because this was such a shocking discovery. The one thing about science is that it can stagnate. It does because we assume we know the whats and whys. This leads to the ignoring of approaches simply because, well we "just know" how it works. Like when we thought we knew everything about protiens, rna, and such, along comes an advance along lines not previously considered, whether by chance or just the luck of having the right group of people.
For me this is great news, my mother has been taking insulin shots for nearly 30 years. Recently animal based insulin products were removed from use, at least from the pool of what she has available. This wasn't some nefarious scheme of drug companies. It is because doctors perceived the new insulins to be better and easier to acquire. What is has led to is pure annoyance and even life threatening situations for many diabetics. Instead of two shots a days she was now in a regimen of 4 or more, using two different types; fast acting and slow acting. Even with multiple blood tests per day, watching what she was eating, she still went into conditions near death when her blood sugar either dropped into the teens or went over 500.
On a side note, bless my mother, she cannot recall my phone number all the time. She was alone at home as my father was away on a trip with friends and she had a bad reaction. She knew she was in trouble and managed to get some food down but passed out. When she awoke, very groggy and barely concious she managed to dial 911. The paradmedics could not enter the house as it was locked and they are not permitted to break down doors. She actually recalled my phone number and 911 contacted me. Needless to say I made a 10 minute trip in record time. Her blood sugar was in the low 20s when the Paramedics tested it. They would not even more her until they could get her stable. She was barely there. They actually had an ambulance on its way. Obviously she recovered.
Now because of this issue it was decided to put her on an insulin pump. A couple of people at work are also on the pump now, all for the same reason. It has become near impossible for some of them to regulate their blood sugar levels with the synthetics. So I look at a discovery like this as a near miracle. Hopefully the tests will prove out in a year or two. This type of discovery only happens because there are still people, working for either government, universities, and corporations, who defy common wisdom or by sheer luck stumble upon a whole new method.
While I don't know how much study was being done in this direction I can only hope it spurs others to investigate similar treatments for health problems considered to be nearly known is cause and scope. Its this openess to ideas that may just save us all one day.
with processors and such to control individual areas instead of one trying to do it all? We have PCs, minis, and mainframes where I work. The network (read:pc) based development groups used to laugh at us when they got a new system, usually with gigs of memory and multiple processors while our distro center production systems used 1g processors with 512mb ram.
That was until they realized we were serving 50+ users and doing batch work at the same time. The volume of print alone was beyond their servers to handle coming in for distribution so we had to write routines to email from out "so small mini"
Of course the mini had an advantage. That processor wasn't alone in getting work done. It also had a real OS under it that managed system resources at a level of competence that most PC based OSes could only dream of.
So if we get the hardware which is similar to the mini/mainframes how far behind will be the OS?
Sorry but every behavioral issue is going to be "Medical Condition" if there is enough money in it. Its one of the reason why so many private employers are having trouble with their health care costs. One of the announcments in our end of year benefits meetings was that costs were going up (duh!) but look at all the new things we can do for you (meaning we have been told this has to be covered)
At least most private insurers will stand up and fight new things being classified as medical when they are not but governments probably won't. It will just lead to even more classes of people who don't work because of "medical reasons" that live off the public.
Look at it this way, if the issues are so dangerous that they become medical problems why allow them to persist? Probably because they are not medical issues
I know of lots of games where "Arabian" countries are the bad guys. You can kill them then and its OK? Most RTS games use obvious characteristics of that easily assignable to regions of the world, either race based or religious but why no offense there?
the game does give the players an out, they don't have to kill anyone and actually lose score if they do so how does the game teach that its okay to kill non-believers? It doesn't, but that doesn't make a good story and we can sit in our coffee shops with our macbooks sipping lattes while mocking Christians and other people of faith can we?
Giving children games where people are getting killed, regardless if its religious based, historical, or fiction, isn't the brightest idea. Yet if we are going to hold one group, or in this case one small segment of a larger group, to certain standards why don't we hold everyone to them? Is it only okay because we believe we can browbeat certain groups or another?
and it does look really bad. It does come across as nothing more than "covert or die". If taken in context, the game works just fine. There is nothing PC about religion and trying to apply PC centric ideals to a game based on religion and one groups belief of the end times is even dumber than any game can be.
The books, yes I read them - I love most end time fiction (whether is religious or not - Zelazny wrote some good stuff). The books deal with a society where the surviving members of society are either members of the new world order and subscribe to that order's church or are denied rights, and eventually killed out of hand. Christians are set as the opposing force, after all its a book from Christians about a story in Bible. Throughout the series they convert many people from various religions and non-beliefs. Though many times that never convert and directly or indirectly stop them. It isn't all happy go lucky and neither will be the game.
I look at it this way, if those Christian readers who take offense at the game were not offended by the books then they are just hypocritical. Does making it a game, itself just another work of fiction, present it in a way that that is more offensive than print? I guess seeing a visual representation does the trick for many people. I know many who can read murder novels, even graphic ones, but take offense at seeing dead bodies on the TV. Hell, there are many who can read about sex but damn if they would watch it.
