In astronomy, anyone can just go to ADS.harvard.edu and have access to the major journals. It's searchable, has journals online, etc.
It's so handy, I tend to use it instead of hunting up the paper copies in my 'box of printouts'. Yes, it's actually faster/easier to find something I've already read by getting it online, than to hunt in a file cabinet.
And they have excellent search, reference chasing (you can find all papers that cite a given paper, or simply see all references a paper uses), and even persistent searches (email me everytime a new paper comes up on 'target X').
Some astro journals are still, alas, subscriber-only (usually with university block subscriptions), but the bulk are open to anyone.
But astronomy has always been a field where amateurs and professionals can both participate.
Better late post then never... here's a 2-hour onsite thing you can do in their gymnasium, to get them motivated about IT.
Bring in a bunch of laptops, PCs, Macs, etc. Bring also a network game, preferably a racing game of some sort (FPS might not go over well with the school admins). Write 1-page of instructions on how they can set up a LAN.
Randomly assign 2 people at each machine, they are not allowed to touch or visit another machine (any help to others is purely verbal). They have to stay by their own machine _or_ can go to the center 'parts pool' as needed. [This prevents the few ubergeeks from doing it all.]
Array a few hubs around the room.
Unplug everything, make a pile of the keyboards, mice, network cables, etc. Tell them they can only play when the entire network is done. Step back and see how they do.
Once they get the LAN up, let them play for the rest of the time!
To run with the next class, unplug and you're reset!
It'll teach networking, basic computer hookup and anti-technophobia, how to work in pairs, how to do things themself, how to follow instructions, and how to verbally negotiate things like LAN ids.
> The main problem is that most user content just really does suck.
I agree. That's why I browse/. at +5.
There's a bunch of games that have heaps of mods... say, oh, Doom. Utterly useless unless you find an index where the indexer actually _reviews_ and describes the mods, or (best) ranks them.
RtCW, Unreal, and Serious Sam all had good communities in terms of commented/annoted mods, and there were one or 2 Doom sites that gave useful information.
I never have seen a moderated system, though, for distributing mods. They've either been 1 lone indexer's opinion, or a useless stat like "# of times downloaded", which says nothing of whether people _liked_ it.
So that's why I think the/. mod scheme would be a neat filter for user-created content.
> How can you let users create content, and keep the game balanced and high-quality?
1) A/.-like moderation scheme, coupled with:
2) Max Exp limits for user-made content.
So anyone can toss in a new module or area, but the Exp anyone can gain is capped (to prevent abuse, i.e. 'enter my quick level-up lair!').
Caps can get removed by the game staff, who, thanks to the moderation scheme, need just browse the "+5" levels that players actually liked.
To organize it, start with a few theme zones, for example, a 'Murderworld' kind of place where it makes sense to have a bunch of random, disassociated challenges.
Okay folks, since MiniGRAIL is now taking data in the Netherlands and its partner is doing that in São Paulo, a cautionary.
Please, those of you located equidistant from the two, don't jump, stomp your feet, or drop heavy books. They rely on asymmetry to weed out false signals, and you folks straddling the middle could throw it off.
>happen to be a NASA flight controller - and when you are in Mission Control, you are "it". Sometimes, you must make a decision that is time critical,
I did some satellite control for space telescopes, and even when it's an unmanned mission, it's tough. We had ops stationed 24/7, with mostly routine work, but they earned their pay whenever trouble hit.
Weird thing is, with it being unmanned, the usual procedure for trouble is 'go into safehold, then we'll diagnose on the ground'. But then you have to decide when you have enough information to make a decision.
You can go with the basic readings, and catch it on the next orbit pass and try a solution. Time lost= 90 minutes.
Or you can wait until the principal investigator gets into the office (maybe 4 hours later), let her do diagnostics, maybe check with the instrument team in California... you'll get a more robust solution, but it'll take 1-2 days.
And if it's really weird, you'll have to run sims before deciding on a solution.
So it's the opposite of joysticking-- it's figuring out when you have enough information to make a good call. No lives to worry about, just dollars. I think that makes it easier than manned ops, by far.
Mind you, since telescope time amortizes out to maybe $250/minute, a skilled person able to do in half a day what a sclub would do in 2 days, can justify their salary in one incident.
