It is not against the DMCA to reverse engineer software for the purpose of compatibility.
Also Apple will NOT win a court case if someone is trying to put their LEGALLY purchased copy of OS X on any hardware.
Individuals are irrelevant. All that matters is that Apple can sue anyone trying to sell systems or parts (HD with OS X pre-installed, etc).
If that's the case, it sounds a lot like the garage door opener and Lexmark ink cartrige arguements, both rejected.
No, Apple is selling you a license to use copyrighted software. There are terms in the license. Retail Mac OS X boxes may also be considered upgrades, not first time sales.
No, Apple is being a hardware company, as usual. Not that they aren't also control freaks. What so many people on Slashdot fail to realize is that Mac OS X is the draw for the proprietary hardware. Were Apple to allow Mac OS X to run on generic hardware the computer hardware side of their business would rapidly disintegrate, it would kill the computer division. Doing so nearly did kill Apple when they allowed Mac clones, and that was with Apple receiving a royalty on each clone system.
Apple management will fail in its attempts to thwart the hackers.
The hackers and a handful of tech savy users that want OS X on generic hardware are irrelevant. All Apple needs to do is prevent someone with the skills of an average user from being able to get Mac OS X working reliably on generic hardware. The generic PCs running Mac OS X will be novelties, more conversation pieces than serious work environments. There will not be a robust set of drivers, merely what ships on geniune Apple hardware. Apple can break the hack used to get it to work every system software update. It will be a somewhat unreliable machine, unavailable for days at a time while hackers reverse engineer and workaround the latest software update. Will they do so, sure, but it will be irrelevant to mainstream users.
I really not see a reason why Blizzard cannt/wont port games like WoW and WC3 to Linux.
Why do you think Blizzard has something against Linux? It may simply be a sound business decision. Even id has said that supporting Linux clients do not make business sense, they just do it because they think it is cool [old Game Developer Magazine interview].
It is really that Linux gamers offer Blizzard very little. Linux gamers generally dual boot or emulate, so they are already customers. Offering a Linux version would generally not produce a new sale, it would replace a Windows sale with a Linux sale, there is no new money to pay for development and QA costs.
If anything is programmed right it will work fine on Linux, Mac, and Windows without much change in the code. This new version for Mac should work fine on Linux, they probably just need to recompile it.
Things are far more complicated than you suggest. For now I'll just say that Mac OS X apps are not written to some "unix api", they are written to Apple proprietary APIs, carbon or coacoa. Mac ports in general get you closer to Linux than Windows-only games, OpenGL is required and things like DirectPlay networking are avoided, but this is true whether the Mac target is PowerPC or Intel. The new Intel Macs have not changed anything.
Shame about PC gaming going into decline, considering Vista hasn't even shipped yet!
Blizzard before WoW: Zero Monthly PC/Mac Subscribers.
Blizzard after WoW: Five Million Monthly PC/Mac Subscribers.
Do you think the above is more or less relevant to Blizzard's decision making than some general industry statistic, assuming of course you are quoting the statistic correctly and that it was correct in the first place.
So, if WoW runs on a unix system on an intel cpu, how much work would it be to get it running on linux?
The exact same amount as when Mac OS X only ran on PowerPC. The new Intel based Macs change nothing. The problem is that Mac OS X apps are not really written to a "unix api", they are written to Apple proprietary APIs, carbon or coacoa. Mac ports in general get you closer to Linux than Windows-only games, OpenGL is required and things like DirectPlay are avoided, but this is true whether the Mac target is PowerPC or Intel. I suppose if you have a PowerPC only game, no Windows version, then an Intel Mac port would get you closer. However when a Windows vesion already exists then the PowerPC/Intel CPU issues, byte ordering for example, have already been worked out.
Well maybe for those who are willing to drop "Massive" out of MMORG. You only have a large number of players around when you are in the chat / trade area. Once you and your small party go off to fight / adventure you get put into an instanced world all by yourself. It's much more like Diablo II. Lots of people when you are in Battle.net chat, only a handful are with you when in the game. Nothing wrong with this, GW is an awsome game, it is fun, but it's not quite a MMORG so comparisons to WoW are limited.