Look, the first rule is no one is forcing anyone to buy it. The second rule is, you have the right to be offended but you do not have the right to suppress what offends you. The third rule is, get over it.
Leave the game in the stores. There are far more more violent and offensive games that have come out and they are still sold. If we change the rules because the game is based on religious themes how long before we change the rules for everything else?
the same people who write the code where I work also take care that it deploys properly. Sure someone else pushes the buttons and writes some user information but until its in the field at all locations the developer is actively involved.
code goes from development, q&a, field test, deployment.
once the code reaches q&a it does not change unless q&a rejects, but afterward the developer(s) are responsible if problems arise during install and work with support to fix it. they never lose ownership.
this might not work in well disciplined shops as it would be easy for the support staff to just bury developers in all sorts of stupid issues. This also may not work in pc centric development groups which seem for some reason to have a different idea on development from mini and main framers. (really, we make jokes about the pc centric groups - if something takes forever to get done, even simple stuff, we say "it moves as the speed of X" (x being the name of the pc development group)
just wondering when did IT and development become separate entities? wouldn't that make the job all that more difficult?
as frivolous. Most frivolous lawsuits are created without the intent to win but instead to settle.
This incident is negilgent, possibly bordering unto criminal if they can figure out if some people knew about it earlier. Seeing that their a school I wonder what their liability is? I didn't check but is UCLA still considered a government entity? If so they may be already protected by law. Lots of laws that come along that punish businesses purposely exclude government agencies from the very same.
Look at the near luxury sedans that are so popular today. Hell look at most sedans and coupes in the 25K+ range...
for cars most of them get abysmal mileage. 18 in the city? Sheesh, my crossover averages 21 and its bigger than many sedans.
A lot of cars are overpowered today. For the most part SUVs suffer because of their size and gearing. Too many are still geared to tow which many people will never do. But whats the excuse of all the new 8cylinder and overpowered 6 cylinder cars?
I already use my motorcycle as much as possible to get to and from work, the 48+ mpg is great. I still have the crossover because I have to have a vehicle capable of hauling stuff I buy (lots of landscaping for my house) and doing the runs while at work with a couple of others along for the ride.
Many families are going to have one member with a large vehicle. Its pure economics. For most every SUV in the parking lot at work the SO of that driver is usually in a smaller car that gets decent mileage. Yeah there are large numbers of dual SUV families but for many people the flexibility these vehicles offer outweigh the added expense they incur in initial price, maintenance, and gas.
But get over the "SUV" blame game. Too many cars today exist that serve even less use than the SUV
While the laptop may cost just $100 to make they are of now use to anyone if the intended users don't know what to do with them. That will take time and training and those costs must be considered for any program as far reaching as this one will be. Its sheer ignorance to think otherwise. I know it is passe to ridicule and even scorn the words of businessmen on slashdot. It seems like a disease here but there are many things which can be contributed by people in this area.
What the real issue is, is this the best investment of the money that will be required? Are the associated costs going to be so great that the money would not be better spent elsewhere? Say for instance, regular education, health, and sanitation needs. Nothing happens for free in this world. We can't just uncrate a bunch of these laptops, hand them out, and pretend there isn't an investment being made. It has to be considered or the program will surely fail. We will need people to train, to show uses which apply to the users in question, and we need people who can fix or replace the systems when they fail.
the training cannot be underestimated. We have to prove, and yes prove is the word, to the users why spending time with these machines will better their lives. Why it would be better to spend an hour on this machine, even across a whole week, than to toil in a shop, field, or factory. The results of their manual labor are immediately understood to them. This education requires people, people require pay. It will also require the attendant facitilies, whether they are fixed or transportable. All these costs must be factored.
There are several of the larger companies that do reply to those challenges. My EL account is protected by the challenge response system and for the majority of businesses I buy from I add them to the allowed list. A few did actually fill out the request that EL automatically generates.
If people can write code to figure out captchas (or whatever those pictures are) they could certainly write a piece of code to respond properly or act on challenge requests.
many in government are pushing stuff like this so that they can effectively control anything we can see. They start with the easy stuff, items likely to appeal to the broadest base, then then slowly add to it.
Of course they may try to wrap it up in pretty sounding names, fairness doctrine is a good one for anyone who has read about some plans for radio, and apply what worked in other areas to the internet.
After, do Nazi's offend you? They are censored in many areas of the world and its not religious based. Stuff like that will come to the US under the guise of "Hate speech / hate crimes". It won't be religious based. Even if it were it would only because it provides a convienent boost.
3. Big corporations can afford such small expenditures.
Why? The return is so great on the investment. It would probably cost less to offer tens of thousands of these things that to pay for their name to be favorably placed in major markets around the world.
I for one cannot blame our CIO. Since I deal with the people between him and me on a daily basis I know what he is up against. Basically the CIO is up against the same problem I am. The people in between. They will rarely, actually never, admit their decisions or lack of ability to make decisions are the problem. We continue down the same path as always because the middle refuses to take responsibility and having done so for so long they refuse to make new decisions to correct it. They collude with each other under the idea that if they all "buy-in" then it will just have to come out okay.