You hear about WalMart working to improve efficiencies by, like, 0.01% and reaping billions. Well, at NASA, we do stuff to improve things by 1% here and there to save tens of thousands.
The irony is, it's unlikely Marvel's own game would actually let you play the Hulk[tm], Wolverine[tm], et cetera, just as Star Wars online doesn't let you play Luke, Han, and so on.
So they're suing over a game that lets you mimic their own heroes, arguing that it ruins the market for their own superhero game, even though their own game won't let you play their own heroes.
The poster suggests "How about a credit card-style voter registration card that I have to swipe in order to verify that I am eligible to vote?"
That sounds like a National ID card. After all, since all potential voters have to carry one, that mandates all citizens aged 18 or over have one.
And if the gov't has to make a card for each citizen, why not make it more useful, by having it be a National ID?
See earlier/. discussions on why a national ID is not a good idea.
Further, given that motor-voter registration (anyone with a driver's license can register) is frequently blocked by the Republicans (not a partisan comment, just a statement of the voting history on motor-voter issues), I think the above scheme would be blocked.
> The mainstream media doesn't do reporting anymore.
True. Investigative journalism has stopped because it's too cost-prohibitive. Watergate could never happen now-- no paper would pay for a couple of reporters for many months with no ink hitting paper, all on a maybe.
Instead, news is delivered as a commodity, repackaged from original sources. Those sources tend to be 'the subject of the news'. So whether it's from the White House, or from Michael Moore, or from Enron, the 'news' is "This is what the subject of this piece told us".
The only reason blogs don't do this sort of 'news' is they don't have access to the kinds of subject matter most people want to read about.
Actually, E-Mu (makers of the most excellent 'Proteus' rompler/synths, among others) did such good work with synth chips, that Creative bought them and put their chips into the famed SoundBlasters.
That's why a SoundBlaster can do really great software synth stuff 'out of the box' with decent freeware.
In short, synth hardware became cheap enough to put excellent MIDI on standard soundcards. The reason people don't hear about this more, is because the software market then picked up the slack in terms of making usable MIDI tools for a) arranging music, b) loading patches into said sound cards, c) usability, and so on.
Oh, and E-Mu makes a really nice $99 pro audio card, in case you really want to go for it.
But with, oh, a 500MHz Dell ($60 surpluscomputers.com), a midi keyboard ($100), and a pair of headphones, plus a music-specific Linux distribution such as Agnula (http://www.agnula.org/), you're set with something that beats pretty much anything built in the 90s.
Last I read, the estimate was 175,000 provision votes, with Kerry 125,000 behind in counted votes. So he'd need to win 85% of the provisionals to win the election.
It could be a slim chance, and it looks like they'll still keep counting, but it also does look like Kerry made an accurate call, and in turn sets up some good will for future Democrat elections.
However, I think the White House/Andy Card deserve a few jeers for their earlier statement Bush giving Kerry "the respect of more time to reflect", in essence already bragging that they'd won and trying to diminish Kerry's pending concession.
Such constant 'first post' nature of the Republicans (thus setting the framing for subsequent responses) is, however, one reason they've done so well in terms of media spin. It's a valid tactic, but I still don't like it.
Also, Card predicts 286 electoral for Bush, minimum, and that seems overly optimistic. If it's not accurate, I hope Card is taken to account for those numbers, since disinformation from the White House in the name of politicking is the one condemnation of the current White House that I feel hasn't been properly addressed.
> And Senators/Reps will be ripped as "soft on terror"
Too true. The opponents need to set the frame of the debate, not just reply to it.
Bad: "This goes against our citizen's freedom." -> you are soft on terrorists.
Good: "In yet another tax-and-spend government boondoogle, a few conservatives who should know better want to blow money on new big DMV and mass transit projects rather than actually fund anti-terrorist initiatives. By stealing money from Homeland Security to produce public works in each state, they're undermining the unified front against terrorism that we all need for security. Add in the logistic nightmare of easily broken 'citizen IDs' and you have yet another case for massive government misspending."
Hmm... a bit too long, but workable. The short summary would be 'Which stops terrorism-- funding the FBI, CIA, and Homeland Security, or tossing money into state public works. I'd bet the former, but this new bill wants our cash for boondoogles."