If Apple hasn't done anything to prevent Windows from running on Mactel's, then this is the biggest mistake Apple will ever make.
It will turn Apple into an OEM Wintel PC maker, like Dell, HP, Gateway, and the rest.
No, the biggest mistake that Apple could possibly make would be to allow Mac OS X to run on Wintel PCs. That would kill their hardware sales. Allowing Windows on Mac hardware does not hurt them, it increases their hardware sales. The current Mac audience chooses Apple hardware largely because of Mac OS X, the potenital to dual boot does not alter this. Some potential customers that are currently lost to Apple would like a Mac but have to run some Windows specific software, and for some (games being the best example) emulation is not viable. Windows on Mac hardware allows these people to get the Mac they really want, add the dual boot Windows option, and be able to run the Windows specific software they need to occasionally run.
Is fortran 77 useful? Or does NASA just have old fortran 77 code lying around? I'm asking because I'm considering a summer job where I'd learn fortran 77, and I want to know if I'd ever use it again. It seems like a more recent fortran would be better.
I had Fortran 77 in an undergraduate class and never imagined that I would see it again. Then DOW Chemical had me move old apps from mainframes to PC. I'd expect that NASA also has a bit of old code laying around. Other than (1) some "old" engineer that only knows Fortran is writing code, (2) a major overhaul of an existing Fortran app is taking place, or (3) the target architecture is parallel computing, I'm not to sure why someone would be writing new code in Fortran.
No, they said they would do nothing to prevent it. That leaves the door open to not using a 100% PC compatible design. MS may need to do a port for Apple's x86 hardware.
Intel chipsets include PIC, PIT, UART and all the legacy stuff as part of the package. I woudl be nontrival to take it out. I think it's very likely that Apple hardware will be 100% PC AT Compatible, even if OSX is not.
Apple designed their own motherboards, they are more than capable of nontrivial modifications to Intel motherboard and chipset reference designs.
An Intel CPU and an Intel chipset do not make a system "PC compatible". Apple does not need to support BIOS or various pieces of legacy hardware (PIC, PIT, UART, etc.). It is trivial to not be compatible, it would be suicidal to be compatible. Apple is a hardware company, Mac OS/X is merely the justification for buying the more expensive (with the possible exception of the Mini) Apple hardware. Mac clones nearly killed Apple when Apple had control over them.
I would welcome dual booting as well. In the 90s I was excited by CHRP and the idea of booting Windows XP for PPC and Mac OS on the same box. I still find this idea attractive. However, Apple will have proprietary hardware and Microsoft will have to port Windows to it. The versions of Windows that we have today will not be compatible.
We had failed to really accomplish our objectives in Vietnam and there were more casualties every day. More than we had anticipated. We might not have been losing the war, but winning it looked impossible.
Our objective was to prevent a communist takeover of the South. The Viet Cong guerilla force had been virtually anihilated during Thet. The people of the South did not rise up in rebellion as the North expected. The communist safe havens across the border in Laos and Cambodia were no longer safe. The South Vietnamese army, which the US had previously neglected, was becoming more capable. The North was losing in Vietnam, the North was only winning in US public opinion. The Pentagon had lost credibility, even if something had gone well it was not believed.
As far as your interpretation of Iraq: how long does it take to train a solider to the level of pre-war Iraqi forces? Not very. Even the Iraqi army, pre-war, wouldn't have been able to stop the insurgency.
They stopped rebellions far greater than the current insurgency. The security vaccuum that existed at the end of invasion had a lot to do with the rise of the insurgency. The insurgents expected that we would leave if they could draw some blood, like in Lebanon, like in Somalia, etc. They never imagined we would stick around until a credible police and army were formed.
Regarding (re)training to old Iraqi-army standards, I believe they are being trained to a higher standard now. Entirely new topics like ethics and human rights are being included in the military and police cirriculum.
My understanding is that it generally takes two to three years to create a good soldier. The time frames you seem to be suggesting are for creating cannon fodder. More importantly the NCO and various levels of officers need to get experience and earn the confidence of the troops.