We are nearly 7 years into a 18month, 3 years at the maximum, project and still have years ahead of us. We suffer from all the problems. Software which really doesn't fit. Feature creep which prevents fixing what needs to be fixed. Pet projects which interrupt again what needs to be fixed. Pet consulting groups don't help either.
This of course at times get rolled off to the vendors. After all it "MUST" be the vendors who just haven't delivered. Can't blame the staff with any strength because that faults yourself - after all if the staff is a problem then why hasn't that been addressed? So vendors get to take the heat. Some of those in the middle are big players who do only big projects. No big project comes off without some problems. Little things that really are beyond the control of the vendor are hawked to extreme to cover up middle managements bungling.
I would put that in some cases Vendors are the whole reason much middle management (defined as VPs, Directors, Goverance Committees) survive so long. There are just too many convienent avenues of escape. Eventually it may catch up to them but before then they will have destroyed productivity and morale to a point where the staff will leave on their own; thus providing all new scapegoats. As with many companies the staff and even some CIOs can only hope that people get promoted out of where they cause harm or leave on their own. These days there are just so many "nanny" laws that firing anyone is dangerous. You end up just paying them to leave quietly and hope the new team can dig out before becoming the old team
that Stephen Hawking is unique. He is very widely known and he own actions are more to true science than trying to appeal to one group or another. It is this type of person who is missing from the global warming debate. Simply put the who issue has become so politicized and so much money is involved that there is no room for one true expert who can be trusted. Look at how many organizations with nice sounding (read official) names exist? How is the lay person to tell that which is real, which are nothing more than paid off entities (private or government) or just crack pots?
Can someone like him come along? Doubtful, the current environment of global warming research is too chaotic to permit. Anyone who tried would be marginalized by one side or the other.
Both sides cannot be 100% correct and neither side can be completely wrong. The only question is, how long before the public shows enough interest to ferret out the truth? Right now both sides are trying to buy public opinion.
As for bias, I do believe that quite a bit of research is snuffed out. Simply put, its turned into group think. If you go off to the other side with your ideas the side you left will do their best to ruin you. What kind of science can exist in a system like that?
It was and continues to be. They have their ups and their downs. Just like other companies, Apple included. Its fun to remember their screwups. They get noticed more because they are so big they attract enough "haters" to make a community.
Office was a great idea when it came out and has steadily improved. For some of us its entirely too much but it does the basics as well as enough fancy stuff to keep most business needs covered.
Xbox Live is probably their last great innovation. Everyone talks about online content not being original but until Live the execution of it for consoles was leaving a lot to be desired. Actually Live is a great example to follow for PC based content and should and could expand into the PC Arena. It probably is going to be used mostly as the stepping stone into the living room and is in a better situation to do so than Frontrow and Apple's iTMS integration to come.
Are they too big to truly innovate? No. There is much that goes on behind the scenes that we never see. The problem MS faces is that much of what they are planning leaks out under the guise of "will be integral to the next OS" that others can jump on it, deliver it, and appear as the originators because it takes too long for MS to turn on complete new releases of the OS.
If anything they may want to follow Apple's model of releasing revisions more often, though I doubt they could get away charging as much as Apple does for it.
My SUV gets better mileage than most sedans. A lot of the near luxury sport sedans and coupes average BELOW 20mpg and yet hardly anyone points them out.
People harp about SUV driving people forget the big picture. At least for most of us one car is going to be a SUV or VAN. Someone has to have the "family" car - the hauler. Sure it would be nice to have an extra "commuter" vehicle but with prices today and insurance that isn't practical. So someone gets the SUV/MV etc. Your bound to see us solo in it, thats going to happen.
Outside of Civics and similar vehicles (hybrids don't count - I think they are a joke) that get 35+ easily on small gasoline engines I only see diesels as a viable alternative. I have seen Euro 300s with diesels that average 27mpg, not the 20 or so the gas versions get.
So next time you see that SUV plowing down the road and get your eco-fits going, realize that many of the near luxury sedans that are so very popular today are getting as bad if not worse mileage.
An amount of the security Mac user's experience is simply because your not a big enough market to have fun with yet. No set of programmers is going to beat out users for finding ways to make their system vulnerable. There is value in not being noticed by the hacker community, don't spend it. There is also value in not being as exposed to people who should never have had a computer in the first place.
For someone supposedly with multiple degrees you certainly parrot the atypical responses commoningly found in those who cannot think for themselves, or worse refuse to think as it would bring doubt into their world.
We don't know the magnitude.
Yes I know what the word means, the key is, why use it? If you have to toss out catch phrases using big words it usually means you have nothing to say yourself. Look, we know man alters the equation, we just don't know how. When one day's fact is tomorrows fallacy, especially in the world of environmental science I can't believe how many people become such rabid supporters.
Then again this is/. Home to the nut jobs. Always easy to get modded down going after global warming nuts, bush haters, gore haters, etc...
Sometimes I think/. is truly run by those who hate anyone more successful than themselves. Dreamers all, but sore losers.
