Liquidate? According to the information I've read, the 'strap-ons' were already immensely popular, hence their delay in shipment (too popular, inventor only thought he'd sell a few).
Contrary to popular fiction, not all press is good press. Check/. back a few days ago, when GoDaddy got caught on the wrong side of the fence regarding SOPA, and lost a fair amount of business in the process.
Yes, lots of (bad) PR, and is probably going to bankrupt his clients. This particular interaction, combined with name dropping and poor spelling / grammar, ranks up there with a PR nightmare. He might as well have said that his much-awaited product was made with using parts left over from Chernobyl and orphan child labor, at a UNICEF convention. Ocean's various semi-hidden threats of violence really adds a certain flair to the discussion.
And I have an undying urge to short the stock of Ocean's clients; were I one of Ocean's clients, I would be taking the steel wool and matches approach to my relationship with Ocean.
But seriously, I think everyone on/. needs to chip in, and buy this guy some spelling lessons:
"OK Mike whatever you say lol , are you sure hour not in Boston I spoke to the person who ran the show in Boston last year. If you let some little kid influence you over a pre order then we don’t want to be a your show,Ill be on the floor anyway so come find me , I’m born and raised in Boston I know the people who run the city inside and out watch the way you talk to people you never know who they know it’s a small industry and everyone knows everyone. Your acting like a douchbag not that it matters pax east pax west , e3 , CES , Gamer Con , SSXW,Comic Con, Germany I’m all over the place. If we want to be there we will be there with industry badges or with a booth you think I can’t team up with turtle beach , Callibur or Koy Christmas , I can’t get Kevin Kelly to pull some strings or G4 , Paul Eibler Ex CEO of take 2 , Rich Larocco Konami , Cliff Blizinski Epic who were working with on a gears version , Activision who were working with on a MW3 and Spider man Bundle , The Convention Center Owners themselves , Mayor of Boston come on Bud you run a show that’s all you do and lease a center in Cities you have no pull in its all about who you know not what you do. I’ll see space where ever I want , with who I want when I want and where I want so many ways around you and so many connections in this industry its silly. Anyway , I have no issue with you Sean Buckley Engadget, Scott Lowe IGN and the list goes on and on. Little kids unhappy with a PRE ORDER starting trouble and you email that to us , he’s a customer unless you’re his boyfriend then you should side with the company not the customer. Be Careful"
While beliefs of any shape or color may still be in vogue, organized religion is under assault (perpetual assault, mind you, it appears the same for every generation, ala "The War on Religion"). Rome? The Crusades? The Spanish Inquisition? The Salem Witch-Trials? You name it, it counted as the struggle of their day.
Anyway, the people who wear glittering robes and sit on golden thrones are, like any ruler, unhappy with the idea that they might be losing a little power. Mind you, these people need not have glittering robes or golden thrones -> the general rule is that they have some sort of holy book, and that they have enough cash (in American dollars) to make a makeshift throne out of $20s. And the first rule for any paranoid ruler, when he / she / it feels like a loss of power, is to find out why. To attempt to trace it, and put an end to it. Science, other religions, the State, and so on are all the usual suspects. Since science hasn't bared any arms yet against Religion is a reason why Religion favors going after it -> if a Religion is a problem, the State has, can, and will house by house to eliminate it. Other religions also pose a challenge -> their followers are as likely as the Religion's followers to have little qualms about killing infidels. But Science? Aside from some wars in the courtroom and classroom, it's been fairly calm. And the 'war' here is fought using words, which is every con-artists favorite weapon (a sly tongue, and a cunning mind).
Now, this is all good and nice, with Religion sapping away at Science. Faith before Reason, they say. The problem here is that weaponry has progressed to the point where Religion's attempt to sap Science's strength has and will result in the host State losing its technological prowess. No amount of faith can protect you from a ground-zero hit from a nuclear weapon. Or a biological plague. Or a chemical weapon. Or something worse (there are worse things than the previous three).
