I completely agree with you, the graphics are not the story.
On the flip side, the easier (and less inexpensive) it is for a realistic film to be made, the more likely it is a good story will not be passed by.
Our "current crop of crappy" movies as you fondly put it (I like how that rolls of my tongue, I'm going to be saying "current crop of crappy (insert noun here)" for weeks now) oh yea where was I. Yes, our "current crop of crappy" movies are the work of the same film companies that have been ignoring wonderful stories since the companies conception. With never available before ease, a small independent production will be able to create a quality film that incorporates a wonderful story with realistic visual and audio. Before now, we were commonly presented with either a bad story with decent effects, or good story ruined by a limited budget. Hopefully, with the advances in effects, and the costs of creating them dwindling, more good stories will be properly recreated in film, and we can just avoid the "crappy crop" as usual.
Personally, I like the thought of the diversification of quality production that inexpensive realistic methods will allow.
The G5 is not three times slower than the latest PC offerings. You are comparing apples and oranges (pun intended). The clock cycles may be 1.5GHz versus 3.6GHz, but GHz != processing power. You may wish to see two recent slashdot articles concerning the performance here and here.
...IBM, Apple and Dell operate web stores that sell almost their entire range of kit, they only ship to the USA....
IBM, Apple, and Dell are hardly small businesses, and I think the original question of "why don't they ship international?" is still valid. I also do not buy
"(small) companies can't be bothered to grow that kind of capability..."
What capabilities are necessary to grow? Purchaser still pays shipping, and you create seperate national and international warranty/exchange programs. The national program is the standard warranty, international terms can be whatever you deem, eg:
"Warranty only good in the US."
"International purchasers are liable to shipping costs for returned/exchanged items..."
et cetera. It doesn't seem like much capability growth to me. Perhaps I'm missing something.
To answer the original question of "why won't they ship international" has more of a simple direct response. The poster of the original article was looking at the wrong places to buy. As stated in his original post, companies usually have a local (national, within the US) website, and an international one. If you ask the American division of Dell to sell you a computer, they will not (and should refer you to the correct division of the company that handles purchases for the location of the purchaser). Sadly many of those within a national division are unaware of their own corporations international offices.
For example, IBM (International Business Machines) allows you to select the country of your location on their webpage. To solve the authors ordering difficulties, he should visit IBM's Hungarian Website.
Lastly, he said he couldn't buy Apple. I am not finding an Apple Hungarian website, but from Apple's main page I see they do have a european website, and also a site for neighboring Austria. I think if he inquired with Apple's european offices, as oppossed to inquiring the American, he could find how to have products shipped to him in Hungary.
This is not a troll, but I don't think the author of the original article has much merit to claim he cannot buy products internationally. I think he's a guy originally from Maine who doesn't speak Hungarian so he can't order of off the Hungarian website.
I think the companies listed in his example have uninformed or undertrained representatives who do not even know to refer a customer such as the original author to the Hungarian/European offices instead of simply telling him "we don't sell to anyone who isn't in the United States".
So, in closing, it's easy for companies to operate internationally, there isn't much of a "process growth" involved. Our original article poster doesn't really have a problem, he just doesn't know where to go to order his equipment. When he inquired at the wrong place to see if he could purchase, whomever he communicated with was unaware of where to direct an international customer and misinformed him that international customers are not desired.
Am I the only one who noticed this action was taken in Russia? Why are people referring to the constitutional rights of the United States, the Federal Bureu of Investigation of the United States, and the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States
The Russians do lot live by the American constitution, nor do they have the FBI, and the CIA in Russia is a foriegn political espionage force.
What does the American constitution, FBI, and CIA have to do with Russian rights and this Russian governmental action?
Oh yea P.S., US power mains don't run at 120v, the power within your house does. The voltage within your house has been stepped down numerous times since it left a power main. Power mains run in the tens (and hundreds?) of thousands of volts range. There's a lot of cool information on electricity at www.howstuffworks.com, I recommend reading it to all.