Hmmm... "McCain envisions erecting physical checkpoints, dubbed "screening points," near subways, [...] Internet hubs "
Internet hubs? Man, that's going to suck. "The networked printer needs paper, dear, I'm heading down to the basement" 'Badge, sir?'
More seriously, even when I drive into D.C. and pass in spitting distance of the Capital, the occassional roadblock/checkpoints don't ask for ID. They rely on an officer doing a quick visual survey of the vehicle and occupants.
I don't see how IDs will help. 'Hmm... according to your ID, you're a known terrorist criminal. I'll have to search your car.' No, far more likely a potential terrorist will either be a clean slate (new recruit) or have a faked ID.
So the only use is either to hassle ordinary citizens while pretending it's helping fight terrorism, without really increasing safety or security. I predict the bill will pass by a landslide.
I took this idea one further once. When you vote, your name is entered into a lottery for a seat in the House of Representatives. After the election, each state draws 1 ticket (from all who voted) to randomly appoint 1 Rep.
The winner, if they accept, gets 2 years employment at standard Rep salary (over $150k curerntly), guaranteed time off from their current job, and all the usual perks of being a Rep.
It'd be 1 additional Rep for each state, adding a senatorial weight and slightly expanding the House. If the winner declines, the state just keeps drawing tickets until one accepts.
This would finally give a chance for real representation in the House (as well as expanding past the usual straight-line two parties).
It probably wouldn't increase voter turnout, unlike the cash lottery plan, but it'd be a great political achievement.
Re:That seems cool...
on
Google In A Box
·
· Score: 4, Informative
I wrote in another thread long ago about these. Actually, the price point is excellent.
Choice A: Write an in-house app and keep it up to date and useful. Assume a half-timer to write this in 4 months plus another half-timer to do the UI, then a half-timer to debug/test it in 4 months because it didn't quite work right, plus a quarter time sysadmin for it since it's going to be high load.
Already we're 8 months into developing this and don't actually _have_ a working search engine, and we've blown 2/3rds of a yearly FTE. And that's being generously low in my staffing estimates.
Choice B: Toss google half a yearly FTE in pay to do it for you, and it's ready in a week, up, working stable, and you don't have to _do_ anything. And you get free maintenance and updates.
Easy choice, if you're a real company. And yes, I've worked at a place that finally got one of these-- they're great. Incredibly useful, and a big cost savings.
> What, you expect journalists to check the code of every new program against the code
Nah, just be journalists. Given a press release, "Product A rules!", a journalist asks "tell us why", while the current crop of media darlings simply says "tell us more!"
I think the paper misses the time-sink factor. Yes, Rise of Nations can hone skills, but when you play it until 3am and miss your 8am meeting because of it, that's not terribly effective.
Similarly, I think Tetris is responsible for more lost productivity than any other single cause.
I'm dubious about touting our game-playing as a plus while applying for jobs, for similar reasons.
It's a fine line between proving and honing skills, and 'wasting' time using those skills instead of earning almighty dollars. How do you get good at a game without spending lots of otherwise productive time?
Only so far you can 'hone the saw', to steal from Covey.
Now, I realize the idea of court being a fair fight against two equally-matched opponents is appealing, but it's never been like that.
A cute quip can favorably influence juries.
A rigged demo can influence juries.
An inexact analogy can influence juries (wookies, anyone?)
A defendent wearing a suit can influence juries.
A comment removed from the record can influence juries.
A slur against someone's past can influence juries.
An exaggerated testimony can influence juries.
A better-speaking lawyer can influence juries.
Whether the jury is hungry or looking to get home early can influence juries.
Expert witnesses can influence juries.
I don't see why PowerPoint or any technology is any different from the hundreds of tools-and-tricks available to trial lawyers. It does seem unfairly singled out.
> What if americans new as much about candidates as about their favorite players?
That would be hysterical, and most excellent!
"I'm voting Candidate A, I think he's a first choice draft for the presidency, as he has a 3-1 average for Defense and is pretty good at Economic Recovery when going into a deficit situation."
"Well, I'm going with Candidate B since I think we're really in a world-market situation, and we need his 5/2 win record against Tariff Actions, I think that'll neatly set the US up for a 4-th quarter Debt Rebound."
