The only way to deal with this problem on a long term basis, other than giving up the city, is to create a system that can't be knocked out by hurricanes. Barriers and pumps can always fall because the forces of nature are against them. We, the people of New Orleans, need to harness nature to protect ourselves. Work with it. Make it our bitch, if you will.
I propose digging a vast reservoir somewhere away from the city, in one of those barren rural areas nobody cares about. This is the US, we have plenty of those. Dig the largest reservoir the world has ever seen, larger than the second largest by an order of magnitude, thereby enlarging our national "infrastructure" by a similar degree. Think of all the new jobs! Connect this reservoir to n'orleans via underground aqueducts. Flood water will drain through the aqueducts and out of the city. This underground system, powered by the laws of physics, would be immune to hurricane and flood damage as long as the reservoir functions.
Now, the obvious problem is reservoir capacity. Luckily, the reservoir is out in the middle of nowhere, allowing us to build huge water holding tanks, pumps, and so forth to empty it out. This system will be outside the hurricane/flood zones, and since it isn't within a populated area it can be much more robust than a city pump system. Furthermore, an array of voodoo priests and druids from n'orleans will periodically bless the reservoir with charms and wards to protect it. The natural power of hundreds of voodoo rituals will guarantee the system's smooth function during crises. In addition, some of these voodoo rituals require large amounts of energy to complete, so we'll have to have massive orgies on the site to reinforce the system. Who could argue with that?
Entrance fees to the ritual orgy will cover a large portion of the costs of the project, and the remaining funding can be gathered by using it as a Sea World. It would be the largest man-made aquarium in the world! Think of the tourism potential. (cue the slashdot trolls with that dolphin link)
It's a brilliant plan. Protection from floods, protection from droughts, new tourism revenue, jobs, hot sex, awesome voodoo powers, and enlargement of the national "infrastructure." What more could you ask for? That's pure New Orleans, baby.
In a little while you'll notice that several test tubes containing water-processing microbes have gone missing from laboratories around the world. Well, it's in safe hands. If you want them eliminated, you'll have to pay me...one million dollars!
Gentlemen, you have five days to come up with one million dollars. If you fail to do so, we'll set loose the microbes and destroy the world.
Gentlemen, silence! I didn't spend six years in evil medical school to make things so easy for you. The million dollar payment must be delivered to us in the space shuttle Discovery, with a crew of operators who will join our organization. To ensure that pirates (we are all well aware that pirates are the greatest threat of the digital age) do not hijack the shuttle, it must be loaded with an arsenal of fully functional nuclear weapons.
Upon taking possession of our one million dollars and its vessel, we will compensate the cooperative nations of the world by eliminating terrorism once and for all-by monopolizing it. Just as the FCC is eliminating dangerous rogue broadband providers, we will eliminate rogue terrorists and consolidate operations into a single, efficient, capitalistic evil organization. Cooperation is the only option. The power of Capitalism compels you! The power of Capitalism compels you! I trust you will do the right thing, gentlemen. So long.
The fix in question here is available. The BIND webpage has a scary warning box on the right with details. Everyone should be upgrading to the new version.
But it's not surprising that there's still vulnerable servers out there. In fact, I'm surprised the total is so low. Aside from the few admins who just aren't doing their jobs, these kinds of things often run into bureaucracy. In many organizations, upgrades have to be thoroughly tested before release and there's standard schedules for patch cycles. An admin who wants to simply stick a new version of something on the production server may be told to wait until approval comes. That could take a while. And occasionally you'll have some crappy system that doesn't work well with the new software, and they're stuck rolling back until the problem is solved.
I had a friend who worked at a small ISP that had some serious security issues. The guy who should have been patching things "resigned"-something to do with the smell of pot lingering in his office. Anyways, the position went vacant for a little while and the task fell to the two new interns, my friend and another girl. Coincidentally they were both young women and had no experience relevant to the job, proof of quality hiring practices. To make a long story short, the (not terribly large) customer database got hacked and the company was sued. The owner, who had been heavily in debt already, vanished completely. Naturally the whole thing went down in flames and my friend didn't even get a reference out of it.
Most of you are probably sitting there thinking this story is too outlandish to be true. Haha, well, this is the internet so you never know what to trust, but you know there's places out there where things just aren't done the way they're supposed to be. It's shocking what goes on, and there will always be vulnerable servers around.
Getting it down to the numbers in the article this quickly is actually pretty good. The real lesson here is that you need to insulate yourself from the fools who won't take responsibility. Always assume 10% of the internet is out to get you, because they probably are. Hey, I don't even want to think about what 10% of slashdotters would want to do to me.
Excellent advice. In my underground volcano lair, the real self-destruct button camouflaged at the bottom of a murky pool full of angry crocodiles. They were angry because the henchmen were instructed to throw things at them on a regular basis. Of course, I moved it when we upgraded to cyborg crocodiles with lasers and fire breath, which operate better on land (water puts out the fire) and are naturally pissed off without having to be annoyed manually.
And yes, instead of on/off switches on all my engines of destruction and vehicles, there's fucking keys. So you can't just jump into any parked tank and go on a rampage.
Satellite works great? I take you you don't like to telecommute, play games, use voice over IP, or just about anything else that depends on latency. Satellites give you high ping times because light takes a long time to travel up and back down. These airships are high enough that the problem won't vanish entirely, but they are far lower than satellites, and the ping times should be reasonable enough to make applications like the ones I mentioned usable. This is an enormous improvement for users in rural areas.
Aside from the fact that it IS broke, and no I won't pardon your insolence, stupidity, or lack of logic:P, fixing things that aren't broke is what the technology industry is all about.
At the very least, if this fails you'll be able to get good quality airships for cheap at auction. Imagine what you could do with one of these, it's perfect for up and coming supervillains. These things are suitable for heavy lifting and transport duties, allowing you to carry enough supplies to life off for months and even deploy helicopters. The location gives you excellent sensor range even if you're positioned over international waters, as well as making this an ideal missile launching platform.
It becomes even more compelling when you build a fleet of airships. With enough redundancy to withstand attacks and keep all the bases covered regarding supplies, fuel, deployable vehicles, and armaments, these airships would make a very suitable mobile base of operations. Perfect for those who can't be sequestered in a remote island lair.
Most important of all, just imagine how cool it would be! Put on some classical aviator outfits, go forth onto the bow, cast against the panorama of your harsh azure domain. Astride an entire world, master of all you survey, the piercing frigidity of the howling wind is surpassed only by your cold, unforgiving glare. No mere ant below can hope to contend with one to whom Olympus is but a speck, one who has usurped the very domain of Zeus himself. Count your days, hopeless mortals, for by this iron hand the sky is falling!
In "Shadows," the technology of the ancient and extinct Shadow race is being unleashed upon the galaxy by an unknown force, and Earthforce intelligence officer Diane Baker, whose brother was recently killed in a mysterious explosion, it out to find out who is behind the intergalactic conspiracy.
Joining her is Galen, a techno-mage who has been charged with keeping the technology out of the hands of those who would abuse it.
Did they rip the plot off from some anime? Come on! I bet you people could name 10 animes with a disturbingly similar plot, featuring a cute female heroine and techno-mages.
This sounds like it's going to be live action though, so maybe it'll end up like Cutie Honey and Cutie Honey.
He's probably a genie. Unfortunately, we don't know what kind. He may be the kind that only gives you one wish, in which case your wish was for him to be happy. Good karma for the afterlife, but it'll be a while before you find out for sure.
It could also be the kind of genie that only helps when you really need it. In that case, just wait until some disaster befalls you, and then summon the genie to save you. Have you wished for anything out loud since he disappeared? If it's a multiple wish non-emergency genie, that might do the trick. But be careful what you wish for, since you don't know how many chances you'll get. Of course, it could also be the kind of genie that picks the wish itself instead of taking requests, if that's it then something good will happen to you eventually, but we won't know until it does.
As for what to do with the cheese, you may want to consult a psychic. Get several opinions from unrelated ones, there's a lot of fake psychics out there. Take good care of the cheese, but don't seal it airtight or freeze it or anything that would harm a toddler if one were trapped inside it.
Gather as much information as possible before taking action, but don't let the cheese get moldy or dirty.
When seeking further advice, you should figure out the approximate apparent age of the guy (does it match his story, or does he look younger than expected?), and unusual features (such as damage that may have been caused by a fatal injury), or writing or symbols on his clothes. What kind of clothing was he wearing, is it what you'd expect to see here, today or from some past time and place? Did you feel and unusual warm or cold gusts of wind in his presence? Where exactly did you meet him, does the location have any interesting history? If something like this happens again, pick up a video camera while you're out and collect photographic evidence of the visitor, but ask permission first.
This is an "antiterrorist meaning anticonstitution" threat with little in common with our existing photo ID's, and here's why:
American photo ID's are not currently computer readable. There's no national standard other than passports, which don't lend themselves to this purpose. PIV would allow the government to set up a card reader in front of any building, lab, or computer system, and block anybody without a valid card.
Now the government can apply all the wonders of modern technology to track every movement and activity of anybody in their system with an ID card. That's fine in top secret military labs, but "all federal employees and contractors" includes a lot of civilians and low-level people just trying to get their jobs done in the face of stupid policies. Many slashdotters who work on ordinary, civilian things for companies with government contracts would be required to sign up. Now, just to do an ordinary civilian job, you'll be tracked so heavily 5 guys in CIA headquarters are thinking about your breathing. Just think about your breathing-you have to constantly inhale and exhale to avoid suffocating. Now the government will know all about it!
That means Alice the undergrad researcher can't even access the computer system the lab runs on without dragging the boss over to log her in. Which will be impossible on the weekends or at night.
If you're a foreign researcher or student, photo ID includes the passport from your country of origin. PIV requires going to wherever they give these out, supplying an array of biometric information, submitting to yet another background check, etc. You can't start working until all these additional bureaucratic hoops have been jumped through, and if your card is ever lost or damaged, you're going to be in for one hell of an interrogation to prove you're not up to something. And, of course, if these PIV guys decline your application, you're screwed. Government policies are already driving away foreign students and scientists. Why are we bringing in low cost foreign labor to undercut Americans while driving away the highly educated foreigners who actually have something to contribute?
