Now you're reminding me of How Google Works. My short summary is that they seem to be saying they want most of the google employees to be in the Venn diagram intersection of the set of super-productive engineers, the set of hyper-creative dreamers, and the set of extreme money-grubbers, though they describe the last set more diplomatically. They reworded it in terms of a kind of an acute awareness of the economic realities of how to profit. They also want them to be extremely competitive members of all three sets.
When they get people like that, there really aren't any substitutes to be accepted (or they would have hired them already). You suggest that it's reasonable to accept normal working hours, but that isn't how the google picked them in the first place. The hiring process is so skewed that the candidate who also wanted a home and family life was already eliminated from consideration. At least I think that's how it works most of the time, notwithstanding a few anecdotal exceptions.
Specifically relevant to this article, on that foundation they want to reward employees in relative proportion to their success as measured by bottom-line profits. Since some projects produce huge profits and others don't, the people involved with the the lucky projects get much more money. That's where we get to my speculations of how it produces the gender discrimination. The more I think about it the more I'm inclined towards the credit-claiming theory. Work Rules! hinted how difficult it is to assess proper credit so the aggressiveness on the claims may help produce the extreme results in the compensation.
Mostly based on the book Work Rules! (though I've read a bunch of google-related books recently, most recently Dogfight about the smartphone war), I think this may actually reflect the extreme pay differentials based on results, where the best results are biased in favor of aggressive males (driven by all that testosterone). There could be at least three possible mechanisms: (1) Pure aggressive competitiveness producing the results, (2) Greater aggressiveness in claiming credit for the results, and (3) Better work-life balance by the women.
In conclusion, the entire google topic always saddens me. So much potential to make the world better and now completely undone by corporate cancerism, the American business philosophy that buried capitalism. The way it works now, freedom is the problem, so the most cheaply bribed politicians are paid to write the worse possible laws to benefit the biggest and most cancerous corporations. As the second referenced book puts it, the winner gets around 75% of the market and almost all of the profits and the losers struggle to stay in business at all. Real capitalism (especially in the fantasy world of the libertarians) would involve rewarding the winners by requiring them to reproduce (by cellular division) creating MORE choice and MORE freedom.
As it applies specifically to the google, the old corporate motto about EVIL has been replaced with "All your attention are belong to us." The mission statement has also mutated. There was too much information, so it got prioritized. The new mission statement is to make the advertising information available and the metric of utility is the profits of the corporations that are paying the google corporation. Any benefit to human beings has become rather incidental to the gawd-given mission of shareholder value.
I was hesitant to bring North Korea back into the picture... I keep thinking that China will want to use #PresidentTweety's incompetence to "recover" Taiwan. If they could get the self-proclaimed "great deal-maker" to offer them Taiwan for North Korea, I think they would jump on that deal in a New York minute.
I still haven't ruled out this scenario, and perhaps the odds are increased now that Trump is involved in Syria... China could invade North Korea AND Taiwan at the same time. I think America would basically be forced to react in the Korean direction just because there are already lots of American boots on the ground (though all of the shouting will be about the South Korean civilians). They might get attacked by the desperate North Koreans or maybe even by the Chinese in retaliation for any American interference in Taiwan. In that scenario, the Chinese would actually slow walk in North Korea. After Taiwan was sufficiently "consolidated", then they would mop up North Korea, remove the nuclear materials and people, and walk out. The offer that Trump couldn't refuse would be along the lines of "Here's North Korea for you and South Korea, and thanks for giving us the side order of Taiwan." Given the current state of both Koreas, that mess would keep the Donald sufficiently busy while they finished reintegrating Taiwan into China.
It might even be possible that Putin has an understanding with the Chinese on some aspects of this. Don't forget that Putin is a past master of false flag operations and other shenanigans. You might want to look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... or the book Putin's Kleptocracy. Putin was also a professional puppet-master for the KGB, so he may have been sure Trump would go off half-cocked in Syria even if it turns out the sarin was "Made in Russia".
Just so, which is why I'm increasingly inclined towards the simpler theory that Putin just put a few sarin bombs in with the latest arms shipment. Pretty sure that Russia has sufficient HUMINT in Syria to have a very good idea of where each bomb they deliver is likely to wind up and they have sufficiently sophisticated logistics systems to manage the proper deliveries of the 'special' bombs.
Remember that Putin is a past master of false flag operations. You might want to look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... or the book Putin's Kleptocracy. Putin was also trained as a puppet-master by the KGB when he recruited in Germany.
