Oh, OK. Sorry, my mistake. So the 'freebies' given to the high rollers are only paid for out of the money lost on the nickel and dime slots and not, in any way, by the money lost by the high rollers.
Thanks for clearing that up.
"Free". "Free". You keep using that word but I do not think you know what it means.
Do dolphins try to escape captivity? It's something humans do if they're where they don't want to be, so if it happens we might be able to conclude something about what the dolphins want.
"Accidentally" leave a gate open to the ocean, and see if the dolphin escapes or not. Then I guess you'll have your answer. Wanting to escape and being able to do so are two very different things.
I went to a Dolphin training place when I was on Bermuda a few years back and it was a small tank and looked pretty bloody awful so I complained. The 'instructor' chap apologised and said it was a temporary place because a recent hurricane had smashed up their previous location which was far nicer and had, as a 'fence' to keep the dolphins in, just a boom running out into a bay. This allowed the dolphins to jump over to get out into the open ocean, which they would do on regular occasions, but they pretty much always returned at some point and seemed to enjoy the 'training' and learning new tricks stuff!
Another show I saw was in Portugal and one of the 'tricks' the dolphins did was to 'kick' (with their tails) a ball into the crowd. One of the (3) dolphins mis-hit it and it just move a few metres towards the edge of the tank. The dolphin knew it had mis-hit it and had a look at the ball and realised it was far to close to the edge of the tank for it to be able to swim under and kick again, so it swam around and (gently) kicked it back into the middle of the tank, then swam round and HOOFED it into the crowd! For me, that showed a huge amount of awareness and problem solving (assuming of course it hadn't just been trained to do it like that!).
As I see it the problem here is that they knew the wins were bogus (and indeed, they knew because they engineered it!). If some hapless fool had chanced upon such a win (and therefore didn't know it to be bogus) they could legitimately have claimed the cash.
Also, I think that if the machine actually paid out the money directly, they'd have an argument to say the machine was faulty, but taking the print out to the cash desk definitely is one step too far over the line.
The high rollers still get all sorts of free crap.
LOL! My guess is that the high rollers are actually paying for all the free crap. Do you honestly think the casinos are going to be encouraging the big players to come to their casinos if they're winning? Sheeez!
Actually, while I have your attention, I've got this old bridge in London I'm trying to sell...
... In China, it's no problem! You simply confiscate the land and build. Progressivism is alive and well in China.
See also France's TGV network... We Brits are looking to put a new HST line from London to Birmingham (and thence to Leeds and Manchester) but the arguments over who's back yard it must go through mean it'll probably never be built, which is a crying shame for the country (though possibly good for the un-blighted countryside! - funny if you look back at the initial spread of the railways and see the building work done for them - tunnel entrances built to look like stately homes and the most wonderful bridges - now it's all just concrete and steel and most definitely a blot on the landscape!).
Even funnier is to look at the British Empire and how we dealt with the Train Tech that we invented. We parcelled it up and 'king gave it away, like every other bloody thing we ever invented [shakes head].
Anyway, I for one welcome our new Chinese overlords...
Just because China wanted to build in-country, doesn't mean anyone was ripped off.
Assuming the deals cut were signed by both parties I fail to see how anyone was ripped off. If the sellers didn't like the T&C's then they were perfectly at liberty to let some other company sell them the wares.
This is surely just China flexing it's muscle as not just a huge market but, certainly at the moment, the huge market! All companies want a slice of the action because China is where the action is! A friend works for a large multinational company who ended up with a Chinese subsidiary due to a buyout deal somewhere back in time. The tax requirement for getting the profits out of China is HUGE making it not worth it (and the company is V. Successful!), but they they also buy a HUGE amount of materials from China and found that having a Chinese company do the buying was much much cheaper than buying from abroad. The end result is they are V. happy to have (accidentally) bought a Chinese company even though they'd have never gone out just to buy one, and now find they have a lot of expertise in the Chinese market.
They have a foot in the door... and that foot in the door is EXACTLY why the various train tech companies were (and still should be!) happy to have made the deals!
Ground crew have privileged access to secure areas of the airport that demands more security, not less. Make them do an iris scan and enter a passcode in addition to swiping their badge.