And God forbid you actually try to collaborate with anyone who isn't in the US. No PIV? No access to the computer system! Passing restricted materials to your fellow researchers overseas? Working around PIV makes you a criminal. You terrorist!
Once all government systems have been locked down with PIV, and hundreds of thousands of ordinary civilians working for government contractors have been PIV'ed and depend on PIV for their jobs, the government will be well on its way towards rolling out a national computerized ID card system.
Ask yourselves: In SOVIET RUSSIA, would the party force PIV on YOU?!?
The only problem with this is who they're marketing it to-it IS for the homeless! Not the homeless guy in the alley who asks for change and tells anyone who'll listen about how he knows the truth behind the Kennedy assassination, and the government stole his secret plans for the magic bullet but discredited him to hide the fact that Kennedy was secretly a woman, but rather:
-an archaeologist on a dig or an anthropologist in the middle of nowhere who wants more than a tent, but moves often -refugees displaced by natural disasters who want comfortable housing until a permanent home can be rebuilt -aid services in countries in civil war, where permanent buildings get destroyed and people may have to flee at a moment's notice -Cowboyneal
The problem with this design is that it's expensive. You can buy one now for $35,000? That's crazy! But get it down to four figures and a huge market opens up. If you check out the article, this is far better than a tent for anyone who doesn't have to carry their housing in a backpack. The fact that you can just abandon it or break it down for recycling solves the serious problem of waste disposal, which plagues just about everybody in regions where there's no city government running a junkyard.
The article claims the house "would visibly demonstrate your overall concern for the environment". Between that marketing strategy and the price, their plan is like inventing slashdot, but requiring all readers to subscribe and marketing it as a place for business networking. Even Cowboyneal knows better than that!
To reach solid decision's, youl'l need more infermation then the slashdot writeup supplies. Like this article featured on linuxtoday.com, which are surely slightly more independent than IBMs' press release's; (click complete story under the summary) From it:
The DS8000 is unique in the industry because it features two logical partitions too run management or utility applications such as the companies SAN Volume Controller and Tivoli Storage Manager for backup and data management.
That sounds like a pretty interesting feature. Anybody's in the industry care to comment on the portential for these new development?
IBM's DS8000 handles virtualization different then the competition. While HDS does virtualization in the controller and EMC plans virtualization on intelligent switches IBMs' new system does virtualization at the chip level (see EMC on Virtualization: Wait for Us ). Using the Power5's IBM Virtual Engine, the DS800 can divide servers into logical partitions (LPARs). Each LPAR can run different storage systems that run separate code.... "You can run different operating systems, even different releases of operating systems on isolated LPAR's. Rock!"
Thats a truly impressive level of flexibility their. And of course, its great for Linux, the ability to run multiple OSe's in hardware on one box play's to Linuxes strength's and deal's a blow to Microsoft's monopoly lockin strategy. What Im really shocked about is that there slashdot writeup included only some bland "durr big numbers" product placement, while IBM is effecting an interesting Linux-related change's in the marketplace's if you look a little deeper.
Screw the ICC, I'll give you some reasons why this won't work, bitches.
1. After reading the article, the closest thing I could find to an actual point is the suggestion that UN "sherpas" could be more effective and populist by doing some of their work online. I wouldn't exactly call that a "marriage" of the UN and the internet, it's more like adding modern technology to internal UN processes.
2. "sherpas"? Seriously, that nutcase is calling mid and low level diplomats "sherpas". here's a place with real sherpas. And they're already online. OH SMACK, UN bitches, you just got an information technology beatdown from a bunch of professional hikers in the Himalayas. UN IT department gets "served" by a pack of llamas!
3. You'll notice I called the article guy a nutcase in #2. Well, he calls himself "Bruce Sterling, Worldchanging Ally#1" What is he, some kind of super hero? Does he hang out at the World Changing Headquarters in spandex with Captain Planet, sidekick Democracy Boy, and Womens' Rights Woman? Check out what he's standing in front of in his picture: read about all their stunning adventures in this month's edition of Amazing Stories--featuring the fearsome Ghost of Mars!!!
But just click on the "Worldchanging Ally#1 link in the article. You'll see the home of the Viridian Curia, a secretive mailing list of the world's most powerful superheroes. They apparently trade links to modern art reviews, and make comments like "(((Christmas is coming. Are you Viridian? Go buy something "Tech Nouveau" and flaunt it! Give it to your best friends! Go consume it, for heaven's sake! Waste not an hour.)))"
Yes, they surround everything in triple parentheses. They don't even match parentheses between lines. That's sooo TECH NOUVEAU, omg omg.
But it gets better. Follow the link in Viridian Curia (viridian curia???) site to worldchanging.com. Down the page you'll see lots of fun superhero plotting against evil, like this review of a book reminiscing about their greatest battles against the evil Globalization Cabal of Ultimate Doom. It includes a comment by the famous Dr. Menlo himself, to his site www.corpse.org. Exquisite Corpse (yes they actually call it that!) is a site mascotted by a pair of dancing multicolored day-glo skeletons and secret communiqes from the great Doctor Menlo himself describing the Battle in Seattle. booyah!
4. wow that was some good shit. but getting back on topic here, let's look at the one crazed article slashdot did link to. Last paragraph-the #1 Worldchanging ally lays the smackdown with his name-dropping superpowers! Actual quote: "bigger than the self-appointed Davos Forum, faster and smarter than the Porto Alegre contingent, less cranky than the Soros initiatives, less creepy than Bilderberg, more potent than MoveOn, and faster-spreading than Napster." Well, I've heard of Napster and Soros. So maybe name-dropping isn't his most awesome power. But he sure is into this superhero stuff!
5. And, as befitting his #1 status, Mr. Worldchanging unleashes a KAPOW! on his rivals with the bold statement "The Malaysian Super Corridor tries hard to look really Super." Dizzamn yo, when the Malaysians' translator gets back from his coffee break there's gonna be an earth-shattering epic gladiatorial tableaux in the inimitable Stan Lee style!!
6. ???
7. Profit!
8. But don't fret, you mere mortals who don't have Worldchanging Ally-class superpowers! from the article: "Here Kofi Annan offers you a personal invitation to log right on to the dizzy apex of global policy-making." Yes, much like the decoder ring in your ceral box or the mutant sea monkeys purchasable via mail order from the back of your fine comic book, YOU TOO can fight e
You wouldn't be the leader of a country for very long with that approach. You'd end up like Saddam Hussein. I'm willing to bet your role model is North Korea's dictator, who is still in power despite thumbing his nose at the US for quite some time. But he's not declaring "full and all out war". In fact, he's not taking any direct actions against the US.
Funny that you should mention what one sovereign state "should" be able to tell another. The whole point of sovereign states is that they answer to no one, and do what they please. If you want the stop a sovereign state, you either have to create internal pressure to change what that state wants, or oppose it with enough force (of any kind) to make sure fooling around isn't worthwhile.
It might seem "unfair" that one country makes the rules for another while violating all of those rules itself. But there is no possible solution to this problem. By definition, there is no authority with the right to order sovereign nations around. So the nations can do whatever they can get away with. The emergence of a benevolent tyrant alleviates the problems this system can cause, but it's only a temporary solution. Any permanent mechanism would need to make the sovereign states accountable to something-which means taking away some of what makes them sovereign. A world government that co-opts some of the powers of the currently sovereign states could do it, but who is this world government accountable to? If you don't like their decisions, too bad. You can't even leave the country to get away from them. That's why we don't have a true world government. There is an actual need to use military force to oppose those whose ideas you strongly disagree with.
For example, I believe that several hundred beautiful women should be my slaves. (to those of you who read my profile, draw your own conclusions:3 (keep in mind a girl doesn't need to enslave men to treat them like slaves!)) I consider this to be my inalienable right, and all those women should lack this right because I can get away with it and they can't. Now, if you disagree, what are you going to do? Arguing won't change my mind, no matter what you say. I'll just tell you to think about your breathing. When you focus on it, you must carefull control your breathing, or else you will suffocate. If I'm a sovereign state, no laws have the authority to stop me. The only solution is to use force (military, economic, political, or anything else, but some sort of force) to either make it impossible for me to keep slaves, or create other problems for me so that it won't be worthwhile anymore.
The equation is exactly the same between nations. Except that instead of hot sex, we're talking about hot lead. And lots of explosives also heated. yeah. It sounds like war, death, and nuclear annihilation are among the parent poster's goals, but most of us don't really care for that sort of thing, so we have to use military force to keep people like pigscanfly.ca from gaining enough power to kill everyone.
Wow, this will be a great article for the trolls. You're sure to see a lot of ridiculous posts here.
You're also probably going to get a lot of serious suggestions about rubbing alcohol and vapor-based cleaning. These are likely to help, but not do it 100%, and they require either a lot of labor or shipping everything to an expensive cleaning company.
So let me tell you what did where I was working several years back. I was working with the FBI, on a special mission in Russia to help their law enforcement agencies upgrade security in former nuclear weapons facilities. Now, it wouldn't surprise anyone to hear that a certain facility that will remain unnamed, somewhere in the middle of Siberia, only a day or two's drive from a certain site of civil war, had an incident that wasn't properly cleaned up. We arrived at the main computer lab to find a dozen corpses that had been there for a year and a half. And despite the Siberain weather that can freeze spit before it hits the ground, the bodies in the bunker hadn't been frozen.
After getting a couple new gas masks for the guys that really should've skipped lunch before going down there, we discovered that the computers were overrun with, well, you don't want to know. Let's just say it was fuzzy and came in colors I'd never seen before. Even after the room was disinfected nobody could stand to go down there without a mask. Though one of the Russians suggested using it as a gas chamber to execute criminals, until we briefed him on the Geneva Convention. But we couldn't just throw the machines away-they included supercomputers and large clusters full of nuclear weapons research. The science team had to go through all of it with a fine-toothed comb.
So what did we do? Simple-seal everything off! We too a bunch of plastic covers and created an airtight seal around all the computers, with only monitors, keyboards, and mice outside. A ventilation system pumped cold air into the huge computer tent. It was ugly as hell, but worked quite effectively.
