"The story here is that they knew that their batteries were defective"
Define "defective".
Never mind, I'll read the article and do it for you.
"Discussions were about the problem of small metal particles that had contaminated Lithium-Ion battery cells manufactured by Sony, causing batteries to fail and, in some cases, overheat."
They were aware that some batteries could fail. "Fail" and "In some cases, overheat", do not mean "OHMYGODALLTHEBATTERIESAREGOINGTOKILLPEOPLE!" It means "There is a problem with the batteries and we should look at them."
Unless of course you think that that clearly means they were dangerous.
"[...] the company did not recall batteries that it thought might contain the particles because it wasn't clear that they were dangerous. [...] "We didn't have confirmation of incidents [involving fires] until relatively recently.""
The story here is that they knew the batteries were defective, investigated what was happening, and did something about it when they found out what was happening. Look closely at your, sorry, Chuck Palahniuk's equation. When you have no reason to believe that B or C are any greater than zero, then X equals zero. It doesn't take a genius to figure that part out.
As an aside I recently broke the case of a flash drive and then left the whole thing in my pocket when I went to wash my pants. While unloading the drier, which was set to "Holy Freakin Hot Batman", I noticed the inner part of the drive fall to the ground. Just the PCB and USB connector.
"One of my strongest memories of Bard's Tale was how all of the houses in the town all looked the same and you practically needed a AAA map to find your way around."
That's why there was a map of the town, with all the streets labeled, inside the album cover. It was a subtle "piracy check". Instead of stopping you and asking you to spin a code wheel or look up a word from the manual, it just made the game a lot harder if you didn't have the original documentation.
"This is precisely the same problem with Star Wars: Episode One. It is impossible to live up to the memory of seeing Star Wars for the first time, especially [...]"
...when Episode One sucked.
Don't get me wrong. Pod Racers. Jedi Duels. Closing Credits. As long as you fast forward over everything but those parts it's a good movie, and it compared well with the previous Star Wars release, but overall it could have been much much better.
The Canadian online census form required a web browser and Java. While that's a step up from being a plain HTML form, I think calling it "special software" is a bit of an exaggeration.
When VMS did the same thing, oh, what was it, two hundred years ago? You know, back when everything from your mastadon to the fire at the mouth of your cave ran on VMS. When they did it it was something new and interesting.
Why should I be excited that Windows is finally picking up a useful feature that was around before many of its developers were born?
"You don't need it - you want it. You want it to make the entire web experience better."
Except when I don't because it makes my entire experience much worse. A particular peeve of mine is image galleries which tie javascript actions to each thumbnail so that they will all open in the same external window. What I _want_ to do is to middle-click a few of the images which look interesting, open them each up in seperate tabs, read the article, and then look at the full sized pictures when they are all done loading. Using javascript actions to load each image prevents me from doing that, while using standardized a tags with well supported attributes can do the same thing without breaking my browser. The only reason to use javascript is to reduce bandwidth costs by preventing users from accessing your content and discouraging them from returning.
"We now live in the world of DHTML and security is just going to have to deal with it."
Except that...
"Javascript is broken [...]"
If you're saying that the world should just suck it up and deal with using javascript for trivial matters even though it is broken then that makes about as much sense as making children's lunch boxes out of depleted uranium and saying that they will just have to deal with the health concerns until the uranium manufacturers can get their act together.
I think that a more sensible solution is to stop using the broken features altogether until they are completely fixed.
"From the user standpoint, Javascript is essential (see maps.google.com, or gmail)"
What's interesting to me is that there are other services which handle maps and email without relying on any javascript and they work just fine for me. That tells me that javascript is _not_ essential. It's a question of need-it vs. want-it, and while there are some cases where javascript really is needed, mostly it's used to either provide useless features or to reinvent wheels that already exist in safer, cleaner forms.
"Users could turn off JavaScript, which really isn't a solution because so many Web sites rely on it."
Yes it is. Users could also politely point out to the authors and administrators of the majority of web sites which rely on javascript that they really, absolutely, positively don't need it. You don't need javascript to open a link to another page. You don't need javascript to open an image in a gallery. You don't need javascript to submit a username and password. You just don't need it. I would say that using scripted actions for that is lazy and stupid, but it actually involves a good deal more work than using proper HTML. That makes it just plain stupid.
This is World of Warcraft we're talking about. The home of the ugliest male characters in any computer game since the Sinclair ZX80 port of Dig Dug. Why do people have to trot out the old "Durrr... it's because people give girls stuff!" argument when all they have to do is look at the character creation screen to see why many people choose female characters?
So it's not that there were unexpected hardware problems or any lack or preparation, it's just that they really were demonstrating a bug-ridden piece of crap that should never have been let out of its cage.
I suppose that some times the simplest explanation really is the right one.
Any time there is a viable third candidate, no candidate will get 50%. That's a mathematical fact.
To emphasize, I'll use numbers close to the ones you used as examples: 51, 34, 15. Did I just violate your "mathematical fact"? Sorry, I guess I'll just have to start acting as if the world revolved around everything you want to be true was actually true.
But that is contrary to the definition of "viable third candidate" which clearly states that to be viable, the third candidate must take away enough votes to reduce the first two candidates below 50%. It's not so much a matter of mathematics as sophistry. Get used to it if you're going to stick around here very long.
Slashdot Mirror
Define "defective".
Never mind, I'll read the article and do it for you.
"Discussions were about the problem of small metal particles that had contaminated Lithium-Ion battery cells manufactured by Sony, causing batteries to fail and, in some cases, overheat."
