it is generally not the responsibility of somebody else to make sure that material they are not responsible for does not wind up in places it doesn't belong.
Unless they're farmers whose neighbours are growing Monsanto products and they aren't, in which case they're well and truly fucked.
On the other hand, I can defend this position. Each F22 and F35 consistently tests on par with at least a ten to one ratio. That means an F35, at 120 million each, versus 45 million per SH, is still a far, far, far better buy. For the same money we can get 2.7 SH or one F35. Given that one F35 can easily take out ten SH's, that places us 315 million ahead when contrasting F35 vs SH purchases.
This presumes that 1 F35 can perform the work of 2.7 SHs in many areas. With less available aircraft, it will be more difficult to maintain combat readiness for a squadron during operations, especially if aircraft are lost due to accidents or enemy action. As to the 10:1 kill ratio against SHs, you're pitting the F35 against one of the least impressive non-stealth fighters in the world. Most of the time the Navy and Marine versions wouldn't be able to take out more than four aircraft due to their lack of an internal gun. Also the SH is available today, while the F35 won't be available in significant numbers until sometime after 2016-2020, depending on whether they identify any significant problems during the remaining tests.
The main problem with the F35 is its cost/capability compared to existing aircraft (F22, F15, F16, SH) and how effective it is likely to be against future air threats. It is unlikely that the F35 will be able to safely operate in airspace defended by Russian S300 or S400 SAM systems, unless other stealth aircraft are used first to clear the defenses. Once the US has done this and gained air superiority, the F35 becomes an overpriced bomb truck, a task which could be better performed by current non-stealthy aircraft, which would be both cheaper and more effective in this role. Basically the F35s problem is that it's too ineffective against future peer or near-peer level enemies and too expensive to use in permissive air environments and the F35 program needs to be killed for this reason. The USAF should attempt to purchase more F22s, F16s and F15s. The Navy should purchase more SHs and look into either navalizing the F22 or developing the F/A XX as a SH replacement. The Marines should be left to either solo fund the STOVL F35 or forced to depend upon Navy aircraft for their strike needs.
No, but Verizon decided to congratulate Comcast on their win. Although Verizon really shouldn't be gloating since their own terrible service saw them nominated as one of the 32 worst companies and got knocked out in the first round by AT&T.
That's essentially the US Navy's big dirty secret, that its carriers are essentially gold-plated floating targets. Of course no-one in the Navy is likely to admit to this until at least one or two carriers have already been sunk.
Australia's following the same general trend also exhibited in the US and UK, that of focusing legislative efforts on anything which has the perception of making the country safer. This process is exacerbated by media outlets, which run a steady stream of fear-laden non-news stories, reinforcing the demand for further legislative "solutions" to problems that don't exist. One part of this problem is that no-one in the media or in politics will actually point out that these laws are pointless, since there's often no incentive to do so. The other is when entities outside the media attempt to argue against these idiotic policies, the media either ignores the protests or paints the protesters as deviants.
The TV show the Real Hustle showed this run as a scam to harvest credit card details. A scammer with a laptop sets up as a fake access point which serves up fake payment screen to anyone who connects to that point. Most of the people connecting to the point assume that the payment screen is legitimate and enter their details. You might not catch the truly paranoid or alert, but there's still plenty of people who would be fooled.
Well that pretty much deflates the whole issue. Plus Southwest's policy is pretty generous, and giving him $100 because he couldn't get a seat on standby was totally unnecessary.
I was skeptical about the headline anyway. If you can't be accommodated safely due to your size, then you cannot fly. There's no outrage fuel here.
According to Kevin he had purchased two seats on one flight, then been put on standby for an earlier flight. Southwest moved him onto the earlier flight and only gave him one seat. This flight was apparently half-full. Southwest then decided to kick him from the flight because he didn't have two seats on the earlier flight after he was seated. If there were plenty of empty seats on this flight, why not give him two seats on the standby too?
Given the negative PR that Southwest has just earned themselves, the cost of giving him a second available seat seems like a much cheaper option in hindsight.