There's also a question of motive. Increased instability in the Middle East means higher oil prices, which is "wonderful" if you're a Russian or American oil company. Sometimes #PresidentTweety is like the broken clock that occasionally gets it right: "Sad, so sad."
Hmm... Mostly because I think Assad is smart enough to keep the WMDs in the more secure parts of the country.
By the way, I'm pretty sure Assad had chemical weapons and consider it unlikely that he disposed of all of them. However, I just don't see the military necessity or advantage in using them last week. Or rather I see the advantage for Putin and Russia's oil companies if the Syrian situation escalates and drives up oil prices, but there's nothing in it for Assad.
Really awkward if now that #PresidentTweety has gone off half-cocked it turns out the sarin was made in Russia, eh?
I vaguely remember that handle as a troll of some sort. Are you playing me with a plausible comment?
My latest theory is that Putin has yanked Trump's chain. He slipped the sarin bombs into an arms shipment to Assad, counting on the Donald to go off half-cocked. Even if trace element analysis or some other technical method eventually proves the sarin was "Made in Russia", #PresidentTweety will just chant "More fake news."
Putin also uses false flag operations. I would suggest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... or the book Putin's Kleptocracy. Remember Putin was also trained as a professional puppet-master by the KGB.
I'm not sure how you interpreted my comment to be a "complaint against Iran" except that you somehow detected (perhaps from other discussions?) my fundamental dislike of religion-based governments. I certainly don't like the religious nutjobs who run Iran, but in terms of sitting back and letting America make YUGE mistakes and then taking advantage of those mistakes, they are looking relatively clever.
Perhaps we should look at it from the RoI perspective? I would contend that Great Britain invested relatively little in the region, so perhaps it is not surprising that their results were limited and largely poor. In contrast, America has ramped the investments way up, but the returns have been quite miserable. America's resulting influence and control over the Middle East are quite minuscule relative to the investments of money and even human lives. As #PresidentTweety would put it, "Sad. So sad."
Right now I think Putin has probably yanked Trump's chain. I think Putin slipped a few sarin bombs into his last shipment to Assad, and he was counting on the Donald to go off half-cocked. Even if isotopic analysis or some other method eventually proves the sarin was "Made in Russia", Putin can count on Trump and his fans to chant "More fake news."
Putin is a past master of false flag operations. You might want to look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... or the book Putin's Kleptocracy. He was also trained as a professional puppet-master by the KGB.
No, I'm NOT a fan of big wars (though I believe your indirect question was primarily rhetorical), but there are people who do love them. They tend to support Putin and #PresidentTweety, sometimes without regard to their own actual nationalities.
In particular, I just realized that increased conflict in the Middle East could drive the price of oil up. That bad news looks rather good to Russian and American oil companies. I also realized that Putin may have counted on #PresidentTweety to go off half-cocked.
Not funny if it turns out the sarin was "Made in Russia". For example, the source might be proven by trace element or isotopic analysis, but the Donald would just say it's "more fake news".
Can't figure out if you [msauve] are sincerely ignorant, a bit simpleminded, or just a troll. I anticipate that your reply will clarify the issue...
Most obviously, there are PLENTY of other actors involved in EVERYTHING that is going on in Syria. That Assad had some planes in the area is significant, but it doesn't really prove much about what happened. There are at least two alternative scenarios I can think of already, but you seem to favor the least likely scenario. So far I've seen no evidence that convinces me Assad would derive significant military benefit from ordering this particular war crime. Militarily insignificant, and no time pressure or other urgent reason pushing for it.
The scenario I regard as less likely is that one of the "other actors" wanted to make Assad look bad by releasing the nerve gas. The city was a known target, so all they would have needed to do was get the sarin to the right location and wait for a suitable airstrike. Some difficulty in releasing it during the chaos of an airstrike, but possible. The most likely actors I'd pick for this would actually be the Iranians or the Kurds, and both of them might regard it as partial revenge for when they got hit with chemical weapons (ca 1980). ISIL would love to do it, but I hope they don't have the sarin and if they did they might even prefer to use it on military targets. I think Turkey, the Kurds, and most rebel factions wouldn't do it, but there are Saudi Arabians and various other candidates with various motives. I hate to mention the Israelis, but yeah, they're plenty interested, too. I think the overall likelihood is low because of the waiting period when they would have to keep the sarin hidden--unless this city gets bombed frequently, in which case they could have just recently smuggled the sarin into place.