"Yeah, but Candidate C was in a music video, how cool is that!" [silence from the other 2] "Sorry, I don't follow politics."
> The Iranian government in no way had anything to do with the X-prize.
Sure it did... it let its people emigrate. NK doesn't seem to do that.
Given how much profiling is being done to find terrorists of arabic descent, you might want to be careful about saying the US gov't doesn't claim place of birth as making you potentially evil, by the way. That's what profiling does.
> Sanctions may make it harder for the man in the street to buy computing equipment, but they cannot stop a determined state form getting
Yep. Sanctions (or blowing up power plants during war, et cetera) basically just mean "the populace suffers more, while the army still takes first pick of the resources".
Heck, even in the US currently, military funding is considered seperate from all other programs, and usually passed by Congress as a seperate budget item (often ignoring the rest of the economic picture).
Part of this is pragmatics-- an army requiring X dollars doesn't fight at half-power with half the money, but basically is useless when underfunded significantly. Part of this can also be different pragmatics-- folks with guns get what they want:)
The underlying idea of sanctions is to ultimately make either war/army building too expensive (by crashing their economy past a breaking point), or to motivate the civilian populace to overthrow their own gov't.
Oddly enough, both seem to have been part of the fall of the USSR. But it takes a very, very long time (decades or more) to work that way, and the risk is, when things are close to teetering, the country leaders may decide to declare war just to boost national spirit and redirect the populations attention outward.
Being a country like any other, even the US isn't immune to such tactics.
> I was even more suprised when I realized how many people from Iran are in Orkut.
Or how many sponsors of the Anasair X-Prize were Iranian, for that matter (the Ansaris are Iranian!) Guess the axis of evil 'accidentally' sponsored the first commercial astronaut in the US. How... evil?
Slashdot Mirror
It's so handy, I tend to use it instead of hunting up the paper copies in my 'box of printouts'. Yes, it's actually faster/easier to find something I've already read by getting it online, than to hunt in a file cabinet.
And they have excellent search, reference chasing (you can find all papers that cite a given paper, or simply see all references a paper uses), and even persistent searches (email me everytime a new paper comes up on 'target X').
Some astro journals are still, alas, subscriber-only (usually with university block subscriptions), but the bulk are open to anyone.
But astronomy has always been a field where amateurs and professionals can both participate.
Better late post then never... here's a 2-hour onsite thing you can do in their gymnasium, to get them motivated about IT.
Bring in a bunch of laptops, PCs, Macs, etc. Bring also a network game, preferably a racing game of some sort (FPS might not go over well with the school admins). Write 1-page of instructions on how they can set up a LAN.
Randomly assign 2 people at each machine, they are not allowed to touch or visit another machine (any help to others is purely verbal). They have to stay by their own machine _or_ can go to the center 'parts pool' as needed. [This prevents the few ubergeeks from doing it all.]
Array a few hubs around the room.
Unplug everything, make a pile of the keyboards, mice, network cables, etc. Tell them they can only play when the entire network is done. Step back and see how they do.
Once they get the LAN up, let them play for the rest of the time!
To run with the next class, unplug and you're reset!
It'll teach networking, basic computer hookup and anti-technophobia, how to work in pairs, how to do things themself, how to follow instructions, and how to verbally negotiate things like LAN ids.
Hi,
/. at +5.
/. mod scheme would be a neat filter for user-created content.
> The main problem is that most user content just really does suck.
I agree. That's why I browse
There's a bunch of games that have heaps of mods... say, oh, Doom. Utterly useless unless you find an index where the indexer actually _reviews_ and describes the mods, or (best) ranks them.
RtCW, Unreal, and Serious Sam all had good communities in terms of commented/annoted mods, and there were one or 2 Doom sites that gave useful information.
I never have seen a moderated system, though, for distributing mods. They've either been 1 lone indexer's opinion, or a useless stat like "# of times downloaded", which says nothing of whether people _liked_ it.
So that's why I think the
> How can you let users create content, and keep the game balanced and high-quality?
/.-like moderation scheme, coupled with:
1) A
2) Max Exp limits for user-made content.