And it's pretty clear that, like some other defense boondoggles.... the F-35
Since when is the F-35 a defense boondoggle? For one, it's an international project. And if you wanted a modern fighter example, why not the F22 which hasn't run a single combat flight over Iraq or Afghanistan? The F35 has better electronics, is cheaper, and is multi-role rather than a superiority fighter for a non-existent adversary. Did I miss something? Or, beyond that, possibly the new aerial refueling tanker which is on its third round of bidding back and forth?
You've unwittingly answered your own question as to why the F-22 isn't deployed to Afghanistan - its the wrong tool for the job. The F-35 is also the wrong tool for the job, which could be adequately performed by WW2 vintage aircraft if necessary. As to the programs affordability, this will be unclear until testing is complete and the Navy has already begun questioning whether they can afford to purchase and operate the carrier and STOVL versions. The recent DOT&E report identifies numerous flaws within the program. Overall its another Defense project which has over-promised, under-delivered and is over-budget and behind-schedule. The question shouldn't be whether it's a boondoggle, but what can be salvaged from the project and whether it's worth doing.
Hey, if it worked with Google, why not try that with human rights organizations?
The only problem with China's hacking attacks against Google was that Google didn't shut up and suffer quietly like most of their victims usually do. While Google's responses allow it to be completely blocked by the government, they still constitute a large black eye on the world stage. The more focus on China's ongoing political cyberwar against foreign entities, the better.
Military project costs tend to blowout, yet governments keep signing up for projects with unproven technologies and surprisingly low initial costs. As long as everyone gets their share of Congressional pork, don't expect this to change.
While the F-22 is damned expensive, it's also the best fighter aircraft in the world, so there's at least some value in owning them. It's high-end features are best utilised with a large fleet of lesser aircraft that are cheaper to purchase and maintain. Which the USAF currently owns (F-15 and F-16 fleet) and stupidly wants to replace with a lesser number of unproven and increasingly expensive F-35s. The worst problem with the F-35 is that it's overkill for most of its intended uses (stealth is useless for bombing third-world dictators and terrorists), while it's also unlikely to survive against current or future SAM systems (60's era Soviet VHF radars can easily detect stealth fighters and the F-35 lacks the speed or maneuverability to survive once detected).
Large scale cartels have too much product to make air transport via drug mules worthwhile. Smaller operations have less to move and less resources to arrange transportation, leaving them mostly reliant upon mules and international postage.
There are plenty of options for how you complete quests. Plenty of situations offer the choice of killing an opponent or persuading/intimidating them to cooperate. Party members will dislike you if they don't like your actions, although you really have to annoy them if you want them to turn against you. There are plenty of choices which you can make which will affect your game in some manner. If you regularly pickpocket people, you will occasionally be called out on it. How you choose to resolve some quests will affect some future interactions with some characters. While the story itself is somewhat restricting, you do have plenty of freedom to affect the specifics of the story.
The problem with the dialogue trees is that there are plenty of occasions where there is no real difference between two or three possible dialogue choices and from all choices the conversation just moves on to the same next step. Occasionally certain choices will affect your companions, although this isn't consistent. I'd expect that most of these choices are there for the roleplayers, who can choose good choices for their good characters or nastier comments for their evil characters.
If you want more choices and consequences, Age of Decadence might be more to your liking.
Some of that money is generating new wealth. It's just going to military contractors, weapons developers and political pork, which only helps those employed by the military and its contractors.
That cash would be better spent on local infrastructure, research and social programs. Hell, the economy would benefit more from simply purchasing new cars from struggling American auto manufacturers and destroying them wholesale in televised destruction derbies. If the military companies want in on the pork, let them develop more entertaining ways to destroy cars for public viewing. This solution has less dead and maimed soldiers, a healthier auto industry, less chance of blowback from fucking around in the Middle East and more monster trucks. What else could you possibly want?
That 1.5GB RAM you're talking about isn't eaten just by Windows, its being allocated between the other apps the user attempts to run at the same time. This could include a web browser, chat program, music player, malware, anti-virus and the usual amount of useless crap that lurks in the average user's system tray.