The more likely scenario is that Putin did it. If so, then I think he was probably hoping that #PresidentTweety would react just as he did. If Putin is supplying Assad's bombs, then this could have been quite easy to arrange. Just include a few sarin bombs in the latest delivery. The obvious goal would be to drag America into another quagmire. Occam's Razor likes it.
Seems unlikely that the rebels could get the sarin. Also, they would have to keep it on hand while waiting for a suitable airstrike from Assad, and then release it in a way that could have come from bombs. Doing all of that in the chaos of an actual bombing attack seems pretty tough.
Much easier for Putin to arrange it. Wouldn't even need the pilot to know that a few of his bombs had been switched for poison gas bombs. All it would take is a fighter support crew 'donated' by Putin as part of his support of Assad. Or maybe even simpler if Assad's people can't inspect the weapons they receive from Russia. Just mix a few sarin bombs into the latest delivery.
When I think about it that way, suddenly it could make sense. Putin could almost surely anticipate that #PresidentTweety would react almost exactly as he did. The exact reaction is not critical if Putin's goal is just to draw America further into the quagmire. Might even count as a business transaction if (1) Putin is sure that Assad has the cash to buy replacement weapons from Russia, and (2) Assad is unsure whether any of his soldiers are hiding some sarin from him. Condition (2) could be tricky, because if Assad realized that Putin did it to provoke the American reaction, then he'd have to be a real idiot to buy more weapons from Putin. Some limited evidence that Assad is not an idiot.
You didn't get any "insight" mods, but I think yours was one of the better comments so far. However, you did leave out some of the key players in the mess.
In particular Iran was the big winner of Dubya's war against Saddam, and they seem to be playing a similar game in Syria now. Basically just laying low and moving into the power vacuums that appear. They would gladly consolidate a Shia caliphate if they could. Turkey is quite nearby and extremely concerned, though it is hard to tell if they are more concerned about getting more involved or about the situation getting more out of control. Meanwhile, the Saudi Arabians are pumping money into the mess and might get desperate if their "proxy warriors" in the region are being exterminated on a wholesale basis.
#PresidentTweety has not done anything to improve the situation, but it's unclear if the launch of roughly $100 million of fancy missiles is going to make things worse. Hard to see how things could get worse (especially in Syria and North Korea), but I keep getting surprised in the worst way... (I just hope Bannon is really on his way out rather than on route to greater mischief.)
Or Putin resupplied Assad. Just finished searching for "insightful" comments, and yours (no insult intended) was as lacking in insight as any of the others. Also checked for "funny", but not surprised by the lack there, since it's not a funny topic.
I'll review again later, but the real question is why Putin let Assad do it, if it was actually Assad's people. Still quite possible to me that other actors are involved, though I'd pick Putin's people over the rebels. Actually I think ISIL would be the most likely to benefit, but I hope they can't get the WMDs, and if they did, I'd think that they'd be more likely to target enemy soldiers.
Hmm... Small world syndrome? Just now reading Dogfight about the smartphone competition between Apple and the google. Don't tell me how it ends, but I'm already feeling like the author is going to come out against Apple...
However, I think that Apple has the big advantage in fixing security problems precisely because the consumers have so little freedom. I currently have three Android devices and have no idea which of them, if any are vulnerable. It would be worse if my two older phones hadn't died already. On the plus side, I normally leave the WiFi switched off.
Time to look for some funny comments, but I'm not sure I see the potential humor in the topic. Corporate cancerism is no joke, and in this case it means we have no legal defenses. The makers sure ain't liable.
The article even included the obvious clues when it mentioned "quality assurance" and "Indiegogo", but not a single comment so far looked in that direction. Tiny bit of goodness in that some of the funny-moderated comments actually were, but it was another low-hanging target for jokes.
So why was the "quality assurance" bad? Why insufficient testing? Because the funding model of Indiegogo is bad and doesn't require it. From the Indiegogo perspective, this looks like a "success" because it got more money than it needed, but the resulting product is not good, which is bad but not any of Indiegogo's concern. There were a couple of EULA-related comments here, but they focused on the developer who got the money, not the Indiegogo funding model that gave him the money without checking for such things.
