why weren't the aliens using the weanpos to revolt instead of selling them to the Nigerians?
The aliens did not stage a revolt using their superior technology because they were stupid drones who lacked initiative. This was all explicitly stated near the beginning of the movie, and repeatedly demonstrated throughout it (e.g. trading the mech-suit for a hundred cans of cat food).
I could totally buy the lack of any organized resistance, but come on... the aliens had totally bad-ass small arms, and lots of them. And there were multiple scenes showing the prawns as tempermental and violence-prone. You'd think in a population of 2 million+ there'd be a whole lot of alien ass-kicking going on. It would be very dangerous to be one of the Nigerian overlords in that kind of environment. Give a stupid person a regular gun and they're dangerous... give a stupid person a gun straight out of Ratchet and Clank and you're in BIG trouble.
But the plot hole that I hated the most was the "one substance does it all" trope. The same black fluid that powers a starship also (very coincidentally) performs a perfect genetic-level transformation of a human to a prawn? I can suspend disbelief like the next guy, but that really pulled me out of the movie.
An identity card system is not the same as a security system; in fact, the governmental standards for single ID specifically preclude its use as a privilege system. The proposed ID's have the capability of identifying the individual as a government employee/contractor, and, combined with some other security systems, will grant or deny access to different assets (buildings, computer systems, etc.) But the card is not a magic golden ticket to let you do whatever you want. Just because I'm a fed and can walk into a Federal courthouse in Dallas doesn't mean I can walk into the Federal Reserve Building in New York.
That said, though, most government employees can enter most non-sensitive federal buildings with the ID's they already have. Federal employees from lots of different agencies need to do business with other agencies, and there's so much crossover that it's not practical for building access to be defined on an employee-by-employee basis. It's easier to say "no" to those few high-security buildings and areas than it is to say "yes" to the umpteen zillion buildings with minimal security concerns.
This is really a non-issue... for physical access this system is just a consolidated, unified approach to a system already in place. For electronic access (i.e., computers) this is just a varient of the secure smart card system already used by numerous private industries. The only real "universality" is that the ID's will look the same and the tech will come from a few contractors, instead of many. It will certainly save money as it replaces smaller, localized contracts that do the same thing. But it will not open the government to a single point of attack as many posters are implying. We will not be worse off than before, and will probably be better off.
in PDF format at the plantiff's website. It'll tell you all you ever wanted to know about the events that led up to yesterday's decision. There's some good zingers towards the end.
...or, manual dexterity, which would only really help if you needed to operate a book of matches (something that didn't exist for 99.99999% of human history)?
Not quite. Even considering a generous definition of "human history" spanning 1 million years, if matches weren't available for 99.99999% of "human history" then they weren't invented till a little more than a month ago.:-)
You probably mean "99.9823%" instead, as chemical friction matches were invented in 1827. Decimal points are powerful things.:-D
As has been stated... chopsticks have been around forever. Perhaps you were thinking about fortune cookies, which WERE invented in America by Chinese immigrants. Fortune cookies and "California rolls" are two examples of "asian" cuisine invented in the U.S. that then migrated back to Asia.
Re:I'd like to hear the other side
on
No Abiword For Mac?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Yeah, firing someone for performance reasons (i.e., failing to adequately peform the duties of their position) gives the former employee lots of appeal rights, but if this guy was fired during his probationary period that's a whole 'nother matter. Probationary periods exist to give the employer an opportunity to see if newly hired employees really are as good as the resume/interview/background checks indicate they should've been. If it turns out the employee doesn't cut the mustard the employer can release the new employee with (near) impunity. Any employee who is employed beyond their probationary period is deemed to have implicitly "passed" a review of competence and THEN they get all kinds of rights if you fire them.
Which makes sense... if the employer says you really are competent (by keeping you after your probationary period) then if at some future point they say you suck it's reasonable to assume that they'd have to prove it. This is why well-run organizations take new employee probationary periods VERY seriously, because they know they could easily get stuck with a bad apple if they let the probabtionary period pass without reviewing the situation.
But the rules on probationary employment are generally so lax that it's possible to fire someone for lots of reasons that have little or nothing to do with competence. Personal hygiene. Shoe size. Rudeness. Whatever. So who knows? The bottom line is Apple didn't want him anymore so they made him go away. If he's having trouble dealing with this he really should see a therapist... even if he had issues with his work group or manager it's silly to think Apple, Inc. has any feelings one way or the other about him.