Hmm... my interpretation of "Blackhawk Down" was completely different from yours. The US involvement in Somalia WAS a failure. The rescue of that crew and sacrifices made to do it was miraculous in and of itself, but it does not make the whole operation there a success. Did the US bring Aidid to justice? Nope. That was the whole point of the operation there.
Were the Somalis able to defend the building? No.
Were the Somalis able to prevent the capture of the leaders present that day? No.
Were the Somalis able to overrun the Rangers that went off on an improvised resuce mission? No. Force them to abandon the rescue? No. Force them to surrender? No.
US troops were not defeated. However politicians did lose their will and pulled the troops out before they completed the strategic mission. Politicians failed, not the troops. There is a distinction between the two. The GP was failing to make that distinction.
Yes, however so it ignoring technology. More importantly, who said US troops will not train to conduct operations with and without the high tech equipment. Mechanical and electronic failures are an important part of current training. I don't see anyone indicating this is about to change.
You only need to look back to Somalia and Vietnam and all of those silly films which turn those total military disasters into some sort of victory as to how much of a problem they have.
You have a consistent failing. You confuse the political with the miliary.
US troops were not defeated in Vietnam or Somalia. In Vietnam, Giap's seige of Khe San was a failure. Giap's Thet Offensive was also a failure. The Viet Cong guerilla force was virtually wiped out during Thet. The North Vietnamese were forced to the peace table and recognized South Vietnam and it's right to exist. We packed up and left, it was 1973. In 1975, years after our departure, North Vietnam launched a fairly conventional invasion of the South. Ironically with US air support the Source Vietnamese army probably could have defended itself. However the political situation in the US prevented such assistance, assistance we had promised. North Vietnam won the propoganda war, it successfully sowed doubt and confusion into the US public, however it did not win the guerilla war.
In Somalia, you confuse high casualties with defeat. The US did not fail to take the building, it did not fail to secure the occupants. The Rangers suffered far higher casualties than expected but they did reach the helicopter they were going for and they were not overrun or forced to surrender. Our departure from Somalia was a political decision.
I don't know, but guerilla warfare is a skill that involves using your brain. Inevitably you also come into contact with ordinary civilians in an urban environment as well, and you have to have at least some idea of what to do and to be able to get along with them...
US Special Forces are highly trained in that regard. They were also quite successful in Vietnam and Afghanistan. I think your opening of "I don't know" summarizes your post well. You don't know the miliary or history. You display a pop-history shallow understanding of both.
I would suggest training their troops an awful lot better than they do and giving their soldiers something every soldier should have - soldiering skills! That's why a lot of American soldiers are dying in Iraq. Unlike, especially their British, counterparts they just haven't got it in that kind of environment. Pure and simple. It's a people thing.
You confuse guerilla warfare with peace keeping operations. Soldiering skills are not where US troops are to be found lacking. Peacekeeping skills are where European troops have better training, not in soldiering. Whether this difference matters is open to debate. The problem in Iraq was due to a bad political decision, dissolving the Iraqi army. Perhaps I am mistaken but I don't think that the military was in favor of that one. The Iraqi army's high level leadership should have been removed but lower levels and the common soldiers should have been initially employed for security, under US command.
Can you write off the monthly fee as a business expense?
I would imagine so if the account in question is used strictly for commercial purposes and never for personal entertainment. I recall rules of this nature with respect to home offices.
Listen, it was nice of the US to join WWI, but let's not blow this out of proportions. Google for WWI casualties. The first result gives the following numbers : France 1,359,000 dead; Britain 658,700 dead; US 58,480 dead. WWI was a blood bath. France lost more soldiers in those 4 years than the US lost in its whole history.
Yes, it was a bloodbath and the US ended the stalemate that was producing that bloodbath. The Alliance could not win on it's own. Germany realized the US would tip the scales against them and attempted an offensive to decide the war before too many US troops arrived at the front. It failed and Alliance counter-offensives succeeded, in part due to US efforts.
With respect to casualties, aren't you leaving out 1,700,000 Russian battlefield casualties? Russia was leaving the war as the US was entering it. If the US had not entered, those Central Powers forces that had inflicted those Russian casualties could have largely been turned against the French and British forces. Without the US the scales could have easily tipped against France and France may very well have suffered even more casualties *and* lost the war. The failure of the German offensive mentioned above has been attributed largely to Germany failing to redploy many troops from the east.
