Disclaimer: I'm government contractor scum working for the FAA (and funnily enough, my group is one of the main ones doing the research on integrating UASes into the NAS).
First off... What makes you think our air-traffic control system can't handle the load of piloted planes we have? Do you have something to back up that assertion, or are you just spouting off because all the cool kids rag on the government? Granted, I'm no fan of the the Federal Government, but so far working with the FAA has only made me feel safer about flying. Honestly the NAS is one of the best, if not THE best solution to ATC in the entire world and is quite capable of handling current traffic levels and we're well on the way to handling expected traffic levels for the next 25 years.
With that in mind... We've already been (seriously) studying the UAS problem for over five years and honestly I'd expect another five before we even start to see operational use of the procedures that are being developed in the lab today. This is being given some pretty serious thought and being studied VERY thoroughly...
cleaning public property doesn't entitle you to it.
Actually, in some states this isn't true. The process is called "Homesteading."
In my home state, when property is laid out it is common to leave a "right of way" area to make sure public works can get to things like coulées to maintain them. This "right of way" area is technically owned by the local government, but they usually don't bother to maintain it unless someone complains. If a home-owner cares for the land, after a certain period of time they can extend their property line onto it legally, as long as some allowance was still made to ensure the work crews could still reach the area they needed to. For my grandfather, this meant he mowed the grass there for a few years, then he moved his fence back onto that property and just installed a gate big enough for a truck to drive through.
Now, other than that, I agree with you. It's Blizzard's ball, they can decide to take it and go home, no matter how much effort you put into playing with it or making it "better". It's all spelled out in contract and honestly should be common sense.
The only case I might disagree is if someone like Blizzard started laying claim to creative works that came out of your playing of the game... For instance, some really cool fantasy stories have come out of people's home-grown D&D campaigns. It'd be a real shame if someone took their character concepts from an MMO, developed a storyline from it that obviously took influences from the original work, but didn't actually infringe upon its copyright, and then found said company claiming that they now owned this "derivative" work because of some silliness in the EULA. Luckily for those guys, Blizzard doesn't seem interested in doing that... But I wouldn't put it past SOE, for instance...
Halliburton was a no-bid supplier for the US Military since the early Clinton Administration, if not before then. Dick Cheney had nothing to do with it. Thanks for putting that tidbit of idiocy at the beginning and saving me the trouble of reading the rest of your dribble.
And yet if you'd actually follow a goddamn conversation you'd learn that the person he was responding to was advocating that anyone with tax records should be banned from web browsing.
Honestly, considering the blatant stupidity you just displayed, I'm sure his corporation would be very lucky not to have you as a customer.
LAN functionality was critical when the internet wasn't as assured.
You're living in a hell of a bubble if you think Internet access is "assured."
I'd have guessed/. would be some of the most understanding gamers on the web.
We are, we understand a money grab hidden behind market speak very well.
When has blizzard ever failed us?
Pretty damn consistently since 2004, really.
World of Warcraft arguable Team Fortress 2 (sorta kinda), and it's too early with too little time to research for more than what's on the top of my head.
I don't think anyone truly expects to play an MMO offline (though, funnily enough, Tanarus and EverQuest had *some* offline play capability).
TF2, however, is 100% playable on a LAN. What you talkin' bout?
They still exist, but the people who use them aren't the same people who would be buying new blu-rays or games like StarCraft II. Honestly, if you want LAN play so bad just stick with StarCraft classic, nothing is truly wrong with that game aside from its horrendous resolution.
You're right, people like me may pass on StarCraft II because I can't bring it to the LAN party I go to every 3-4 months and play it. I can however continue to play my OLD games like WarCraft III at said LAN parties.
I fail to see how convincing me NOT to buy their game helps Blizzard?
I find it especially amusing you throw "blu-rays" in as an example of people who are technically hip... When last I checked Blu-Rays were still behind HD-DVD (the *dead* format) in uptake and if anything, upscaling DVD players have obviated the need for "high def" video formats for the time being for most people. I think people like you (and Blizzard, in this case) seem to greatly overestimate the penetration of and willingness to use newer technologies by the average person by assuming you represent the "average" when in fact you're rather far towards the edge of the curve.