He was quite clear, the environmental movement is more intolerant than most religions. If you look it it has become a religion to some folk. If you disagree your branded a heretic and should be run out of whatever job you do.
Really, whats different than what some people claim religious groups do wrong that isn't being done by many factions in the environmental movement?
Sorry but not every scientist agrees with the claim regardless of who is funding them. That is a simply a standard phrase used by any group to dismiss anyone who opposes them. It is the cliche method... in other words if you use it you are indicating you do not care to debate as you have already decided.
I know there is little debate that anthropogenic global warming occurs, the real debate which you gloss over is that no one agrees on just how much is being contributed by man. Yet why should there be any debate when the only people you see are those pushing that agenda? With comments and believes like you "everyone who doesn't agree is a corporate shill" type crap whats the point of debating?
Sorry, you attempted to portray his post in the wrong by leading off with an argument that had NO BEARING on his post and then you throw out the time tried bogus claims "of everyone"...
no dice.
If your argument has merit them argue the point, attacking those who offer the opposing opinion and not the opinion itself shows you have no desire to debate the issue as your hard locked mentally in your belief.
The whole idea of basing China's output using a "per person" formula is just dumb. Its being done to mask the amount of pollution China is creating, supposedly they will exceed the US within 2 years (finding that citation should not be too hard)
A "tax" won't do anything but pass the costs to the consumer indirectly. Worse most schemes invented allow for corporations to buy and sell "pollution credit" with other companies. In other words, a tax just furthers the activity. Instead of stopping it you just make it slightly more expensive to maintain.
No tax. Just set reasonable emission's goals based on the industry involved. There is no real point in forcing a computer manufacturer to pay penalities just because their power supplier isn't green. Now you can hit them up if they refuse to use better alternatives for creating boards and such (reduce mercury usage is a start). This is the logic that needs to be followed for each industry. Get on to it for what it produces, not what it consumes. If you hit it on the consuming side then you are just passing the regulatory buck. Your hitting them for something they may have no actual ability to control. Of course most governments are only concerned with revenue so its a wash. They will portray and financial loss to a corporation as the cost of doing business while convienently ignoring the fact that any "penalty tax" paid by the corporation is ultimately paid by anyone buying their product or engaged in businees with someone using their product (the old idea of - no business pays taxes, they merely collect them for the government)
I read awhile back about comparing possum on an isolated island showed a much stronger genetic base that produced better litters and eventual adults versus those who lived on the mainland.
Apparently the stress put on possums on the mainland is high enough to cause genetic changes. the stress weakens the immune system and has other side effects that produced a less healthy and capable possum. One possibility that was raised is that on the mainland a good number of possum are killed by vehicles. Cars are obviously a predator that mainland possum can adapt to, or maybe there hasn't been enough time yet?
I wish I could find the exact story but all I end up with are references to NZ based studies.
No, sorry to burst your bubble, but not every game, by far, wants a world which is torn asunder monthly.
Warcraft succeeds because blizzard realizes something the pundits don't, people still play games for fun.
Logging into an unknown situation isn't what most gamers want, if so many other games would have done well that haven't. For the most part players cannot be trusted, especially those who want anarchy and the like. Oh yeah they will repackage it as something other than anarchy but that is all they really want. Fun at someone else's expense drives that other off.
His ideas for character customization are fine, many would like that. Housing can wait, if ever. The game doesn't need it. As for the morals section, most players still wouldn't care. They will do the task presented. While it might be interesting to have the choice to cheat a NPC what real point is there? A lot of his ideas are best suited to PvP aspects of the game.
For the most part he seems to be lamenting that WOW does not have features he found interesting in another game. It goes without saying that that other game obviously is lacking in the rest of the department that he'd rather play WOW - just with some things added. WOW is a very good game. That people want to add features to it only proves that point. Unpopular games rarely get lauded and have recommendations placed to them as much as WOW does.
Look at it this way, there are games that do offer what he wants, and some are coming that will also. Will they succeed? Well it really comes down to one important factor : Is it fun? WOW still passes that test more than any other game for a majority of MMORPG players.
For everyone claim of WOW being lame I just have to ask, with population numbers like it has what does that make the other games?
because someone from an organization will claim it does. As with much in the way of such publications they will rely on the general lack of knowledge of the public. If not now I bet there will be some group that references "iceburgs off of NZ a few years back" in some passage as justification for "their" view of global warming.
Too much of the Global Warming hysteria, and yes a lot of the pronoucements are bordering if not crossing that line, follow the same pattern. Have an official sounding name, employ a few government scientist who have no other opportunity for work, and set a deadline likely not to be seen in many's lifetime.
Works wonders for many subjects. Dire predictions and such make headlines. Headlines garner attention. Attention can lead to money. Somehow I think underwear is involved.
Slashdot Mirror
because this was such a shocking discovery. The one thing about science is that it can stagnate. It does because we assume we know the whats and whys. This leads to the ignoring of approaches simply because, well we "just know" how it works. Like when we thought we knew everything about protiens, rna, and such, along comes an advance along lines not previously considered, whether by chance or just the luck of having the right group of people.