But since you're in this "we owe / they owe" mood
Actually that was the GP's mood. Was my "So, to use *your* phraseology, not mine, they owe us one" not clear?
Last, you seem to regret the time of French monarchy.
Not at all, I'm just making it clear who it was that helped us. French citizens did not volunteer in large numbers to cross the ocean to defend us. Democratically elected French leaders responsible to the voters did not choose to send their army to defend us. However US citizens and leaders did make such a decision, twice.
If it wasn't for the 20 million Russians who died fighting Hitler, who knows how much more bloody that war would have been for Americans.
If it were not for the US even more Russians would have died *and* they probably would have lost the war as well. The US and Russia most likely saved each other, it was mutual. Without US supplies and weapons Russia probably would not have prevailed, the Germans may very well have pushed them over the Urals and set up an effective defense of the mountain passes to prevent their return. In turn this would have freed many troops for the western front and the success of an allied invasion of the continent becomes very questionable. Hollywood to the contrary, it seems as though the allied victory in the west was not a sure thing. Alternatively without the US an invasion of the continent becomes highly unlikely and German troops could have been redeployed from the west to the eastern front to face the Russians.
Victory in Europe was a complicated collaboration between the US, Russia, Britain, etc. Make any significant change and the outcome would probably be terribly different.
... And this shit about we "rescued them in WWII! We owed them one! How about that!...
No, we paid that debt in WWI. "On the 4th of July [1917], the 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry (2-16), paraded through the streets of Paris to bolster the sagging French spirits. At Lafayette's tomb, one of General John J. Pershing's staff uttered the famous words, "Lafayette, we are here!" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._1st_Infantry_Div ision
So, to use *your* phraseology, not mine, they owe us one.
Also, the French government that supported the US was the monarchy, not the current French government. "Current government" as in system of government, not the currenyly elected representatives. Do you think Lafayette would do business with Sadaam and make war on GreenPeace (literally, sink boat, kill member, rescue French agents/assasins from jail)?
But building great stuff in general is more than just being a code bureaucrat in a cubicle following instructions in the Plan... no matter how good the Plan may be.
I did not express myself clearly. When I wrote that programmers implement the designer's ideas I did not mean to imply that they (we) should have no feedback, suggestions, or other involvement. What I was really trying to say is that they (we) should have no direct interaction with customers. I agree programmers are an important part of the internal development process, but they are generally a poor choice for spanning the boundary between the company and the public.
... blinding the programmers to the customers is necessary only when management can't do their job.
Not blinded but buffered, communicating via PR/Marketing/Designer. At least when the software being designed is for a non-technical application. If we're talking molecular modeling, sure let the programmers talk directly to the chemists.
People with a plan don't let programmers talk
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How Not To Make An MMOG
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· Score: 2, Insightful
It was also a bad sign that the programmers (game designers) were not allowed to talk to the customers (fanbase). While of course there has to be a limit on everything, a certain amount of customer/programmer interaction is important to developing a project that pleases the customer, rather than the designer.
As another poster has pointed out programmers are not game designers. In other words programmers implement the game designer's ideas. The game designer should do research, or have research done for him/her. Nowhere does this indicate that programmers should interact with customers. As a programmer myself I can see what a recipe for disaster that can be.
As for your theory that programmer interaction is part of the formula for success I have a counter example: World of Warcraft. How much interaction did the customers/fans have with programmers prior to BlizzCon (a year after release?)?
As the GP was pointing out success has more to do with a plan. Good plans usually have someone other than programmers interacting with customers/fans during development. As a geek it took a while to realize this but sales, maketing, and public relations people exist for a reason. Business is a Darwinian process. If PR specialists did not help companies communicate more effectively than geeks then PR specialists would not have lasted this long. If marketing specialists (not a spin person - a create an experiment to validate designer's idea, conduct focus group, etc person) did not help companies design more desirable products than geeks then marketing specialists would not have lasted this long.
Slashdot Mirror
It is not against the DMCA to reverse engineer software for the purpose of compatibility. Also Apple will NOT win a court case if someone is trying to put their LEGALLY purchased copy of OS X on any hardware.