Personally I don't give a damn if there is no LAN, I'm more than sure battle.net 2.0 will more than cover that functionality with gusto.
Battle.net 2.0 will require an Internet Connection, which may not even be an option on some connections (ISDN, filtered, Satellite, etc.) and requires that the LAN PCs have internet access... When hosting LAN parties, I generally don't give 'net access to anyone if the party includes people I don't know very well.
This is just a stupid money grab and ridiculously annoying, as now effort has to be wasted on coming up with a server emulator to make the software usable, and will probably mean those involved will have to spend time in court defending themselves, etc, etc, etc...
A single contradictory result does disprove a hypothesis, however.
I could also point out that myself and the eight or so other people who are in my office that primarily use KDE either put off upgrading or switched to Gnome after my experiences with it, but no one would care.
Old college roommate, former Air Force Intelligience type, one day decided to give me something to think about when I was trying to be more secure with my PC... "Don't you think when you push 'A' on your keyboard or push 'B' on your keyboard that something ever so slightly different happens in your power supply?"
Make no mistake about it, employers who use such tactics want to control their employees lives, plain and simple.
Yes, that's about the definition of the government nowadays.
P.S. What the hell are these grey buttons and widgets Slashdot is drawing all over the comments section now? For the love of Christ, can they make this interface any less useful?
And the First Officer shouldn't have pressed the Take Off/Go-Around button just before landing, and the pilot should have then gone through with the go-around instead of forcing a landing.
The pilot did attempt a go-around, but the computer thought it knew better and ignored him at that point. And that's the point: The computer overrode pilot input to the control system because it believed it knew better than the pilot what to do with the plane. It's a philosophical choice in system design, and one which (as a Programmer) I would *never* make myself. But it's Airbus's call how they program their flight computers, not mine. There are probably counter examples of where a plane has been saved by ignoring incorrect input from a pilot... But I'm at a loss to think of any.
What it comes down to is even from the perspective of the FAA, a pilot is ultimately responsible for the safe operation of his aircraft. For the duration of the flight, the buck stops with him. This even means that if an Air Traffic Controller gives him an instruction, and he has a reason to believe that instruction will put his aircraft in danger (e.g.: he sees another aircraft the controller does not seem to be aware of) he's within his rights (and in some cases probably legally required) to not follow that instruction. Working from that philosophy and then deciding "The pilot is ultimately responsible, but we will let this software override him" to me is ludicrous... You can't have it both ways.
BTW: Boeing 767 crash at Schiphol : So much for Boeings and TOGAs.
FTA... "The aircraft, a Turkish Airlines Boeing 737-800..." Do you even read your sources? They were not executing a TO/GA. In fact, had they executed a TO/GA the plane would probably have saved itself.
This was not a case of the computer overriding pilot inputs... This was a case of the crew not bothering to watch their airspeed. Any aircraft will do stupid things if you let it run on autopilot with faulty sensors and don't bother to pay attention to what it's doing. Only Airbuses (allegedly) will ignore your attempts to correct the plane's mistakes...
That's not entirely true. The plane started warning the flight crew that it was going to happen five minutes after take-off, but they chose to ignore it. I don't fault them for ignoring it, because it does seem likely that the ridiculously moist air in Thailand would cause a sensor malfunction... But ignoring the warning was obviously an error.
And yes, there are no limits to SPEECH--with the exception of speech acts that can somehow seemingly cause imminent harm, the classic example being yelling "FIRE!" in a crowded movie theater. No one is being harmed by this game. You don't have to agree with it, but then again, you don't have to listen to/watch/play it either.
Actually I forgot about allotropic iron... I immediately thought of "red mercury" and started laughing. Apparently I was the only person that got that...
The Ten Commandments is in the book of Moses in the old testament. The Vulgate bible used the original Hebrew writings for the translations and was the first to have done so, instead of using the Greek translations as others had done. So since that was written in the fifth century and directly from the Hebrew, I would believe that over any more modern translations.
And why would an ancient translation of a Hebrew text by a non-native speaker be considered more accurate than a modern translation?
The original Hebrew text plainly uses the word for 'murder,' which is different than the word for 'kill.' And the Israelites do plenty of killing throughout the Old Testament with nary an ill word from God about it. There's even a list of capital crimes in the Old Testament. You can't just dismiss those facts.