For me this is great news, my mother has been taking insulin shots for nearly 30 years. Recently animal based insulin products were removed from use, at least from the pool of what she has available. This wasn't some nefarious scheme of drug companies. It is because doctors perceived the new insulins to be better and easier to acquire. What is has led to is pure annoyance and even life threatening situations for many diabetics. Instead of two shots a days she was now in a regimen of 4 or more, using two different types; fast acting and slow acting. Even with multiple blood tests per day, watching what she was eating, she still went into conditions near death when her blood sugar either dropped into the teens or went over 500.
On a side note, bless my mother, she cannot recall my phone number all the time. She was alone at home as my father was away on a trip with friends and she had a bad reaction. She knew she was in trouble and managed to get some food down but passed out. When she awoke, very groggy and barely concious she managed to dial 911. The paradmedics could not enter the house as it was locked and they are not permitted to break down doors. She actually recalled my phone number and 911 contacted me. Needless to say I made a 10 minute trip in record time. Her blood sugar was in the low 20s when the Paramedics tested it. They would not even more her until they could get her stable. She was barely there. They actually had an ambulance on its way. Obviously she recovered.
Now because of this issue it was decided to put her on an insulin pump. A couple of people at work are also on the pump now, all for the same reason. It has become near impossible for some of them to regulate their blood sugar levels with the synthetics. So I look at a discovery like this as a near miracle. Hopefully the tests will prove out in a year or two. This type of discovery only happens because there are still people, working for either government, universities, and corporations, who defy common wisdom or by sheer luck stumble upon a whole new method.
While I don't know how much study was being done in this direction I can only hope it spurs others to investigate similar treatments for health problems considered to be nearly known is cause and scope. Its this openess to ideas that may just save us all one day.
with processors and such to control individual areas instead of one trying to do it all? We have PCs, minis, and mainframes where I work. The network (read:pc) based development groups used to laugh at us when they got a new system, usually with gigs of memory and multiple processors while our distro center production systems used 1g processors with 512mb ram.
That was until they realized we were serving 50+ users and doing batch work at the same time. The volume of print alone was beyond their servers to handle coming in for distribution so we had to write routines to email from out "so small mini"
Of course the mini had an advantage. That processor wasn't alone in getting work done. It also had a real OS under it that managed system resources at a level of competence that most PC based OSes could only dream of.
So if we get the hardware which is similar to the mini/mainframes how far behind will be the OS?
because of the internet who gets to decide what the age of a child is?
and what are the physical characteristics are we going to measure it by?
and whats constitutes porn? Provocative poses? Skimpy clothing? No Clothing? touching or not touching?
too many ways to bite everyone in the ass
Sorry but every behavioral issue is going to be "Medical Condition" if there is enough money in it. Its one of the reason why so many private employers are having trouble with their health care costs. One of the announcments in our end of year benefits meetings was that costs were going up (duh!) but look at all the new things we can do for you (meaning we have been told this has to be covered)
At least most private insurers will stand up and fight new things being classified as medical when they are not but governments probably won't. It will just lead to even more classes of people who don't work because of "medical reasons" that live off the public.
Look at it this way, if the issues are so dangerous that they become medical problems why allow them to persist? Probably because they are not medical issues
I know of lots of games where "Arabian" countries are the bad guys. You can kill them then and its OK? Most RTS games use obvious characteristics of that easily assignable to regions of the world, either race based or religious but why no offense there?
the game does give the players an out, they don't have to kill anyone and actually lose score if they do so how does the game teach that its okay to kill non-believers? It doesn't, but that doesn't make a good story and we can sit in our coffee shops with our macbooks sipping lattes while mocking Christians and other people of faith can we?
Giving children games where people are getting killed, regardless if its religious based, historical, or fiction, isn't the brightest idea. Yet if we are going to hold one group, or in this case one small segment of a larger group, to certain standards why don't we hold everyone to them? Is it only okay because we believe we can browbeat certain groups or another?
and it does look really bad. It does come across as nothing more than "covert or die". If taken in context, the game works just fine. There is nothing PC about religion and trying to apply PC centric ideals to a game based on religion and one groups belief of the end times is even dumber than any game can be.
The books, yes I read them - I love most end time fiction (whether is religious or not - Zelazny wrote some good stuff). The books deal with a society where the surviving members of society are either members of the new world order and subscribe to that order's church or are denied rights, and eventually killed out of hand. Christians are set as the opposing force, after all its a book from Christians about a story in Bible. Throughout the series they convert many people from various religions and non-beliefs. Though many times that never convert and directly or indirectly stop them. It isn't all happy go lucky and neither will be the game.
I look at it this way, if those Christian readers who take offense at the game were not offended by the books then they are just hypocritical. Does making it a game, itself just another work of fiction, present it in a way that that is more offensive than print? I guess seeing a visual representation does the trick for many people. I know many who can read murder novels, even graphic ones, but take offense at seeing dead bodies on the TV. Hell, there are many who can read about sex but damn if they would watch it.
