As always, "Yes Prime Minister" has the answers to your political questions.
Sir Humphrey Appleby (Mr. Hacker's permanent secretary): With Trident we could obliterate the whole of Eastern Europe!
Jim Hacker (Prime Minister of the UK): I don’t want to obliterate the whole of Eastern Europe!
Sir Humphrey: It’s a deterrent.
Hacker: It’s a bluff. I probably wouldn’t use it.
Sir Humphrey: Yes, but they don’t know that you probably wouldn’t.
Hacker: They probably do.
Sir Humphrey: Yes, they probably know that you probably wouldn’t. But they can’t certainly know.
Hacker: They probably certainly know that I probably wouldn’t.
Sir Humphrey: Yes, but even though they probably certainly know that you probably wouldn’t, they don’t certainly know that, although you probably wouldn’t, there is no probability that you certainly would!
For more on this idea, read Larry Niven's "Flatlander", originally published in the March 1967 "Worlds of If"
"See them all? Sixty-four million people in Los Angeles alone. Eighteen billion in the whole world. Suppose there was a law against picking pockets? How would you enforce it?" She deftly extracted the cash from my wallet and handed the wallet back. "Get yourself a new wallet, and fast. It'll have a place for your address and a window for a tenth-star stamp. Put your address in right away, and a stamp, too. Then the next guy who takes it can pull out the money and drop your wallet in the nearest mailbox -- no sweat. Otherwise you lose your credit cards, your ident, everything." She stuffed two hundred-odd stars in cash between her breasts, flashing me a parting smile as she turned.
"Thanks," I called. Yes, I did. I was still bewildered, but she'd obviously stayed to help me. She could just as easily have kept wallet and all.
...the drowsiness data will be fed directly to your insurance company, so that they can deny any claims that you make and raise your rates because of your "dangerous driving habits".
David Jaffe has criticized the insider for having unrealistic expectations of working in the games industry.
He's right. Someone should have told us right up front, whenever we first had the vague notion that working in the games industry might just be more rewarding than being an overworked combination of galley slave and cabin boy, just what "realistic expectations" about industry jobs should be.
Here's a tip. At some time you're going to get treated like crap by some self-centred jackfruit with delusions of godhood. In the games industry we call those times "weekdays". Weekends are when you can get away from all that, since there aren't quite so many people in the office then. But don't worry, we'll only have to work weekends and evenings until we get past this next milestone. After that everything will be JUST FINE. Honest.
When you've had enough, you can always quit. I'm sure that nobody will give you any trouble with that at all.
It's entirely possible, in a monkeys-flying-out-of-your-butt way, that your work experience may be better than that, it's just insane to go into the business expecting anything different.
He might also be able to use simple civil service phrases like "Unfortunately, although the answer was indeed clear, simple, and straightforward, there is some difficulty in justifiably assigning to it the fourth of the epithets you applied to the statement, inasmuch as the precise correlation between the information you communicated and the facts, insofar as they can be determined and demonstrated, is such as to cause epistemological problems, of sufficient magnitude as to lay upon the logical and semantic resources of the English language a heavier burden than they can reasonably be expected to bear" in every day conversation.
All the monitors are 16x9 now (1920x1080). I have the same problem - I don't want to go "up" to 1920 from 1600x1200 (20" 4:3 flat panel I have from 2002 - cost 1000$) and lose 180 vertical pixels!
Don't worry. I have a cunning plan that can save you 60 of those pixels.
Don't worry, I'm sure that I can trust goggleshar1ng.com. They have an SSL certificate and a little banner on the site which says they are 100% hacker-free.
So, in real work business usage, I have to say, RIM, you've lost me personally, but do continue to make back bench, locked in deals with CEO's to get your phones locked into corporations while you can.
Um... Businesses don't prefer the Blackberry over the iPhone because RIM pays them to. They prefer it because the Blackberry comes with real security and centralized management solutions while the iPhone comes with... farting noises.
And if they can't give that information to him, they can certainly give it to the police.
But Mr. Moorehouse lives in England. The police have better things to do than waste their time dealing with stolen property, like using surveillance cameras to track down people who try to take pictures of police officers.
I don't want three blind men describing an elephant incorrectly. I want Civ.
So... why not play it? It's not like giant Civilization V robots have stomped all over the world and destroyed every copy of the original game with their overpowered death-lasers. If you still want to play the old Civilization, just load it up and play.
So the "best" way to build a team is to make sure that you have exactly one person who is good at each thing, and ensure that they don't have any kind of backup or "Plan B"?
That's frakkin' brilliant.
Until someone on your "A-Team" tries to leave the company. Or take a vacation. Or even go out for lunch. Then your entire organization suffers its justly deserved fate.
No-one is irreplaceable and anything can happen at any time. Just ask Johann Hölzel. Relying on this kind of team is not just putting all of your eggs in one basket, it's also hanging a big "Kick Me Hard" sign on it.
Regardless of what game you're going after, if you make any noise at all, any game in the vicinity will take off. If you fire off a shot, you can pretty much pack it up and go home. You're not getting anything that day.