It's not the first time. Iron, steel, gun powder, and so on; all developments through the ages that, if a people did not capitalize on it, had them subjugated and their State / Religion altered / destroyed. Heck, the United State's education system cared nothing for science until Sputnik was in orbit; upon that announcement, the US went "oh sh*t!" and made science education mandatory.
And we've reached that point again. The US has been resting on its laurels, having enjoyed the status that came with promoting science. It has had a lead, helped in part by making itself the center of technological and scientific education (it can sit back, and pick up the best / brightest from other countries, when they send their young to be educated here). And through a combination of bad politics, economics, and religion, it is losing that lead. Which is mildly interesting -> all focus is on China as a competitor, citing its up and coming status, and relentless focus on science. The US propaganda machine has gone into overdrive to convince the US populace that they are safe, that the Chinese lack creativity and inventiveness, and if / when the times comes when the US and China come to blows, it is that creativity that will ensure the US's survival. Now, it's common for rulers to keep the people in the dark regarding potential problems, but it's uncommon for the rulers themselves to keep themselves in the dark regarding potential problems. Such approaches tend to end badly.
It's always a source of amusement to see the moving pictures industry go after people over intellectual property issues, when their origins (and placement in the republic of California) was due to them skirting the intellectual property laws of their day.
And now they're trying to defend themselves against an IP suit. Fun when you're the one suing, not so much when you're the one being sued.
If you want a larger turnout for the elections, you need to offer better candidates; many people stay at home because they despise the choices offered to them.
There should be a constitutional amendment that states if less than 50% of eligible voters show up to vote, the election cannot be held as valid; elections must be held again, 3 months later, with an entirely new slate of candidates.
Today I learned that some programmers attach licenses to their code, without ever reading the text of the license. Sadly, I find it to be on par with many congressmen, who vote for bills they've never read.
Acceptable advantages -> anything hardware, including pasting a cutout of an iron sight on your monitor.
Unacceptable advantages -> giving yourself auto-aim + shoot through walls + all upgrades + reveal map, in a multiplayer game, while your fellow gamers assume you're running the standard vanilla version of the game.
Agreed. When you're playing by yourself, there's nothing more stress-relieving than switching on god mode after a bad day, and punishing your enemies. At that point, it's not about a challenge, or proving yourself, or learning, or whatever; it's mind-bleach. Boss yelling at you? Teacher being a bitch? Cop handing you a ticket for doing 65 in a 50, with no one else on the road? God mode is how you ensure the next 30 minutes of your life will go well, save your computer gets hit with a lightning bolt.
However, when it comes to multiplayer, no cheating. You have an actual human being(s) playing a game with you, and they are looking to have some fun. And there's no finer victory (or salve for the soul) than beating your opponent without having to resort to cheating; there's something about watching your fleet crush your (temporary) enemy's base or chasing his avatar with the Quad + BFG, through careful planning or quick reflexes, that amuses all gamers.Losing to a cheater is no defeat; and beating a cheater doesn't feel like a victory.
It's not a lack of free-thinking that the Chinese are experiencing; it's merely a strategy.
The Chinese are playing catch up to Japan / America / Europe / possibly Russia. At this point in the game, it costs less to copy everyone, than to innovate. Once they've caught up, they'll switch to innovating, as copying will not pay as well in comparison. The same thing has happened before with the United States, Britain, etc.
Agreed. Today's posting appears to be (yet another) attempt to manipulate Bit Coin prices. Whenever there's a bit of good publicity for Bit Coin (with the associated rise in price), you need only wait a day or two, and another posting will be made talking about some sordid array of illicit uses, and the price drops again.
Were it not for the constant misinformation that magically reappears with every one of these postings, I'd have no way to track them.
Nonsense. Pi is exactly 3. We all know the story of the politicians who were voting on simplifying a universal constant, and the visiting mathematician who explained to them that universal constants do not work that way.;-)
Just like the 'Green Jobs / Economy,' right boys? Admittedly, this might be slightly more tangible than the previous 'opportunity,' but I have my doubts.
