In Genesis of the Daleks, Davros's introduction, the Daleks themselves were a Doomsday machine, which is why the Timelords sent the Doctor to destroy them.
"I can give you fifty examples of ideas they've had where, if you take just one of them, you'd have a startup company right there."
He forgot to add, "Well, not anymore, of course, few startups will be able to afford the ridiculous fees we'll be charging. I just wish we had thought of this during the dot.com boom! Think of all the companies that would be paying us royalties today. Mmmm.... royalties...."
Is there anything as odious on the console side? PC gaming already seemed to be on the decline as consoles get more general purpose.
You're kidding right? Consoles suck, they are built from the ground up with DRM in mind. There is nothing more locked down than the big three consoles.
You can't write your own programs and run them on a console, small developers who don't buy expensive development kits can't write code to run on a console. That includes mod developers, even though consoles are edging slowly and carefully into allowing limited user created content. (The difference? On a PC you can mod software where it hasn't been approved by the console owner. This makes a huge difference. Oh and user created content that's limited to provided tools is very different from mod at will.)
Consoles are all about selling you the same content over and over again, and if they don't think it will sell you basically have to buy an older iteration of the console to play it.
Compare that to a PC, I can still play System Shock II on my new PC. There was a version rumored to be coming out for Dreamcast, that never came out, but if it had come out well guess what, I'd need to keep my original Dreamcast hooked up to play it. People are always coming up with things like DOS Box or tweaks for older games to keep them working even today.
It actually amazes me that people will talk about intrusive DRM on a PC and then as a solution suggest getting a console. It's like complaining about losing an eye and having someone suggest you pull the other one out as well for symmetry.
Thanks for this, I always like reading these types of stories. I'm not sure I gain any useful knowledge from them (since I'm not in management yet), but they are interesting.
It's amazing how many stories there are out there of bad management ruining a company or a product. It's the best cure I can think of for thinking that business is always a meritocracy.
Philosophy is a good source for dealing with abstract ideas. The truth is Philosophy is part of all science, and computer science being more abstract and mathematics oriented than some other science is even closer to philosophy.
Consider the field of Artificial Intelligence. Computer Scientists are trying to solve a problem, which they know exists, "How do we make machines think?" However, in order to proceed to the solution to this they have to answer other questions of a philisophical nature such as "What is thought?" and "What is free will?"
I credit the fact that I can make a decent living on the fact that I not only went to college, but when my first degree wasn't doing it for me I went back again and got another degree. My first ever "real job" that wasn't in retail grew out of an internship I had while I was getting my second degree, and all my jobs since then have come from the fact that I was able to get real world experience to put on my resume.
I have some pretty big regrets about mistakes I made during my life, it's never even occurred to me to put college in there.
On the other hand, I did have a lot of help from academic scholarships and money my family saved for it (as well as my employer later on). I never had any debt from that.
But I like kvetching, it's one of the few things that gives me comfort in my declining years.
Actually, you are of course right....
Truthfully, I was just disappointed to read it because I really like Barack Obama as a person and I'm sad that we could have such a fundemental disagreement on policy. Hey, my little girl (not so little any more) ran for class secretary (she was robbed!) so she's civic minded enough, I just wouldn't want anything to interfere with her Cello lessons or her real volunteer work.
I read his position as cautiously pro-nuclear. Which is actually a good position to have if it's sincere, especially if he doesn't know all the details or science but is willing to keep an open mind.
Offer a stipend, even a small stipend, even a tiny stipend and people will be lining up to work in the soup kitchen. Force people into it, you'll get some people who genuinely want to help (likely the ones who would have done it for free anyway) and some people who are watching the clock to make sure they get their time in. And even if everyone does a great job, you still didn't have the right to force them.
There's a right way to encourage volunteering and a wrong way. Set up a scholarship, offer extra credit, give out certificates in front of the school congratulating kids on their volunteer work. Don't put a gun to someone's head.
Oh, and the homeless don't deserve to have to eat soup that some unmotivated punk kid spat in (or worse).
No, your right about that. I hate this forced student labor plan (I'm not surprised by it, it's been a Dem pet project for years). However, I'm glad he's been out in the open about it and given details on his Website.
Hopefully that will make it easier to oppose politically;-)
Which is not to suggest that service is not a noble and desirable thing. "Noble and desirable" and "mandatory" are not identical concepts.