Any statistically valid random sample should demonstrate the population characteristics, but 2 (i.e., him and her, me and you, whatever) isn't even remotely a large enough population to make your statement meaningful. (Ex. Pick a random number from 0 to 99. The average of the population of numbers is 50 (or so), but does that mean that the number you picked will most probably be 50? Or even close? Or that the odds of you choosing a random "50" is any different from choosing a 0 or a 99? No. You have to increase the sample size before the statistical trends in the population begin the appear.)
Scientists deal in terms of entire populations, but people deal in terms of individuals, and on any particular one-on-one comparison all statistical comparisons are off because you don't know if your sample is taken from the extremes of the sample pool or not. You don't have enough data to smooth out the average.
These statistics are very harmful in the wrong hands because they encourage well-meaning (but ignorant) people to think that a statement that is true for large populations is also true for the specific case of me and Mary. Or even that it's PROBABLY true, when, in fact, it isn't.
Yes. And the statistics are the reason why studies like this are often damaging. If you're a scientist and you discover that population X is better or worse at something than population Y that's all fine and wonderful and potentially useful. But most people aren't scientists, and are seduced into extrapolating facts that are are true for a population into things they THINK are true about an individual.
It's one thing to think women are worse at spacial tasks than men, but too many people make the logical error of thinking "If I am a man, and Mary over there is a woman, Mary must be worse at spatial tasks than me." That's NOT what the research says (unless you and Mary are tested for your relative spatial skills) It's that kind of thinking that creates and reinforces harmful stereotypes.
I don't know about the people who said they got hosed when the dead-tree version of TPJ went down last time. I was a subscriber, and when TPJ stopped publishing I got a year's subscription to the Linux Journal in its place. No, it wasn't the same but I like Linux too, and I definitely felt like I got my money's worth out of my subscription. I wasn't ripped off at all.
And for those people who think that everything they need is online, I think they never read the original TPJ. Online resources simply don't have the depth and breadth of coverage of a single topic that TPJ did. Perl.com's articles aren't bad, but they always seem like an overview and not comprehensive enough. And PerlMonks is great for questions, but not so good if you want want to know more information than someone is willing to type into a little box on a website.:-D
Slashdot Mirror
The aliens did not stage a revolt using their superior technology because they were stupid drones who lacked initiative. This was all explicitly stated near the beginning of the movie, and repeatedly demonstrated throughout it (e.g. trading the mech-suit for a hundred cans of cat food).
I could totally buy the lack of any organized resistance, but come on... the aliens had totally bad-ass small arms, and lots of them. And there were multiple scenes showing the prawns as tempermental and violence-prone. You'd think in a population of 2 million+ there'd be a whole lot of alien ass-kicking going on. It would be very dangerous to be one of the Nigerian overlords in that kind of environment. Give a stupid person a regular gun and they're dangerous... give a stupid person a gun straight out of Ratchet and Clank and you're in BIG trouble.
But the plot hole that I hated the most was the "one substance does it all" trope. The same black fluid that powers a starship also (very coincidentally) performs a perfect genetic-level transformation of a human to a prawn? I can suspend disbelief like the next guy, but that really pulled me out of the movie.
An identity card system is not the same as a security system; in fact, the governmental standards for single ID specifically preclude its use as a privilege system. The proposed ID's have the capability of identifying the individual as a government employee/contractor, and, combined with some other security systems, will grant or deny access to different assets (buildings, computer systems, etc.) But the card is not a magic golden ticket to let you do whatever you want. Just because I'm a fed and can walk into a Federal courthouse in Dallas doesn't mean I can walk into the Federal Reserve Building in New York.
That said, though, most government employees can enter most non-sensitive federal buildings with the ID's they already have. Federal employees from lots of different agencies need to do business with other agencies, and there's so much crossover that it's not practical for building access to be defined on an employee-by-employee basis. It's easier to say "no" to those few high-security buildings and areas than it is to say "yes" to the umpteen zillion buildings with minimal security concerns.
This is really a non-issue... for physical access this system is just a consolidated, unified approach to a system already in place. For electronic access (i.e., computers) this is just a varient of the secure smart card system already used by numerous private industries. The only real "universality" is that the ID's will look the same and the tech will come from a few contractors, instead of many. It will certainly save money as it replaces smaller, localized contracts that do the same thing. But it will not open the government to a single point of attack as many posters are implying. We will not be worse off than before, and will probably be better off.