Someone else already did a pretty good job of replying to that.
No, no one has as of yet. They listed some Pastor types (who are obviously not examples of Conservative Republican politicians) and "all the Bushes," and then claimed Rush Limbaugh is for a theocracy, which is hilariously untrue.
No but they often go hand in hand, or at least the conservatives like to pretend that if you are not conservative then obviously you do not believe in God.
They may be found together, but one does not imply the other. And there are plenty more people that BELIEVE in God than there are people who OBEY him.:)
The Vulgate bible is not 'the oldest translated texts.' You'd need to go back to the original Hebrew sources, which DO use the Hebrew word for 'unjust killing.' And to call things like the NIV Bible 'revisionist' is kinda funny, considering they were done to correct the REAL revisions found in editions like the King James Version by going back to the original Greek for New Testament stuff instead of translating from the Vulgate (which itself was a translation of the Greek).
Oh please. The list is a lot shorter if you ask me which conservative republicans don't want it.
Then you shouldn't have trouble coming up with an example of one who does.
From my viewpoint you cannot believe in self defense with a gun and truly believe in God - the two are completely mutually exclusive.
Conservative beliefs do not require a belief in God.
Islam, Christianity and Judaism all have the same roots, and in those roots are the ten commandments. "Thou shalt not kill" is pretty easy to understand, even for a Republican. There are no caveats 'thou shalt not kill except for trespassers, and the rule does not apply to paranoid idiots who think their government is about to collapse.' It is absolute.
The actual commandment is "Do not murder," not "Thou shalt not kill." Read your old Testament; the Israelites were pretty big on killing people in the context of war, self defense, and capital punishment.
Oh yeah. The FEMA had nothing to do with Katrina aftermath. Wait. You're right! FEMA had nothing to with the aftermath! (And that was the problem.) Heckuva job Brownie.
Amazingly, FEMA was FASTER with their response to Katrina in New Orleans than their response to Homestead, FL after Andrew... New Orleans just got more coverage for some reason... (Insert Conspiracy Theory Here)
It's not FEMA's job to respond to disasters. It's the job of State and Local officials. FEMA is there to provide logistical support. Everyone dropped the ball on Katrina, but the real criminals here were Blanco and Nagin. I was there, working in the government at the time, so I know what I'm talking about.
The same one that simultaneously forbid additional stem cells lines, thus leaving only lines of dubious value.
They weren't forbidden, Federal funding was just not offered for them. You were free to get private funding and research them all you want. The sticking point was people didn't want their dollars going to CREATING new embryos.
What happened is two room-mates aren't getting along, one (allegedly) sends out a mass e-mail saying the other is gay (not a crime, but probably something his University would discipline him for), and the other goes to the police and starts making claims that the first is a "hacker", steals things, changes grades, etc. Then the officer uses the evidence he has that the first room-mate sent out the "is gay" e-mail (and that seems to be the ONLY actual evidence other than hearsay in the Affidavit that I can see) as justification to sieze the guy's stuff looking for proof he's hacking University systems... The mentioning of "hundreds of illegally downloaded movies" is just silly, as I'm pretty sure a University Police Officer is not within his jurisdiction to investigate someone for pirating movies.
Based on the affidavit and warrant, this is ridiculous. The Officer had no business getting involved here without some additional evidence of an ACTUAL CRIME and the EFF will probably get this kid off scot free. The ridiculous thing is that the second room-mate might even be telling the truth about his former friend's criminal activities, but since the Officer didn't gather any real evidence of them before getting the Warrant he'll probably get away with it.
He said "Right wing republicans" not "Conservative Republicans"!
Yes, I realize that. But the person he was responding to was talking about Conservatives, not "right wing Republicans"...
Believe it or not, there is a significant difference.
Yes, I believe I was the one making that very point.
As to examples of Right wing republicans would want a dictatorship in the US, run by religious law: 1. Pat Robertson 2. James Dobson 3. Newt Gingrich 4. Rush Limbaugh 5. All the Bushes 6. Jimmy Swaggart
If you'd of said Pat Buchanan, you may have had a point. But Rush Limbaugh? Seriously? You're saying RUSH LIMBAUGH wants a theocracy? He gets CONSTANT heat from the religious right over how areligious his show is! Next you're going to tell me Bill O'Reilly is a Conservative!