So, if your offices don't mind having interior decorating issues, a bunch of strong plastic, industrial glue, and lots of duct tape can solve the problem. Until somebody want to upgrade or do maintenance, of course. God help that poor bastard.
The parent post is at best devil's advocate, and at worst a clear and obvious troll. Just look at some of the exaggerated claims.
Major international companies would "play shell games" to cut deals with slave-employing dictatorships? Please. Somehow, we manage to hit Cuba and North Korea pretty hard with sanctions. the Wal-Marts of the world simply cannot escape enforcement and use illegal sources as their primary suppliers.
And just look at what happens with goods that are still illegal, if you want to refute that ridiculous Prohibition analogy. Modern drug cartels aren't as economic as you'd think. They cut every corner and use every unethical trick, but the costs of smuggling, violence, private armies, and police actions make drugs enormously more expensive than they would be if they were produced legally in the US by well-paid union workers. Criminal organizations cannot compete with legal ones in any environment that has enough law enforcement to protect the legal ones from outright violence.
All of the arguments the parent presents against a unified currency are totally unrealistic. The fact is, a properly implemented unified currency and *good* universal trade, labor, and environmental laws would be greatly beneficial to just about everyone in the long run, except those living under oppressive governments-but those guys are screwed anyway. The reason this doesn't happen yet is because nobody can manage to do it right. The UN is stifled by bureaucracy and politics. The EU, while fairly successful, has a slew of problems to deal with, and remains an immature, experimental attempt at implementing the original vision. Any body capable of enforcing global law would fall victim to the same traps that cause problems for democratic national governments. Nobody is yet willing to create an entity that has no external competition to force it to correct its mistakes, so it will be a long time before we see globalization done right.
--who would win in a battle where the only weapon is rubber chickens filled with nitro glycerine: Anti-Slash vs. GNAA??
The currency idea is an intriguing one. I'd go a step farther and propose a global version of the idea being implemented in the European Union. The EU provides a common currency and strict requirements that limit the behavior of member countries.
Workplace saftey and working conditions laws are a key point here. As others have pointed out, the cheapest labor is slave labor. Third world countries can outcompete first world countries by enslaving millions and forcing them to work in terrible conditions. This is in fact happening in many parts of the world as we speak. The capitalist economy demands it.
Consider the results of implementing US class labor laws in all third world countries, and sanctioning those that refuse to comply. Workers would be treated far better and paid far more, but only those who keep their jobs. Most companies, being driven by greed, would play complex shell games that resemble the current Bahamas tax havens in an effort to skirt labor laws and cut deals with the sanctioned nations. Particularly dictatorships, which play by the rules of the man in charge. A man who is easily bribed.
With a global currency instituted, these dictators would not be able to print and manage their own currencies in the global market, but they would be able to steal currency that falls within their borders, replacing it with local money, to finance their own interests.
Corporations would soon play the same shell game. Countries that don't follow the rules set up impoverished local economies, which are drained by vampiric corporations that use local labor, pay with local money, and rake in international money. In such a situation the workers are essentially working for free, and even providing their own food. There can be no cheaper labor, so a complex web of holding companies and hidden deals will be arranged to allow greedier companies to exploit the countries outside international law.
Soon the abusive companies would gain a substantial competitive advantage over those that only operate in the legal zones. By smuggling in cheap goods, they would undercut competitors and create a result identical to Prohibition in the US.
Remember what happened there? The evils of alcohol, which was ruining society, were fought by banning liquor altogether. Only criminals could distribute alochol, so criminals did. The US mafia went from an insignificant annoyance to well funded, well armed, immensely powerful criminal empires. The same thing will happen on a much greater scale if the world is divided along legal lines into "legal" and "illegal" countries. Some international corporations will turn to crime, create private armies to defend themselves against enforcement, and bring down the whole system, forcing reversion to the current model where each country controls its own destiny, free from international law.
The parent post sounds suspiciously like a troll, but it's been modded up enough to deserve an analysis of its claims.
Great. So now we'll have missiles that can do mach 15. It's being billed for aircraft as well, but nobody seems to have addressed issues of, gee, say, it only being useful at incredible altitudes. Nevermind that the airline industry is crumbling requiring massive bailouts from the Feds, and the only supersonic aircraft to date to do commercial passenger flights was never profitable in almost 40 years of operation.
Most people don't like missiles, but access-to-space vehicles that operate at incredible altitudes are very useful. We have a lot of very useful satellites up there, and these "space planes" could make those satellites a lot cheaper. But you do have a point on the airline industry. The Feds waste endless sums of money bailing out companies that fail to innovate and offer infamously poor service, and then the feds turn around and regulate them into the ground to prevent terrorism. Flying, which was once a decadent luxury, is now a painful ordeal. The airline CEO's are riding a gold mine of federal bailout money while the taxpayers get screwed.
What can we do to restore the airlines? I'll tell you what. We need to turn them into desireable luxuries affordable to the masses.
Today, when you enter an airport, you're destined to spend hours sitting around being bored while waiting for your plane. You'll go through a pain-in-the-ass security procedure that doesn't secure much at all. And then you'll be packed into cramped seats like sardines.
How can we solve all of these problems without spending vast sums of money, even though the people running the airlines are corrupt, money grubbing fiends?
Easy-turn all those weaknesses into strengths! Through the power of sex. Take all the money you would spend on bailing out the airlines, and use it on a massive campaign to fight sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancy. When people show up at the airport, the security check will consist of attractive members of the opposite sex strip-searching them to ensure health, hygiene, and the use of contraceptives. The hours of waiting for delayed flights will *fly* by as they turn into massive orgies. Being packed like sardines on the plane will be a good thing now. (we just have to make sure seating arrangements keep people in compatible groups, perhaps ordered by age, with plenty of cute stewardesses and stewards to guarantee everyone has a good time?)
This approach has endless benefits: Everyone will want to fly, turning the airline business into a highly competitive, profit-filled arena. Everyone will have a great time, making life better for the common citizen. Illegal prostitution will become a thing of the past, and the safety checks will result in huge reductions in national healthcare expenses as problems are prevented before they spread. And how does this relate to scramjets? Ooh, imagine the possibilites of doing all that in orbit, with zero gravity! I, for one, welcome our weightless airline sex overlords. And underlords. Depending on whether you're a top or bottom.
I'm sick of NASA justifying themselves as an organization for exploration and science- when they're instead spending most of their time (and my money) on weapons platform research and lining defense contractor pockets.
NASA is actually one of the less defense-oriented research organizations. Believe it or not, the department of defense is the single most influential source of funding for pure science in this country. Nobody else wants to pay the bills. We'd see fewer weapons platforms if the government spent MORE on pure science that won't be applied for another decade. But as long as scientists can only get funded by playing the DoD's game, we're going to see giant robots wielding laser cannons before a cure for cancer. Simply kill the giant robot programs without increasing spending on pure research, and you'll see unemployed scientists movi
No, of course not. If they could, they would be computer scientists, or hackers. Instead they are physicists.
Exactly. Those of us immersed in the information technology world often have little or no exposure to the disciples of pure science. And undergraduate physics students don't count. Traditional scientists don't think the way IT people or even computer scientists do. We see a system, and the goal is to optimize that system to perform correctly and efficiently. Traditional scientists have no interest in applied technology. Their goal is to gather knowledge, and to hell with everything that gets in the way. Typing in a tough password, applying patches, and following "best practices" gets in the way.
To make matters worse, these people are highly educated and are often the resident lords of their specialties. Academic types tend to have swollen egos. Poke something swollen, and it hurts-these guys will be pissed off if you try to tell them what to do, and more pissed off if what you're telling them to do doesn't clearly further their scientific goals. They simply don't take the computer security threat seriously, and they refuse to worry about it until they get burned.
It's hard for you to understand rational people saying, "ha, who in their right mind would hack into our secret antarctic lab full of data?" But most slashdotters would have the same attitude towards other things they don't have experience with. How many of you fear the consequences of unsecured eyelash curlers? Yes, eyelash curlers, which so befuddle the opposite sex and are an essential in many ladies' makeup boxes double as a lethal instrument of pain and torture - as my best friend can testify.
Last week as she was getting glammed up for a party she was trying to do 25 million things at once and not concentrating on any of them. What exactly happened though remains a bit of mystery-all I know is that moments after whatever did happen, she was screaming in pain, bruised and bleeding, with lashes no longer in lids but in the curlers. Suffice to say she shan't be using eyelash curlers ever, ever, ever, EVER again.
She's not the only one who has been incapacitated as the result of a cosmetic catastrophe and it is actually more common than one would suppose. Another friend had a very unfortunate accident on the night of a May Ball last summer. She was rushing around straightening her hair, helping a friend with her makeup, making a phone call, and trying to decide which bag to take when she encountered the upturned business end of her electric hair straighteners. You could her the screams from across the street!
So now you know! which is like half the battle. Trying to do your lashes can land you in the hospital, a fiendish fate not "faced" by hacker victims! Girls will always want their makeup but for our peace of mind and for the longevity of your eyelashes and more importantly, your eyesight, I implore you to throw away your eyelash curlers. They are veryvery dangerous.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go wash up..this foundation doesn't cause cancer..right?
Well actually Netcraft doesn't confirm it, and Intel may not be dying, but they are going downhill. Does anyone else find these releases underwhelming in light of the recent story about how AMD is pushing ahead while Intel stagnates and delays the releases of 4GHz and 64 bit technology?
Quite simply, Intel took shortcuts to get temporary advantages, and it's coming back to haunt them. The GHz myth is being dispelled and Intel is falling behind in the technologies that really matter. Today's new releases are only stopgap measures-a slight bump in the Xeon and some wlan card that's only going to be a minor player in an area Intel has not been focusing heavily on.
What is Intel focusing on? Branding. Marketing. Getting their stickers on everything and being known to the general public. Intel? "oohh they make computers!" AMD? "Durr is that those missiles in Iraq?" That may be why Intel still has a commanding lead in the processor market, but it will only take them so far. As word of mouth carries AMD to dominance in the hobbyist market, high end buyers will follow the hobbyists' lead. Enterprises will flock to 64 bit technology now that it is maturing on AMD, and still unavailable on Intel. Once AMD has taken control of the high-end market, the midrange will follow along like lemmings. All they know is, they want what the big boys have. And the big boys want AMD to go along with their fancy cars and fast women.