On a side note, what happened to investing in actual technological innovation? A little-less pie-in-the-sky, a little more our scientists have confirmed this is doable, and our engineers desperately want to build a new fab to we can retire in style in 5 years?
Does anyone understand what I am attempting to convey here? We've gone from the poker table to the slot machine. Poker requires more skill, and will take more time to see if you win the pot, but the odds are better than the slot machine, which just takes your money. And the payoff is more significant, if / when it happens.
Does anyone do risk / analysis anymore? I feel I need some confirmation that we still do that.
You know, I have, on occasion, considered a career in industrial espionage, during the darker moments of my life. I think it's the allure of a shorter workweek, potentially have a gun (so I don't have to think before I act, or work out at the gym -> LEOs know what I am talking about), relatively high pay, and some excitement. Oh, and self-employment -> I'm my own boss.
Yet somehow, I always thought it would be more challenging than waiting for some clueless user to plug an unsecured device into the corporate LAN, or trying to guess the username / password to a corporate cloud account.
They're making this about as difficult as sitting in a Dunkin' Donuts / Starbucks in the corporate office-park, drinking my coffee and eating a donut, as I wait for the data to download to my laptop (gotta love 802.11n, up to a mile in range now? don't even need the cantenna), or compromising someone's email account, which is where everyone keeps their username / passwords for other accounts these days, and using that info to log into the cloud.
Hell, all it takes is some social engineering with the cloud people (bribery, or just getting a job as a low-level tech) or a common flaw in the security (because those never happen, God no), and I get access to EVERYONE'S DATA.
Still, I have a list of (legal, less stress) opportunities for employment that pay much better than this possibility, sitting on my desk, so I'll be giving it a miss for the foreseeable future. ^_^
Traditional media is about on-par with the new media, in terms of accuracy-> "Locking the gate" serves no purpose, about as useful as pushing the 'close door' button on an elevator.
And if you consider the current traditional media's accuracy, which in my humble opinion, is producing lies so transparent even their staff have trouble stomaching it, you realize just how bad things are.
For some odd reason, people look back to the past as the golden era of journalism, when they reported 'the truth.' History reminds us otherwise: "yellow journalism" is a well-known term from a former era, worth reading about if you have the time. People are just nostalgic about their childhood, when they were brainless, spineless automatons who believed anything they were told; they're having trouble coming to grips with reality -> people lie, often and for no discernible reason; and even the good reasons are pretty terrible, but tradition outweighs common sense, and the people who employ lying the most tend to be the people with the least qualms about murdering people that disagree with them.
Consider, for your pleasure, the current holiday: Christmas. Parents lie to their kids about a guy in a big red jumpsuit, climbing down a chimney, riding around on a flying sleight with magical reindeer, and dispensing presents on the basis of a metric ("Naughty / Nice") which appears to conform with cultural norms of morality: people celebrate lies, and bury the truth. They love the lies their parents taught them so much, that many of them go on to teach them to their children. Just try telling someone else's kids that Santa is a lie; see if you aren't vilified.
That's not even touching on the holiday's origins itself. It's turtles all the way down!
His solution was to increase the pay of the worker, so that his profitability increased over the long run.
Seriously, it's the same exact problem (numbers are made up here):
It cost Ford $2000 to train a worker over the course of a month, and he earned back $500 / month per worker. The turnover rate was 2 months. So, if a worker stayed less than 4 months at his company, he lost money; if a worker stayed for 4 months, he broke even; and if he stayed for more than 4 months, Ford showed a profit. Having taken a look at his industry (a survey of his company and his competitors), Ford realized that people were leaving for less stressful jobs all the time, as they offered the same pay.
He raised his wages enough to prevent people from leaving for other jobs. By a careful balancing act, he paid his workers more and ensured that his costs for training a worker dropped. His profitability over the long run increased massively (as he was no longer taking $2000 hits when one of his workers decided bull-castration was less stressful than the assembly line), with his competitors quickly realizing the end game (long term profitability, over short term profitability), and raising their wages as well.