The 120v from a US wall socket is not enough to kill you. I do not know the current, but I do know it won't kill you, because if it could, my dumb tinkering self would've been dead ten times over now.
For a little fun (and to blow someone's fuse) one might stick a piece of metal to short the circuit between positive and negative in a wall socket. If you are touching the metal without any type of protection (rubber gloves etc.), you'll get a nice jolt, curse a bunch, and think of how stupid you are, but you won't die. You won't even get an electrical burn.
Don't forget power to your keyboard or mouse via DIN and Mini-DIN (ps/2) connectors, which predates Firewire and USB.
Power through a communications (I/O) connection is nothing new, but power on a standard so widely used has never been seen. Also, firewire, USB, and my own DIN examples have provided power only to peripherals. This new system appears to offer power to a standalone device. In essence this is a new international electrical standardization. Since it is built ontop of existing compatible ethernet standards, the US, Europe, and Asia are placed under the umbrella of one universal compatible power standard.
You may say "it's been done" and turn your attention elsewhere (yet another example of "it's already been done" is the telephone, power has been supplied to them for decades through their communications line), but it has not been done before in this international magnitude, and the possibilities are very exciting in my opinion.
The government "spending" $10,000 per toilet seat, or $7,000 per hammer, is not due to some cunning shady "contractor" (vendor would be a better word) having duped poor innocent unsuspecting Uncle Sam into paying ridiculously inflated prices. The real reason(s) can be attributed to one of three likely candidates in my opinion:
1) A government employee(s) received a very large kickback from contractor (vendor) by accepting to pay the outrageously inflated prices.
2) The accounting department doesn't want their budget cut, so they happily pay inflated prices to "prove" they will need the same or greater funds next year.
(On a side note, the second reason happens all too often. I used to set up enterprise solutions for HP, eg tell IT departments what they need to buy from us to be able to do what they want. Half the time you talked to a government office, they had no project or system to set up, they just wanted to spend money to keep their budget.)
3) Government office accountant tacks on $6,995 to the actual $5 spent on a hammer to hide the funds he's been embezzling.
The situation is ridiculous, but you don't give the government enough credit for being a part of the problem. They're not only stupid, they're a bunch of dirty thieves too. Public servants my lily white....
As I said at the end of my response to your original comment, I was having difficulty understanding you, and apologized if I misunderstood your comment. I will reiterate, I apologize for misunderstanding since I now know you were not making an analogy as I had assumed.
In my experiences, the possession of coke being illegal does not hinder it's availability, it only raises the prices due to the risk involved. (No I'm not a coke head/dealer/possessor of coke etc.) That opinion could be contested, but it's been true in my experiences.
You are absolutely correct, laws against possession of "things" do serve a viable purpose. I simply assumed you were making an analogy since the article had to do with whether or not information should be possessable. Maybe it is due to my own limitied intelligence (I am lacking at times), but I'm still a little confused with what the link is between your examples and the scenario presented by the article.
By making things classified.. unpossessable, the point is to protect the people involved...
...In the case of information, it's to prevent enemies from knowing, as well as not causing panic.
I can understand the rationale behind that, to be clear, my point simply is:
Making things classified. != Enemies do not have that information.
Simply making things classified does not necessarily hinder "bad guys" much, while at the same time it could greatly hindering "good guys".
That's really my only point. Understanding your non-analogous examples is beyond the scope of my point and confuses me. It was my mistake to assume you were making an analogy, and due to my mistake we are now comparing orange's and apple's. I'm not exactly the brightest bulb in the box so forgive me if I'm just not "getting" something that should be obvious to me. My whole reason for response is I feel my point is an important one to consider. That's all, and again, I apologize for misunderstanding.
I see fault in your analogy. I doubt the existence of a coke head who doesn't carry coke on their person.
To this end, your analogy supports what you are attempting to disprove. The only people who don't carry coke on their person are the non coke heads (normal law abiding citizens), and those who carry coke on their person are coke heads (criminals).
Having possession of cocaine illegal != nobody possesses cocaine.
Having possession of cocaine illegal == only the law abiding do not possess cocaine.
