Ah, from the Real Estimates Fairy. Sounds fascinating! How can I subscribe to this newsletter?
"We often do, but since the terrorists don't occupy an area only measured in meters, whenever we get info that detailed, the president finds out about it in the after-action report. I've also very rarely heard about our successes in the news."
And, of course, the occasional wedding party.
"But what the heck do you think an armoured battalion is, if not sneaky, deadly bastards?"
Which is sneakier? A dude with an RPG (which has been bewilderingly effective against helicopters) or an armored column?
I'm not talking about conventional forces. I'm talking about Special Ops. If the plan had been "We're going to multiply our humint resources by five and increase our covert operations budgets by a factor of five. The SEALs have a hunting license: No bag limit." that would have been a good plan.
Occupying a hostile nation that had only peripheral involvement with the terrorist attack was a bad plan.
"You provide a plan that'll resolve the situation in Iraq without turning it into another Afganistan?"
How about not invading it until the situation in Afghanistan was under control? How's that for a plan?
Well, yes, it's definatly finite. If nothing else, the population of the earth is finite, and the percentage of terrorists is a small fraction of that.
Uh, thanks for that, Einstein. Gold star for you.
As for the whole defensive/offensive terms, well, that's what you get when you slap together a slashdot post in 5-10 minutes rather than taking a week or a month to do an essay.
Funny, sounds like the occupation plan. Please, please tell me you're not thinking this is at all lke a paintball game.
In your fun and conveniently simplified world, how do you tell the difference between a dead terrorist (good) and a dead civilian (bad)? After all, you keep score in paintball games, you should do so in war too, right?
reverse the designators. Double fistfuls of terrorists, couple innocent bystandars.
Depends on whose made-up statistics about the war you believe. How many innocent civilians is acceptable losses?
I tell you what, I think it's great that you've got the terrorists located. They're in the middle east...in the desert. Hell, let's just nuke everything that looks like sand!
When I was talking about locating the enemy, Sparky, I was not talking about "which subcontinent is he on". I had in mind a resolution of meters. If you have that information, bully for you. Please share it with the President.
An armored infantry battalion can't be relied upon to tell the difference between a gathering of terrorists and a wedding party. That shouldn't be their job. This "war" is not going to be "won" by boots on the ground: It's going to be won by intelligence assets and sneaky, deadly bastards. Armoring humvees is just going to make the terrorists build bigger bombs. Armies are for fighting nation-states, and that's the wrong mentality here.
Re:If it ain't broke, wait, it's broke
on
Palm's Mistakes
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· Score: 1
Every Windows Mobile app I've used is a user interface disaster. If that's success, I'll have a double helping of failure.
If you use the same tool because you don't want to learn other tools, you're not going to be a very good carpenter.
"Mine is to detail a force strong enough to eliminate the offensive team to track them down and eliminate them before they can strike."
Ah. So you're assuming that there exists a well-defined force (I assume you mean the OPPOSING team, rather than the offensive team, because when you take the offense you're the offensive team) that is of finite size.
I think that model is flawed. Killing a couple terrorists (and oh by the way a double fistful of innocent bystanders) does not result in a net decrease in the number of terrorists.
Taking the fight to the enemy is a good idea, when the enemy is unwise enough to let you know where he is. This "enemy" (and I think assuming that there's one enemy is the key misunderstanding that you and the administration seem to share) is not so easy to pin down.
Since the laws won't do anything about intelligent criminals, and the dumb ones aren't a big threat, I think the real target of the laws is otherwise-law-abiding civilians.
"People not understanding the DNC law was the biggest annoyance we got"
Calls from Qwest are the biggest annoyance I got. It's not my job to not annoy you. It is your job to annoy me. That means, if I annoy you, all you have to do is get another job. If you annoy me (which you do), I have no recourse.
Color me totally unsympathetic to the plight of telemarketers. I know the job sucks. You know the job sucks. Stop doing it.
Re:If it ain't broke, wait, it's broke
on
Palm's Mistakes
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I don't use the same tool to drill holes and dig ditches. Why would I use the same tool to develop for a low-resource handheld and a high-resource desktop?
What you call an advantage is, to me, the key failure of Windows Mobile. The apps are too big (memory footprint) and kludgy (because they really, really wish they had a 1024x768 screen available).
My daddy taught me to use the right tool for the job. He was right.
Re:If it ain't broke, wait, it's broke
on
Palm's Mistakes
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
It's got a power switch, you know..