This downward spiral will continue until Intel loses its position as the king of processors and becomes just another hardware company. Nobody will care about what your sticker says is inside, and consumers will win as competition and diversity increase.
A few years out, Netcraft will finally deploy their stunning new technology that can detect your processor type, even through NAT. At that point the truth will become stark and clear, slapping us all in the face with the blinding realization that... Intel IS DYING! You heard it here first, folks: The future belongs to BSD on AMD. Beowulf clusters of BSD on AMD. Wintel is Dying. Wintel is a decrepit artifact of the past, to be fondly remembered in museums along with the 8 inch floppy and "turbo" buttons.
p.s. Netcraft also confirms that the baby-shit BEIGE OF THE END TIMES is spreading like a cancer. Oh god its so horrible, what kind of sadistic bastard is behind this.
Re:Even the NY Times Article Violates INDUCE Act
on
Guerrilla Drive-Ins
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· Score: 4, Insightful
According to "The Importance Of..." which has been tracking the INDUCE Act relentlessly, the NY Times article violates the INDUCE Act itself: Hatch's Hit List #16 - The New York Times
This is a very good point. It's time to write some letters to the editors of the Times and other major media outlets pointing this out, and explaining why the INDUCE Act is dangerous to them. Whining on slashdot may not do anything, but the lawmakers in Washington do read the Times.
If one of you can write in summarizing the best posts on INDUCE and get your letter printed in the paper, it will be read by the people with power to do something about it. Getting the major media on our side might just tip the balance in the debate. Any of you slashdotters who read the Times regularly willing to help us out here?
Perhaps that should be a regular thing for slashdot: when a major political issue comes up, get a letter containing the best points of the slashdot discussion printed in the most influential newspapers, where the lawmakers can see it. I'm sure the editors would support this practice by posting front page articles showcasing successful letters and their effects on the debate.
The article itself actually seems to focus on things that constitute bad game design in general, rather than things like MMORPGs, which have problems that apply only to the time-constrained.
Looking at the article's examples, I see "don't make me hunt for lost keys!" When I was a kid I abandoned a game or two because I was so sick of looking for the keys. That old Lord of the Rings game for SNES, I'm looking at you. Unskippable splash screens are fine once, but it's the kids who get most impatient over them the 20th time around. And other complaints like jumping puzzles, lack of direction towards goals, and endlessly replaying the same content? Those are cheap tricks necessitated by the primitve technology of the past, but on modern hardware with modern development tools and budgets, that stuff is the hallmark of a half-assed game. Good games can still use such techniques, but they do it in ways that support the gameplay rather than covering up holes.
help someone help while bio is getting a snack this is my only chance to get help i'm tie d up in the basement as a sex slave pelase call the cops somebody help me
The complaints in the article are all focused on things young gamers complain about too-he's talking about plain old poor game design, which pisses of the salaryman enough to drive him away from the product only because he has plenty of cash to go to competitors, and needs to get the biggest bang for his hour of play. The factors that allow kids to put up with lousy games are removed.
However, there are issues that constitute bad design for the older set but are good features for kids. MMORPG's are the best example. Players with unlimited time want and need endless depth and a time sink that rewards their dedication. However, full-time workers just can't compete. The solution is to change the way the game works, and offer different paths that allow everyone to enjoy a rewarding, high-octane game experience without either unbalancing the game horrendously or requiring years of building up. For example, you could have a humans vs orcs vs undead combat game, where humans can spend endless hours building up towards awesome power with an emphasis on rpging, orcs get an action packed but still hardcore rpg experience that appeals to the typical "guy gamer", and the undead come with cool powers right out of the box for time-starved gamers to experiment with. The groups are not competing in parallel, so the fact that an hour old undead can 50 hour old human won't unbalance the game horribly. The undead won't be hanging around the human newbie towns abusing the weaklings.
Why don't more games do that? Because it's a hard design problem. The real issue isn't the games themselves, it's that the market as it is today puts an emphasis on flash, hype, and marketing, not solid gameplay. Brilliantly designed games will remain rare exceptions, just as brilliant movies are the exceptions in Hollywood. Really, the game industry is evolving towards Hollywood very quickly.
Slashdot editors, I agree wholeheartedly with this post. That BEIGE OF THE END TIMES would make a highly paid full time worker puke all over his overpriced game.
This should be a new slashdot thing. THE BEIGE OF THE END TIMES is the most radioactive, eye burning color anyone's ever seen-in Japan, soviet russia, and slashdot. Imagine a beowulf cluster of computers all displaying the BEIGE OF THE END TIMES. it would be enough to petrify natalie portman , even if she was lubricated by the Olsen Twins. GNAA: Last Measure should add THE BEIGE OF THE END TIMES to its repertoire of abuse post-haste! And just think of all the possibilities for insults involving beige. Your mom is BEIGE. OF THE END TIMES!
FEAR THE DAMNED ELDER GOD FOR ITS BEIGE OF THE END TIMES CONSUMES YOUR SOUL
Clearly manslaughter is not enough. If a measly slap on the wrist like "manslaughter" were enough, would that driver have killed those innocent people? Would he have been so careless? The purpose of the law is to deter crime. If it is not a sufficient deterrent, it must be strengthened.
Murder is defined as killing another person, is it not? Isn't that what this driver did? He killed a person. Therefore he is a murderer. Trying to water it down with "manslaughter" only confused the subject and enables the sort of behavior that leads to the deaths of our children. Think of the children!
Once the precedent is set and killing people via automobile is commonly punished as murder, drivers will be more careful. They will drive in fear, knowing that carelessness will carry grave consequences. But that will still not be enough: non-fatal accidents will still not be deterred sufficiently by such a system. Therefore, it is essential for the security of our nation that all reckless driving be punished as attempted murder, with long prison terms with the convicted criminals can use to reflect on their mistakes. Reckless drunken driving and weaving in and out of traffic at triple-digit speeds is so dangerous that it can only be considered attempted murder.
Likewise, all other death-defying driving attacks must be dealt with the same way. Running red lights. Tailgating. Running stop signs. Excessive speeding. Cutting people off. Failing to use your turn signal. Flashing the brights inappropriately. Speeding at all. Driving too slowly on a busy road. Playing loud, distracting music. Parking in a no-parking zone. Excessive honking.
All of those crimes must be deterred with punishments fair enough that the murderous criminals will not dare to threaten our children's lives. Those bastards who threaten our very way of life by driving at 26 miles per hour, letting the parking meter expire, and honking near moving vehicles must be stopped. Lock them away, and throw away the key. Any argument against the plain fact that those actions are attempted murder is merely a two-faced attempt to hide one's own crimes.
But there is still one problem-how can we support such a large prison population? Strained by the war on drugs, our prison system is near the point of failure. Therefore, instead of breaking the system with a flood of vicious murderers, we must expand use of the death penalty to rid our society of its most violent, remorseless criminals. The murderers plaguing our roads must all be put to death. Only when anyone who drives 26 miles per hour on an empty residential road is shot on sight will we be able to live free as our forebears intended.
Anyone who takes a look at the PDF will see there's little room for confusion between the can and the example explosives. The explosives, packed with explosive charge, contain material throughout the can, but the GPS Cokes are hollow. Actually I'm disappointed, you win the contest and you don't even get to drink a coke? sheesh.
The controversy over GPS Cokes is just another example of our society's terror complex. It bears all the hallmarks of an unhealthy obsession that would lead an individual to a psychiatrist-not that I'd know about those-but these sorts of things tend to catch on at the societal level, as history shows us. Even though there has not been a major terrorist attack on US soil since 2001, a handful of cans of coke that could potentially look suspicious create a national spectacle. These things supposedly look like IUD's? What's the worst that could happen if an IUD ends up in the wrong place? Only minor bloodshed. Compare it to what happens in our automobiles every night. Look at the statistics sometime, and you'll realize psychology is the primary factor here-what matters is what you think about, not what actually is.
Oh yes, that's right, the worst is as follows: The lucky contest winner has his can confiscated and destroyed as a potential IUD. He spends the night, and possibly several more nights until a court date, in a holding cell. The surrounding building is shut down, potentially paralyzing traffic in a major city in the middle of rush hour. (Yes that has happened, read down to see another poster's link about a suitcase getting lost and being "suspicous") This kind of thing has become routine, even expected in modern society. Nobody considers it an outrage when excessive measures are taken to combat an imaginary problem at great expense to society.
We live in times when the world's most powerful nation is obsessed with the potential threat of an IUD. Are the IUD scare mongers the same ones that can't get over the horror of gay marriage and want to amend the constitution over it? They can't even accept the existence of birth control. The IUD and other "dire threats" like it have become a political tool used to manipulate the masses. You might hope that Kerry takes the election, simply so that we won't have the existing administration playing the terror card on every single issue as they have proven so fond of doing. An actual encounter with something containing an IUD might be shocking to most slashdotters, but think about why-you've never seen anything that could contain IUD. The odds are infinitesimal. Considering how little actual terrorism has been occurring in the US, clearly it's time to put things in perspective. A pragmatic foreign policy combined with old-fashioned enforcement of existing peacetime laws will be sufficient to keep order. Overreaction, fear, and excessive measures will paralyze the country, damage the economy, reduce consumer confidence, and most important of all, take a painful toll on individual Americans. This is the country of the individual, is it not?
I'm not using an IUD. I never intend to, and I'm not going to live in fear of the consequences of IUD's. I for one refuse to live in fear of amenorrhea, irregular bleeding, cramping, partially expelled strings, and other side effects that can occur with progestin-releasing IUDs, which can be considered a frightening biological weapon. It's only frightening if you don't realize that you're a billion times more likely to die of a heart attack than an IUD.
Slashdot Mirror
The only way to deal with this problem on a long term basis, other than giving up the city, is to create a system that can't be knocked out by hurricanes. Barriers and pumps can always fall because the forces of nature are against them. We, the people of New Orleans, need to harness nature to protect ourselves. Work with it. Make it our bitch, if you will.