Individuals are irrelevant. All that matters is that Apple can sue anyone trying to sell systems or parts (HD with OS X pre-installed, etc).
If that's the case, it sounds a lot like the garage door opener and Lexmark ink cartrige arguements, both rejected.
No, Apple is selling you a license to use copyrighted software. There are terms in the license. Retail Mac OS X boxes may also be considered upgrades, not first time sales.
Apple is just being control freaks, as usual
No, Apple is being a hardware company, as usual. Not that they aren't also control freaks. What so many people on Slashdot fail to realize is that Mac OS X is the draw for the proprietary hardware. Were Apple to allow Mac OS X to run on generic hardware the computer hardware side of their business would rapidly disintegrate, it would kill the computer division. Doing so nearly did kill Apple when they allowed Mac clones, and that was with Apple receiving a royalty on each clone system.
Apple management will fail in its attempts to thwart the hackers.
The hackers and a handful of tech savy users that want OS X on generic hardware are irrelevant. All Apple needs to do is prevent someone with the skills of an average user from being able to get Mac OS X working reliably on generic hardware. The generic PCs running Mac OS X will be novelties, more conversation pieces than serious work environments. There will not be a robust set of drivers, merely what ships on geniune Apple hardware. Apple can break the hack used to get it to work every system software update. It will be a somewhat unreliable machine, unavailable for days at a time while hackers reverse engineer and workaround the latest software update. Will they do so, sure, but it will be irrelevant to mainstream users.
I really not see a reason why Blizzard cannt/wont port games like WoW and WC3 to Linux.
Why do you think Blizzard has something against Linux? It may simply be a sound business decision. Even id has said that supporting Linux clients do not make business sense, they just do it because they think it is cool [old Game Developer Magazine interview].
It is really that Linux gamers offer Blizzard very little. Linux gamers generally dual boot or emulate, so they are already customers. Offering a Linux version would generally not produce a new sale, it would replace a Windows sale with a Linux sale, there is no new money to pay for development and QA costs.
If anything is programmed right it will work fine on Linux, Mac, and Windows without much change in the code. This new version for Mac should work fine on Linux, they probably just need to recompile it.
Things are far more complicated than you suggest. For now I'll just say that Mac OS X apps are not written to some "unix api", they are written to Apple proprietary APIs, carbon or coacoa. Mac ports in general get you closer to Linux than Windows-only games, OpenGL is required and things like DirectPlay networking are avoided, but this is true whether the Mac target is PowerPC or Intel. The new Intel Macs have not changed anything.
Shame about PC gaming going into decline, considering Vista hasn't even shipped yet!
Blizzard before WoW: Zero Monthly PC/Mac Subscribers.
Blizzard after WoW: Five Million Monthly PC/Mac Subscribers.
Do you think the above is more or less relevant to Blizzard's decision making than some general industry statistic, assuming of course you are quoting the statistic correctly and that it was correct in the first place.
So, if WoW runs on a unix system on an intel cpu, how much work would it be to get it running on linux?
The exact same amount as when Mac OS X only ran on PowerPC. The new Intel based Macs change nothing. The problem is that Mac OS X apps are not really written to a "unix api", they are written to Apple proprietary APIs, carbon or coacoa. Mac ports in general get you closer to Linux than Windows-only games, OpenGL is required and things like DirectPlay are avoided, but this is true whether the Mac target is PowerPC or Intel. I suppose if you have a PowerPC only game, no Windows version, then an Intel Mac port would get you closer. However when a Windows vesion already exists then the PowerPC/Intel CPU issues, byte ordering for example, have already been worked out.
Might I suggest Guild Wars?
Well maybe for those who are willing to drop "Massive" out of MMORG. You only have a large number of players around when you are in the chat / trade area. Once you and your small party go off to fight / adventure you get put into an instanced world all by yourself. It's much more like Diablo II. Lots of people when you are in Battle.net chat, only a handful are with you when in the game. Nothing wrong with this, GW is an awsome game, it is fun, but it's not quite a MMORG so comparisons to WoW are limited.