So anyone can toss in a new module or area, but the Exp anyone can gain is capped (to prevent abuse, i.e. 'enter my quick level-up lair!').
Caps can get removed by the game staff, who, thanks to the moderation scheme, need just browse the "+5" levels that players actually liked.
To organize it, start with a few theme zones, for example, a 'Murderworld' kind of place where it makes sense to have a bunch of random, disassociated challenges.
Okay folks, since MiniGRAIL is now taking data in the Netherlands and its partner is doing that in São Paulo, a cautionary.
Please, those of you located equidistant from the two, don't jump, stomp your feet, or drop heavy books. They rely on asymmetry to weed out false signals, and you folks straddling the middle could throw it off.
Remember, we must all do our bit for science.
>happen to be a NASA flight controller - and when you are in Mission Control, you are "it". Sometimes, you must make a decision that is time critical,
I did some satellite control for space telescopes, and even when it's an unmanned mission, it's tough. We had ops stationed 24/7, with mostly routine work, but they earned their pay whenever trouble hit.
Weird thing is, with it being unmanned, the usual procedure for trouble is 'go into safehold, then we'll diagnose on the ground'. But then you have to decide when you have enough information to make a decision.
You can go with the basic readings, and catch it on the next orbit pass and try a solution. Time lost= 90 minutes.
Or you can wait until the principal investigator gets into the office (maybe 4 hours later), let her do diagnostics, maybe check with the instrument team in California... you'll get a more robust solution, but it'll take 1-2 days.
And if it's really weird, you'll have to run sims before deciding on a solution.
So it's the opposite of joysticking-- it's figuring out when you have enough information to make a good call. No lives to worry about, just dollars. I think that makes it easier than manned ops, by far.
Mind you, since telescope time amortizes out to maybe $250/minute, a skilled person able to do in half a day what a sclub would do in 2 days, can justify their salary in one incident.
You hear about WalMart working to improve efficiencies by, like, 0.01% and reaping billions. Well, at NASA, we do stuff to improve things by 1% here and there to save tens of thousands.
The irony is, it's unlikely Marvel's own game would actually let you play the Hulk[tm], Wolverine[tm], et cetera, just as Star Wars online doesn't let you play Luke, Han, and so on.
So they're suing over a game that lets you mimic their own heroes, arguing that it ruins the market for their own superhero game, even though their own game won't let you play their own heroes.
The poster suggests "How about a credit card-style voter registration card that I have to swipe in order to verify that I am eligible to vote?"
/. discussions on why a national ID is not a good idea.
That sounds like a National ID card. After all, since all potential voters have to carry one, that mandates all citizens aged 18 or over have one.
And if the gov't has to make a card for each citizen, why not make it more useful, by having it be a National ID?
See earlier
Further, given that motor-voter registration (anyone with a driver's license can register) is frequently blocked by the Republicans (not a partisan comment, just a statement of the voting history on motor-voter issues), I think the above scheme would be blocked.
> The mainstream media doesn't do reporting anymore.
True. Investigative journalism has stopped because it's too cost-prohibitive. Watergate could never happen now-- no paper would pay for a couple of reporters for many months with no ink hitting paper, all on a maybe.
Instead, news is delivered as a commodity, repackaged from original sources. Those sources tend to be 'the subject of the news'. So whether it's from the White House, or from Michael Moore, or from Enron, the 'news' is "This is what the subject of this piece told us".
The only reason blogs don't do this sort of 'news' is they don't have access to the kinds of subject matter most people want to read about.
Actually, E-Mu (makers of the most excellent 'Proteus' rompler/synths, among others) did such good work with synth chips, that Creative bought them and put their chips into the famed SoundBlasters.
That's why a SoundBlaster can do really great software synth stuff 'out of the box' with decent freeware.
In short, synth hardware became cheap enough to put excellent MIDI on standard soundcards. The reason people don't hear about this more, is because the software market then picked up the slack in terms of making usable MIDI tools for a) arranging music, b) loading patches into said sound cards, c) usability, and so on.
Oh, and E-Mu makes a really nice $99 pro audio card, in case you really want to go for it.
But with, oh, a 500MHz Dell ($60 surpluscomputers.com), a midi keyboard ($100), and a pair of headphones, plus a music-specific Linux distribution such as Agnula (http://www.agnula.org/), you're set with something that beats pretty much anything built in the 90s.