One thing your obviously feeble mind doesn't grasp is this: If you wanted to believe that the Earth is only 6000 years old, that evolution was a load of bullocks, and so on, liberal minded people in general would not have a problem with this. Live and let live. The problem is you stupid fucknuts trying to force *everyone else* to either believe or at least publicly profess (on pain of imprisonment or death) your particular view of things.
Damn, we started up the Inquisition again? Why wasn't I invited!? I loved the Pit and the Pendulum!
Seriously, though... Lately the only "Agree with us or die!" point of view I've been seeing espoused vis a vis scientific belief has all been coming from the Global Warming camp...
To be fair, he even failed at being a "Fascist," if you truly believe that's what he was.
Disregarding that for the moment, there's still a logical disconnect, since you talked about "your side" in reference to jmorris, and then used Bush as an example of why "his side" was wrong. jmorris was talking about Conservatives, not Republicans (which have less and less to do with the Conservative movement each election cycle).
Slashdot Mirror
Disclaimer: I'm government contractor scum working for the FAA (and funnily enough, my group is one of the main ones doing the research on integrating UASes into the NAS).
First off... What makes you think our air-traffic control system can't handle the load of piloted planes we have? Do you have something to back up that assertion, or are you just spouting off because all the cool kids rag on the government? Granted, I'm no fan of the the Federal Government, but so far working with the FAA has only made me feel safer about flying. Honestly the NAS is one of the best, if not THE best solution to ATC in the entire world and is quite capable of handling current traffic levels and we're well on the way to handling expected traffic levels for the next 25 years.
With that in mind... We've already been (seriously) studying the UAS problem for over five years and honestly I'd expect another five before we even start to see operational use of the procedures that are being developed in the lab today. This is being given some pretty serious thought and being studied VERY thoroughly...
Actually, in some states this isn't true. The process is called "Homesteading."
In my home state, when property is laid out it is common to leave a "right of way" area to make sure public works can get to things like coulées to maintain them. This "right of way" area is technically owned by the local government, but they usually don't bother to maintain it unless someone complains. If a home-owner cares for the land, after a certain period of time they can extend their property line onto it legally, as long as some allowance was still made to ensure the work crews could still reach the area they needed to. For my grandfather, this meant he mowed the grass there for a few years, then he moved his fence back onto that property and just installed a gate big enough for a truck to drive through.
Now, other than that, I agree with you. It's Blizzard's ball, they can decide to take it and go home, no matter how much effort you put into playing with it or making it "better". It's all spelled out in contract and honestly should be common sense.
The only case I might disagree is if someone like Blizzard started laying claim to creative works that came out of your playing of the game... For instance, some really cool fantasy stories have come out of people's home-grown D&D campaigns. It'd be a real shame if someone took their character concepts from an MMO, developed a storyline from it that obviously took influences from the original work, but didn't actually infringe upon its copyright, and then found said company claiming that they now owned this "derivative" work because of some silliness in the EULA. Luckily for those guys, Blizzard doesn't seem interested in doing that... But I wouldn't put it past SOE, for instance...
Then you're either a liar or were on drugs when "last you checked".
Halliburton was a no-bid supplier for the US Military since the early Clinton Administration, if not before then. Dick Cheney had nothing to do with it. Thanks for putting that tidbit of idiocy at the beginning and saving me the trouble of reading the rest of your dribble.
And yet if you'd actually follow a goddamn conversation you'd learn that the person he was responding to was advocating that anyone with tax records should be banned from web browsing.
Honestly, considering the blatant stupidity you just displayed, I'm sure his corporation would be very lucky not to have you as a customer.
You're living in a hell of a bubble if you think Internet access is "assured."
We are, we understand a money grab hidden behind market speak very well.
Pretty damn consistently since 2004, really.
I don't think anyone truly expects to play an MMO offline (though, funnily enough, Tanarus and EverQuest had *some* offline play capability).
TF2, however, is 100% playable on a LAN. What you talkin' bout?