I propose digging a vast reservoir somewhere away from the city, in one of those barren rural areas nobody cares about. This is the US, we have plenty of those. Dig the largest reservoir the world has ever seen, larger than the second largest by an order of magnitude, thereby enlarging our national "infrastructure" by a similar degree. Think of all the new jobs! Connect this reservoir to n'orleans via underground aqueducts. Flood water will drain through the aqueducts and out of the city. This underground system, powered by the laws of physics, would be immune to hurricane and flood damage as long as the reservoir functions.
Now, the obvious problem is reservoir capacity. Luckily, the reservoir is out in the middle of nowhere, allowing us to build huge water holding tanks, pumps, and so forth to empty it out. This system will be outside the hurricane/flood zones, and since it isn't within a populated area it can be much more robust than a city pump system. Furthermore, an array of voodoo priests and druids from n'orleans will periodically bless the reservoir with charms and wards to protect it. The natural power of hundreds of voodoo rituals will guarantee the system's smooth function during crises. In addition, some of these voodoo rituals require large amounts of energy to complete, so we'll have to have massive orgies on the site to reinforce the system. Who could argue with that?
Entrance fees to the ritual orgy will cover a large portion of the costs of the project, and the remaining funding can be gathered by using it as a Sea World. It would be the largest man-made aquarium in the world! Think of the tourism potential. (cue the slashdot trolls with that dolphin link)
It's a brilliant plan. Protection from floods, protection from droughts, new tourism revenue, jobs, hot sex, awesome voodoo powers, and enlargement of the national "infrastructure." What more could you ask for? That's pure New Orleans, baby.
How are you gentlemen!!
In a little while you'll notice that several test tubes containing water-processing microbes have gone missing from laboratories around the world. Well, it's in safe hands. If you want them eliminated, you'll have to pay me...one million dollars!
Gentlemen, you have five days to come up with one million dollars. If you fail to do so, we'll set loose the microbes and destroy the world.
Gentlemen, silence! I didn't spend six years in evil medical school to make things so easy for you. The million dollar payment must be delivered to us in the space shuttle Discovery, with a crew of operators who will join our organization. To ensure that pirates (we are all well aware that pirates are the greatest threat of the digital age) do not hijack the shuttle, it must be loaded with an arsenal of fully functional nuclear weapons.
Upon taking possession of our one million dollars and its vessel, we will compensate the cooperative nations of the world by eliminating terrorism once and for all-by monopolizing it. Just as the FCC is eliminating dangerous rogue broadband providers, we will eliminate rogue terrorists and consolidate operations into a single, efficient, capitalistic evil organization. Cooperation is the only option. The power of Capitalism compels you! The power of Capitalism compels you! I trust you will do the right thing, gentlemen. So long.
The fix in question here is available. The BIND webpage has a scary warning box on the right with details. Everyone should be upgrading to the new version.
But it's not surprising that there's still vulnerable servers out there. In fact, I'm surprised the total is so low. Aside from the few admins who just aren't doing their jobs, these kinds of things often run into bureaucracy. In many organizations, upgrades have to be thoroughly tested before release and there's standard schedules for patch cycles. An admin who wants to simply stick a new version of something on the production server may be told to wait until approval comes. That could take a while. And occasionally you'll have some crappy system that doesn't work well with the new software, and they're stuck rolling back until the problem is solved.
I had a friend who worked at a small ISP that had some serious security issues. The guy who should have been patching things "resigned"-something to do with the smell of pot lingering in his office. Anyways, the position went vacant for a little while and the task fell to the two new interns, my friend and another girl. Coincidentally they were both young women and had no experience relevant to the job, proof of quality hiring practices. To make a long story short, the (not terribly large) customer database got hacked and the company was sued. The owner, who had been heavily in debt already, vanished completely. Naturally the whole thing went down in flames and my friend didn't even get a reference out of it.
Most of you are probably sitting there thinking this story is too outlandish to be true. Haha, well, this is the internet so you never know what to trust, but you know there's places out there where things just aren't done the way they're supposed to be. It's shocking what goes on, and there will always be vulnerable servers around.
Getting it down to the numbers in the article this quickly is actually pretty good. The real lesson here is that you need to insulate yourself from the fools who won't take responsibility. Always assume 10% of the internet is out to get you, because they probably are. Hey, I don't even want to think about what 10% of slashdotters would want to do to me.
Excellent advice. In my underground volcano lair, the real self-destruct button camouflaged at the bottom of a murky pool full of angry crocodiles. They were angry because the henchmen were instructed to throw things at them on a regular basis. Of course, I moved it when we upgraded to cyborg crocodiles with lasers and fire breath, which operate better on land (water puts out the fire) and are naturally pissed off without having to be annoyed manually.
And yes, instead of on/off switches on all my engines of destruction and vehicles, there's fucking keys. So you can't just jump into any parked tank and go on a rampage.
add some kind of huge dungeon (or "instance") that would be like another self-contained story
So, basically you want them to make it even more like Diablo 2 than it already is?
Satellite works great? I take you you don't like to telecommute, play games, use voice over IP, or just about anything else that depends on latency. Satellites give you high ping times because light takes a long time to travel up and back down. These airships are high enough that the problem won't vanish entirely, but they are far lower than satellites, and the ping times should be reasonable enough to make applications like the ones I mentioned usable. This is an enormous improvement for users in rural areas.
:P, fixing things that aren't broke is what the technology industry is all about.
Aside from the fact that it IS broke, and no I won't pardon your insolence, stupidity, or lack of logic
At the very least, if this fails you'll be able to get good quality airships for cheap at auction. Imagine what you could do with one of these, it's perfect for up and coming supervillains. These things are suitable for heavy lifting and transport duties, allowing you to carry enough supplies to life off for months and even deploy helicopters. The location gives you excellent sensor range even if you're positioned over international waters, as well as making this an ideal missile launching platform.
It becomes even more compelling when you build a fleet of airships. With enough redundancy to withstand attacks and keep all the bases covered regarding supplies, fuel, deployable vehicles, and armaments, these airships would make a very suitable mobile base of operations. Perfect for those who can't be sequestered in a remote island lair.
Most important of all, just imagine how cool it would be! Put on some classical aviator outfits, go forth onto the bow, cast against the panorama of your harsh azure domain. Astride an entire world, master of all you survey, the piercing frigidity of the howling wind is surpassed only by your cold, unforgiving glare. No mere ant below can hope to contend with one to whom Olympus is but a speck, one who has usurped the very domain of Zeus himself. Count your days, hopeless mortals, for by this iron hand the sky is falling!
In "Shadows," the technology of the ancient and extinct Shadow race is being unleashed upon the galaxy by an unknown force, and Earthforce intelligence officer Diane Baker, whose brother was recently killed in a mysterious explosion, it out to find out who is behind the intergalactic conspiracy.
Joining her is Galen, a techno-mage who has been charged with keeping the technology out of the hands of those who would abuse it.
Did they rip the plot off from some anime? Come on! I bet you people could name 10 animes with a disturbingly similar plot, featuring a cute female heroine and techno-mages.
This sounds like it's going to be live action though, so maybe it'll end up like Cutie Honey and Cutie Honey.
He's probably a genie. Unfortunately, we don't know what kind. He may be the kind that only gives you one wish, in which case your wish was for him to be happy. Good karma for the afterlife, but it'll be a while before you find out for sure.
It could also be the kind of genie that only helps when you really need it. In that case, just wait until some disaster befalls you, and then summon the genie to save you. Have you wished for anything out loud since he disappeared? If it's a multiple wish non-emergency genie, that might do the trick. But be careful what you wish for, since you don't know how many chances you'll get. Of course, it could also be the kind of genie that picks the wish itself instead of taking requests, if that's it then something good will happen to you eventually, but we won't know until it does.
As for what to do with the cheese, you may want to consult a psychic. Get several opinions from unrelated ones, there's a lot of fake psychics out there. Take good care of the cheese, but don't seal it airtight or freeze it or anything that would harm a toddler if one were trapped inside it.
Gather as much information as possible before taking action, but don't let the cheese get moldy or dirty.
When seeking further advice, you should figure out the approximate apparent age of the guy (does it match his story, or does he look younger than expected?), and unusual features (such as damage that may have been caused by a fatal injury), or writing or symbols on his clothes. What kind of clothing was he wearing, is it what you'd expect to see here, today or from some past time and place? Did you feel and unusual warm or cold gusts of wind in his presence? Where exactly did you meet him, does the location have any interesting history? If something like this happens again, pick up a video camera while you're out and collect photographic evidence of the visitor, but ask permission first.
This is an "antiterrorist meaning anticonstitution" threat with little in common with our existing photo ID's, and here's why:
American photo ID's are not currently computer readable. There's no national standard other than passports, which don't lend themselves to this purpose. PIV would allow the government to set up a card reader in front of any building, lab, or computer system, and block anybody without a valid card.
Now the government can apply all the wonders of modern technology to track every movement and activity of anybody in their system with an ID card. That's fine in top secret military labs, but "all federal employees and contractors" includes a lot of civilians and low-level people just trying to get their jobs done in the face of stupid policies. Many slashdotters who work on ordinary, civilian things for companies with government contracts would be required to sign up. Now, just to do an ordinary civilian job, you'll be tracked so heavily 5 guys in CIA headquarters are thinking about your breathing. Just think about your breathing-you have to constantly inhale and exhale to avoid suffocating. Now the government will know all about it!
That means Alice the undergrad researcher can't even access the computer system the lab runs on without dragging the boss over to log her in. Which will be impossible on the weekends or at night.
If you're a foreign researcher or student, photo ID includes the passport from your country of origin.
PIV requires going to wherever they give these out, supplying an array of biometric information, submitting to yet another background check, etc. You can't start working until all these additional bureaucratic hoops have been jumped through, and if your card is ever lost or damaged, you're going to be in for one hell of an interrogation to prove you're not up to something. And, of course, if these PIV guys decline your application, you're screwed. Government policies are already driving away foreign students and scientists. Why are we bringing in low cost foreign labor to undercut Americans while driving away the highly educated foreigners who actually have something to contribute?