They were aware that some batteries could fail. "Fail" and "In some cases, overheat", do not mean "OHMYGODALLTHEBATTERIESAREGOINGTOKILLPEOPLE!" It means "There is a problem with the batteries and we should look at them."
Unless of course you think that that clearly means they were dangerous.
"[...] the company did not recall batteries that it thought might contain the particles because it wasn't clear that they were dangerous. [...] "We didn't have confirmation of incidents [involving fires] until relatively recently.""
The story here is that they knew the batteries were defective, investigated what was happening, and did something about it when they found out what was happening. Look closely at your, sorry, Chuck Palahniuk's equation. When you have no reason to believe that B or C are any greater than zero, then X equals zero. It doesn't take a genius to figure that part out.
Well, the chief cause of laptops exploding is mispellings.
I plugged it in and it still worked just fine.
A few years back the BBC tested a variety of memory cards by dunking them in Cola, nailing them to a tree and even handing them to a six year old boy with instructions to destroy them. Every one of them survived up to the sledgehammer and nail-gun tests, but even then most of the data was recoverable.
What's the moral to this story? Don't write anything on a memory card that you don't want someone else recovering.
You gotta wonder if the person who submitted article had even read it.
I think you misspelled "people will download it for free". Which brings us back to the original problem that Kevin was talking about.
You can use control and left/right arrow to rotate the map if you don't like the way it is laid out.
Oh, I didn't know they had Gigli.
That's why there was a map of the town, with all the streets labeled, inside the album cover. It was a subtle "piracy check". Instead of stopping you and asking you to spin a code wheel or look up a word from the manual, it just made the game a lot harder if you didn't have the original documentation.
Don't get me wrong. Pod Racers. Jedi Duels. Closing Credits. As long as you fast forward over everything but those parts it's a good movie, and it compared well with the previous Star Wars release, but overall it could have been much much better.
That sounds awfully close to disrepecting Civilization 4.
The Canadian online census form required a web browser and Java. While that's a step up from being a plain HTML form, I think calling it "special software" is a bit of an exaggeration.
Except that tomorrow is 2006-08-02, followed by 2006-08-03 and 2006-08-04.
When VMS did the same thing, oh, what was it, two hundred years ago? You know, back when everything from your mastadon to the fire at the mouth of your cave ran on VMS. When they did it it was something new and interesting.
Why should I be excited that Windows is finally picking up a useful feature that was around before many of its developers were born?
Except when I don't because it makes my entire experience much worse. A particular peeve of mine is image galleries which tie javascript actions to each thumbnail so that they will all open in the same external window. What I _want_ to do is to middle-click a few of the images which look interesting, open them each up in seperate tabs, read the article, and then look at the full sized pictures when they are all done loading. Using javascript actions to load each image prevents me from doing that, while using standardized a tags with well supported attributes can do the same thing without breaking my browser. The only reason to use javascript is to reduce bandwidth costs by preventing users from accessing your content and discouraging them from returning.
Except that...
If you're saying that the world should just suck it up and deal with using javascript for trivial matters even though it is broken then that makes about as much sense as making children's lunch boxes out of depleted uranium and saying that they will just have to deal with the health concerns until the uranium manufacturers can get their act together.
I think that a more sensible solution is to stop using the broken features altogether until they are completely fixed.
What's interesting to me is that there are other services which handle maps and email without relying on any javascript and they work just fine for me. That tells me that javascript is _not_ essential. It's a question of need-it vs. want-it, and while there are some cases where javascript really is needed, mostly it's used to either provide useless features or to reinvent wheels that already exist in safer, cleaner forms.
Yes it is. Users could also politely point out to the authors and administrators of the majority of web sites which rely on javascript that they really, absolutely, positively don't need it. You don't need javascript to open a link to another page. You don't need javascript to open an image in a gallery. You don't need javascript to submit a username and password. You just don't need it. I would say that using scripted actions for that is lazy and stupid, but it actually involves a good deal more work than using proper HTML. That makes it just plain stupid.
For the rare applications which actually require javascript and don't just use it as some kind of prostetic weiner replacement there is always the option of enabling scripting on a site by site basis. Turning scripting on for http://trusted.internal.site.on.your.local.net/ but not for http://random.russian.warez.and.porn.site/ really is a solution.
This is World of Warcraft we're talking about. The home of the ugliest male characters in any computer game since the Sinclair ZX80 port of Dig Dug. Why do people have to trot out the old "Durrr... it's because people give girls stuff!" argument when all they have to do is look at the character creation screen to see why many people choose female characters?
I'm assuming that you either are replying to the wrong post or Just Don't Get It.
Why not try reading the whole thread?
So it's not that there were unexpected hardware problems or any lack or preparation, it's just that they really were demonstrating a bug-ridden piece of crap that should never have been let out of its cage.
I suppose that some times the simplest explanation really is the right one.
And what will people call Canadian money? Visa bills?
Do you mean Navy Seals?
But that is contrary to the definition of "viable third candidate" which clearly states that to be viable, the third candidate must take away enough votes to reduce the first two candidates below 50%. It's not so much a matter of mathematics as sophistry. Get used to it if you're going to stick around here very long.
Unless, of course, some regulatory agency like the FAI defined an altitude of 100 km as being somehow significant.
Going 99 km up won't make you an astronaut. 100 km will. To go those extra few metres you need to tip your pilot.
Readers of the referenced article might have noticed that it was about Search Engine Optimization, and used the term explicitly.
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