disturbing, really.
I've heard it said that in the case of Ms. Lopez, 'J-Lo' is the singer, and 'Jennifer Lopez' is the acctress; two separate personas.
When you get right down to it, though, it's basic human group dynamics; by adopting separate jargon, speech patterns, or naming conventions, your group can differentiate itself from everybody else. Humans like to do that sort of thing.
That's not 'selling out.' That's 'making a sound business decision.'
Of course, as long as Win98 is there to fall back on, how many companies will bother to be XP compliant?
Second important note; a missed bugfix on a car can result in the death of yourself, or others around you.
A missed bugfix on a Windows 98 machine, these days, probably doesn't mean much. As has been pointed out, a lot of the exploits nowadays are too advanced for Win98 to fall prey to.
...Raven uses glass knives. Sharp enough to go through bulletproof fabric, and they don't show up on millimeter radar.
Paraphrased from Snow Crash, by Neil Stephenson.
Yeah, OK.
I'm reminded of Henry Ford's workers; he paid his employees something like five times the going rate. Partly, this is because he was a real bitch to work for. But he also wanted to make sure that his employees could reasonably hope to buy the cars they were making.
And, if the service is there for business users to check their email, maybe VPN to the office for a bit, and order room service, and you're sucking down ISOs whilst not even in the room, I'd say you're degrading the service for other users.
Give an inch, and they take a mile.
Just make it federal law that you must pay your employees the minimum wage, or higher, regardless of their citizenship, place of work, or whatever.
Americans are still the least likely, statistically, citizens in the world to die in a terrorist act.
I believe that in 2000, 2002, and 2003, the number of Americans killed in terrorist actions were, well, zero.
I've said it before, I'll say it again. In a sane world, any policy put in place to 'prevent another 9/11' should need to satisfactorily answer the question "If we were doing this three years ago, how would it have directly helped to stop 9/11?'
Can't access the cockpit from the cabin? Would have helped prevent 9/11. Checking bank records? Wouldn't of helped. Done.
If the US considers any country which gives aid or comfort to terrorists, to be terrorists, how does it explain all the money Gerry Adams got from American citizens?
There's a reason that a bunch of 'end of the world' movies popped up in the late nineties (Armageddon and Deep Impact come to mind) and there's a reason super-hero movies are so popular now.
You'll also notice that all of the cartoons we watched as kids, both boys and girls, are coming back; Transfomers, He-Man, My Little Pony, Strawberry Shortcake, and so on. Ties into the superhero movie resurgence, too.
Negative.
There were many times that a you had to jump a space that was wider than jumps you previously coulnd't make.
Then there jumps that looked impossible, instant death, that Princey would simply traipse over.
Yes, I know, and that's the problem.
Besides, most 'adaptive AI' is of the 'lower the health of the beastie that's whipping the PC's ass' or 'increase it's accuracy to Godlike levels' style.
What it SHOULD be is 'PC likes to crawl along ceiling pipes and rain down death from above, so watch the ceiling' or 'PC goes for head shots for quick kills, so bust out the helmets' or 'PC likes to shoot out the lights, so bring floodlights into a room we think he's going to, wait 45 seconds after he shoots out the lights, and turn them on.'
In-game characters reacting intelligently to what the PC is doing should be the order of the day. Supposedly Splinter Cell 2 does some of this, but I get the feeling lots of it will be pre-scripted; when x number of enemies is killed, do RunToArmorRoomAndGearUp(), for example.
Yes, to a certain point. But I think they still took it too far.
It also doesn't help that a) they have to show you a walkthrough, basically, to get you through the levels, and b) very often, I found, a pole you were supposed to grab was difficult to make out against the wall, or a jump that looked too long was doable, while a jump that was doable looked too long.
You assume that the other fellow's arguments are based on reason and logic. Sadly, they often aren't.
The counterpoint to that is that the game has to be perfect, in terms of not punishing you by interface.
Splinter Cell, for example, like many games, had quite a few points where you had to die to figure out how you should have acted. Hell, one of the opening missions, where you need to sneak past some cops shaking down a drunk, there's too much sillyness. The cops can't hear you grunting and wheezing as you go past, hand to hand, but if you climb up too fast, you're hosed.
Prince of Persia: Sands of Time is another example of this.
From the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition:
Yup.
That would be cool.
If IBM sells you Linux, and indemifies you against a lawsuit (insuring that you won't be out the money,) then why doesn't this guy?
If this guy is so certain that no lawsuit will ever happen, or stick, then why does he refuse to put that in writing?
I'm not saying the hotel chain is right or wrong, I'm just pointing out what their thinking might just be.