If Apple hasn't done anything to prevent Windows from running on Mactel's, then this is the biggest mistake Apple will ever make. It will turn Apple into an OEM Wintel PC maker, like Dell, HP, Gateway, and the rest.
No, the biggest mistake that Apple could possibly make would be to allow Mac OS X to run on Wintel PCs. That would kill their hardware sales. Allowing Windows on Mac hardware does not hurt them, it increases their hardware sales. The current Mac audience chooses Apple hardware largely because of Mac OS X, the potenital to dual boot does not alter this. Some potential customers that are currently lost to Apple would like a Mac but have to run some Windows specific software, and for some (games being the best example) emulation is not viable. Windows on Mac hardware allows these people to get the Mac they really want, add the dual boot Windows option, and be able to run the Windows specific software they need to occasionally run.
Is this inertia or are they hoping to run on a parallel architecture?
Is fortran 77 useful? Or does NASA just have old fortran 77 code lying around? I'm asking because I'm considering a summer job where I'd learn fortran 77, and I want to know if I'd ever use it again. It seems like a more recent fortran would be better.
I had Fortran 77 in an undergraduate class and never imagined that I would see it again. Then DOW Chemical had me move old apps from mainframes to PC. I'd expect that NASA also has a bit of old code laying around. Other than (1) some "old" engineer that only knows Fortran is writing code, (2) a major overhaul of an existing Fortran app is taking place, or (3) the target architecture is parallel computing, I'm not to sure why someone would be writing new code in Fortran.
anyone who works at JPL understands the distinction between a Desktop and a workstation, and whoever wrote this article should as well
Wrong, all that matters is the intended audience for the article.
you can. they said so 6 months ago.
No, they said they would do nothing to prevent it. That leaves the door open to not using a 100% PC compatible design. MS may need to do a port for Apple's x86 hardware.
Intel chipsets include PIC, PIT, UART and all the legacy stuff as part of the package. I woudl be nontrival to take it out. I think it's very likely that Apple hardware will be 100% PC AT Compatible, even if OSX is not.
Apple designed their own motherboards, they are more than capable of nontrivial modifications to Intel motherboard and chipset reference designs.
An Intel CPU and an Intel chipset do not make a system "PC compatible". Apple does not need to support BIOS or various pieces of legacy hardware (PIC, PIT, UART, etc.). It is trivial to not be compatible, it would be suicidal to be compatible. Apple is a hardware company, Mac OS/X is merely the justification for buying the more expensive (with the possible exception of the Mini) Apple hardware. Mac clones nearly killed Apple when Apple had control over them.
I would welcome dual booting as well. In the 90s I was excited by CHRP and the idea of booting Windows XP for PPC and Mac OS on the same box. I still find this idea attractive. However, Apple will have proprietary hardware and Microsoft will have to port Windows to it. The versions of Windows that we have today will not be compatible.
We had failed to really accomplish our objectives in Vietnam and there were more casualties every day. More than we had anticipated. We might not have been losing the war, but winning it looked impossible.
Our objective was to prevent a communist takeover of the South. The Viet Cong guerilla force had been virtually anihilated during Thet. The people of the South did not rise up in rebellion as the North expected. The communist safe havens across the border in Laos and Cambodia were no longer safe. The South Vietnamese army, which the US had previously neglected, was becoming more capable. The North was losing in Vietnam, the North was only winning in US public opinion. The Pentagon had lost credibility, even if something had gone well it was not believed.
As far as your interpretation of Iraq: how long does it take to train a solider to the level of pre-war Iraqi forces? Not very. Even the Iraqi army, pre-war, wouldn't have been able to stop the insurgency.
They stopped rebellions far greater than the current insurgency. The security vaccuum that existed at the end of invasion had a lot to do with the rise of the insurgency. The insurgents expected that we would leave if they could draw some blood, like in Lebanon, like in Somalia, etc. They never imagined we would stick around until a credible police and army were formed.
Regarding (re)training to old Iraqi-army standards, I believe they are being trained to a higher standard now. Entirely new topics like ethics and human rights are being included in the military and police cirriculum.
My understanding is that it generally takes two to three years to create a good soldier. The time frames you seem to be suggesting are for creating cannon fodder. More importantly the NCO and various levels of officers need to get experience and earn the confidence of the troops.