Look, the first rule is no one is forcing anyone to buy it. The second rule is, you have the right to be offended but you do not have the right to suppress what offends you. The third rule is, get over it.
Leave the game in the stores. There are far more more violent and offensive games that have come out and they are still sold. If we change the rules because the game is based on religious themes how long before we change the rules for everything else?
the same people who write the code where I work also take care that it deploys properly. Sure someone else pushes the buttons and writes some user information but until its in the field at all locations the developer is actively involved.
code goes from development, q&a, field test, deployment.
once the code reaches q&a it does not change unless q&a rejects, but afterward the developer(s) are responsible if problems arise during install and work with support to fix it. they never lose ownership.
this might not work in well disciplined shops as it would be easy for the support staff to just bury developers in all sorts of stupid issues. This also may not work in pc centric development groups which seem for some reason to have a different idea on development from mini and main framers. (really, we make jokes about the pc centric groups - if something takes forever to get done, even simple stuff, we say "it moves as the speed of X" (x being the name of the pc development group)
just wondering when did IT and development become separate entities? wouldn't that make the job all that more difficult?
as frivolous. Most frivolous lawsuits are created without the intent to win but instead to settle.
This incident is negilgent, possibly bordering unto criminal if they can figure out if some people knew about it earlier. Seeing that their a school I wonder what their liability is? I didn't check but is UCLA still considered a government entity? If so they may be already protected by law. Lots of laws that come along that punish businesses purposely exclude government agencies from the very same.
Look at the near luxury sedans that are so popular today. Hell look at most sedans and coupes in the 25K+ range...
for cars most of them get abysmal mileage. 18 in the city? Sheesh, my crossover averages 21 and its bigger than many sedans.
A lot of cars are overpowered today. For the most part SUVs suffer because of their size and gearing. Too many are still geared to tow which many people will never do. But whats the excuse of all the new 8cylinder and overpowered 6 cylinder cars?
I already use my motorcycle as much as possible to get to and from work, the 48+ mpg is great. I still have the crossover because I have to have a vehicle capable of hauling stuff I buy (lots of landscaping for my house) and doing the runs while at work with a couple of others along for the ride.
Many families are going to have one member with a large vehicle. Its pure economics. For most every SUV in the parking lot at work the SO of that driver is usually in a smaller car that gets decent mileage. Yeah there are large numbers of dual SUV families but for many people the flexibility these vehicles offer outweigh the added expense they incur in initial price, maintenance, and gas.
But get over the "SUV" blame game. Too many cars today exist that serve even less use than the SUV
I understand your view but it is misguided.
While the laptop may cost just $100 to make they are of now use to anyone if the intended users don't know what to do with them. That will take time and training and those costs must be considered for any program as far reaching as this one will be. Its sheer ignorance to think otherwise. I know it is passe to ridicule and even scorn the words of businessmen on slashdot. It seems like a disease here but there are many things which can be contributed by people in this area.
What the real issue is, is this the best investment of the money that will be required? Are the associated costs going to be so great that the money would not be better spent elsewhere? Say for instance, regular education, health, and sanitation needs. Nothing happens for free in this world. We can't just uncrate a bunch of these laptops, hand them out, and pretend there isn't an investment being made. It has to be considered or the program will surely fail. We will need people to train, to show uses which apply to the users in question, and we need people who can fix or replace the systems when they fail.
the training cannot be underestimated. We have to prove, and yes prove is the word, to the users why spending time with these machines will better their lives. Why it would be better to spend an hour on this machine, even across a whole week, than to toil in a shop, field, or factory. The results of their manual labor are immediately understood to them. This education requires people, people require pay. It will also require the attendant facitilies, whether they are fixed or transportable. All these costs must be factored.
There are several of the larger companies that do reply to those challenges. My EL account is protected by the challenge response system and for the majority of businesses I buy from I add them to the allowed list. A few did actually fill out the request that EL automatically generates.
If people can write code to figure out captchas (or whatever those pictures are) they could certainly write a piece of code to respond properly or act on challenge requests.
Sometimes I think it would be best to have less laws if only to keep lawyers from getting all the money.
Yes I know its a government entity but I bet there are many "consultants" on that list that are not as well.
I don't think lawyers, singular or as a corporation, should ever get more than the reward.
many in government are pushing stuff like this so that they can effectively control anything we can see. They start with the easy stuff, items likely to appeal to the broadest base, then then slowly add to it.
Of course they may try to wrap it up in pretty sounding names, fairness doctrine is a good one for anyone who has read about some plans for radio, and apply what worked in other areas to the internet.
After, do Nazi's offend you? They are censored in many areas of the world and its not religious based. Stuff like that will come to the US under the guise of "Hate speech / hate crimes". It won't be religious based. Even if it were it would only because it provides a convienent boost.
3. Big corporations can afford such small expenditures.
Why? The return is so great on the investment. It would probably cost less to offer tens of thousands of these things that to pay for their name to be favorably placed in major markets around the world.