Sure, most posters here wouldn't try to run games at the same time as most of that stuff, but the average gamer might and the stupider people will. These people then complain that the game doesn't run smoothly on their machine that just meets the minimum specs while loaded down with crap. Developers and publishers are better served by just upping the specs slightly to counter for this.
An added benefit of "overquoting" the system requirements is that developers can afford to divert resources away from optimising their code and instead allocate it to adjusting gameplay or covering schedule slips.
I've seen some advanced military simulations showing the effects of Godzilla warfare on Tokyo. Godzilla warfare is truly the greatest threat to western nations in the 21st century.
I also think ISPs should pass along infringement notices, assuming that the copyright holders can provide evidence that the ISPs customer has been infringing on their copyright. ISPs however shouldn't have to foot the bill for enforcing the copyrights of others, especially those who have a history of making poorly supported accusations of infringement.
If a copyright holder can produce actual evidence of the transfer of a complete film/TV episode/whatever by an ISPs customer, then the ISP should forward the notice and charge the copyrights holder for any processing costs incurred. If the copyright holder eventually takes the customer to court, they can try to recoup this cost from them. This way if they're accusing actual infringers, they'll recoup their outlay, while if they're accusing network printers, they won't.
If the copyright holders won't do a thorough and respectable job of investigating potential infringements, why should they expect others to do so for free on their behalf?
If SCO has access to time travel technology, the only thing preventing them from winning lawsuits and running a profitable business is their own incompetence.
Slashdot Mirror
it is generally not the responsibility of somebody else to make sure that material they are not responsible for does not wind up in places it doesn't belong.
Unless they're farmers whose neighbours are growing Monsanto products and they aren't, in which case they're well and truly fucked.
On the other hand, I can defend this position. Each F22 and F35 consistently tests on par with at least a ten to one ratio. That means an F35, at 120 million each, versus 45 million per SH, is still a far, far, far better buy. For the same money we can get 2.7 SH or one F35. Given that one F35 can easily take out ten SH's, that places us 315 million ahead when contrasting F35 vs SH purchases.
This presumes that 1 F35 can perform the work of 2.7 SHs in many areas. With less available aircraft, it will be more difficult to maintain combat readiness for a squadron during operations, especially if aircraft are lost due to accidents or enemy action. As to the 10:1 kill ratio against SHs, you're pitting the F35 against one of the least impressive non-stealth fighters in the world. Most of the time the Navy and Marine versions wouldn't be able to take out more than four aircraft due to their lack of an internal gun. Also the SH is available today, while the F35 won't be available in significant numbers until sometime after 2016-2020, depending on whether they identify any significant problems during the remaining tests.
The main problem with the F35 is its cost/capability compared to existing aircraft (F22, F15, F16, SH) and how effective it is likely to be against future air threats. It is unlikely that the F35 will be able to safely operate in airspace defended by Russian S300 or S400 SAM systems, unless other stealth aircraft are used first to clear the defenses. Once the US has done this and gained air superiority, the F35 becomes an overpriced bomb truck, a task which could be better performed by current non-stealthy aircraft, which would be both cheaper and more effective in this role. Basically the F35s problem is that it's too ineffective against future peer or near-peer level enemies and too expensive to use in permissive air environments and the F35 program needs to be killed for this reason. The USAF should attempt to purchase more F22s, F16s and F15s. The Navy should purchase more SHs and look into either navalizing the F22 or developing the F/A XX as a SH replacement. The Marines should be left to either solo fund the STOVL F35 or forced to depend upon Navy aircraft for their strike needs.
No, but Verizon decided to congratulate Comcast on their win. Although Verizon really shouldn't be gloating since their own terrible service saw them nominated as one of the 32 worst companies and got knocked out in the first round by AT&T.
That's essentially the US Navy's big dirty secret, that its carriers are essentially gold-plated floating targets. Of course no-one in the Navy is likely to admit to this until at least one or two carriers have already been sunk.