Or, if you don't want to just pack it up and go home, you can always take shots at the insulators that Google has put up for your amusement.
Slashdot Mirror
As always, "Yes Prime Minister" has the answers to your political questions.
Mr. Hacker also learns about when to push the button and what a nuclear deterrent really means. Thirty years later it isn't any less true.
The driver of the truck, who had only leaned forward to scratch an itch on his ankle, was a little bit pissed about the whole affair.
Once he realized that he would have to deal with his insurance company, he faked a heart attack to get out of it. It's what we all would have done.
For more on this idea, read Larry Niven's "Flatlander", originally published in the March 1967 "Worlds of If"
"See them all? Sixty-four million people in Los Angeles alone. Eighteen billion in the whole world. Suppose there was a law against picking pockets? How would you enforce it?" She deftly extracted the cash from my wallet and handed the wallet back. "Get yourself a new wallet, and fast. It'll have a place for your address and a window for a tenth-star stamp. Put your address in right away, and a stamp, too. Then the next guy who takes it can pull out the money and drop your wallet in the nearest mailbox -- no sweat. Otherwise you lose your credit cards, your ident, everything." She stuffed two hundred-odd stars in cash between her breasts, flashing me a parting smile as she turned.
"Thanks," I called. Yes, I did. I was still bewildered, but she'd obviously stayed to help me. She could just as easily have kept wallet and all.
"No charge," she called back, and was gone.
Then the population of elephants with degrees would triple in the next six months.
Why should she have to mention just one? She has made it very clear that she reads all of them.
That's why you have to repeat.
...the drowsiness data will be fed directly to your insurance company, so that they can deny any claims that you make and raise your rates because of your "dangerous driving habits".
Isn't progress grand?
He's right. Someone should have told us right up front, whenever we first had the vague notion that working in the games industry might just be more rewarding than being an overworked combination of galley slave and cabin boy, just what "realistic expectations" about industry jobs should be.
Here's a tip. At some time you're going to get treated like crap by some self-centred jackfruit with delusions of godhood. In the games industry we call those times "weekdays". Weekends are when you can get away from all that, since there aren't quite so many people in the office then. But don't worry, we'll only have to work weekends and evenings until we get past this next milestone. After that everything will be JUST FINE. Honest.
When you've had enough, you can always quit. I'm sure that nobody will give you any trouble with that at all.
It's entirely possible, in a monkeys-flying-out-of-your-butt way, that your work experience may be better than that, it's just insane to go into the business expecting anything different.
I have seen the only Zombie movie I ever need to see. The rest have no rhythm.
Okay, okay. "Exotic Nookular Elements". Happier now?
No? How about Erotic Nookular Elephants? Neurotic Rookular El-mints? How would you pronounce it?
We're talking about Newton here. Why did you have to go and bring Economists into it?
Perhaps he should have done his homework so that he might have more realistic expectations.
He might also be able to use simple civil service phrases like "Unfortunately, although the answer was indeed clear, simple, and straightforward, there is some difficulty in justifiably assigning to it the fourth of the epithets you applied to the statement, inasmuch as the precise correlation between the information you communicated and the facts, insofar as they can be determined and demonstrated, is such as to cause epistemological problems, of sufficient magnitude as to lay upon the logical and semantic resources of the English language a heavier burden than they can reasonably be expected to bear" in every day conversation.
So as not to be complete lying bastards, they will only be issuing tickets for _violent_ parking offenses.
It's like the old saying goes, "Power corrupts, absolute power is effing awesome".
Don't worry. I have a cunning plan that can save you 60 of those pixels.
Don't worry, I'm sure that I can trust goggleshar1ng.com. They have an SSL certificate and a little banner on the site which says they are 100% hacker-free.
What else are you going to use to grow crystals on if you don't have a bit of string and a paperclip?
Besides, when your science kit already comes with paperclips, duct tape and baling twine then you are ready for anything.
Um... Businesses don't prefer the Blackberry over the iPhone because RIM pays them to. They prefer it because the Blackberry comes with real security and centralized management solutions while the iPhone comes with... farting noises.
But Mr. Moorehouse lives in England. The police have better things to do than waste their time dealing with stolen property, like using surveillance cameras to track down people who try to take pictures of police officers.
So... why not play it? It's not like giant Civilization V robots have stomped all over the world and destroyed every copy of the original game with their overpowered death-lasers. If you still want to play the old Civilization, just load it up and play.
So the "best" way to build a team is to make sure that you have exactly one person who is good at each thing, and ensure that they don't have any kind of backup or "Plan B"?
That's frakkin' brilliant.
Until someone on your "A-Team" tries to leave the company. Or take a vacation. Or even go out for lunch. Then your entire organization suffers its justly deserved fate.
No-one is irreplaceable and anything can happen at any time. Just ask Johann Hölzel. Relying on this kind of team is not just putting all of your eggs in one basket, it's also hanging a big "Kick Me Hard" sign on it.
Or, if you don't want to just pack it up and go home, you can always take shots at the insulators that Google has put up for your amusement.
If you're going to be pedantic, it is customary to be correct.
Good thinking, Bart. Maybe you could try using bullfrogs.
It also involved swallowing.