Re:If it ain't broke, wait, it's broke
on
Palm's Mistakes
·
· Score: 1
Killed it, like, more than the Newton? I think there's a flaw in your premise. How many Palm devices have been sold over the last ten years? How many Newtons? I think you've got a funny notion of "death".
Palm has fallen low because of some really dumb business decisions. However, the key feature for me has always been the cheapness and replaceability of the hardware. If I lose my paper day planner, I'm boned. If I lose/break/set fire to my Palm, I get another one and sync it, never miss a beat. That's a vastly under-estimated advantage of Palms over paper day planners.
I've got a Treo 650, and it's plenty good enough until the next state-of-the-art device emerges. It probably won't be from Palm, and it absolutely won't be from Microsoft. Lots of people like Symbian...fair enough. I'll take whichever provides me with a good emulation layer that lets me use the dozens of Palm apps I use all the time.
I'm certain there are desktop PCs in Kansas (which is about as much on a plain as you can get). As a matter of fact, I'm certain that they use computers in Wichita to design PLANES. You know, the ones that fly in the air, and are hard to spell.
I studied engineering because it's what I love. I am a maker of things and a solver of problems, not a pusher of paper.
Having said that, considering the difficulty I'm having getting into an engineering job, articles like this make me very angry. Of course, I have no interest in computer engineering, which is the central thrust here. I guess I have to hope that the aeronautical firms are hiring people after all the graybeards retire this decade.
How can you talk about Thomas Hayden Church and not mention The Specials? It's one of those sleeper movies nobody remembers, but it's absolute comic genius.
Church is perfect as the overbearing leader of the sixth- or seventh-best superhero team on Earth.
To my mind, the best science fiction IS that which is plausible. Science fantasy is a different kettle of fish. Space opera (Star Wars, etc.) frequently falls under the "Science fantasy" rubric.
Slashdot Mirror
Dude, you were on Dodgeball, weren't you? The guy who thought that you could pay off the $50,000 to buy the gym in Canadian dollars?
No, not everybody lives in America. Gold star, Pierre. It's not my fault you guys use the same symbol for your currency.
Ah, so you're going to buy a PS2 for two games, but you're going to buy a new one. OK, man. Whatever works for you.
I still think you're not a very good shopper...
If you can't find a PS2 for less than $200, you're a really lousy shopper.
Getting your morals from a government is like trying to get drinking water from a gas pump.
"Don't. I depend on the real estimates."
Ah, from the Real Estimates Fairy. Sounds fascinating! How can I subscribe to this newsletter?
"We often do, but since the terrorists don't occupy an area only measured in meters, whenever we get info that detailed, the president finds out about it in the after-action report. I've also very rarely heard about our successes in the news."
And, of course, the occasional wedding party.
"But what the heck do you think an armoured battalion is, if not sneaky, deadly bastards?"
Which is sneakier? A dude with an RPG (which has been bewilderingly effective against helicopters) or an armored column?
I'm not talking about conventional forces. I'm talking about Special Ops. If the plan had been "We're going to multiply our humint resources by five and increase our covert operations budgets by a factor of five. The SEALs have a hunting license: No bag limit." that would have been a good plan.
Occupying a hostile nation that had only peripheral involvement with the terrorist attack was a bad plan.
"You provide a plan that'll resolve the situation in Iraq without turning it into another Afganistan?"
How about not invading it until the situation in Afghanistan was under control? How's that for a plan?
Uh, thanks for that, Einstein. Gold star for you.
As for the whole defensive/offensive terms, well, that's what you get when you slap together a slashdot post in 5-10 minutes rather than taking a week or a month to do an essay.
Funny, sounds like the occupation plan. Please, please tell me you're not thinking this is at all lke a paintball game.
In your fun and conveniently simplified world, how do you tell the difference between a dead terrorist (good) and a dead civilian (bad)? After all, you keep score in paintball games, you should do so in war too, right?
reverse the designators. Double fistfuls of terrorists, couple innocent bystandars.
Depends on whose made-up statistics about the war you believe. How many innocent civilians is acceptable losses?
I tell you what, I think it's great that you've got the terrorists located. They're in the middle east...in the desert. Hell, let's just nuke everything that looks like sand!
When I was talking about locating the enemy, Sparky, I was not talking about "which subcontinent is he on". I had in mind a resolution of meters. If you have that information, bully for you. Please share it with the President.
An armored infantry battalion can't be relied upon to tell the difference between a gathering of terrorists and a wedding party. That shouldn't be their job. This "war" is not going to be "won" by boots on the ground: It's going to be won by intelligence assets and sneaky, deadly bastards. Armoring humvees is just going to make the terrorists build bigger bombs. Armies are for fighting nation-states, and that's the wrong mentality here.