You're right, people like me may pass on StarCraft II because I can't bring it to the LAN party I go to every 3-4 months and play it. I can however continue to play my OLD games like WarCraft III at said LAN parties.
I fail to see how convincing me NOT to buy their game helps Blizzard?
I find it especially amusing you throw "blu-rays" in as an example of people who are technically hip... When last I checked Blu-Rays were still behind HD-DVD (the *dead* format) in uptake and if anything, upscaling DVD players have obviated the need for "high def" video formats for the time being for most people. I think people like you (and Blizzard, in this case) seem to greatly overestimate the penetration of and willingness to use newer technologies by the average person by assuming you represent the "average" when in fact you're rather far towards the edge of the curve.
Battle.net 2.0 will require an Internet Connection, which may not even be an option on some connections (ISDN, filtered, Satellite, etc.) and requires that the LAN PCs have internet access... When hosting LAN parties, I generally don't give 'net access to anyone if the party includes people I don't know very well.
This is just a stupid money grab and ridiculously annoying, as now effort has to be wasted on coming up with a server emulator to make the software usable, and will probably mean those involved will have to spend time in court defending themselves, etc, etc, etc...
A single contradictory result does disprove a hypothesis, however.
I could also point out that myself and the eight or so other people who are in my office that primarily use KDE either put off upgrading or switched to Gnome after my experiences with it, but no one would care.
Linus did.
Old college roommate, former Air Force Intelligience type, one day decided to give me something to think about when I was trying to be more secure with my PC... "Don't you think when you push 'A' on your keyboard or push 'B' on your keyboard that something ever so slightly different happens in your power supply?"
It's very old news amongst SIGINT types...
Yes, that's about the definition of the government nowadays.
P.S. What the hell are these grey buttons and widgets Slashdot is drawing all over the comments section now? For the love of Christ, can they make this interface any less useful?
I hate split keyboards. Does that make me subhuman?
The pilot did attempt a go-around, but the computer thought it knew better and ignored him at that point. And that's the point: The computer overrode pilot input to the control system because it believed it knew better than the pilot what to do with the plane. It's a philosophical choice in system design, and one which (as a Programmer) I would *never* make myself. But it's Airbus's call how they program their flight computers, not mine. There are probably counter examples of where a plane has been saved by ignoring incorrect input from a pilot... But I'm at a loss to think of any.
What it comes down to is even from the perspective of the FAA, a pilot is ultimately responsible for the safe operation of his aircraft. For the duration of the flight, the buck stops with him. This even means that if an Air Traffic Controller gives him an instruction, and he has a reason to believe that instruction will put his aircraft in danger (e.g.: he sees another aircraft the controller does not seem to be aware of) he's within his rights (and in some cases probably legally required) to not follow that instruction. Working from that philosophy and then deciding "The pilot is ultimately responsible, but we will let this software override him" to me is ludicrous... You can't have it both ways.
FTA... "The aircraft, a Turkish Airlines Boeing 737-800..." Do you even read your sources? They were not executing a TO/GA. In fact, had they executed a TO/GA the plane would probably have saved itself.
This was not a case of the computer overriding pilot inputs... This was a case of the crew not bothering to watch their airspeed. Any aircraft will do stupid things if you let it run on autopilot with faulty sensors and don't bother to pay attention to what it's doing. Only Airbuses (allegedly) will ignore your attempts to correct the plane's mistakes...
That's not entirely true. The plane started warning the flight crew that it was going to happen five minutes after take-off, but they chose to ignore it. I don't fault them for ignoring it, because it does seem likely that the ridiculously moist air in Thailand would cause a sensor malfunction... But ignoring the warning was obviously an error.
That's a bit of a ridiculous comparison...
NAMBLA rapes kids.
No kids are raped by this video game.
And yes, there are no limits to SPEECH--with the exception of speech acts that can somehow seemingly cause imminent harm, the classic example being yelling "FIRE!" in a crowded movie theater. No one is being harmed by this game. You don't have to agree with it, but then again, you don't have to listen to/watch/play it either.
Actually I forgot about allotropic iron... I immediately thought of "red mercury" and started laughing. Apparently I was the only person that got that...
And why would an ancient translation of a Hebrew text by a non-native speaker be considered more accurate than a modern translation?