And God forbid you actually try to collaborate with anyone who isn't in the US. No PIV? No access to the computer system! Passing restricted materials to your fellow researchers overseas? Working around PIV makes you a criminal. You terrorist!
Once all government systems have been locked down with PIV, and hundreds of thousands of ordinary civilians working for government contractors have been PIV'ed and depend on PIV for their jobs, the government will be well on its way towards rolling out a national computerized ID card system.
Ask yourselves: In SOVIET RUSSIA, would the party force PIV on YOU?!?
The answer is yes. Is America no different?
The only problem with this is who they're marketing it to-it IS for the homeless! Not the homeless guy in the alley who asks for change and tells anyone who'll listen about how he knows the truth behind the Kennedy assassination, and the government stole his secret plans for the magic bullet but discredited him to hide the fact that Kennedy was secretly a woman, but rather:
-an archaeologist on a dig or an anthropologist in the middle of nowhere who wants more than a tent, but moves often
-refugees displaced by natural disasters who want comfortable housing until a permanent home can be rebuilt
-aid services in countries in civil war, where permanent buildings get destroyed and people may have to flee at a moment's notice
-Cowboyneal
The problem with this design is that it's expensive. You can buy one now for $35,000? That's crazy! But get it down to four figures and a huge market opens up. If you check out the article, this is far better than a tent for anyone who doesn't have to carry their housing in a backpack. The fact that you can just abandon it or break it down for recycling solves the serious problem of waste disposal, which plagues just about everybody in regions where there's no city government running a junkyard.
The article claims the house "would visibly demonstrate your overall concern for the environment". Between that marketing strategy and the price, their plan is like inventing slashdot, but requiring all readers to subscribe and marketing it as a place for business networking. Even Cowboyneal knows better than that!
I believe you're looking for her.
(watch out, being a lickable Apple, she's very smart, and blocks slashdot referrer id's to prevent server rape)
Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!
what's a more likely fate for the illustrious poll troll toll:
He signed a 2-year contract with Verizon as his ISP
He lost a bet
He got married (the cruelest fate of all)
Jailed for sex with a mare
p.s. I must decline to seek successorship since I'm too damn lazy to post regularly enought to do great justice. plus i'm on the lam too
To reach solid decision's, youl'l need more infermation then the slashdot writeup supplies. Like this article featured on linuxtoday.com, which are surely slightly more independent than IBMs' press release's; (click complete story under the summary) From it:
... "You can run different operating systems, even different releases of operating systems on isolated LPAR's. Rock!"
The DS8000 is unique in the industry because it features two logical partitions too run management or utility applications such as the companies SAN Volume Controller and Tivoli Storage Manager for backup and data management.
That sounds like a pretty interesting feature. Anybody's in the industry care to comment on the portential for these new development?
This article on lightreading.com elaborates a little more.
IBM's DS8000 handles virtualization different then the competition. While HDS does virtualization in the controller and EMC plans virtualization on intelligent switches IBMs' new system does virtualization at the chip level (see EMC on Virtualization: Wait for Us ). Using the Power5's IBM Virtual Engine, the DS800 can divide servers into logical partitions (LPARs). Each LPAR can run different storage systems that run separate code.
Thats a truly impressive level of flexibility their. And of course, its great for Linux, the ability to run multiple OSe's in hardware on one box play's to Linuxes strength's and deal's a blow to Microsoft's monopoly lockin strategy. What Im really shocked about is that there slashdot writeup included only some bland "durr big numbers" product placement, while IBM is effecting an interesting Linux-related change's in the marketplace's if you look a little deeper.
--sig: why a duck?
Screw the ICC, I'll give you some reasons why this won't work, bitches.
1. After reading the article, the closest thing I could find to an actual point is the suggestion that UN "sherpas" could be more effective and populist by doing some of their work online. I wouldn't exactly call that a "marriage" of the UN and the internet, it's more like adding modern technology to internal UN processes.
2. "sherpas"? Seriously, that nutcase is calling mid and low level diplomats "sherpas". here's a place with real sherpas. And they're already online. OH SMACK, UN bitches, you just got an information technology beatdown from a bunch of professional hikers in the Himalayas. UN IT department gets "served" by a pack of llamas!
3. You'll notice I called the article guy a nutcase in #2. Well, he calls himself "Bruce Sterling, Worldchanging Ally#1" What is he, some kind of super hero? Does he hang out at the World Changing Headquarters in spandex with Captain Planet, sidekick Democracy Boy, and Womens' Rights Woman? Check out what he's standing in front of in his picture: read about all their stunning adventures in this month's edition of Amazing Stories--featuring the fearsome Ghost of Mars!!!
But just click on the "Worldchanging Ally#1 link in the article. You'll see the home of the Viridian Curia, a secretive mailing list of the world's most powerful superheroes. They apparently trade links to modern art reviews, and make comments like "(((Christmas is coming. Are you Viridian? Go buy something "Tech Nouveau" and flaunt it! Give it to your best friends! Go consume it, for heaven's sake! Waste not an hour.)))"
Yes, they surround everything in triple parentheses. They don't even match parentheses between lines. That's sooo TECH NOUVEAU, omg omg.
But it gets better. Follow the link in Viridian Curia (viridian curia???) site to worldchanging.com. Down the page you'll see lots of fun superhero plotting against evil, like this review of a book reminiscing about their greatest battles against the evil Globalization Cabal of Ultimate Doom. It includes a comment by the famous Dr. Menlo himself, to his site www.corpse.org. Exquisite Corpse (yes they actually call it that!) is a site mascotted by a pair of dancing multicolored day-glo skeletons and secret communiqes from the great Doctor Menlo himself describing the Battle in Seattle. booyah!
4. wow that was some good shit. but getting back on topic here, let's look at the one crazed article slashdot did link to. Last paragraph-the #1 Worldchanging ally lays the smackdown with his name-dropping superpowers! Actual quote: "bigger than the self-appointed Davos Forum, faster and smarter than the Porto Alegre contingent, less cranky than the Soros initiatives, less creepy than Bilderberg, more potent than MoveOn, and faster-spreading than Napster." Well, I've heard of Napster and Soros. So maybe name-dropping isn't his most awesome power. But he sure is into this superhero stuff!
5. And, as befitting his #1 status, Mr. Worldchanging unleashes a KAPOW! on his rivals with the bold statement "The Malaysian Super Corridor tries hard to look really Super." Dizzamn yo, when the Malaysians' translator gets back from his coffee break there's gonna be an earth-shattering epic gladiatorial tableaux in the inimitable Stan Lee style!!
6. ???
7. Profit!
8. But don't fret, you mere mortals who don't have Worldchanging Ally-class superpowers! from the article: "Here Kofi Annan offers you a personal invitation to log right on to the dizzy apex of global policy-making." Yes, much like the decoder ring in your ceral box or the mutant sea monkeys purchasable via mail order from the back of your fine comic book, YOU TOO can fight e
You wouldn't be the leader of a country for very long with that approach. You'd end up like Saddam Hussein. I'm willing to bet your role model is North Korea's dictator, who is still in power despite thumbing his nose at the US for quite some time. But he's not declaring "full and all out war". In fact, he's not taking any direct actions against the US.
:3 (keep in mind a girl doesn't need to enslave men to treat them like slaves!)) I consider this to be my inalienable right, and all those women should lack this right because I can get away with it and they can't. Now, if you disagree, what are you going to do? Arguing won't change my mind, no matter what you say. I'll just tell you to think about your breathing. When you focus on it, you must carefull control your breathing, or else you will suffocate. If I'm a sovereign state, no laws have the authority to stop me. The only solution is to use force (military, economic, political, or anything else, but some sort of force) to either make it impossible for me to keep slaves, or create other problems for me so that it won't be worthwhile anymore.
Funny that you should mention what one sovereign state "should" be able to tell another. The whole point of sovereign states is that they answer to no one, and do what they please. If you want the stop a sovereign state, you either have to create internal pressure to change what that state wants, or oppose it with enough force (of any kind) to make sure fooling around isn't worthwhile.
It might seem "unfair" that one country makes the rules for another while violating all of those rules itself. But there is no possible solution to this problem. By definition, there is no authority with the right to order sovereign nations around. So the nations can do whatever they can get away with. The emergence of a benevolent tyrant alleviates the problems this system can cause, but it's only a temporary solution. Any permanent mechanism would need to make the sovereign states accountable to something-which means taking away some of what makes them sovereign. A world government that co-opts some of the powers of the currently sovereign states could do it, but who is this world government accountable to? If you don't like their decisions, too bad. You can't even leave the country to get away from them. That's why we don't have a true world government. There is an actual need to use military force to oppose those whose ideas you strongly disagree with.
For example, I believe that several hundred beautiful women should be my slaves. (to those of you who read my profile, draw your own conclusions
The equation is exactly the same between nations. Except that instead of hot sex, we're talking about hot lead. And lots of explosives also heated. yeah. It sounds like war, death, and nuclear annihilation are among the parent poster's goals, but most of us don't really care for that sort of thing, so we have to use military force to keep people like pigscanfly.ca from gaining enough power to kill everyone.
Wow, this will be a great article for the trolls. You're sure to see a lot of ridiculous posts here.
You're also probably going to get a lot of serious suggestions about rubbing alcohol and vapor-based cleaning. These are likely to help, but not do it 100%, and they require either a lot of labor or shipping everything to an expensive cleaning company.
So let me tell you what did where I was working several years back. I was working with the FBI, on a special mission in Russia to help their law enforcement agencies upgrade security in former nuclear weapons facilities. Now, it wouldn't surprise anyone to hear that a certain facility that will remain unnamed, somewhere in the middle of Siberia, only a day or two's drive from a certain site of civil war, had an incident that wasn't properly cleaned up. We arrived at the main computer lab to find a dozen corpses that had been there for a year and a half. And despite the Siberain weather that can freeze spit before it hits the ground, the bodies in the bunker hadn't been frozen.
After getting a couple new gas masks for the guys that really should've skipped lunch before going down there, we discovered that the computers were overrun with, well, you don't want to know. Let's just say it was fuzzy and came in colors I'd never seen before. Even after the room was disinfected nobody could stand to go down there without a mask. Though one of the Russians suggested using it as a gas chamber to execute criminals, until we briefed him on the Geneva Convention. But we couldn't just throw the machines away-they included supercomputers and large clusters full of nuclear weapons research. The science team had to go through all of it with a fine-toothed comb.