To route this back into what you were attempting to describe, the only people who respect the law are the law abiding. Having possession of cocaine illegal isn't detrimental to the good guys, there are only illicit reasons to carry it on your person, so the law is a good law. Anyone possessing it must possess it for bad purposes.
On the other, having possession of information illegal is detrimental to the good guys considering it has more than illicit purposes (unlike your cocaine analogy). It will either disarms non criminals or criminalize them. Only a small minority of information possessors have illicit purposes.
Another way of putting it, would be to say it equates to disarming the good while the bad remain armed considering they don't care about laws anyways (obviously).
You will catch a few of the bad guys, but the majority of them will go unnoticed while the entirety of the "good guys" will either be disarmed or lumped into the "bad guy" group although they have no illicit intentions.
Considering I have no bad intentions with information, I do not like the idea of not being able to possess it or turning myself into a criminal by having it.
I do not think it is wise to deny information to those who could improve the situation, while those who would worsen the situation will still have the ability to gain it (illegally of course).
To be honest I'm having a hard time following your point, perhaps you could expand on it to help me understand your argument? I apologize if I misinterpreted what you meant.
I'd tell them to classify it all they wanted to as well if all I cared about was something looking good on my resume, getting a cushy job, and having gobs of money thrown at me.
On the other hand if someone is an advocate for the freedom of information they may have deeper interests than just making their resume look good...
I understand your comment is in response to the grad students expression of "how am I supposed to get a job with a resume that only says 'Classified'?".
My response is only to point out that may not be the only concern he or someone like him may have with the responses he's received concerning his work.
I am under the assumption it will not be very difficult to disable these devices. Even though they can easily be disabled, I still have a fundamental problem with the current plan.
I feel I shouldn't have to proactively find and destroy these tags if I wish to not be monitored. I also think the few seconds it may take to disable one of these devices, times the thousands of items I purchase a year, will quickly multiple out to a significant theft of my time.
I am also concerned that once in universal use such as barcodes are today, facist unconstitutional legislation such as the "PATRIOT Act VII" (or insert name of whatever possible name it may carry) could become law, thus the prevoiusly potential bad uses of these devices will become a reality.
I think RFID's would be a wonderful technology if a TTL was incorporated into them, or if disablement at purchase was a procedure practiced.
I see no reason why a TTL feature could not be incorporated or disablement at time of purchase practiced. The fact that these simple solutions to consumers privacy concerns are not being considered by those who wish to use this technology concerns me greatly. I can not think of a good reason for either of these solutions to be ignored, yet I can think of a million henouis reasons for them not to be considered.
For anyone viewing the link referenced by parent, the "rank" next to the wealthiest women may be confusing at first. The "rank" listed refers to their overall rank of wealth including men and women. The wealithiest woman in the world (Alice Walton) is ranked "8th" because there are 7 men wealthier than her. I hope I cleared up any possible confusion.
Re:Nixon's unused speech
on
Space Blog
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· Score: 1
I stand corrected, my memory was mistaken. Since Eisenhower later became President, I incorrectly referenced his speech in my memory as "President during WWII wrote apology speech in case of D-day failure". (That explains why I couldn't find FDR's apology speech on Google, it never existed!).
Although the example I gave turned out not be of a prepared president, but a prepared Commander of the allied forces, I still stand by my point. It is not uncommon for those in positions of leadership to be prepared for the worst.
I appreciate you finding my error and providing a reference to the correct information, you are quite the sharp one.
I had a local check out the house on my behalf, they said it must be worth well over $1.5m (probably a very accurate guesstimate considering the party is a real estate agent). Not only was I shocked but the party checking into it was as well, neither of us was aware of the upscale new home development Mr. McBride's house was a part of.
I am shocked but I stand humbly corrected. I retract my statement that the address could not be correct, and infact, I would go as far to affirm that it is indeed accurate.
Americans aren't arrogant! You must be a stupid foriegner to say that!
Oops, I think I just proved Americans can be ignorant too.