Every Windows Mobile app I've used is a user interface disaster. If that's success, I'll have a double helping of failure.
If you use the same tool because you don't want to learn other tools, you're not going to be a very good carpenter.
"What would seem to make more sense is for Google to only scan this 20 percent of the text that they will use"
You're pretty confused.
Which 20% should they scan? Every fifth word? I'm sure that'd be useful.
not.
" You understand that the screen coating on the 3G is different form the 4G, right?"
No, no I don't understand that. Can you substantiate that fact?
And while the parts are obviously different, the materials are not.
You understand that the Nano is made of the same materials as your 3G, right?
"Mine is to detail a force strong enough to eliminate the offensive team to track them down and eliminate them before they can strike."
Ah. So you're assuming that there exists a well-defined force (I assume you mean the OPPOSING team, rather than the offensive team, because when you take the offense you're the offensive team) that is of finite size.
I think that model is flawed. Killing a couple terrorists (and oh by the way a double fistful of innocent bystanders) does not result in a net decrease in the number of terrorists.
Taking the fight to the enemy is a good idea, when the enemy is unwise enough to let you know where he is. This "enemy" (and I think assuming that there's one enemy is the key misunderstanding that you and the administration seem to share) is not so easy to pin down.
Must be nice. I did rather well, particularly in my upper-division coursework. No GPA records, mind you, but I'm no slouch.
And I can't get one of these high-paying jobs of which you speak.
I disagree.
Since the laws won't do anything about intelligent criminals, and the dumb ones aren't a big threat, I think the real target of the laws is otherwise-law-abiding civilians.
The dumb criminals aren't the ones I'm worried about.
"People not understanding the DNC law was the biggest annoyance we got"
Calls from Qwest are the biggest annoyance I got. It's not my job to not annoy you. It is your job to annoy me. That means, if I annoy you, all you have to do is get another job. If you annoy me (which you do), I have no recourse.
Color me totally unsympathetic to the plight of telemarketers. I know the job sucks. You know the job sucks. Stop doing it.
I don't use the same tool to drill holes and dig ditches. Why would I use the same tool to develop for a low-resource handheld and a high-resource desktop?
What you call an advantage is, to me, the key failure of Windows Mobile. The apps are too big (memory footprint) and kludgy (because they really, really wish they had a 1024x768 screen available).
My daddy taught me to use the right tool for the job. He was right.
It's got a power switch, you know..
"The Palm's limited resolution, limited speed, amd limited memory killed it."
Killed it, like, more than the Newton? I think there's a flaw in your premise. How many Palm devices have been sold over the last ten years? How many Newtons? I think you've got a funny notion of "death".
Palm has fallen low because of some really dumb business decisions. However, the key feature for me has always been the cheapness and replaceability of the hardware. If I lose my paper day planner, I'm boned. If I lose/break/set fire to my Palm, I get another one and sync it, never miss a beat. That's a vastly under-estimated advantage of Palms over paper day planners.
I've got a Treo 650, and it's plenty good enough until the next state-of-the-art device emerges. It probably won't be from Palm, and it absolutely won't be from Microsoft. Lots of people like Symbian...fair enough. I'll take whichever provides me with a good emulation layer that lets me use the dozens of Palm apps I use all the time.
I'm certain there are desktop PCs in Kansas (which is about as much on a plain as you can get). As a matter of fact, I'm certain that they use computers in Wichita to design PLANES. You know, the ones that fly in the air, and are hard to spell.
Word.
Math without applications is like grammar without syntax.
You're high, right?
I studied engineering because it's what I love. I am a maker of things and a solver of problems, not a pusher of paper.
Having said that, considering the difficulty I'm having getting into an engineering job, articles like this make me very angry. Of course, I have no interest in computer engineering, which is the central thrust here. I guess I have to hope that the aeronautical firms are hiring people after all the graybeards retire this decade.
Too bad I won't get to learn from them.
Me? Bitter? Bet your sweet ass I'm bitter.
That's my cat's name, you pervert.
How can you talk about Thomas Hayden Church and not mention The Specials? It's one of those sleeper movies nobody remembers, but it's absolute comic genius.
Church is perfect as the overbearing leader of the sixth- or seventh-best superhero team on Earth.
I freakin' love that movie...
To my mind, the best science fiction IS that which is plausible. Science fantasy is a different kettle of fish. Space opera (Star Wars, etc.) frequently falls under the "Science fantasy" rubric.
Nobody buys my taxonomy, though...