Hmm... my interpretation of "Blackhawk Down" was completely different from yours. The US involvement in Somalia WAS a failure. The rescue of that crew and sacrifices made to do it was miraculous in and of itself, but it does not make the whole operation there a success. Did the US bring Aidid to justice? Nope. That was the whole point of the operation there.
Were the Somalis able to defend the building? No.
Were the Somalis able to prevent the capture of the leaders present that day? No.
Were the Somalis able to overrun the Rangers that went off on an improvised resuce mission? No. Force them to abandon the rescue? No. Force them to surrender? No.
US troops were not defeated. However politicians did lose their will and pulled the troops out before they completed the strategic mission. Politicians failed, not the troops. There is a distinction between the two. The GP was failing to make that distinction.
Dependence on equipment is bad
Yes, however so it ignoring technology. More importantly, who said US troops will not train to conduct operations with and without the high tech equipment. Mechanical and electronic failures are an important part of current training. I don't see anyone indicating this is about to change.
You only need to look back to Somalia and Vietnam and all of those silly films which turn those total military disasters into some sort of victory as to how much of a problem they have.
...
You have a consistent failing. You confuse the political with the miliary.
US troops were not defeated in Vietnam or Somalia. In Vietnam, Giap's seige of Khe San was a failure. Giap's Thet Offensive was also a failure. The Viet Cong guerilla force was virtually wiped out during Thet. The North Vietnamese were forced to the peace table and recognized South Vietnam and it's right to exist. We packed up and left, it was 1973. In 1975, years after our departure, North Vietnam launched a fairly conventional invasion of the South. Ironically with US air support the Source Vietnamese army probably could have defended itself. However the political situation in the US prevented such assistance, assistance we had promised. North Vietnam won the propoganda war, it successfully sowed doubt and confusion into the US public, however it did not win the guerilla war.
In Somalia, you confuse high casualties with defeat. The US did not fail to take the building, it did not fail to secure the occupants. The Rangers suffered far higher casualties than expected but they did reach the helicopter they were going for and they were not overrun or forced to surrender. Our departure from Somalia was a political decision.
I don't know, but guerilla warfare is a skill that involves using your brain. Inevitably you also come into contact with ordinary civilians in an urban environment as well, and you have to have at least some idea of what to do and to be able to get along with them
US Special Forces are highly trained in that regard. They were also quite successful in Vietnam and Afghanistan. I think your opening of "I don't know" summarizes your post well. You don't know the miliary or history. You display a pop-history shallow understanding of both.
I would suggest training their troops an awful lot better than they do and giving their soldiers something every soldier should have - soldiering skills! That's why a lot of American soldiers are dying in Iraq. Unlike, especially their British, counterparts they just haven't got it in that kind of environment. Pure and simple. It's a people thing.
You confuse guerilla warfare with peace keeping operations. Soldiering skills are not where US troops are to be found lacking. Peacekeeping skills are where European troops have better training, not in soldiering. Whether this difference matters is open to debate. The problem in Iraq was due to a bad political decision, dissolving the Iraqi army. Perhaps I am mistaken but I don't think that the military was in favor of that one. The Iraqi army's high level leadership should have been removed but lower levels and the common soldiers should have been initially employed for security, under US command.
Can you write off the monthly fee as a business expense?
I would imagine so if the account in question is used strictly for commercial purposes and never for personal entertainment. I recall rules of this nature with respect to home offices.
Listen, it was nice of the US to join WWI, but let's not blow this out of proportions. Google for WWI casualties. The first result gives the following numbers : France 1,359,000 dead; Britain 658,700 dead; US 58,480 dead. WWI was a blood bath. France lost more soldiers in those 4 years than the US lost in its whole history.
Yes, it was a bloodbath and the US ended the stalemate that was producing that bloodbath. The Alliance could not win on it's own. Germany realized the US would tip the scales against them and attempted an offensive to decide the war before too many US troops arrived at the front. It failed and Alliance counter-offensives succeeded, in part due to US efforts.