The original Hebrew text plainly uses the word for 'murder,' which is different than the word for 'kill.' And the Israelites do plenty of killing throughout the Old Testament with nary an ill word from God about it. There's even a list of capital crimes in the Old Testament. You can't just dismiss those facts.
No, no one has as of yet. They listed some Pastor types (who are obviously not examples of Conservative Republican politicians) and "all the Bushes," and then claimed Rush Limbaugh is for a theocracy, which is hilariously untrue.
They may be found together, but one does not imply the other. And there are plenty more people that BELIEVE in God than there are people who OBEY him. :)
The Vulgate bible is not 'the oldest translated texts.' You'd need to go back to the original Hebrew sources, which DO use the Hebrew word for 'unjust killing.' And to call things like the NIV Bible 'revisionist' is kinda funny, considering they were done to correct the REAL revisions found in editions like the King James Version by going back to the original Greek for New Testament stuff instead of translating from the Vulgate (which itself was a translation of the Greek).
Except there's no proof the treatment actually works, and some of the figures involved have also made wild, unprovable claims in the past...
Then you shouldn't have trouble coming up with an example of one who does.
Conservative beliefs do not require a belief in God.
The actual commandment is "Do not murder," not "Thou shalt not kill." Read your old Testament; the Israelites were pretty big on killing people in the context of war, self defense, and capital punishment.
Amazingly, FEMA was FASTER with their response to Katrina in New Orleans than their response to Homestead, FL after Andrew... New Orleans just got more coverage for some reason... (Insert Conspiracy Theory Here)
It's not FEMA's job to respond to disasters. It's the job of State and Local officials. FEMA is there to provide logistical support. Everyone dropped the ball on Katrina, but the real criminals here were Blanco and Nagin. I was there, working in the government at the time, so I know what I'm talking about.
They weren't forbidden, Federal funding was just not offered for them. You were free to get private funding and research them all you want. The sticking point was people didn't want their dollars going to CREATING new embryos.
Because they were given the choice between a moderate and a liberal both times.
What happened is two room-mates aren't getting along, one (allegedly) sends out a mass e-mail saying the other is gay (not a crime, but probably something his University would discipline him for), and the other goes to the police and starts making claims that the first is a "hacker", steals things, changes grades, etc. Then the officer uses the evidence he has that the first room-mate sent out the "is gay" e-mail (and that seems to be the ONLY actual evidence other than hearsay in the Affidavit that I can see) as justification to sieze the guy's stuff looking for proof he's hacking University systems... The mentioning of "hundreds of illegally downloaded movies" is just silly, as I'm pretty sure a University Police Officer is not within his jurisdiction to investigate someone for pirating movies.
Based on the affidavit and warrant, this is ridiculous. The Officer had no business getting involved here without some additional evidence of an ACTUAL CRIME and the EFF will probably get this kid off scot free. The ridiculous thing is that the second room-mate might even be telling the truth about his former friend's criminal activities, but since the Officer didn't gather any real evidence of them before getting the Warrant he'll probably get away with it.
Excuse me, I used the wrong word. Libel is not a CRIME, and therefore the police have no business investigating it. It's a Civil Matter.
Yes, I realize that. But the person he was responding to was talking about Conservatives, not "right wing Republicans"...
Yes, I believe I was the one making that very point.
If you'd of said Pat Buchanan, you may have had a point. But Rush Limbaugh? Seriously? You're saying RUSH LIMBAUGH wants a theocracy? He gets CONSTANT heat from the religious right over how areligious his show is! Next you're going to tell me Bill O'Reilly is a Conservative!
Damn, we started up the Inquisition again? Why wasn't I invited!? I loved the Pit and the Pendulum!
Seriously, though... Lately the only "Agree with us or die!" point of view I've been seeing espoused vis a vis scientific belief has all been coming from the Global Warming camp...
To be fair, he even failed at being a "Fascist," if you truly believe that's what he was.
Disregarding that for the moment, there's still a logical disconnect, since you talked about "your side" in reference to jmorris, and then used Bush as an example of why "his side" was wrong. jmorris was talking about Conservatives, not Republicans (which have less and less to do with the Conservative movement each election cycle).