So what did we do? Simple-seal everything off! We too a bunch of plastic covers and created an airtight seal around all the computers, with only monitors, keyboards, and mice outside. A ventilation system pumped cold air into the huge computer tent. It was ugly as hell, but worked quite effectively.
So, if your offices don't mind having interior decorating issues, a bunch of strong plastic, industrial glue, and lots of duct tape can solve the problem. Until somebody want to upgrade or do maintenance, of course. God help that poor bastard.
The parent post is at best devil's advocate, and at worst a clear and obvious troll. Just look at some of the exaggerated claims.
Major international companies would "play shell games" to cut deals with slave-employing dictatorships? Please. Somehow, we manage to hit Cuba and North Korea pretty hard with sanctions. the Wal-Marts of the world simply cannot escape enforcement and use illegal sources as their primary suppliers.
And just look at what happens with goods that are still illegal, if you want to refute that ridiculous Prohibition analogy. Modern drug cartels aren't as economic as you'd think. They cut every corner and use every unethical trick, but the costs of smuggling, violence, private armies, and police actions make drugs enormously more expensive than they would be if they were produced legally in the US by well-paid union workers. Criminal organizations cannot compete with legal ones in any environment that has enough law enforcement to protect the legal ones from outright violence.
All of the arguments the parent presents against a unified currency are totally unrealistic. The fact is, a properly implemented unified currency and *good* universal trade, labor, and environmental laws would be greatly beneficial to just about everyone in the long run, except those living under oppressive governments-but those guys are screwed anyway. The reason this doesn't happen yet is because nobody can manage to do it right. The UN is stifled by bureaucracy and politics. The EU, while fairly successful, has a slew of problems to deal with, and remains an immature, experimental attempt at implementing the original vision. Any body capable of enforcing global law would fall victim to the same traps that cause problems for democratic national governments. Nobody is yet willing to create an entity that has no external competition to force it to correct its mistakes, so it will be a long time before we see globalization done right.
--who would win in a battle where the only weapon is rubber chickens filled with nitro glycerine: Anti-Slash vs. GNAA??
The currency idea is an intriguing one. I'd go a step farther and propose a global version of the idea being implemented in the European Union. The EU provides a common currency and strict requirements that limit the behavior of member countries.
Workplace saftey and working conditions laws are a key point here. As others have pointed out, the cheapest labor is slave labor. Third world countries can outcompete first world countries by enslaving millions and forcing them to work in terrible conditions. This is in fact happening in many parts of the world as we speak. The capitalist economy demands it.
Consider the results of implementing US class labor laws in all third world countries, and sanctioning those that refuse to comply. Workers would be treated far better and paid far more, but only those who keep their jobs. Most companies, being driven by greed, would play complex shell games that resemble the current Bahamas tax havens in an effort to skirt labor laws and cut deals with the sanctioned nations. Particularly dictatorships, which play by the rules of the man in charge. A man who is easily bribed.
With a global currency instituted, these dictators would not be able to print and manage their own currencies in the global market, but they would be able to steal currency that falls within their borders, replacing it with local money, to finance their own interests.
Corporations would soon play the same shell game. Countries that don't follow the rules set up impoverished local economies, which are drained by vampiric corporations that use local labor, pay with local money, and rake in international money. In such a situation the workers are essentially working for free, and even providing their own food. There can be no cheaper labor, so a complex web of holding companies and hidden deals will be arranged to allow greedier companies to exploit the countries outside international law.
Soon the abusive companies would gain a substantial competitive advantage over those that only operate in the legal zones. By smuggling in cheap goods, they would undercut competitors and create a result identical to Prohibition in the US.
Remember what happened there? The evils of alcohol, which was ruining society, were fought by banning liquor altogether. Only criminals could distribute alochol, so criminals did. The US mafia went from an insignificant annoyance to well funded, well armed, immensely powerful criminal empires. The same thing will happen on a much greater scale if the world is divided along legal lines into "legal" and "illegal" countries. Some international corporations will turn to crime, create private armies to defend themselves against enforcement, and bring down the whole system, forcing reversion to the current model where each country controls its own destiny, free from international law.
--check it out!
The parent post sounds suspiciously like a troll, but it's been modded up enough to deserve an analysis of its claims.
Great. So now we'll have missiles that can do mach 15. It's being billed for aircraft as well, but nobody seems to have addressed issues of, gee, say, it only being useful at incredible altitudes. Nevermind that the airline industry is crumbling requiring massive bailouts from the Feds, and the only supersonic aircraft to date to do commercial passenger flights was never profitable in almost 40 years of operation.
Most people don't like missiles, but access-to-space vehicles that operate at incredible altitudes are very useful. We have a lot of very useful satellites up there, and these "space planes" could make those satellites a lot cheaper. But you do have a point on the airline industry. The Feds waste endless sums of money bailing out companies that fail to innovate and offer infamously poor service, and then the feds turn around and regulate them into the ground to prevent terrorism. Flying, which was once a decadent luxury, is now a painful ordeal. The airline CEO's are riding a gold mine of federal bailout money while the taxpayers get screwed.
What can we do to restore the airlines? I'll tell you what. We need to turn them into desireable luxuries affordable to the masses.
Today, when you enter an airport, you're destined to spend hours sitting around being bored while waiting for your plane. You'll go through a pain-in-the-ass security procedure that doesn't secure much at all. And then you'll be packed into cramped seats like sardines.
How can we solve all of these problems without spending vast sums of money, even though the people running the airlines are corrupt, money grubbing fiends?
Easy-turn all those weaknesses into strengths! Through the power of sex. Take all the money you would spend on bailing out the airlines, and use it on a massive campaign to fight sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancy. When people show up at the airport, the security check will consist of attractive members of the opposite sex strip-searching them to ensure health, hygiene, and the use of contraceptives. The hours of waiting for delayed flights will *fly* by as they turn into massive orgies. Being packed like sardines on the plane will be a good thing now. (we just have to make sure seating arrangements keep people in compatible groups, perhaps ordered by age, with plenty of cute stewardesses and stewards to guarantee everyone has a good time?)
This approach has endless benefits: Everyone will want to fly, turning the airline business into a highly competitive, profit-filled arena. Everyone will have a great time, making life better for the common citizen. Illegal prostitution will become a thing of the past, and the safety checks will result in huge reductions in national healthcare expenses as problems are prevented before they spread. And how does this relate to scramjets? Ooh, imagine the possibilites of doing all that in orbit, with zero gravity! I, for one, welcome our weightless airline sex overlords. And underlords. Depending on whether you're a top or bottom.
I'm sick of NASA justifying themselves as an organization for exploration and science- when they're instead spending most of their time (and my money) on weapons platform research and lining defense contractor pockets.
NASA is actually one of the less defense-oriented research organizations. Believe it or not, the department of defense is the single most influential source of funding for pure science in this country. Nobody else wants to pay the bills. We'd see fewer weapons platforms if the government spent MORE on pure science that won't be applied for another decade. But as long as scientists can only get funded by playing the DoD's game, we're going to see giant robots wielding laser cannons before a cure for cancer. Simply kill the giant robot programs without increasing spending on pure research, and you'll see unemployed scientists movi
No, of course not. If they could, they would be computer scientists, or hackers. Instead they are physicists.
Exactly. Those of us immersed in the information technology world often have little or no exposure to the disciples of pure science. And undergraduate physics students don't count. Traditional scientists don't think the way IT people or even computer scientists do. We see a system, and the goal is to optimize that system to perform correctly and efficiently. Traditional scientists have no interest in applied technology. Their goal is to gather knowledge, and to hell with everything that gets in the way. Typing in a tough password, applying patches, and following "best practices" gets in the way.
To make matters worse, these people are highly educated and are often the resident lords of their specialties. Academic types tend to have swollen egos. Poke something swollen, and it hurts-these guys will be pissed off if you try to tell them what to do, and more pissed off if what you're telling them to do doesn't clearly further their scientific goals. They simply don't take the computer security threat seriously, and they refuse to worry about it until they get burned.
It's hard for you to understand rational people saying, "ha, who in their right mind would hack into our secret antarctic lab full of data?" But most slashdotters would have the same attitude towards other things they don't have experience with. How many of you fear the consequences of unsecured eyelash curlers? Yes, eyelash curlers, which so befuddle the opposite sex and are an essential in many ladies' makeup boxes double as a lethal instrument of pain and torture - as my best friend can testify.
Last week as she was getting glammed up for a party she was trying to do 25 million things at once and not concentrating on any of them. What exactly happened though remains a bit of mystery-all I know is that moments after whatever did happen, she was screaming in pain, bruised and bleeding, with lashes no longer in lids but in the curlers. Suffice to say she shan't be using eyelash curlers ever, ever, ever, EVER again.
She's not the only one who has been incapacitated as the result of a cosmetic catastrophe and it is actually more common than one would suppose. Another friend had a very unfortunate accident on the night of a May Ball last summer. She was rushing around straightening her hair, helping a friend with her makeup, making a phone call, and trying to decide which bag to take when she encountered the upturned business end of her electric hair straighteners. You could her the screams from across the street!
So now you know! which is like half the battle. Trying to do your lashes can land you in the hospital, a fiendish fate not "faced" by hacker victims! Girls will always want their makeup but for our peace of mind and for the longevity of your eyelashes and more importantly, your eyesight, I implore you to throw away your eyelash curlers. They are veryvery dangerous.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go wash up..this foundation doesn't cause cancer..right?
Well actually Netcraft doesn't confirm it, and Intel may not be dying, but they are going downhill. Does anyone else find these releases underwhelming in light of the recent story about how AMD is pushing ahead while Intel stagnates and delays the releases of 4GHz and 64 bit technology?
Quite simply, Intel took shortcuts to get temporary advantages, and it's coming back to haunt them. The GHz myth is being dispelled and Intel is falling behind in the technologies that really matter. Today's new releases are only stopgap measures-a slight bump in the Xeon and some wlan card that's only going to be a minor player in an area Intel has not been focusing heavily on.