With respect to casualties, aren't you leaving out 1,700,000 Russian battlefield casualties? Russia was leaving the war as the US was entering it. If the US had not entered, those Central Powers forces that had inflicted those Russian casualties could have largely been turned against the French and British forces. Without the US the scales could have easily tipped against France and France may very well have suffered even more casualties *and* lost the war. The failure of the German offensive mentioned above has been attributed largely to Germany failing to redploy many troops from the east.
But since you're in this "we owe / they owe" mood
Actually that was the GP's mood. Was my "So, to use *your* phraseology, not mine, they owe us one" not clear?
Last, you seem to regret the time of French monarchy.
Not at all, I'm just making it clear who it was that helped us. French citizens did not volunteer in large numbers to cross the ocean to defend us. Democratically elected French leaders responsible to the voters did not choose to send their army to defend us. However US citizens and leaders did make such a decision, twice.
If it wasn't for the 20 million Russians who died fighting Hitler, who knows how much more bloody that war would have been for Americans.
If it were not for the US even more Russians would have died *and* they probably would have lost the war as well. The US and Russia most likely saved each other, it was mutual. Without US supplies and weapons Russia probably would not have prevailed, the Germans may very well have pushed them over the Urals and set up an effective defense of the mountain passes to prevent their return. In turn this would have freed many troops for the western front and the success of an allied invasion of the continent becomes very questionable. Hollywood to the contrary, it seems as though the allied victory in the west was not a sure thing. Alternatively without the US an invasion of the continent becomes highly unlikely and German troops could have been redeployed from the west to the eastern front to face the Russians.
Victory in Europe was a complicated collaboration between the US, Russia, Britain, etc. Make any significant change and the outcome would probably be terribly different.
... And this shit about we "rescued them in WWII! We owed them one! How about that! ...
v ision
No, we paid that debt in WWI. "On the 4th of July [1917], the 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry (2-16), paraded through the streets of Paris to bolster the sagging French spirits. At Lafayette's tomb, one of General John J. Pershing's staff uttered the famous words, "Lafayette, we are here!"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._1st_Infantry_Di
So, to use *your* phraseology, not mine, they owe us one.
Also, the French government that supported the US was the monarchy, not the current French government. "Current government" as in system of government, not the currenyly elected representatives. Do you think Lafayette would do business with Sadaam and make war on GreenPeace (literally, sink boat, kill member, rescue French agents/assasins from jail)?
But building great stuff in general is more than just being a code bureaucrat in a cubicle following instructions in the Plan ... no matter how good the Plan may be.
... blinding the programmers to the customers is necessary only when management can't do their job.
I did not express myself clearly. When I wrote that programmers implement the designer's ideas I did not mean to imply that they (we) should have no feedback, suggestions, or other involvement. What I was really trying to say is that they (we) should have no direct interaction with customers. I agree programmers are an important part of the internal development process, but they are generally a poor choice for spanning the boundary between the company and the public.
Not blinded but buffered, communicating via PR/Marketing/Designer. At least when the software being designed is for a non-technical application. If we're talking molecular modeling, sure let the programmers talk directly to the chemists.
It was also a bad sign that the programmers (game designers) were not allowed to talk to the customers (fanbase). While of course there has to be a limit on everything, a certain amount of customer/programmer interaction is important to developing a project that pleases the customer, rather than the designer.
As another poster has pointed out programmers are not game designers. In other words programmers implement the game designer's ideas. The game designer should do research, or have research done for him/her. Nowhere does this indicate that programmers should interact with customers. As a programmer myself I can see what a recipe for disaster that can be.
As for your theory that programmer interaction is part of the formula for success I have a counter example: World of Warcraft. How much interaction did the customers/fans have with programmers prior to BlizzCon (a year after release?)?
As the GP was pointing out success has more to do with a plan. Good plans usually have someone other than programmers interacting with customers/fans during development. As a geek it took a while to realize this but sales, maketing, and public relations people exist for a reason. Business is a Darwinian process. If PR specialists did not help companies communicate more effectively than geeks then PR specialists would not have lasted this long. If marketing specialists (not a spin person - a create an experiment to validate designer's idea, conduct focus group, etc person) did not help companies design more desirable products than geeks then marketing specialists would not have lasted this long.