I for one cannot blame our CIO. Since I deal with the people between him and me on a daily basis I know what he is up against. Basically the CIO is up against the same problem I am. The people in between. They will rarely, actually never, admit their decisions or lack of ability to make decisions are the problem. We continue down the same path as always because the middle refuses to take responsibility and having done so for so long they refuse to make new decisions to correct it. They collude with each other under the idea that if they all "buy-in" then it will just have to come out okay.
We are nearly 7 years into a 18month, 3 years at the maximum, project and still have years ahead of us. We suffer from all the problems. Software which really doesn't fit. Feature creep which prevents fixing what needs to be fixed. Pet projects which interrupt again what needs to be fixed. Pet consulting groups don't help either.
This of course at times get rolled off to the vendors. After all it "MUST" be the vendors who just haven't delivered. Can't blame the staff with any strength because that faults yourself - after all if the staff is a problem then why hasn't that been addressed? So vendors get to take the heat. Some of those in the middle are big players who do only big projects. No big project comes off without some problems. Little things that really are beyond the control of the vendor are hawked to extreme to cover up middle managements bungling.
I would put that in some cases Vendors are the whole reason much middle management (defined as VPs, Directors, Goverance Committees) survive so long. There are just too many convienent avenues of escape. Eventually it may catch up to them but before then they will have destroyed productivity and morale to a point where the staff will leave on their own; thus providing all new scapegoats. As with many companies the staff and even some CIOs can only hope that people get promoted out of where they cause harm or leave on their own. These days there are just so many "nanny" laws that firing anyone is dangerous. You end up just paying them to leave quietly and hope the new team can dig out before becoming the old team
that Stephen Hawking is unique. He is very widely known and he own actions are more to true science than trying to appeal to one group or another. It is this type of person who is missing from the global warming debate. Simply put the who issue has become so politicized and so much money is involved that there is no room for one true expert who can be trusted. Look at how many organizations with nice sounding (read official) names exist? How is the lay person to tell that which is real, which are nothing more than paid off entities (private or government) or just crack pots?
Can someone like him come along? Doubtful, the current environment of global warming research is too chaotic to permit. Anyone who tried would be marginalized by one side or the other.
Both sides cannot be 100% correct and neither side can be completely wrong. The only question is, how long before the public shows enough interest to ferret out the truth? Right now both sides are trying to buy public opinion.
As for bias, I do believe that quite a bit of research is snuffed out. Simply put, its turned into group think. If you go off to the other side with your ideas the side you left will do their best to ruin you. What kind of science can exist in a system like that?
It was and continues to be. They have their ups and their downs. Just like other companies, Apple included. Its fun to remember their screwups. They get noticed more because they are so big they attract enough "haters" to make a community.
Office was a great idea when it came out and has steadily improved. For some of us its entirely too much but it does the basics as well as enough fancy stuff to keep most business needs covered.
Xbox Live is probably their last great innovation. Everyone talks about online content not being original but until Live the execution of it for consoles was leaving a lot to be desired. Actually Live is a great example to follow for PC based content and should and could expand into the PC Arena. It probably is going to be used mostly as the stepping stone into the living room and is in a better situation to do so than Frontrow and Apple's iTMS integration to come.
Are they too big to truly innovate? No. There is much that goes on behind the scenes that we never see. The problem MS faces is that much of what they are planning leaks out under the guise of "will be integral to the next OS" that others can jump on it, deliver it, and appear as the originators because it takes too long for MS to turn on complete new releases of the OS.
If anything they may want to follow Apple's model of releasing revisions more often, though I doubt they could get away charging as much as Apple does for it.
My SUV gets better mileage than most sedans. A lot of the near luxury sport sedans and coupes average BELOW 20mpg and yet hardly anyone points them out.
People harp about SUV driving people forget the big picture. At least for most of us one car is going to be a SUV or VAN. Someone has to have the "family" car - the hauler. Sure it would be nice to have an extra "commuter" vehicle but with prices today and insurance that isn't practical. So someone gets the SUV/MV etc. Your bound to see us solo in it, thats going to happen.
Outside of Civics and similar vehicles (hybrids don't count - I think they are a joke) that get 35+ easily on small gasoline engines I only see diesels as a viable alternative. I have seen Euro 300s with diesels that average 27mpg, not the 20 or so the gas versions get.
So next time you see that SUV plowing down the road and get your eco-fits going, realize that many of the near luxury sedans that are so very popular today are getting as bad if not worse mileage.
An amount of the security Mac user's experience is simply because your not a big enough market to have fun with yet. No set of programmers is going to beat out users for finding ways to make their system vulnerable. There is value in not being noticed by the hacker community, don't spend it. There is also value in not being as exposed to people who should never have had a computer in the first place.
and I got loads...
/. Home to the nut jobs. Always easy to get modded down going after global warming nuts, bush haters, gore haters, etc...
/. is truly run by those who hate anyone more successful than themselves. Dreamers all, but sore losers.
You can't read can you?
For someone supposedly with multiple degrees you certainly parrot the atypical responses commoningly found in those who cannot think for themselves, or worse refuse to think as it would bring doubt into their world.
We don't know the magnitude.