Actually, the "mandatory" part takes all the nobility out of it. It's the difference between doing something because you want to do the right thing and doing something because you are forced to.
I can just imagine some of the scumbags I went to Public School with being forced to read to kids with terminal cancer. I imaging they'd mock "the baldies" and trip them if they were walking down the hall.
I guess they'd be equally noble with someone who actually volunteered to do that because it was the right thing to do.
Hmm, I wonder how they'll enforce the mandatory part of the mandatory community service. I guess it will be similar to how they enforce anti-truancy laws, I'd have to look into that. Will it be Juvenile Hall? Fines for the parents? I wonder.
Ah well, however it works it'll be a great chance for cops to use their tazers, since it will be against the general public and not hardened criminal types. Those are always the best people to tazer. They don't really have an effective means to fight back.
If it's truly mandatory then there's a gun behind it at some point, if it isn't really mandatory they need to say what they mean.
The draft is slavery, period. In the case of some wars, like World War II, the evil "good" war, it's hard to argue against it because the U. S. was fighting cartoonish supervillains.
In the case of Vietnam, it caused rioting and nearly led to a revolution because people saw it for what it was.
Yes, only the children of the working class should be forced to do whatever inane community service the public schools come up with. The rich, being better than the rest of us, will of course be exempt from such obnoxious stuff.
Well, at least we can be assured that no one in Obama's family will be forced to soil their hands with such unpaid labor, that's a load off of my mind. This after all should only be for the Beta's, the Alpha's have more important things to do with their time.
Yes, sadly now that his dreams of owning a plumbing business have crashed to the ground, he decided to become a political watchdog and "take it to the streets."
Who knows what we'll be saying about him 4 years from now? A 1 year "Freedom membership" costs a mear $14.95 .
Slashdot Mirror
It's sounds like the money she sent wasn't actually hers.
"People of the Universe, please attend carefully, for this concerns the future of you all." -- The Master
In Genesis of the Daleks, Davros's introduction, the Daleks themselves were a Doomsday machine, which is why the Timelords sent the Doctor to destroy them.
Can you hear me Major Tom?
He forgot to add, "Well, not anymore, of course, few startups will be able to afford the ridiculous fees we'll be charging. I just wish we had thought of this during the dot.com boom! Think of all the companies that would be paying us royalties today. Mmmm.... royalties...."
Mad-Hatter-Bot: Change Places!!
You're kidding right? Consoles suck, they are built from the ground up with DRM in mind. There is nothing more locked down than the big three consoles.
You can't write your own programs and run them on a console, small developers who don't buy expensive development kits can't write code to run on a console. That includes mod developers, even though consoles are edging slowly and carefully into allowing limited user created content. (The difference? On a PC you can mod software where it hasn't been approved by the console owner. This makes a huge difference. Oh and user created content that's limited to provided tools is very different from mod at will.)
Consoles are all about selling you the same content over and over again, and if they don't think it will sell you basically have to buy an older iteration of the console to play it.
Compare that to a PC, I can still play System Shock II on my new PC. There was a version rumored to be coming out for Dreamcast, that never came out, but if it had come out well guess what, I'd need to keep my original Dreamcast hooked up to play it. People are always coming up with things like DOS Box or tweaks for older games to keep them working even today.
It actually amazes me that people will talk about intrusive DRM on a PC and then as a solution suggest getting a console. It's like complaining about losing an eye and having someone suggest you pull the other one out as well for symmetry.
Thanks for this, I always like reading these types of stories. I'm not sure I gain any useful knowledge from them (since I'm not in management yet), but they are interesting.
It's amazing how many stories there are out there of bad management ruining a company or a product. It's the best cure I can think of for thinking that business is always a meritocracy.
Philosophy is a good source for dealing with abstract ideas. The truth is Philosophy is part of all science, and computer science being more abstract and mathematics oriented than some other science is even closer to philosophy.
Consider the field of Artificial Intelligence. Computer Scientists are trying to solve a problem, which they know exists, "How do we make machines think?" However, in order to proceed to the solution to this they have to answer other questions of a philisophical nature such as "What is thought?" and "What is free will?"
Heck, I know the Rootless Root is semi-humorous, but I still find Master Foo Discourses on the Graphical User Interface to be a good way to explain the value of a command line to people who don't understand it.
I credit the fact that I can make a decent living on the fact that I not only went to college, but when my first degree wasn't doing it for me I went back again and got another degree. My first ever "real job" that wasn't in retail grew out of an internship I had while I was getting my second degree, and all my jobs since then have come from the fact that I was able to get real world experience to put on my resume.