Re:Nixon's unused speech
on
Space Blog
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· Score: 1
Nixon's unused speech isn't very unusual. Presidents try to be prepared for the worst outcome of any situation so as not to be caught off guard. A notable example (sadly I cannot find an online reference, but I have seen it in text books) is a speech that was prepared by FDR to the American people incase Operation Overloard (eg: the invasion of normandy, D-Day) failed.
I agree with your comment and find it insightful, I just wanted to add that Nixon's unused speech is not as uncommon of a practice as one may think.
For a more current example, I can guarantee you GW Bush had prepared a speech before the invasion of Iraq to be used if Iraq had used WMD's on coalition troops. That never happened, so of course we never heard the speech. Sadly it will be many years, if ever, before one might be able to see a copy of the speech.
Leaders try to be prepared for the worst, but do not want to let on that anything but good results are a possibility. To this end they put on a face of utter certainty for public view, and prepare for the worst behind closed doors.
Re:What happens to Farts in weightlessness ???????
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Space Blog
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· Score: 1
Rule of thumb, don't do it in your spacesuit, you're only screwing yourself.
You mean to tell me the "C++" grade comment was a joke? As in it was a pun referring to the C++ programming language? Well isn't my face red. I can't believe I missed that. That makes my "BASIC grade" comment silly, it's not like my referral to BASIC wasn't a joke itself. Nope nope, not like BASIC is a programming language as is C++, nor that I found the C++ humor funny so I thought I'd try play off on it... thanks for setting me straight.
I have a hard time believing that is Darl C McBride's address. I know that area well, and unless Mr McBride lives in a crappy 2 Bedroom home behind the 7-11 on 6400 S. and Highland, that is not his neighborhood. That neighborhood is also a good 40 miles from the Lindon based SCO headquarters, and knowing that area as well, I have a hard time believing he would even live in the Salt Lake valley as apposed to Utah Valley (where Lindon is). He would also be living in a much more of a metro area, and commuting to suburbia if this were the case. (the 84121 area is cottonwood/holiday, part of the Salt Lake metro area, where as Lindon is a peaceful small area halfway between Salt Lake and Provo).
I seriously doubt these addresses, and if I were in the Salt Lake area, I would actually go over to the address and knock on the door to be able to undoubtably prove they are wrong. Thankfully, for my own sanity at least, I am *not* in Utah.
Mr. Sontag's address is a little more believable. The area claimed is much more upscale than 84121 (and Lindon proper for that matter), yet is within a reasonable drive of the SCO headquarters. But considering my doubt on the first address, I am eyeing Mr. Sontag's supposed address suspiciously as well.
Any locals available to confirm or deny these addresses?
Slashdot Mirror
On the flip side, the easier (and less inexpensive) it is for a realistic film to be made, the more likely it is a good story will not be passed by.
Our "current crop of crappy" movies as you fondly put it (I like how that rolls of my tongue, I'm going to be saying "current crop of crappy (insert noun here)" for weeks now) oh yea where was I. Yes, our "current crop of crappy" movies are the work of the same film companies that have been ignoring wonderful stories since the companies conception. With never available before ease, a small independent production will be able to create a quality film that incorporates a wonderful story with realistic visual and audio. Before now, we were commonly presented with either a bad story with decent effects, or good story ruined by a limited budget. Hopefully, with the advances in effects, and the costs of creating them dwindling, more good stories will be properly recreated in film, and we can just avoid the "crappy crop" as usual.
Personally, I like the thought of the diversification of quality production that inexpensive realistic methods will allow.
The G5 is not three times slower than the latest PC offerings. You are comparing apples and oranges (pun intended). The clock cycles may be 1.5GHz versus 3.6GHz, but GHz != processing power. You may wish to see two recent slashdot articles concerning the performance here and here.
IBM, Apple, and Dell are hardly small businesses, and I think the original question of "why don't they ship international?" is still valid. I also do not buy "(small) companies can't be bothered to grow that kind of capability..."
What capabilities are necessary to grow? Purchaser still pays shipping, and you create seperate national and international warranty/exchange programs. The national program is the standard warranty, international terms can be whatever you deem, eg:
"Warranty only good in the US."