Unless the ground crew also go through the wonderful new nudey-scan machines (or are otherwise touched up and fondled) EVERY TIME they cross into air-side then there's a glaring hole in the process! Any one of the ground crew could be turned (I've got your daughter and you will carry this item through and hand it to my partner air-side) or simply go postal, or be a long-time plant or sleeper, which means they MUST be subject to searches to prevent them from carrying any of the otherwise disallowed items air-side. Hell, they don't even need to be suicide jockeys they can just plant the stuff for the suicide squad to pick up once they clear the security theatre as regular passengers!
Of course "ax" is the correct pronunciation for "ask" in certain quarters too, so perhaps the confusion runs deeper still and it's actually a "rescue ask" that's looking medieval?
... but from someone in the military's perspective, it's better they not read something they aren't supposed to.
Actually, it's laughable! What this says to me is that the bonehead air force nutjob who instigated (and any who approved!) this has abso-bloody-lutely no idea what-so-ever how the internet works!
Clearly, no wetware is gonna make it through alive. Ditto for normal fabricated parts & stuff. Lots of electronics and explosives will handle it (cannon shells, for example), but there we are, squarely in military applications.
There really aren't any civilian applications for this.
Water? You could presumably fire containers full of water into orbit... though a problem of heat does present itself to whatever catches the suckers and they're gonna be WAY hot when they arrive and one of the problems in space is getting rid of excess heat!
If you fired the things from high in a mountain range somewhere would that make a sufficient difference to make schlepping the cargo there worth while I wonder?
I think by definition deniers are wrong. They are people who wilfully deny the evidence. That is one of the reasons they don't like being called deniers, because the word assumes they are wrong.
... Even when the proponents change their models to reveal that they were right?
The deniers are still wrong, they're just not the same group of people!
If the CIA were going to frame him for rape, I'd think they could do a better job of it than they did. No evidence, flimsy and contradictory testimony by the victims, crazy interpretations of the law, public and friendly interactions with him after the fact, waiting days before making the accusation, not even an accusation of violence. I would imagine that a CIA frame up would be a bit better constructed that the case against him is.
Actually, all they need to do is get him to Sweden and from there a rendition flight back to the Good 'ol US-of-A where the real fun starts.
How do you suggest he would have done that? As far as I'm following I understood the charges where dropped while he was in the country, and refiled when he left.
That's what I heard too. Indeed I heard he tried to sort it out in Sweden before he left but they didn't want to talk to him. Once he left they re-filed the charges and could then get Interplod involved because he was no longer in Sweden. Because of Interplod's involvement his bank in Switzerland has now frozen his accounts, etc.
This just all seems far too convenient to be happening now...
... Hopefully Swedish law will allow Assange to file a counter suit for defamation of character and slander.
But if he sets foot in Sweden I'd expect the rape case to be dropped (or rapidly found not-guilty) and Assange to be whisked onto a rendition flight to the US...
That said, I would hope that any extradition from the UK would be on condition that no rendition be permitted from Sweden. I won't be holding my breath though!
... And most of the info coming out doesn't hurt the US as much as Assange would like it to....
There seems to be a general assumption that Assange is Quixotically tilting at the US. That's not my perception at all.
WikiLeaks has been given some interesting documents for publication and they are making them public, as per the wishes of the donor! It just so happens some of them are about the US.
Now if people were to suggest that the donor of the US Specific documents was having a go at the US there may be a better case for it, but much like all the fuss in the UK over the MPs Expenses malarky, I could equally validly suggest that having seen the cancer of corruption within the government(corporation, whatever) it is the whistleblower's duty as a citizen(employee, whatever) to provide the sharpest knife to allow the corruption to be cut out!
Indeed, given the knowledge that there is something rotten in your government it could be considered treason if you didn't do something about it!
We, as the public, should stop focusing on Assange as a figurehead (who set himself up as such because of the effort being expended by those outed to discover the people behind WikiLeaks and he thought it better to provide a target than have them discover their own!) and rather concentrate on the information WikiLeaks provides.
Well done to WikiLeaks! In general, you are providing a valuable service to every nation affected because that dirty laundry needs airing and the longer it is allowed to fester the worse it will smell!