Yes I know what the word means, the key is, why use it? If you have to toss out catch phrases using big words it usually means you have nothing to say yourself. Look, we know man alters the equation, we just don't know how. When one day's fact is tomorrows fallacy, especially in the world of environmental science I can't believe how many people become such rabid supporters.
Then again this is
Sometimes I think
He was quite clear, the environmental movement is more intolerant than most religions. If you look it it has become a religion to some folk. If you disagree your branded a heretic and should be run out of whatever job you do.
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Really, whats different than what some people claim religious groups do wrong that isn't being done by many factions in the environmental movement?
Sorry but not every scientist agrees with the claim regardless of who is funding them. That is a simply a standard phrase used by any group to dismiss anyone who opposes them. It is the cliche method... in other words if you use it you are indicating you do not care to debate as you have already decided.
I know there is little debate that anthropogenic global warming occurs, the real debate which you gloss over is that no one agrees on just how much is being contributed by man. Yet why should there be any debate when the only people you see are those pushing that agenda? With comments and believes like you "everyone who doesn't agree is a corporate shill" type crap whats the point of debating?
Sorry, you attempted to portray his post in the wrong by leading off with an argument that had NO BEARING on his post and then you throw out the time tried bogus claims "of everyone"
no dice.
If your argument has merit them argue the point, attacking those who offer the opposing opinion and not the opinion itself shows you have no desire to debate the issue as your hard locked mentally in your belief.
The whole idea of basing China's output using a "per person" formula is just dumb. Its being done to mask the amount of pollution China is creating, supposedly they will exceed the US within 2 years (finding that citation should not be too hard)
A "tax" won't do anything but pass the costs to the consumer indirectly. Worse most schemes invented allow for corporations to buy and sell "pollution credit" with other companies. In other words, a tax just furthers the activity. Instead of stopping it you just make it slightly more expensive to maintain.
No tax. Just set reasonable emission's goals based on the industry involved. There is no real point in forcing a computer manufacturer to pay penalities just because their power supplier isn't green. Now you can hit them up if they refuse to use better alternatives for creating boards and such (reduce mercury usage is a start). This is the logic that needs to be followed for each industry. Get on to it for what it produces, not what it consumes. If you hit it on the consuming side then you are just passing the regulatory buck. Your hitting them for something they may have no actual ability to control. Of course most governments are only concerned with revenue so its a wash. They will portray and financial loss to a corporation as the cost of doing business while convienently ignoring the fact that any "penalty tax" paid by the corporation is ultimately paid by anyone buying their product or engaged in businees with someone using their product (the old idea of - no business pays taxes, they merely collect them for the government)
I read awhile back about comparing possum on an isolated island showed a much stronger genetic base that produced better litters and eventual adults versus those who lived on the mainland.
Apparently the stress put on possums on the mainland is high enough to cause genetic changes. the stress weakens the immune system and has other side effects that produced a less healthy and capable possum. One possibility that was raised is that on the mainland a good number of possum are killed by vehicles. Cars are obviously a predator that mainland possum can adapt to, or maybe there hasn't been enough time yet?
I wish I could find the exact story but all I end up with are references to NZ based studies.
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No, sorry to burst your bubble, but not every game, by far, wants a world which is torn asunder monthly.
Warcraft succeeds because blizzard realizes something the pundits don't, people still play games for fun.
Logging into an unknown situation isn't what most gamers want, if so many other games would have done well that haven't. For the most part players cannot be trusted, especially those who want anarchy and the like. Oh yeah they will repackage it as something other than anarchy but that is all they really want. Fun at someone else's expense drives that other off.
His ideas for character customization are fine, many would like that. Housing can wait, if ever. The game doesn't need it. As for the morals section, most players still wouldn't care. They will do the task presented. While it might be interesting to have the choice to cheat a NPC what real point is there? A lot of his ideas are best suited to PvP aspects of the game.
For the most part he seems to be lamenting that WOW does not have features he found interesting in another game. It goes without saying that that other game obviously is lacking in the rest of the department that he'd rather play WOW - just with some things added. WOW is a very good game. That people want to add features to it only proves that point. Unpopular games rarely get lauded and have recommendations placed to them as much as WOW does.
Look at it this way, there are games that do offer what he wants, and some are coming that will also. Will they succeed? Well it really comes down to one important factor : Is it fun? WOW still passes that test more than any other game for a majority of MMORPG players.
For everyone claim of WOW being lame I just have to ask, with population numbers like it has what does that make the other games?
because someone from an organization will claim it does. As with much in the way of such publications they will rely on the general lack of knowledge of the public. If not now I bet there will be some group that references "iceburgs off of NZ a few years back" in some passage as justification for "their" view of global warming.
Too much of the Global Warming hysteria, and yes a lot of the pronoucements are bordering if not crossing that line, follow the same pattern. Have an official sounding name, employ a few government scientist who have no other opportunity for work, and set a deadline likely not to be seen in many's lifetime.
Works wonders for many subjects. Dire predictions and such make headlines. Headlines garner attention. Attention can lead to money. Somehow I think underwear is involved.