Solutions might be available. I've even written about my own favorite, a charity share brokerage focused on PROJECT MANAGEMENT so that this sort of thing won't happen. That proposal is even designed so that the brokerage can't claim success unless there's some evidence the results met their success criteria. No evidence of understanding or interest on Slashdot, so (1) Feel free to rummage among my old comments (though on Slashdot most of the discussions have been dragged down to the level of the trolls), (2) Feel free to offer your better idea (though I obviously think you're wasting your time on today's Slashdot), or (3) Ask real nicely and maybe I'll waste the keystrokes again.
The modal commenter on today's Slashdot could not catch a clue after being stripped naked, being dipped in clue musk, and being dumped in a field of clues at the peak of clue mating season.
"Doctor Android, tell me the truth! Is it corporate cancerism?"
Just the obligatory weak joke, but the topic is much deeper. I can't decide whether or not this is a good thing.
Obviously it's basically driven by Moore's Law. We can now pack enough computing power into a smartphone that most people don't need a full-sized computer for their daily tasks. Microsoft sort of saw it coming, but on the distorted and twisted foundation of their cancerously overgrown OSes and bloated applications, they never figured out how to do small things. That left the increasingly important small world to Apple and the google, but I think they are evil, too.
More or less evil seems like a difficult trade-off, but that seems to be where all our shopping decisions arrive these days. If you can point me at a really large and successful company that is not tainted by the evil, please do so. I'd feel much better.
I think the real problem is that American capitalism died years ago. What we have now is corporate cancerism. We basically take it for granted that the rules are written by the most cheaply bribed politicians and the bribers are the most dominant and hugest companies working to get rules that eliminate all the "loser" companies. Per my sig, the real EVIL is the resulting loss of freedom as competition is eliminated.
Do we still have any meaningful freedom in smartphones? At least two choices would be better than one, if you think Apple is competing against the google. However my impression is that relatively few people consider both options. The customers seem to live in like separate, not competing, worlds. Or maybe the choices within the Android world count, even if the google has all of those choices by the balls?
Now I'm about 75% convinced that you're a troll. There really is an objective reality and it matters.
Perhaps I'm too tepid a "supporter", but I have never met a supporter of President Obama who thought that everything he did was good.
Perhaps I'm too tepid an "opponent" of #PresidentTweety, but I have only seen a couple of Trump's actions that were good. Unfortunately most of them were in the category of "Apple pie tastes good." In general, the Donald's grip on such crucial realities as climate change is quite weak, but the sad part to me is that he isn't actually putting ideology ahead of reality. I've concluded that he just doesn't care. Never had to, and isn't about to start now.
Still don't know whether or not it's an April Fool's Joke and whether or not you're some kind of troll, but pretending there was some sincerity under your comment, and trying to treat it as a question, here's why:
American capitalism has died. Old-fashioned capitalism has now mutated into something that we should call corporate cancerism. The Russians have basically the same thing, though they got there by a different route. Now we are witnessing a battle royale between two strains of economic cancer. #PresidentTweety has no idea what is going on, but his last handler told him this was a good thing to do (or not, in the April Fool's case).
I was going to comment, but the pilot Fast Ben's comment got most of it. What I'll say here is just that I dispute the mod. If your approach is bad, you're supposed to go around.
Well, I certainly hope you [Fast Ben] are a better pilot than I was (which wouldn't be difficult), but you didn't consider the width. If the runway is reasonably wide and you control your approach properly, then you would be landing straight and slowing down to a safe taxi speed well before you need to start following the curve.
If your approach is bad, then you're supposed to go around anyway. From that perspective it might actually increase the safety if there is a clear buffer zone around the airport. I still remember the time I was on final and a sudden crosswind lined me up over the parked planes... However, the "sudden crosswind" is a case that this design would still be vulnerable to, so you still need planes and pilots that can handle such situations. (No mention of "sudden" in the comments, but that doesn't much surprise me on Slashdot these days. Maybe I should be surprised to see another pilot here at all? A lot of today's comments are from people who know little whereof they speak... (Though I still miss the "funny" more.))
I think the instrument landing part is where you earned the "insightful" mod, though I doubt the moderator knows why. However, I think it is basically a software problem. Yes, you'd need more beacons, but mostly you'd need to be able to interpret their data from more orientations. I think you'd have to calculate every instrument approach for the current conditions, and probably for the individual plane.