What is Intel focusing on? Branding. Marketing. Getting their stickers on everything and being known to the general public. Intel? "oohh they make computers!" AMD? "Durr is that those missiles in Iraq?" That may be why Intel still has a commanding lead in the processor market, but it will only take them so far. As word of mouth carries AMD to dominance in the hobbyist market, high end buyers will follow the hobbyists' lead. Enterprises will flock to 64 bit technology now that it is maturing on AMD, and still unavailable on Intel. Once AMD has taken control of the high-end market, the midrange will follow along like lemmings. All they know is, they want what the big boys have. And the big boys want AMD to go along with their fancy cars and fast women.
This downward spiral will continue until Intel loses its position as the king of processors and becomes just another hardware company. Nobody will care about what your sticker says is inside, and consumers will win as competition and diversity increase.
A few years out, Netcraft will finally deploy their stunning new technology that can detect your processor type, even through NAT. At that point the truth will become stark and clear, slapping us all in the face with the blinding realization that... Intel IS DYING! You heard it here first, folks: The future belongs to BSD on AMD. Beowulf clusters of BSD on AMD. Wintel is Dying. Wintel is a decrepit artifact of the past, to be fondly remembered in museums along with the 8 inch floppy and "turbo" buttons.
p.s. Netcraft also confirms that the baby-shit BEIGE OF THE END TIMES is spreading like a cancer. Oh god its so horrible, what kind of sadistic bastard is behind this.
According to "The Importance Of..." which has been tracking the INDUCE Act relentlessly, the NY Times article violates the INDUCE Act itself: Hatch's Hit List #16 - The New York Times
This is a very good point. It's time to write some letters to the editors of the Times and other major media outlets pointing this out, and explaining why the INDUCE Act is dangerous to them. Whining on slashdot may not do anything, but the lawmakers in Washington do read the Times.
If one of you can write in summarizing the best posts on INDUCE and get your letter printed in the paper, it will be read by the people with power to do something about it. Getting the major media on our side might just tip the balance in the debate. Any of you slashdotters who read the Times regularly willing to help us out here?
Perhaps that should be a regular thing for slashdot: when a major political issue comes up, get a letter containing the best points of the slashdot discussion printed in the most influential newspapers, where the lawmakers can see it. I'm sure the editors would support this practice by posting front page articles showcasing successful letters and their effects on the debate.
The article itself actually seems to focus on things that constitute bad game design in general, rather than things like MMORPGs, which have problems that apply only to the time-constrained.
Looking at the article's examples, I see "don't make me hunt for lost keys!" When I was a kid I abandoned a game or two because I was so sick of looking for the keys. That old Lord of the Rings game for SNES, I'm looking at you. Unskippable splash screens are fine once, but it's the kids who get most impatient over them the 20th time around. And other complaints like jumping puzzles, lack of direction towards goals, and endlessly replaying the same content? Those are cheap tricks necessitated by the primitve technology of the past, but on modern hardware with modern development tools and budgets, that stuff is the hallmark of a half-assed game. Good games can still use such techniques, but they do it in ways that support the gameplay rather than covering up holes.
help someone help while bio is getting a snack this is my only chance to get help i'm tie d up in the basement as a sex slave pelase call the cops somebody help me
The complaints in the article are all focused on things young gamers complain about too-he's talking about plain old poor game design, which pisses of the salaryman enough to drive him away from the product only because he has plenty of cash to go to competitors, and needs to get the biggest bang for his hour of play. The factors that allow kids to put up with lousy games are removed.
However, there are issues that constitute bad design for the older set but are good features for kids. MMORPG's are the best example. Players with unlimited time want and need endless depth and a time sink that rewards their dedication. However, full-time workers just can't compete. The solution is to change the way the game works, and offer different paths that allow everyone to enjoy a rewarding, high-octane game experience without either unbalancing the game horrendously or requiring years of building up. For example, you could have a humans vs orcs vs undead combat game, where humans can spend endless hours building up towards awesome power with an emphasis on rpging, orcs get an action packed but still hardcore rpg experience that appeals to the typical "guy gamer", and the undead come with cool powers right out of the box for time-starved gamers to experiment with. The groups are not competing in parallel, so the fact that an hour old undead can 50 hour old human won't unbalance the game horribly. The undead won't be hanging around the human newbie towns abusing the weaklings.
Why don't more games do that? Because it's a hard design problem. The real issue isn't the games themselves, it's that the market as it is today puts an emphasis on flash, hype, and marketing, not solid gameplay. Brilliantly designed games will remain rare exceptions, just as brilliant movies are the exceptions in Hollywood. Really, the game industry is evolving towards Hollywood very quickly.
Slashdot editors, I agree wholeheartedly with this post. That BEIGE OF THE END TIMES would make a highly paid full time worker puke all over his overpriced game.
This should be a new slashdot thing. THE BEIGE OF THE END TIMES is the most radioactive, eye burning color anyone's ever seen-in Japan, soviet russia, and slashdot. Imagine a beowulf cluster of computers all displaying the BEIGE OF THE END TIMES. it would be enough to petrify natalie portman , even if she was lubricated by the Olsen Twins. GNAA: Last Measure should add THE BEIGE OF THE END TIMES to its repertoire of abuse post-haste! And just think of all the possibilities for insults involving beige. Your mom is BEIGE. OF THE END TIMES!
FEAR THE DAMNED ELDER GOD FOR ITS BEIGE OF THE END TIMES CONSUMES YOUR SOUL
Clearly manslaughter is not enough. If a measly slap on the wrist like "manslaughter" were enough, would that driver have killed those innocent people? Would he have been so careless? The purpose of the law is to deter crime. If it is not a sufficient deterrent, it must be strengthened.
Murder is defined as killing another person, is it not? Isn't that what this driver did? He killed a person. Therefore he is a murderer. Trying to water it down with "manslaughter" only confused the subject and enables the sort of behavior that leads to the deaths of our children. Think of the children!
Once the precedent is set and killing people via automobile is commonly punished as murder, drivers will be more careful. They will drive in fear, knowing that carelessness will carry grave consequences. But that will still not be enough: non-fatal accidents will still not be deterred sufficiently by such a system. Therefore, it is essential for the security of our nation that all reckless driving be punished as attempted murder, with long prison terms with the convicted criminals can use to reflect on their mistakes. Reckless drunken driving and weaving in and out of traffic at triple-digit speeds is so dangerous that it can only be considered attempted murder.
Likewise, all other death-defying driving attacks must be dealt with the same way. Running red lights. Tailgating. Running stop signs. Excessive speeding. Cutting people off. Failing to use your turn signal. Flashing the brights inappropriately. Speeding at all. Driving too slowly on a busy road. Playing loud, distracting music. Parking in a no-parking zone. Excessive honking.
All of those crimes must be deterred with punishments fair enough that the murderous criminals will not dare to threaten our children's lives. Those bastards who threaten our very way of life by driving at 26 miles per hour, letting the parking meter expire, and honking near moving vehicles must be stopped. Lock them away, and throw away the key. Any argument against the plain fact that those actions are attempted murder is merely a two-faced attempt to hide one's own crimes.
But there is still one problem-how can we support such a large prison population? Strained by the war on drugs, our prison system is near the point of failure. Therefore, instead of breaking the system with a flood of vicious murderers, we must expand use of the death penalty to rid our society of its most violent, remorseless criminals. The murderers plaguing our roads must all be put to death. Only when anyone who drives 26 miles per hour on an empty residential road is shot on sight will we be able to live free as our forebears intended.
Anyone who takes a look at the PDF will see there's little room for confusion between the can and the example explosives. The explosives, packed with explosive charge, contain material throughout the can, but the GPS Cokes are hollow. Actually I'm disappointed, you win the contest and you don't even get to drink a coke? sheesh.
The controversy over GPS Cokes is just another example of our society's terror complex. It bears all the hallmarks of an unhealthy obsession that would lead an individual to a psychiatrist-not that I'd know about those-but these sorts of things tend to catch on at the societal level, as history shows us. Even though there has not been a major terrorist attack on US soil since 2001, a handful of cans of coke that could potentially look suspicious create a national spectacle. These things supposedly look like IUD's? What's the worst that could happen if an IUD ends up in the wrong place? Only minor bloodshed. Compare it to what happens in our automobiles every night. Look at the statistics sometime, and you'll realize psychology is the primary factor here-what matters is what you think about, not what actually is.
Oh yes, that's right, the worst is as follows: The lucky contest winner has his can confiscated and destroyed as a potential IUD. He spends the night, and possibly several more nights until a court date, in a holding cell. The surrounding building is shut down, potentially paralyzing traffic in a major city in the middle of rush hour. (Yes that has happened, read down to see another poster's link about a suitcase getting lost and being "suspicous") This kind of thing has become routine, even expected in modern society. Nobody considers it an outrage when excessive measures are taken to combat an imaginary problem at great expense to society.
We live in times when the world's most powerful nation is obsessed with the potential threat of an IUD. Are the IUD scare mongers the same ones that can't get over the horror of gay marriage and want to amend the constitution over it? They can't even accept the existence of birth control. The IUD and other "dire threats" like it have become a political tool used to manipulate the masses. You might hope that Kerry takes the election, simply so that we won't have the existing administration playing the terror card on every single issue as they have proven so fond of doing. An actual encounter with something containing an IUD might be shocking to most slashdotters, but think about why-you've never seen anything that could contain IUD. The odds are infinitesimal. Considering how little actual terrorism has been occurring in the US, clearly it's time to put things in perspective. A pragmatic foreign policy combined with old-fashioned enforcement of existing peacetime laws will be sufficient to keep order. Overreaction, fear, and excessive measures will paralyze the country, damage the economy, reduce consumer confidence, and most important of all, take a painful toll on individual Americans. This is the country of the individual, is it not?
I'm not using an IUD. I never intend to, and I'm not going to live in fear of the consequences of IUD's. I for one refuse to live in fear of amenorrhea, irregular bleeding, cramping, partially expelled strings, and other side effects that can occur with progestin-releasing IUDs, which can be considered a frightening biological weapon. It's only frightening if you don't realize that you're a billion times more likely to die of a heart attack than an IUD.