I have some pretty big regrets about mistakes I made during my life, it's never even occurred to me to put college in there.
On the other hand, I did have a lot of help from academic scholarships and money my family saved for it (as well as my employer later on). I never had any debt from that.
However, I'm living with horrible debt now, which came from a relationship as opposed to college. I think that the debt "industry" (some industry, it's primary product is poor people) will find a way to get at people until it is properly regulated.
McCain did try to get around some of his negatives through his VP pick, but in his desperation he turned to a woman he didn't truly understand...
But I like kvetching, it's one of the few things that gives me comfort in my declining years.
Actually, you are of course right....
Truthfully, I was just disappointed to read it because I really like Barack Obama as a person and I'm sad that we could have such a fundemental disagreement on policy. Hey, my little girl (not so little any more) ran for class secretary (she was robbed!) so she's civic minded enough, I just wouldn't want anything to interfere with her Cello lessons or her real volunteer work.
Hmm, I guess you didn't go to a school where school officials sexually abused the female students. Lucky you, my experience was different.
Well, I think because the Republican they ended up nominating had a better political organization.
I read his position as cautiously pro-nuclear. Which is actually a good position to have if it's sincere, especially if he doesn't know all the details or science but is willing to keep an open mind.
Nuclear Leaks and Response Tested Obama in Senate
To be fair, that's the main reason he got my vote, though. (Big fan of Crush, Crumble, and Chomp.)
Offer a stipend, even a small stipend, even a tiny stipend and people will be lining up to work in the soup kitchen. Force people into it, you'll get some people who genuinely want to help (likely the ones who would have done it for free anyway) and some people who are watching the clock to make sure they get their time in. And even if everyone does a great job, you still didn't have the right to force them.
There's a right way to encourage volunteering and a wrong way. Set up a scholarship, offer extra credit, give out certificates in front of the school congratulating kids on their volunteer work. Don't put a gun to someone's head.
Oh, and the homeless don't deserve to have to eat soup that some unmotivated punk kid spat in (or worse).
What do the cops do when the kids refuse to comply?
This isn't a social program. It's forced labor.
No, your right about that. I hate this forced student labor plan (I'm not surprised by it, it's been a Dem pet project for years). However, I'm glad he's been out in the open about it and given details on his Website.
Hopefully that will make it easier to oppose politically ;-)
Actually, the "mandatory" part takes all the nobility out of it. It's the difference between doing something because you want to do the right thing and doing something because you are forced to.
I can just imagine some of the scumbags I went to Public School with being forced to read to kids with terminal cancer. I imaging they'd mock "the baldies" and trip them if they were walking down the hall.
I guess they'd be equally noble with someone who actually volunteered to do that because it was the right thing to do.
Hmm, I wonder how they'll enforce the mandatory part of the mandatory community service. I guess it will be similar to how they enforce anti-truancy laws, I'd have to look into that. Will it be Juvenile Hall? Fines for the parents? I wonder.
Ah well, however it works it'll be a great chance for cops to use their tazers, since it will be against the general public and not hardened criminal types. Those are always the best people to tazer. They don't really have an effective means to fight back.
If it's truly mandatory then there's a gun behind it at some point, if it isn't really mandatory they need to say what they mean.
The draft is slavery, period. In the case of some wars, like World War II, the evil "good" war, it's hard to argue against it because the U. S. was fighting cartoonish supervillains.
In the case of Vietnam, it caused rioting and nearly led to a revolution because people saw it for what it was.
Yes, only the children of the working class should be forced to do whatever inane community service the public schools come up with. The rich, being better than the rest of us, will of course be exempt from such obnoxious stuff.
Well, at least we can be assured that no one in Obama's family will be forced to soil their hands with such unpaid labor, that's a load off of my mind. This after all should only be for the Beta's, the Alpha's have more important things to do with their time.
Well, that sucks. Makes me wish there had been a Libertarian running this year so I would have had someone to vote for.
Joe the Plumber has launched:
http://www.secureourdream.com/
Yes, sadly now that his dreams of owning a plumbing business have crashed to the ground, he decided to become a political watchdog and "take it to the streets."
Who knows what we'll be saying about him 4 years from now? A 1 year "Freedom membership" costs a mear $14.95 .
Freedom, who among us is against that?