Slashdot Mirror
Now you're reminding me of How Google Works . My short summary is that they seem to be saying they want most of the google employees to be in the Venn diagram intersection of the set of super-productive engineers, the set of hyper-creative dreamers, and the set of extreme money-grubbers, though they describe the last set more diplomatically. They reworded it in terms of a kind of an acute awareness of the economic realities of how to profit. They also want them to be extremely competitive members of all three sets.
When they get people like that, there really aren't any substitutes to be accepted (or they would have hired them already). You suggest that it's reasonable to accept normal working hours, but that isn't how the google picked them in the first place. The hiring process is so skewed that the candidate who also wanted a home and family life was already eliminated from consideration. At least I think that's how it works most of the time, notwithstanding a few anecdotal exceptions.
Specifically relevant to this article, on that foundation they want to reward employees in relative proportion to their success as measured by bottom-line profits. Since some projects produce huge profits and others don't, the people involved with the the lucky projects get much more money. That's where we get to my speculations of how it produces the gender discrimination. The more I think about it the more I'm inclined towards the credit-claiming theory. Work Rules! hinted how difficult it is to assess proper credit so the aggressiveness on the claims may help produce the extreme results in the compensation.
Mostly based on the book Work Rules! (though I've read a bunch of google-related books recently, most recently Dogfight about the smartphone war), I think this may actually reflect the extreme pay differentials based on results, where the best results are biased in favor of aggressive males (driven by all that testosterone). There could be at least three possible mechanisms: (1) Pure aggressive competitiveness producing the results, (2) Greater aggressiveness in claiming credit for the results, and (3) Better work-life balance by the women.
In conclusion, the entire google topic always saddens me. So much potential to make the world better and now completely undone by corporate cancerism, the American business philosophy that buried capitalism. The way it works now, freedom is the problem, so the most cheaply bribed politicians are paid to write the worse possible laws to benefit the biggest and most cancerous corporations. As the second referenced book puts it, the winner gets around 75% of the market and almost all of the profits and the losers struggle to stay in business at all. Real capitalism (especially in the fantasy world of the libertarians) would involve rewarding the winners by requiring them to reproduce (by cellular division) creating MORE choice and MORE freedom.
As it applies specifically to the google, the old corporate motto about EVIL has been replaced with "All your attention are belong to us." The mission statement has also mutated. There was too much information, so it got prioritized. The new mission statement is to make the advertising information available and the metric of utility is the profits of the corporations that are paying the google corporation. Any benefit to human beings has become rather incidental to the gawd-given mission of shareholder value.
Z^2
Your anecdotal evidence is completely unpersuasive. Are you a paid troll?
I was hesitant to bring North Korea back into the picture... I keep thinking that China will want to use #PresidentTweety's incompetence to "recover" Taiwan. If they could get the self-proclaimed "great deal-maker" to offer them Taiwan for North Korea, I think they would jump on that deal in a New York minute.
I still haven't ruled out this scenario, and perhaps the odds are increased now that Trump is involved in Syria... China could invade North Korea AND Taiwan at the same time. I think America would basically be forced to react in the Korean direction just because there are already lots of American boots on the ground (though all of the shouting will be about the South Korean civilians). They might get attacked by the desperate North Koreans or maybe even by the Chinese in retaliation for any American interference in Taiwan. In that scenario, the Chinese would actually slow walk in North Korea. After Taiwan was sufficiently "consolidated", then they would mop up North Korea, remove the nuclear materials and people, and walk out. The offer that Trump couldn't refuse would be along the lines of "Here's North Korea for you and South Korea, and thanks for giving us the side order of Taiwan." Given the current state of both Koreas, that mess would keep the Donald sufficiently busy while they finished reintegrating Taiwan into China.
It might even be possible that Putin has an understanding with the Chinese on some aspects of this. Don't forget that Putin is a past master of false flag operations and other shenanigans. You might want to look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... or the book Putin's Kleptocracy . Putin was also a professional puppet-master for the KGB, so he may have been sure Trump would go off half-cocked in Syria even if it turns out the sarin was "Made in Russia".
Just so, which is why I'm increasingly inclined towards the simpler theory that Putin just put a few sarin bombs in with the latest arms shipment. Pretty sure that Russia has sufficient HUMINT in Syria to have a very good idea of where each bomb they deliver is likely to wind up and they have sufficiently sophisticated logistics systems to manage the proper deliveries of the 'special' bombs.
Remember that Putin is a past master of false flag operations. You might want to look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... or the book Putin's Kleptocracy . Putin was also trained as a puppet-master by the KGB when he recruited in Germany.