> Bush won more votes than any other President in our Nation's history.
I think Kerry has also won more votes than any other Presidential candidate in history... except for Bush.
The American people have spoken, and spoken loudly, but not with one voice.
That's a good thing, though... debate and difference of opinion are what make capitalism work.
Last I read, the estimate was 175,000 provision votes, with Kerry 125,000 behind in counted votes. So he'd need to win 85% of the provisionals to win the election.
It could be a slim chance, and it looks like they'll still keep counting, but it also does look like Kerry made an accurate call, and in turn sets up some good will for future Democrat elections.
However, I think the White House/Andy Card deserve a few jeers for their earlier statement Bush giving Kerry "the respect of more time to reflect", in essence already bragging that they'd won and trying to diminish Kerry's pending concession.
Such constant 'first post' nature of the Republicans (thus setting the framing for subsequent responses) is, however, one reason they've done so well in terms of media spin. It's a valid tactic, but I still don't like it.
Also, Card predicts 286 electoral for Bush, minimum, and that seems overly optimistic. If it's not accurate, I hope Card is taken to account for those numbers, since disinformation from the White House in the name of politicking is the one condemnation of the current White House that I feel hasn't been properly addressed.
> And Senators/Reps will be ripped as "soft on terror"
Too true. The opponents need to set the frame of the debate, not just reply to it.
Bad: "This goes against our citizen's freedom." -> you are soft on terrorists.
Good: "In yet another tax-and-spend government boondoogle, a few conservatives who should know better want to blow money on new big DMV and mass transit projects rather than actually fund anti-terrorist initiatives. By stealing money from Homeland Security to produce public works in each state, they're undermining the unified front against terrorism that we all need for security. Add in the logistic nightmare of easily broken 'citizen IDs' and you have yet another case for massive government misspending."
Hmm... a bit too long, but workable. The short summary would be 'Which stops terrorism-- funding the FBI, CIA, and Homeland Security, or tossing money into state public works. I'd bet the former, but this new bill wants our cash for boondoogles."
Hmmm... "McCain envisions erecting physical checkpoints, dubbed "screening points," near subways, [...] Internet hubs "
Internet hubs? Man, that's going to suck. "The networked printer needs paper, dear, I'm heading down to the basement" 'Badge, sir?'
More seriously, even when I drive into D.C. and pass in spitting distance of the Capital, the occassional roadblock/checkpoints don't ask for ID. They rely on an officer doing a quick visual survey of the vehicle and occupants.
I don't see how IDs will help. 'Hmm... according to your ID, you're a known terrorist criminal. I'll have to search your car.' No, far more likely a potential terrorist will either be a clean slate (new recruit) or have a faked ID.
So the only use is either to hassle ordinary citizens while pretending it's helping fight terrorism, without really increasing safety or security. I predict the bill will pass by a landslide.
For the children's sake, of course.
I took this idea one further once. When you vote, your name is entered into a lottery for a seat in the House of Representatives. After the election, each state draws 1 ticket (from all who voted) to randomly appoint 1 Rep.
The winner, if they accept, gets 2 years employment at standard Rep salary (over $150k curerntly), guaranteed time off from their current job, and all the usual perks of being a Rep.
It'd be 1 additional Rep for each state, adding a senatorial weight and slightly expanding the House. If the winner declines, the state just keeps drawing tickets until one accepts.
This would finally give a chance for real representation in the House (as well as expanding past the usual straight-line two parties).
It probably wouldn't increase voter turnout, unlike the cash lottery plan, but it'd be a great political achievement.
I wrote in another thread long ago about these. Actually, the price point is excellent.
Choice A: Write an in-house app and keep it up to date and useful. Assume a half-timer to write this in 4 months plus another half-timer to do the UI, then a half-timer to debug/test it in 4 months because it didn't quite work right, plus a quarter time sysadmin for it since it's going to be high load.
Already we're 8 months into developing this and don't actually _have_ a working search engine, and we've blown 2/3rds of a yearly FTE. And that's being generously low in my staffing estimates.