Anyway, the Ford family, a few generations later if the tales are true, started feeling guilty about the money their predecessor had earned (the family fortune), and paid a pair of historians to re-write history (a fair bit of propaganda) to make Ford sound more philanthropic (and less like a raging capitalist / industrialist). This myth persists to this day, and is taught in schools as history. It's commonly phrased something along the lines of "Ford wanted his workers to be able to purchase his cars, so he raised their wages..."
'Twas a quote from one of my Political Science professors (Richard Dilworth). The man has the ability to divine the truth in matters of history and politics, as well as to speak it in the presence of others who are probably offended, which is a rare item in of itself.
So yes, on his analysis, the stated goals and so much literature put forth to the common people may say one thing, while reality says something else entirely.
It's sad. Through all this web content, I am slowly unlearning how to spell or use proper grammar.
English teachers / professors (with a few exceptions) used to be my arch-enemies (as a math / science person) and wished them all a pleasant, if sudden, death for their batshit-insane insistence on making mountains out of molehills (i before e, except after c; can't end a sentence with a preposition; this {subject}) with regards to the language, and yet lately I finding myself wishing there were more of them.
It's not fair: I've nursed some of those grudges for years!
Hmm. Firefox's dictionary needs some work. It has an addiction to adding hyphens to common non-hyphenated words, and has some serious difficulties with pluralized nouns.
Life has been curious to me. When I was much younger, I was rabidly anti-drug, and considered the taking of one to mess with the clarity of thought. Having grown older, and been to college, I've found that it's very easy to be against something, when you've had no experience with it. Experience tends to teach us the flaws in our thinking.
As for this War on Terror, the story of the boy who cried wolf comes to mind. Quite a few people are milking the government right now with paranoid delusions of illusory enemies, offering solution after solution in bad faith, administering placebos or poison instead of medicine, congratulating each other as they plunder the public's wallet. Were I not dimly aware that I might be nearby when something truly terrible arrives, and the government is either tapped out or the populace apathetic, I might enjoy watching these people as they try to flee something unthinkable. Hopefully the weight of their ill-gotten proceeds will weigh them down, long enough for something like Mr. Market to catch up to them. Pity that karma does not have the accuracy that some of our laser-guided projectiles sport; I hate to think of how many people are suffering because of this nonsense.
Hmm. The ID10Ts have finished building their cyber-command, staffed it with the *cough* best *cough* IT that the marines can offer, and they want to give it a spin. They're looking for a fight. Were I a general, I would not stop b*tch-slapping these people until my hand got tired, then I'd have one of my assistants take over for me: what kind of steroid-abusing, minimum legal IQ, closed-minded, in-bred, patriot (put charitably) goes looking to start a war during a time of relative peace? We have nothing to gain from this venture, and everything to lose.
Has the nation gone full-retard? This kind of behavior is supposed to be out of your system by the time you hit 18, cropping up only when you get a speeding ticket, had a bad day at the office, or are at home with the family for the holidays.
Don't get me wrong, if you need to protect something material, the US military is some of the best. But like Space, Cyber-Space is specifically un-militarized, with only a handful of shadow games being played by somewhat disinterested players (that the internet was started by a military project is not lost on me ^_^). It's a completely different battlefield, with completely different rules, and it's not going to be helped by this addition. The very action of trying to play war with the internet means the US military will succeed where its politicians have failed: the US will end up getting cut off from the global internet, as countries move to protect themselves. This action is the internet equivalent of parking some Soviet ICBMs in Cuba!
You know, once upon a time, the United States had a Department of War. It's job was to ensure that our country was always at war with some other country. We ditched it in favor of a Department of Defense. I am having trouble telling the difference now.
Slashdot Mirror
Liquidate? According to the information I've read, the 'strap-ons' were already immensely popular, hence their delay in shipment (too popular, inventor only thought he'd sell a few).