He's a Linux user, it's obvious from the beard.
Yeah, but if we keep fighting like this in Baghdad then eventually there won't be any children to accidentally kill in the crossfire. Problem solved.
Australia's following the same general trend also exhibited in the US and UK, that of focusing legislative efforts on anything which has the perception of making the country safer. This process is exacerbated by media outlets, which run a steady stream of fear-laden non-news stories, reinforcing the demand for further legislative "solutions" to problems that don't exist. One part of this problem is that no-one in the media or in politics will actually point out that these laws are pointless, since there's often no incentive to do so. The other is when entities outside the media attempt to argue against these idiotic policies, the media either ignores the protests or paints the protesters as deviants.
The TV show the Real Hustle showed this run as a scam to harvest credit card details. A scammer with a laptop sets up as a fake access point which serves up fake payment screen to anyone who connects to that point. Most of the people connecting to the point assume that the payment screen is legitimate and enter their details. You might not catch the truly paranoid or alert, but there's still plenty of people who would be fooled.
Well that pretty much deflates the whole issue. Plus Southwest's policy is pretty generous, and giving him $100 because he couldn't get a seat on standby was totally unnecessary.
I was skeptical about the headline anyway. If you can't be accommodated safely due to your size, then you cannot fly. There's no outrage fuel here.
According to Kevin he had purchased two seats on one flight, then been put on standby for an earlier flight. Southwest moved him onto the earlier flight and only gave him one seat. This flight was apparently half-full. Southwest then decided to kick him from the flight because he didn't have two seats on the earlier flight after he was seated. If there were plenty of empty seats on this flight, why not give him two seats on the standby too?
Given the negative PR that Southwest has just earned themselves, the cost of giving him a second available seat seems like a much cheaper option in hindsight.
Well, that and the fact that wind is unreliable.
Not if your an evil scientist with a weather machine. Perpetual energy here we come!
And it's pretty clear that, like some other defense boondoggles.... the F-35
Since when is the F-35 a defense boondoggle? For one, it's an international project. And if you wanted a modern fighter example, why not the F22 which hasn't run a single combat flight over Iraq or Afghanistan? The F35 has better electronics, is cheaper, and is multi-role rather than a superiority fighter for a non-existent adversary. Did I miss something? Or, beyond that, possibly the new aerial refueling tanker which is on its third round of bidding back and forth?
You've unwittingly answered your own question as to why the F-22 isn't deployed to Afghanistan - its the wrong tool for the job. The F-35 is also the wrong tool for the job, which could be adequately performed by WW2 vintage aircraft if necessary. As to the programs affordability, this will be unclear until testing is complete and the Navy has already begun questioning whether they can afford to purchase and operate the carrier and STOVL versions. The recent DOT&E report identifies numerous flaws within the program. Overall its another Defense project which has over-promised, under-delivered and is over-budget and behind-schedule. The question shouldn't be whether it's a boondoggle, but what can be salvaged from the project and whether it's worth doing.
Hey, if it worked with Google, why not try that with human rights organizations?
The only problem with China's hacking attacks against Google was that Google didn't shut up and suffer quietly like most of their victims usually do. While Google's responses allow it to be completely blocked by the government, they still constitute a large black eye on the world stage. The more focus on China's ongoing political cyberwar against foreign entities, the better.
Military project costs tend to blowout, yet governments keep signing up for projects with unproven technologies and surprisingly low initial costs. As long as everyone gets their share of Congressional pork, don't expect this to change.
While the F-22 is damned expensive, it's also the best fighter aircraft in the world, so there's at least some value in owning them. It's high-end features are best utilised with a large fleet of lesser aircraft that are cheaper to purchase and maintain. Which the USAF currently owns (F-15 and F-16 fleet) and stupidly wants to replace with a lesser number of unproven and increasingly expensive F-35s. The worst problem with the F-35 is that it's overkill for most of its intended uses (stealth is useless for bombing third-world dictators and terrorists), while it's also unlikely to survive against current or future SAM systems (60's era Soviet VHF radars can easily detect stealth fighters and the F-35 lacks the speed or maneuverability to survive once detected).