There's also a question of motive. Increased instability in the Middle East means higher oil prices, which is "wonderful" if you're a Russian or American oil company. Sometimes #PresidentTweety is like the broken clock that occasionally gets it right: "Sad, so sad."
Hmm... Mostly because I think Assad is smart enough to keep the WMDs in the more secure parts of the country.
By the way, I'm pretty sure Assad had chemical weapons and consider it unlikely that he disposed of all of them. However, I just don't see the military necessity or advantage in using them last week. Or rather I see the advantage for Putin and Russia's oil companies if the Syrian situation escalates and drives up oil prices, but there's nothing in it for Assad.
Really awkward if now that #PresidentTweety has gone off half-cocked it turns out the sarin was made in Russia, eh?
I vaguely remember that handle as a troll of some sort. Are you playing me with a plausible comment?
My latest theory is that Putin has yanked Trump's chain. He slipped the sarin bombs into an arms shipment to Assad, counting on the Donald to go off half-cocked. Even if trace element analysis or some other technical method eventually proves the sarin was "Made in Russia", #PresidentTweety will just chant "More fake news."
Putin also uses false flag operations. I would suggest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... or the book Putin's Kleptocracy . Remember Putin was also trained as a professional puppet-master by the KGB.
Z^1
I'm not sure how you interpreted my comment to be a "complaint against Iran" except that you somehow detected (perhaps from other discussions?) my fundamental dislike of religion-based governments. I certainly don't like the religious nutjobs who run Iran, but in terms of sitting back and letting America make YUGE mistakes and then taking advantage of those mistakes, they are looking relatively clever.
Perhaps we should look at it from the RoI perspective? I would contend that Great Britain invested relatively little in the region, so perhaps it is not surprising that their results were limited and largely poor. In contrast, America has ramped the investments way up, but the returns have been quite miserable. America's resulting influence and control over the Middle East are quite minuscule relative to the investments of money and even human lives. As #PresidentTweety would put it, "Sad. So sad."
Right now I think Putin has probably yanked Trump's chain. I think Putin slipped a few sarin bombs into his last shipment to Assad, and he was counting on the Donald to go off half-cocked. Even if isotopic analysis or some other method eventually proves the sarin was "Made in Russia", Putin can count on Trump and his fans to chant "More fake news."
Putin is a past master of false flag operations. You might want to look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... or the book Putin's Kleptocracy . He was also trained as a professional puppet-master by the KGB.
Goodbye sweet troll (perhaps paid or a sincere nutjob). Any further comments will receive exactly the deep consideration they deserve.
No, I'm NOT a fan of big wars (though I believe your indirect question was primarily rhetorical), but there are people who do love them. They tend to support Putin and #PresidentTweety, sometimes without regard to their own actual nationalities.
In particular, I just realized that increased conflict in the Middle East could drive the price of oil up. That bad news looks rather good to Russian and American oil companies. I also realized that Putin may have counted on #PresidentTweety to go off half-cocked.
Not funny if it turns out the sarin was "Made in Russia". For example, the source might be proven by trace element or isotopic analysis, but the Donald would just say it's "more fake news".
Can't figure out if you [msauve] are sincerely ignorant, a bit simpleminded, or just a troll. I anticipate that your reply will clarify the issue...
Most obviously, there are PLENTY of other actors involved in EVERYTHING that is going on in Syria. That Assad had some planes in the area is significant, but it doesn't really prove much about what happened. There are at least two alternative scenarios I can think of already, but you seem to favor the least likely scenario. So far I've seen no evidence that convinces me Assad would derive significant military benefit from ordering this particular war crime. Militarily insignificant, and no time pressure or other urgent reason pushing for it.
The scenario I regard as less likely is that one of the "other actors" wanted to make Assad look bad by releasing the nerve gas. The city was a known target, so all they would have needed to do was get the sarin to the right location and wait for a suitable airstrike. Some difficulty in releasing it during the chaos of an airstrike, but possible. The most likely actors I'd pick for this would actually be the Iranians or the Kurds, and both of them might regard it as partial revenge for when they got hit with chemical weapons (ca 1980). ISIL would love to do it, but I hope they don't have the sarin and if they did they might even prefer to use it on military targets. I think Turkey, the Kurds, and most rebel factions wouldn't do it, but there are Saudi Arabians and various other candidates with various motives. I hate to mention the Israelis, but yeah, they're plenty interested, too. I think the overall likelihood is low because of the waiting period when they would have to keep the sarin hidden--unless this city gets bombed frequently, in which case they could have just recently smuggled the sarin into place.