Contrary to popular fiction, not all press is good press. Check /. back a few days ago, when GoDaddy got caught on the wrong side of the fence regarding SOPA, and lost a fair amount of business in the process.
Yes, lots of (bad) PR, and is probably going to bankrupt his clients. This particular interaction, combined with name dropping and poor spelling / grammar, ranks up there with a PR nightmare. He might as well have said that his much-awaited product was made with using parts left over from Chernobyl and orphan child labor, at a UNICEF convention. Ocean's various semi-hidden threats of violence really adds a certain flair to the discussion.
And I have an undying urge to short the stock of Ocean's clients; were I one of Ocean's clients, I would be taking the steel wool and matches approach to my relationship with Ocean.
But seriously, I think everyone on /. needs to chip in, and buy this guy some spelling lessons:
"OK Mike whatever you say lol , are you sure hour not in Boston I spoke to the person who ran the show in Boston last year. If you let some little kid influence you over a pre order then we don’t want to be a your show ,Ill be on the floor anyway so come find me , I’m born and raised in Boston I know the people who run the city inside and out watch the way you talk to people you never know who they know it’s a small industry and everyone knows everyone. Your acting like a douchbag not that it matters pax east pax west , e3 , CES , Gamer Con , SSXW ,Comic Con, Germany I’m all over the place. If we want to be there we will be there with industry badges or with a booth you think I can’t team up with turtle beach , Callibur or Koy Christmas , I can’t get Kevin Kelly to pull some strings or G4 , Paul Eibler Ex CEO of take 2 , Rich Larocco Konami , Cliff Blizinski Epic who were working with on a gears version , Activision who were working with on a MW3 and Spider man Bundle , The Convention Center Owners themselves , Mayor of Boston come on Bud you run a show that’s all you do and lease a center in Cities you have no pull in its all about who you know not what you do. I’ll see space where ever I want , with who I want when I want and where I want so many ways around you and so many connections in this industry its silly. Anyway , I have no issue with you Sean Buckley Engadget, Scott Lowe IGN and the list goes on and on. Little kids unhappy with a PRE ORDER starting trouble and you email that to us , he’s a customer unless you’re his boyfriend then you should side with the company not the customer. Be Careful"
While beliefs of any shape or color may still be in vogue, organized religion is under assault (perpetual assault, mind you, it appears the same for every generation, ala "The War on Religion"). Rome? The Crusades? The Spanish Inquisition? The Salem Witch-Trials? You name it, it counted as the struggle of their day.
Anyway, the people who wear glittering robes and sit on golden thrones are, like any ruler, unhappy with the idea that they might be losing a little power. Mind you, these people need not have glittering robes or golden thrones -> the general rule is that they have some sort of holy book, and that they have enough cash (in American dollars) to make a makeshift throne out of $20s. And the first rule for any paranoid ruler, when he / she / it feels like a loss of power, is to find out why. To attempt to trace it, and put an end to it. Science, other religions, the State, and so on are all the usual suspects. Since science hasn't bared any arms yet against Religion is a reason why Religion favors going after it -> if a Religion is a problem, the State has, can, and will house by house to eliminate it. Other religions also pose a challenge -> their followers are as likely as the Religion's followers to have little qualms about killing infidels. But Science? Aside from some wars in the courtroom and classroom, it's been fairly calm. And the 'war' here is fought using words, which is every con-artists favorite weapon (a sly tongue, and a cunning mind).
Now, this is all good and nice, with Religion sapping away at Science. Faith before Reason, they say. The problem here is that weaponry has progressed to the point where Religion's attempt to sap Science's strength has and will result in the host State losing its technological prowess. No amount of faith can protect you from a ground-zero hit from a nuclear weapon. Or a biological plague. Or a chemical weapon. Or something worse (there are worse things than the previous three).
It's not the first time. Iron, steel, gun powder, and so on; all developments through the ages that, if a people did not capitalize on it, had them subjugated and their State / Religion altered / destroyed. Heck, the United State's education system cared nothing for science until Sputnik was in orbit; upon that announcement, the US went "oh sh*t!" and made science education mandatory.