Funny, but I ran the same experiment and you owe me 11 replacement sharks. As a side note, the squids at them both.
Sounds like we need to run more tests.... PeTA is going to love this.
Large scale cartels have too much product to make air transport via drug mules worthwhile. Smaller operations have less to move and less resources to arrange transportation, leaving them mostly reliant upon mules and international postage.
Increased radiation levels in American beer can only be a good thing.
There are plenty of options for how you complete quests. Plenty of situations offer the choice of killing an opponent or persuading/intimidating them to cooperate. Party members will dislike you if they don't like your actions, although you really have to annoy them if you want them to turn against you. There are plenty of choices which you can make which will affect your game in some manner. If you regularly pickpocket people, you will occasionally be called out on it. How you choose to resolve some quests will affect some future interactions with some characters. While the story itself is somewhat restricting, you do have plenty of freedom to affect the specifics of the story.
The problem with the dialogue trees is that there are plenty of occasions where there is no real difference between two or three possible dialogue choices and from all choices the conversation just moves on to the same next step. Occasionally certain choices will affect your companions, although this isn't consistent. I'd expect that most of these choices are there for the roleplayers, who can choose good choices for their good characters or nastier comments for their evil characters.
If you want more choices and consequences, Age of Decadence might be more to your liking.
Some of that money is generating new wealth. It's just going to military contractors, weapons developers and political pork, which only helps those employed by the military and its contractors.
That cash would be better spent on local infrastructure, research and social programs. Hell, the economy would benefit more from simply purchasing new cars from struggling American auto manufacturers and destroying them wholesale in televised destruction derbies. If the military companies want in on the pork, let them develop more entertaining ways to destroy cars for public viewing. This solution has less dead and maimed soldiers, a healthier auto industry, less chance of blowback from fucking around in the Middle East and more monster trucks. What else could you possibly want?
That 1.5GB RAM you're talking about isn't eaten just by Windows, its being allocated between the other apps the user attempts to run at the same time. This could include a web browser, chat program, music player, malware, anti-virus and the usual amount of useless crap that lurks in the average user's system tray.
Sure, most posters here wouldn't try to run games at the same time as most of that stuff, but the average gamer might and the stupider people will. These people then complain that the game doesn't run smoothly on their machine that just meets the minimum specs while loaded down with crap. Developers and publishers are better served by just upping the specs slightly to counter for this.
An added benefit of "overquoting" the system requirements is that developers can afford to divert resources away from optimising their code and instead allocate it to adjusting gameplay or covering schedule slips.
If the CRIA are convicted and fined the full amount, we'll finally find out whether it's possible to overdose on Schadenfreude.
I've seen some advanced military simulations showing the effects of Godzilla warfare on Tokyo. Godzilla warfare is truly the greatest threat to western nations in the 21st century.
I'm not a boatologist but ...
Best. Disclaimer. Ever.
I also think ISPs should pass along infringement notices, assuming that the copyright holders can provide evidence that the ISPs customer has been infringing on their copyright. ISPs however shouldn't have to foot the bill for enforcing the copyrights of others, especially those who have a history of making poorly supported accusations of infringement.
If a copyright holder can produce actual evidence of the transfer of a complete film/TV episode/whatever by an ISPs customer, then the ISP should forward the notice and charge the copyrights holder for any processing costs incurred. If the copyright holder eventually takes the customer to court, they can try to recoup this cost from them. This way if they're accusing actual infringers, they'll recoup their outlay, while if they're accusing network printers, they won't.
If the copyright holders won't do a thorough and respectable job of investigating potential infringements, why should they expect others to do so for free on their behalf?
So are they actually against ACTA, or just signaling to the RIAA and MPAA that they need some campaign contributions?
Did they send someone back through time to do it?
If SCO has access to time travel technology, the only thing preventing them from winning lawsuits and running a profitable business is their own incompetence.