The more likely scenario is that Putin did it. If so, then I think he was probably hoping that #PresidentTweety would react just as he did. If Putin is supplying Assad's bombs, then this could have been quite easy to arrange. Just include a few sarin bombs in the latest delivery. The obvious goal would be to drag America into another quagmire. Occam's Razor likes it.
Seems unlikely that the rebels could get the sarin. Also, they would have to keep it on hand while waiting for a suitable airstrike from Assad, and then release it in a way that could have come from bombs. Doing all of that in the chaos of an actual bombing attack seems pretty tough.
Much easier for Putin to arrange it. Wouldn't even need the pilot to know that a few of his bombs had been switched for poison gas bombs. All it would take is a fighter support crew 'donated' by Putin as part of his support of Assad. Or maybe even simpler if Assad's people can't inspect the weapons they receive from Russia. Just mix a few sarin bombs into the latest delivery.
When I think about it that way, suddenly it could make sense. Putin could almost surely anticipate that #PresidentTweety would react almost exactly as he did. The exact reaction is not critical if Putin's goal is just to draw America further into the quagmire. Might even count as a business transaction if (1) Putin is sure that Assad has the cash to buy replacement weapons from Russia, and (2) Assad is unsure whether any of his soldiers are hiding some sarin from him. Condition (2) could be tricky, because if Assad realized that Putin did it to provoke the American reaction, then he'd have to be a real idiot to buy more weapons from Putin. Some limited evidence that Assad is not an idiot.
You didn't get any "insight" mods, but I think yours was one of the better comments so far. However, you did leave out some of the key players in the mess.
In particular Iran was the big winner of Dubya's war against Saddam, and they seem to be playing a similar game in Syria now. Basically just laying low and moving into the power vacuums that appear. They would gladly consolidate a Shia caliphate if they could. Turkey is quite nearby and extremely concerned, though it is hard to tell if they are more concerned about getting more involved or about the situation getting more out of control. Meanwhile, the Saudi Arabians are pumping money into the mess and might get desperate if their "proxy warriors" in the region are being exterminated on a wholesale basis.
#PresidentTweety has not done anything to improve the situation, but it's unclear if the launch of roughly $100 million of fancy missiles is going to make things worse. Hard to see how things could get worse (especially in Syria and North Korea), but I keep getting surprised in the worst way... (I just hope Bannon is really on his way out rather than on route to greater mischief.)
Or Putin resupplied Assad. Just finished searching for "insightful" comments, and yours (no insult intended) was as lacking in insight as any of the others. Also checked for "funny", but not surprised by the lack there, since it's not a funny topic.
I'll review again later, but the real question is why Putin let Assad do it, if it was actually Assad's people. Still quite possible to me that other actors are involved, though I'd pick Putin's people over the rebels. Actually I think ISIL would be the most likely to benefit, but I hope they can't get the WMDs, and if they did, I'd think that they'd be more likely to target enemy soldiers.
Hmm... Small world syndrome? Just now reading Dogfight about the smartphone competition between Apple and the google. Don't tell me how it ends, but I'm already feeling like the author is going to come out against Apple...
However, I think that Apple has the big advantage in fixing security problems precisely because the consumers have so little freedom. I currently have three Android devices and have no idea which of them, if any are vulnerable. It would be worse if my two older phones hadn't died already. On the plus side, I normally leave the WiFi switched off.
Time to look for some funny comments, but I'm not sure I see the potential humor in the topic. Corporate cancerism is no joke, and in this case it means we have no legal defenses. The makers sure ain't liable.
The article even included the obvious clues when it mentioned "quality assurance" and "Indiegogo", but not a single comment so far looked in that direction. Tiny bit of goodness in that some of the funny-moderated comments actually were, but it was another low-hanging target for jokes.
So why was the "quality assurance" bad? Why insufficient testing? Because the funding model of Indiegogo is bad and doesn't require it. From the Indiegogo perspective, this looks like a "success" because it got more money than it needed, but the resulting product is not good, which is bad but not any of Indiegogo's concern. There were a couple of EULA-related comments here, but they focused on the developer who got the money, not the Indiegogo funding model that gave him the money without checking for such things.