And we've reached that point again. The US has been resting on its laurels, having enjoyed the status that came with promoting science. It has had a lead, helped in part by making itself the center of technological and scientific education (it can sit back, and pick up the best / brightest from other countries, when they send their young to be educated here). And through a combination of bad politics, economics, and religion, it is losing that lead. Which is mildly interesting -> all focus is on China as a competitor, citing its up and coming status, and relentless focus on science. The US propaganda machine has gone into overdrive to convince the US populace that they are safe, that the Chinese lack creativity and inventiveness, and if / when the times comes when the US and China come to blows, it is that creativity that will ensure the US's survival. Now, it's common for rulers to keep the people in the dark regarding potential problems, but it's uncommon for the rulers themselves to keep themselves in the dark regarding potential problems. Such approaches tend to end badly.
Thank You.
It's always a source of amusement to see the moving pictures industry go after people over intellectual property issues, when their origins (and placement in the republic of California) was due to them skirting the intellectual property laws of their day.
And now they're trying to defend themselves against an IP suit. Fun when you're the one suing, not so much when you're the one being sued.
If you want a larger turnout for the elections, you need to offer better candidates; many people stay at home because they despise the choices offered to them.
There should be a constitutional amendment that states if less than 50% of eligible voters show up to vote, the election cannot be held as valid; elections must be held again, 3 months later, with an entirely new slate of candidates.
Dear Diary,
Today I learned that some programmers attach licenses to their code, without ever reading the text of the license. Sadly, I find it to be on par with many congressmen, who vote for bills they've never read.
Who knows what I will learn tomorrow?
Agreed. When I find someone cheating, I usually nerf them.
Acceptable advantages -> anything hardware, including pasting a cutout of an iron sight on your monitor.
Unacceptable advantages -> giving yourself auto-aim + shoot through walls + all upgrades + reveal map, in a multiplayer game, while your fellow gamers assume you're running the standard vanilla version of the game.
Agreed. When you're playing by yourself, there's nothing more stress-relieving than switching on god mode after a bad day, and punishing your enemies. At that point, it's not about a challenge, or proving yourself, or learning, or whatever; it's mind-bleach. Boss yelling at you? Teacher being a bitch? Cop handing you a ticket for doing 65 in a 50, with no one else on the road? God mode is how you ensure the next 30 minutes of your life will go well, save your computer gets hit with a lightning bolt.
However, when it comes to multiplayer, no cheating. You have an actual human being(s) playing a game with you, and they are looking to have some fun. And there's no finer victory (or salve for the soul) than beating your opponent without having to resort to cheating; there's something about watching your fleet crush your (temporary) enemy's base or chasing his avatar with the Quad + BFG, through careful planning or quick reflexes, that amuses all gamers.Losing to a cheater is no defeat; and beating a cheater doesn't feel like a victory.
It's not a lack of free-thinking that the Chinese are experiencing; it's merely a strategy.
The Chinese are playing catch up to Japan / America / Europe / possibly Russia. At this point in the game, it costs less to copy everyone, than to innovate. Once they've caught up, they'll switch to innovating, as copying will not pay as well in comparison. The same thing has happened before with the United States, Britain, etc.
Agreed. Today's posting appears to be (yet another) attempt to manipulate Bit Coin prices. Whenever there's a bit of good publicity for Bit Coin (with the associated rise in price), you need only wait a day or two, and another posting will be made talking about some sordid array of illicit uses, and the price drops again.
Were it not for the constant misinformation that magically reappears with every one of these postings, I'd have no way to track them.
Nonsense. Pi is exactly 3. We all know the story of the politicians who were voting on simplifying a universal constant, and the visiting mathematician who explained to them that universal constants do not work that way. ;-)
Just like the 'Green Jobs / Economy,' right boys? Admittedly, this might be slightly more tangible than the previous 'opportunity,' but I have my doubts.