"International purchasers are liable to shipping costs for returned/exchanged items..."
et cetera. It doesn't seem like much capability growth to me. Perhaps I'm missing something.
To answer the original question of "why won't they ship international" has more of a simple direct response. The poster of the original article was looking at the wrong places to buy. As stated in his original post, companies usually have a local (national, within the US) website, and an international one. If you ask the American division of Dell to sell you a computer, they will not (and should refer you to the correct division of the company that handles purchases for the location of the purchaser). Sadly many of those within a national division are unaware of their own corporations international offices.
For example, IBM (International Business Machines) allows you to select the country of your location on their webpage. To solve the authors ordering difficulties, he should visit IBM's Hungarian Website.
If he wishes to buy direct from Dell, he should see Dell's Hungarian Website.
Lastly, he said he couldn't buy Apple. I am not finding an Apple Hungarian website, but from Apple's main page I see they do have a european website, and also a site for neighboring Austria. I think if he inquired with Apple's european offices, as oppossed to inquiring the American, he could find how to have products shipped to him in Hungary.
This is not a troll, but I don't think the author of the original article has much merit to claim he cannot buy products internationally. I think he's a guy originally from Maine who doesn't speak Hungarian so he can't order of off the Hungarian website.
I think the companies listed in his example have uninformed or undertrained representatives who do not even know to refer a customer such as the original author to the Hungarian/European offices instead of simply telling him "we don't sell to anyone who isn't in the United States".
So, in closing, it's easy for companies to operate internationally, there isn't much of a "process growth" involved. Our original article poster doesn't really have a problem, he just doesn't know where to go to order his equipment. When he inquired at the wrong place to see if he could purchase, whomever he communicated with was unaware of where to direct an international customer and misinformed him that international customers are not desired.
What does the American constitution, FBI, and CIA have to do with Russian rights and this Russian governmental action?
Oh yea P.S., US power mains don't run at 120v, the power within your house does. The voltage within your house has been stepped down numerous times since it left a power main. Power mains run in the tens (and hundreds?) of thousands of volts range. There's a lot of cool information on electricity at www.howstuffworks.com, I recommend reading it to all.
For a little fun (and to blow someone's fuse) one might stick a piece of metal to short the circuit between positive and negative in a wall socket. If you are touching the metal without any type of protection (rubber gloves etc.), you'll get a nice jolt, curse a bunch, and think of how stupid you are, but you won't die. You won't even get an electrical burn.
Power through a communications (I/O) connection is nothing new, but power on a standard so widely used has never been seen. Also, firewire, USB, and my own DIN examples have provided power only to peripherals. This new system appears to offer power to a standalone device. In essence this is a new international electrical standardization. Since it is built ontop of existing compatible ethernet standards, the US, Europe, and Asia are placed under the umbrella of one universal compatible power standard.
You may say "it's been done" and turn your attention elsewhere (yet another example of "it's already been done" is the telephone, power has been supplied to them for decades through their communications line), but it has not been done before in this international magnitude, and the possibilities are very exciting in my opinion.
planetary.org
Discovery.com
Some of the context is redundant, the first link is the most informative.
1) A government employee(s) received a very large kickback from contractor (vendor) by accepting to pay the outrageously inflated prices.
2) The accounting department doesn't want their budget cut, so they happily pay inflated prices to "prove" they will need the same or greater funds next year.
(On a side note, the second reason happens all too often. I used to set up enterprise solutions for HP, eg tell IT departments what they need to buy from us to be able to do what they want. Half the time you talked to a government office, they had no project or system to set up, they just wanted to spend money to keep their budget.)
3) Government office accountant tacks on $6,995 to the actual $5 spent on a hammer to hide the funds he's been embezzling.
The situation is ridiculous, but you don't give the government enough credit for being a part of the problem. They're not only stupid, they're a bunch of dirty thieves too. Public servants my lily white....
It's not a linux convention, it is an open source convention. Open source != Linux.