Solutions might be available. I've even written about my own favorite, a charity share brokerage focused on PROJECT MANAGEMENT so that this sort of thing won't happen. That proposal is even designed so that the brokerage can't claim success unless there's some evidence the results met their success criteria. No evidence of understanding or interest on Slashdot, so (1) Feel free to rummage among my old comments (though on Slashdot most of the discussions have been dragged down to the level of the trolls), (2) Feel free to offer your better idea (though I obviously think you're wasting your time on today's Slashdot), or (3) Ask real nicely and maybe I'll waste the keystrokes again.
The modal commenter on today's Slashdot could not catch a clue after being stripped naked, being dipped in clue musk, and being dumped in a field of clues at the peak of clue mating season.
"Doctor Android, tell me the truth! Is it corporate cancerism?"
Just the obligatory weak joke, but the topic is much deeper. I can't decide whether or not this is a good thing.
Obviously it's basically driven by Moore's Law. We can now pack enough computing power into a smartphone that most people don't need a full-sized computer for their daily tasks. Microsoft sort of saw it coming, but on the distorted and twisted foundation of their cancerously overgrown OSes and bloated applications, they never figured out how to do small things. That left the increasingly important small world to Apple and the google, but I think they are evil, too.
More or less evil seems like a difficult trade-off, but that seems to be where all our shopping decisions arrive these days. If you can point me at a really large and successful company that is not tainted by the evil, please do so. I'd feel much better.
I think the real problem is that American capitalism died years ago. What we have now is corporate cancerism. We basically take it for granted that the rules are written by the most cheaply bribed politicians and the bribers are the most dominant and hugest companies working to get rules that eliminate all the "loser" companies. Per my sig, the real EVIL is the resulting loss of freedom as competition is eliminated.
Do we still have any meaningful freedom in smartphones? At least two choices would be better than one, if you think Apple is competing against the google. However my impression is that relatively few people consider both options. The customers seem to live in like separate, not competing, worlds. Or maybe the choices within the Android world count, even if the google has all of those choices by the balls?
Z^2
Z^1
Now I'm about 75% convinced that you're a troll. There really is an objective reality and it matters.
Perhaps I'm too tepid a "supporter", but I have never met a supporter of President Obama who thought that everything he did was good.
Perhaps I'm too tepid an "opponent" of #PresidentTweety, but I have only seen a couple of Trump's actions that were good. Unfortunately most of them were in the category of "Apple pie tastes good." In general, the Donald's grip on such crucial realities as climate change is quite weak, but the sad part to me is that he isn't actually putting ideology ahead of reality. I've concluded that he just doesn't care. Never had to, and isn't about to start now.
Still don't know whether or not it's an April Fool's Joke and whether or not you're some kind of troll, but pretending there was some sincerity under your comment, and trying to treat it as a question, here's why:
American capitalism has died. Old-fashioned capitalism has now mutated into something that we should call corporate cancerism. The Russians have basically the same thing, though they got there by a different route. Now we are witnessing a battle royale between two strains of economic cancer. #PresidentTweety has no idea what is going on, but his last handler told him this was a good thing to do (or not, in the April Fool's case).
Corporations win, humans lose. Have a nice day?
I was going to comment, but the pilot Fast Ben's comment got most of it. What I'll say here is just that I dispute the mod. If your approach is bad, you're supposed to go around.
Well, I certainly hope you [Fast Ben] are a better pilot than I was (which wouldn't be difficult), but you didn't consider the width. If the runway is reasonably wide and you control your approach properly, then you would be landing straight and slowing down to a safe taxi speed well before you need to start following the curve.
If your approach is bad, then you're supposed to go around anyway. From that perspective it might actually increase the safety if there is a clear buffer zone around the airport. I still remember the time I was on final and a sudden crosswind lined me up over the parked planes... However, the "sudden crosswind" is a case that this design would still be vulnerable to, so you still need planes and pilots that can handle such situations. (No mention of "sudden" in the comments, but that doesn't much surprise me on Slashdot these days. Maybe I should be surprised to see another pilot here at all? A lot of today's comments are from people who know little whereof they speak... (Though I still miss the "funny" more.))
I think the instrument landing part is where you earned the "insightful" mod, though I doubt the moderator knows why. However, I think it is basically a software problem. Yes, you'd need more beacons, but mostly you'd need to be able to interpret their data from more orientations. I think you'd have to calculate every instrument approach for the current conditions, and probably for the individual plane.