On a side note, what happened to investing in actual technological innovation? A little-less pie-in-the-sky, a little more our scientists have confirmed this is doable, and our engineers desperately want to build a new fab to we can retire in style in 5 years?
Does anyone understand what I am attempting to convey here? We've gone from the poker table to the slot machine. Poker requires more skill, and will take more time to see if you win the pot, but the odds are better than the slot machine, which just takes your money. And the payoff is more significant, if / when it happens.
Does anyone do risk / analysis anymore? I feel I need some confirmation that we still do that.
You know, I have, on occasion, considered a career in industrial espionage, during the darker moments of my life. I think it's the allure of a shorter workweek, potentially have a gun (so I don't have to think before I act, or work out at the gym -> LEOs know what I am talking about), relatively high pay, and some excitement. Oh, and self-employment -> I'm my own boss.
Yet somehow, I always thought it would be more challenging than waiting for some clueless user to plug an unsecured device into the corporate LAN, or trying to guess the username / password to a corporate cloud account.
They're making this about as difficult as sitting in a Dunkin' Donuts / Starbucks in the corporate office-park, drinking my coffee and eating a donut, as I wait for the data to download to my laptop (gotta love 802.11n, up to a mile in range now? don't even need the cantenna), or compromising someone's email account, which is where everyone keeps their username / passwords for other accounts these days, and using that info to log into the cloud.
Hell, all it takes is some social engineering with the cloud people (bribery, or just getting a job as a low-level tech) or a common flaw in the security (because those never happen, God no), and I get access to EVERYONE'S DATA.
Still, I have a list of (legal, less stress) opportunities for employment that pay much better than this possibility, sitting on my desk, so I'll be giving it a miss for the foreseeable future. ^_^
Traditional media is about on-par with the new media, in terms of accuracy-> "Locking the gate" serves no purpose, about as useful as pushing the 'close door' button on an elevator.
And if you consider the current traditional media's accuracy, which in my humble opinion, is producing lies so transparent even their staff have trouble stomaching it, you realize just how bad things are.
For some odd reason, people look back to the past as the golden era of journalism, when they reported 'the truth.' History reminds us otherwise: "yellow journalism" is a well-known term from a former era, worth reading about if you have the time. People are just nostalgic about their childhood, when they were brainless, spineless automatons who believed anything they were told; they're having trouble coming to grips with reality -> people lie, often and for no discernible reason; and even the good reasons are pretty terrible, but tradition outweighs common sense, and the people who employ lying the most tend to be the people with the least qualms about murdering people that disagree with them.
Consider, for your pleasure, the current holiday: Christmas. Parents lie to their kids about a guy in a big red jumpsuit, climbing down a chimney, riding around on a flying sleight with magical reindeer, and dispensing presents on the basis of a metric ("Naughty / Nice") which appears to conform with cultural norms of morality: people celebrate lies, and bury the truth. They love the lies their parents taught them so much, that many of them go on to teach them to their children. Just try telling someone else's kids that Santa is a lie; see if you aren't vilified.
That's not even touching on the holiday's origins itself. It's turtles all the way down!
Ford had the same problem.
His solution was to increase the pay of the worker, so that his profitability increased over the long run.
Seriously, it's the same exact problem (numbers are made up here):
It cost Ford $2000 to train a worker over the course of a month, and he earned back $500 / month per worker. The turnover rate was 2 months. So, if a worker stayed less than 4 months at his company, he lost money; if a worker stayed for 4 months, he broke even; and if he stayed for more than 4 months, Ford showed a profit. Having taken a look at his industry (a survey of his company and his competitors), Ford realized that people were leaving for less stressful jobs all the time, as they offered the same pay.
He raised his wages enough to prevent people from leaving for other jobs. By a careful balancing act, he paid his workers more and ensured that his costs for training a worker dropped. His profitability over the long run increased massively (as he was no longer taking $2000 hits when one of his workers decided bull-castration was less stressful than the assembly line), with his competitors quickly realizing the end game (long term profitability, over short term profitability), and raising their wages as well.