I am sick of that groundless case causing fear within the community. Anyone with lingering doubts please see the OSI Position Paper on The SCO-vs-IBM Complaint
I'd love it if that stupid fiasco didn't have to spill over into anything that has to do with OSS.
It is the most relevant and insightful material I have seen to date and I highly recommend reading it.
In my experiences, the possession of coke being illegal does not hinder it's availability, it only raises the prices due to the risk involved. (No I'm not a coke head/dealer/possessor of coke etc.) That opinion could be contested, but it's been true in my experiences.
You are absolutely correct, laws against possession of "things" do serve a viable purpose. I simply assumed you were making an analogy since the article had to do with whether or not information should be possessable. Maybe it is due to my own limitied intelligence (I am lacking at times), but I'm still a little confused with what the link is between your examples and the scenario presented by the article.
By making things classified.. unpossessable, the point is to protect the people involved...
...In the case of information, it's to prevent enemies from knowing, as well as not causing panic.
I can understand the rationale behind that, to be clear, my point simply is:
Making things classified. != Enemies do not have that information.
Simply making things classified does not necessarily hinder "bad guys" much, while at the same time it could greatly hindering "good guys".
That's really my only point. Understanding your non-analogous examples is beyond the scope of my point and confuses me. It was my mistake to assume you were making an analogy, and due to my mistake we are now comparing orange's and apple's. I'm not exactly the brightest bulb in the box so forgive me if I'm just not "getting" something that should be obvious to me. My whole reason for response is I feel my point is an important one to consider. That's all, and again, I apologize for misunderstanding.
To this end, your analogy supports what you are attempting to disprove. The only people who don't carry coke on their person are the non coke heads (normal law abiding citizens), and those who carry coke on their person are coke heads (criminals).
Having possession of cocaine illegal != nobody possesses cocaine.
Having possession of cocaine illegal == only the law abiding do not possess cocaine.
To route this back into what you were attempting to describe, the only people who respect the law are the law abiding. Having possession of cocaine illegal isn't detrimental to the good guys, there are only illicit reasons to carry it on your person, so the law is a good law. Anyone possessing it must possess it for bad purposes.
On the other, having possession of information illegal is detrimental to the good guys considering it has more than illicit purposes (unlike your cocaine analogy). It will either disarms non criminals or criminalize them. Only a small minority of information possessors have illicit purposes.
Another way of putting it, would be to say it equates to disarming the good while the bad remain armed considering they don't care about laws anyways (obviously).
You will catch a few of the bad guys, but the majority of them will go unnoticed while the entirety of the "good guys" will either be disarmed or lumped into the "bad guy" group although they have no illicit intentions.
Considering I have no bad intentions with information, I do not like the idea of not being able to possess it or turning myself into a criminal by having it.
I do not think it is wise to deny information to those who could improve the situation, while those who would worsen the situation will still have the ability to gain it (illegally of course).
To be honest I'm having a hard time following your point, perhaps you could expand on it to help me understand your argument? I apologize if I misinterpreted what you meant.
On the other hand if someone is an advocate for the freedom of information they may have deeper interests than just making their resume look good...
I understand your comment is in response to the grad students expression of "how am I supposed to get a job with a resume that only says 'Classified'?".
My response is only to point out that may not be the only concern he or someone like him may have with the responses he's received concerning his work.
I feel I shouldn't have to proactively find and destroy these tags if I wish to not be monitored. I also think the few seconds it may take to disable one of these devices, times the thousands of items I purchase a year, will quickly multiple out to a significant theft of my time.
I am also concerned that once in universal use such as barcodes are today, facist unconstitutional legislation such as the "PATRIOT Act VII" (or insert name of whatever possible name it may carry) could become law, thus the prevoiusly potential bad uses of these devices will become a reality.
I think RFID's would be a wonderful technology if a TTL was incorporated into them, or if disablement at purchase was a procedure practiced.
I see no reason why a TTL feature could not be incorporated or disablement at time of purchase practiced. The fact that these simple solutions to consumers privacy concerns are not being considered by those who wish to use this technology concerns me greatly. I can not think of a good reason for either of these solutions to be ignored, yet I can think of a million henouis reasons for them not to be considered.