Paranoia is fun, but this is not a big deal.
in PDF format at the plantiff's website. It'll tell you all you ever wanted to know about the events that led up to yesterday's decision. There's some good zingers towards the end.
Not quite. Even considering a generous definition of "human history" spanning 1 million years, if matches weren't available for 99.99999% of "human history" then they weren't invented till a little more than a month ago. :-)
You probably mean "99.9823%" instead, as chemical friction matches were invented in 1827. Decimal points are powerful things. :-D
As has been stated... chopsticks have been around forever. Perhaps you were thinking about fortune cookies, which WERE invented in America by Chinese immigrants. Fortune cookies and "California rolls" are two examples of "asian" cuisine invented in the U.S. that then migrated back to Asia.
Yeah, firing someone for performance reasons (i.e., failing to adequately peform the duties of their position) gives the former employee lots of appeal rights, but if this guy was fired during his probationary period that's a whole 'nother matter. Probationary periods exist to give the employer an opportunity to see if newly hired employees really are as good as the resume/interview/background checks indicate they should've been. If it turns out the employee doesn't cut the mustard the employer can release the new employee with (near) impunity. Any employee who is employed beyond their probationary period is deemed to have implicitly "passed" a review of competence and THEN they get all kinds of rights if you fire them.
Which makes sense... if the employer says you really are competent (by keeping you after your probationary period) then if at some future point they say you suck it's reasonable to assume that they'd have to prove it. This is why well-run organizations take new employee probationary periods VERY seriously, because they know they could easily get stuck with a bad apple if they let the probabtionary period pass without reviewing the situation.
But the rules on probationary employment are generally so lax that it's possible to fire someone for lots of reasons that have little or nothing to do with competence. Personal hygiene. Shoe size. Rudeness. Whatever. So who knows? The bottom line is Apple didn't want him anymore so they made him go away. If he's having trouble dealing with this he really should see a therapist... even if he had issues with his work group or manager it's silly to think Apple, Inc. has any feelings one way or the other about him.
Any statistically valid random sample should demonstrate the population characteristics, but 2 (i.e., him and her, me and you, whatever) isn't even remotely a large enough population to make your statement meaningful. (Ex. Pick a random number from 0 to 99. The average of the population of numbers is 50 (or so), but does that mean that the number you picked will most probably be 50? Or even close? Or that the odds of you choosing a random "50" is any different from choosing a 0 or a 99? No. You have to increase the sample size before the statistical trends in the population begin the appear.)
Scientists deal in terms of entire populations, but people deal in terms of individuals, and on any particular one-on-one comparison all statistical comparisons are off because you don't know if your sample is taken from the extremes of the sample pool or not. You don't have enough data to smooth out the average.
These statistics are very harmful in the wrong hands because they encourage well-meaning (but ignorant) people to think that a statement that is true for large populations is also true for the specific case of me and Mary. Or even that it's PROBABLY true, when, in fact, it isn't.
Yes. And the statistics are the reason why studies like this are often damaging. If you're a scientist and you discover that population X is better or worse at something than population Y that's all fine and wonderful and potentially useful. But most people aren't scientists, and are seduced into extrapolating facts that are are true for a population into things they THINK are true about an individual.
It's one thing to think women are worse at spacial tasks than men, but too many people make the logical error of thinking "If I am a man, and Mary over there is a woman, Mary must be worse at spatial tasks than me." That's NOT what the research says (unless you and Mary are tested for your relative spatial skills) It's that kind of thinking that creates and reinforces harmful stereotypes.
I don't know about the people who said they got hosed when the dead-tree version of TPJ went down last time. I was a subscriber, and when TPJ stopped publishing I got a year's subscription to the Linux Journal in its place. No, it wasn't the same but I like Linux too, and I definitely felt like I got my money's worth out of my subscription. I wasn't ripped off at all.
:-D
And for those people who think that everything they need is online, I think they never read the original TPJ. Online resources simply don't have the depth and breadth of coverage of a single topic that TPJ did. Perl.com's articles aren't bad, but they always seem like an overview and not comprehensive enough. And PerlMonks is great for questions, but not so good if you want want to know more information than someone is willing to type into a little box on a website.
I know where my $12 bucks are going.