Choice B: Toss google half a yearly FTE in pay to do it for you, and it's ready in a week, up, working stable, and you don't have to _do_ anything. And you get free maintenance and updates.
Easy choice, if you're a real company. And yes, I've worked at a place that finally got one of these-- they're great. Incredibly useful, and a big cost savings.
> What, you expect journalists to check the code of every new program against the code
Nah, just be journalists. Given a press release, "Product A rules!", a journalist asks "tell us why", while the current crop of media darlings simply says "tell us more!"
I think the paper misses the time-sink factor. Yes, Rise of Nations can hone skills, but when you play it until 3am and miss your 8am meeting because of it, that's not terribly effective.
Similarly, I think Tetris is responsible for more lost productivity than any other single cause.
I'm dubious about touting our game-playing as a plus while applying for jobs, for similar reasons.
It's a fine line between proving and honing skills, and 'wasting' time using those skills instead of earning almighty dollars. How do you get good at a game without spending lots of otherwise productive time?
Only so far you can 'hone the saw', to steal from Covey.
Now, I realize the idea of court being a fair fight against two equally-matched opponents is appealing, but it's never been like that.
A cute quip can favorably influence juries.
A rigged demo can influence juries.
An inexact analogy can influence juries (wookies, anyone?)
A defendent wearing a suit can influence juries.
A comment removed from the record can influence juries.
A slur against someone's past can influence juries.
An exaggerated testimony can influence juries.
A better-speaking lawyer can influence juries.
Whether the jury is hungry or looking to get home early can influence juries.
Expert witnesses can influence juries.
I don't see why PowerPoint or any technology is any different from the hundreds of tools-and-tricks available to trial lawyers. It does seem unfairly singled out.
It's true, I swear. Every election year the Redskins win, someone also wins the presidency.
And I'll lay money that the same happens this year.
> What if americans new as much about candidates as about their favorite players?
That would be hysterical, and most excellent!
"I'm voting Candidate A, I think he's a first choice draft for the presidency, as he has a 3-1 average for Defense and is pretty good at Economic Recovery when going into a deficit situation."
"Well, I'm going with Candidate B since I think we're really in a world-market situation, and we need his 5/2 win record against Tariff Actions, I think that'll neatly set the US up for a 4-th quarter Debt Rebound."
"Yeah, but Candidate C was in a music video, how cool is that!" [silence from the other 2] "Sorry, I don't follow politics."
> The Iranian government in no way had anything to do with the X-prize.
Sure it did... it let its people emigrate. NK doesn't seem to do that.
Given how much profiling is being done to find terrorists of arabic descent, you might want to be careful about saying the US gov't doesn't claim place of birth as making you potentially evil, by the way. That's what profiling does.
> Sanctions may make it harder for the man in the street to buy computing equipment, but they cannot stop a determined state form getting
:)
Yep. Sanctions (or blowing up power plants during war, et cetera) basically just mean "the populace suffers more, while the army still takes first pick of the resources".
Heck, even in the US currently, military funding is considered seperate from all other programs, and usually passed by Congress as a seperate budget item (often ignoring the rest of the economic picture).
Part of this is pragmatics-- an army requiring X dollars doesn't fight at half-power with half the money, but basically is useless when underfunded significantly. Part of this can also be different pragmatics-- folks with guns get what they want
The underlying idea of sanctions is to ultimately make either war/army building too expensive (by crashing their economy past a breaking point), or to motivate the civilian populace to overthrow their own gov't.
Oddly enough, both seem to have been part of the fall of the USSR. But it takes a very, very long time (decades or more) to work that way, and the risk is, when things are close to teetering, the country leaders may decide to declare war just to boost national spirit and redirect the populations attention outward.
Being a country like any other, even the US isn't immune to such tactics.
> Crackers? You mean, the guys sit there and undermine US economy by cracking and distributing warez?
Worse, they all have iPods!
No, wait, that's pirates. Sorry, wrong evil. Still, they probably stole their copies of Windows anyway. I say we nuke 'em.
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> I was even more suprised when I realized how many people from Iran are in Orkut.
Or how many sponsors of the Anasair X-Prize were Iranian, for that matter (the Ansaris are Iranian!) Guess the axis of evil 'accidentally' sponsored the first commercial astronaut in the US. How... evil?