For anyone viewing the link referenced by parent, the "rank" next to the wealthiest women may be confusing at first. The "rank" listed refers to their overall rank of wealth including men and women. The wealithiest woman in the world (Alice Walton) is ranked "8th" because there are 7 men wealthier than her. I hope I cleared up any possible confusion.
I stand corrected, my memory was mistaken. Since Eisenhower later became President, I incorrectly referenced his speech in my memory as "President during WWII wrote apology speech in case of D-day failure". (That explains why I couldn't find FDR's apology speech on Google, it never existed!).
Although the example I gave turned out not be of a prepared president, but a prepared Commander of the allied forces, I still stand by my point. It is not uncommon for those in positions of leadership to be prepared for the worst.
I appreciate you finding my error and providing a reference to the correct information, you are quite the sharp one.
I stand corrected.
I had a local check out the house on my behalf, they said it must be worth well over $1.5m (probably a very accurate guesstimate considering the party is a real estate agent). Not only was I shocked but the party checking into it was as well, neither of us was aware of the upscale new home development Mr. McBride's house was a part of.
I am shocked but I stand humbly corrected. I retract my statement that the address could not be correct, and infact, I would go as far to affirm that it is indeed accurate.
Oops, I think I just proved Americans can be ignorant too.
Nixon's unused speech isn't very unusual. Presidents try to be prepared for the worst outcome of any situation so as not to be caught off guard. A notable example (sadly I cannot find an online reference, but I have seen it in text books) is a speech that was prepared by FDR to the American people incase Operation Overloard (eg: the invasion of normandy, D-Day) failed.
I agree with your comment and find it insightful, I just wanted to add that Nixon's unused speech is not as uncommon of a practice as one may think.
For a more current example, I can guarantee you GW Bush had prepared a speech before the invasion of Iraq to be used if Iraq had used WMD's on coalition troops. That never happened, so of course we never heard the speech. Sadly it will be many years, if ever, before one might be able to see a copy of the speech.
Leaders try to be prepared for the worst, but do not want to let on that anything but good results are a possibility. To this end they put on a face of utter certainty for public view, and prepare for the worst behind closed doors.
Rule of thumb, don't do it in your spacesuit, you're only screwing yourself.
The articles analogy to "ADD" and many references to it within the slashdot article reminds me of a joke I heard recently I'd like to share.
Q: How many kids with ADD does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: Hey! Wanna go ride bikes?!?
You mean to tell me the "C++" grade comment was a joke? As in it was a pun referring to the C++ programming language? Well isn't my face red. I can't believe I missed that. That makes my "BASIC grade" comment silly, it's not like my referral to BASIC wasn't a joke itself. Nope nope, not like BASIC is a programming language as is C++, nor that I found the C++ humor funny so I thought I'd try play off on it... thanks for setting me straight.
I have a hard time believing that is Darl C McBride's address. I know that area well, and unless Mr McBride lives in a crappy 2 Bedroom home behind the 7-11 on 6400 S. and Highland, that is not his neighborhood. That neighborhood is also a good 40 miles from the Lindon based SCO headquarters, and knowing that area as well, I have a hard time believing he would even live in the Salt Lake valley as apposed to Utah Valley (where Lindon is). He would also be living in a much more of a metro area, and commuting to suburbia if this were the case. (the 84121 area is cottonwood/holiday, part of the Salt Lake metro area, where as Lindon is a peaceful small area halfway between Salt Lake and Provo).
I seriously doubt these addresses, and if I were in the Salt Lake area, I would actually go over to the address and knock on the door to be able to undoubtably prove they are wrong. Thankfully, for my own sanity at least, I am *not* in Utah.
Mr. Sontag's address is a little more believable. The area claimed is much more upscale than 84121 (and Lindon proper for that matter), yet is within a reasonable drive of the SCO headquarters. But considering my doubt on the first address, I am eyeing Mr. Sontag's supposed address suspiciously as well.
Any locals available to confirm or deny these addresses?