Anyway, the Ford family, a few generations later if the tales are true, started feeling guilty about the money their predecessor had earned (the family fortune), and paid a pair of historians to re-write history (a fair bit of propaganda) to make Ford sound more philanthropic (and less like a raging capitalist / industrialist). This myth persists to this day, and is taught in schools as history. It's commonly phrased something along the lines of "Ford wanted his workers to be able to purchase his cars, so he raised their wages..."
Thank You.
Given the amount of care that has gone into Google's search results recently, I don't think Google will care.
'Twas a quote from one of my Political Science professors (Richard Dilworth). The man has the ability to divine the truth in matters of history and politics, as well as to speak it in the presence of others who are probably offended, which is a rare item in of itself.
So yes, on his analysis, the stated goals and so much literature put forth to the common people may say one thing, while reality says something else entirely.
It's sad. Through all this web content, I am slowly unlearning how to spell or use proper grammar.
English teachers / professors (with a few exceptions) used to be my arch-enemies (as a math / science person) and wished them all a pleasant, if sudden, death for their batshit-insane insistence on making mountains out of molehills (i before e, except after c; can't end a sentence with a preposition; this {subject}) with regards to the language, and yet lately I finding myself wishing there were more of them.
It's not fair: I've nursed some of those grudges for years!
Hmm. Firefox's dictionary needs some work. It has an addiction to adding hyphens to common non-hyphenated words, and has some serious difficulties with pluralized nouns.
Agreed.
Life has been curious to me. When I was much younger, I was rabidly anti-drug, and considered the taking of one to mess with the clarity of thought. Having grown older, and been to college, I've found that it's very easy to be against something, when you've had no experience with it. Experience tends to teach us the flaws in our thinking.
As for this War on Terror, the story of the boy who cried wolf comes to mind. Quite a few people are milking the government right now with paranoid delusions of illusory enemies, offering solution after solution in bad faith, administering placebos or poison instead of medicine, congratulating each other as they plunder the public's wallet. Were I not dimly aware that I might be nearby when something truly terrible arrives, and the government is either tapped out or the populace apathetic, I might enjoy watching these people as they try to flee something unthinkable. Hopefully the weight of their ill-gotten proceeds will weigh them down, long enough for something like Mr. Market to catch up to them. Pity that karma does not have the accuracy that some of our laser-guided projectiles sport; I hate to think of how many people are suffering because of this nonsense.
It's not robbing a bank, it's a premature withdrawal.
Hmm. The ID10Ts have finished building their cyber-command, staffed it with the *cough* best *cough* IT that the marines can offer, and they want to give it a spin. They're looking for a fight. Were I a general, I would not stop b*tch-slapping these people until my hand got tired, then I'd have one of my assistants take over for me: what kind of steroid-abusing, minimum legal IQ, closed-minded, in-bred, patriot (put charitably) goes looking to start a war during a time of relative peace? We have nothing to gain from this venture, and everything to lose.
Has the nation gone full-retard? This kind of behavior is supposed to be out of your system by the time you hit 18, cropping up only when you get a speeding ticket, had a bad day at the office, or are at home with the family for the holidays.
Don't get me wrong, if you need to protect something material, the US military is some of the best. But like Space, Cyber-Space is specifically un-militarized, with only a handful of shadow games being played by somewhat disinterested players (that the internet was started by a military project is not lost on me ^_^). It's a completely different battlefield, with completely different rules, and it's not going to be helped by this addition. The very action of trying to play war with the internet means the US military will succeed where its politicians have failed: the US will end up getting cut off from the global internet, as countries move to protect themselves. This action is the internet equivalent of parking some Soviet ICBMs in Cuba!
You know, once upon a time, the United States had a Department of War. It's job was to ensure that our country was always at war with some other country. We ditched it in favor of a Department of Defense. I am having trouble telling the difference now.