Racial profiling is not commonly used because it's ineffective, not just because it's (by definition) racist. Do you think terrorists all look the same? Do you think that even if they do now that they always will? If you just search for swarthy individuals, you won't be checking non-swarthies, and if the terrorists start to use them, hey-presto you've just given them a first-class ticket past security. That's why racial profiling doesn't work. It's naive and intrinsically prone to catastrophic failure. Grandma Mabel gets scanned because terrorists might assume racial profiling is in operation, and so are using old ladies who are, or can pass for, white.
In essence, what you are saying is that if the TSA focus on one specific method of transporting explosives onto a 'plane the bad guys will find some other way. But surely that's what they're doing anyway - Liquid explosives = only 100ml liquids allowed. - Shoebomber = remove shoes at airports. The next time they try something they'll use a new method that isn't currently checked for. By your argument we should therefore stop checking liquids & shoes because they won't try that way again? Eh?
The fact that all TSA security (theatre) is reactive rather than proactive underlines the fact that it is a waste of time, but following their own mantra, they should surely concentrate their efforts on muslims because they're gonna have a hard time convincing anyone else to blow themselves up! Sure, how do you pick out the muslims isn't an easy one, but surely that should be the aim?
Not just duty free - but the economic well being of all airport stores.
I once had a pair of tweezers confiscated from me for a domestic flight.
Passed through security, walked into the airport newsagency, and was able to buy a new pair within 5 minutes.
A mate was flying back (to the UK) from Ireland (the Republic of) and had to buy those stupid plastic bags to put toiletries in. 1 euro for two. He said he only needed one, but the 'guard' insisted he had to buy two! The guy in front said he only needed one of the two he'd just bought and my mate could have the other one, but the guard said NO! He had to buy his own bags!
Of course Israel had quite a lot of trouble back in the days when hijacking meant "fly this plane to Beirut!" where ransom demands were made and their response was to publicly claim that all Israeli people were considered "troops" in such situations and at the earliest opportunity the Israeli special forces would storm the plane. This happened once or twice and the hijackers realised they would never succeed. I'm sure some Israeli people were harmed in those stormed planes but the number saved subsequently made it "worth it" for the society, if not the individuals.
The same is true for current kidnappings and piracy (Somali pirates, etc). If the World could decide that paying off such people was now illegal and special forces would be deployed in all instances there would be some casualties but ultimately it would stop them doing it!
I would also suggest helping the poor nations could also assist in making piracy a less attractive career prospect.
Pretend for a moment that a Muslim posted on Twitter that a UK politician should be stoned to death. Considering the attempted murder of a MP recently and the UK removing YouTube videos, I'm sure that they'd get arrested. I doubt slashdotters would stand up for him in the same manner as they're doing for this jerk.
That's where common sense is needed. I am 100% sure that the dumb politician wasn't actually calling for the annoying Alibhai-Brown to be stoned. It's just not what we do over here! We're more likely to advocate being hung drawn and quartered (though again, very rarely would any such suggestion be serious!). This was so obviously aimed squarely at Alibhai-Brown's unbelievable assertion that UK Politicians aren't allowed to comment on common Muslim punishment rituals that some initial investigation should very quickly come to the conclusion that there's nothing to see and we should all move on!
Now given the history of Muslim encouragement to commit violence (the nutjob suggesting all MPs should be stabbed for example), I would expect such postings to be similarly investigated and a flag or two to be raised for a deeper inspection of the people involved.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks for clearing that up.
"Free". "Free". You keep using that word but I do not think you know what it means.
"Accidentally" leave a gate open to the ocean, and see if the dolphin escapes or not. Then I guess you'll have your answer. Wanting to escape and being able to do so are two very different things.
I went to a Dolphin training place when I was on Bermuda a few years back and it was a small tank and looked pretty bloody awful so I complained. The 'instructor' chap apologised and said it was a temporary place because a recent hurricane had smashed up their previous location which was far nicer and had, as a 'fence' to keep the dolphins in, just a boom running out into a bay. This allowed the dolphins to jump over to get out into the open ocean, which they would do on regular occasions, but they pretty much always returned at some point and seemed to enjoy the 'training' and learning new tricks stuff!
Another show I saw was in Portugal and one of the 'tricks' the dolphins did was to 'kick' (with their tails) a ball into the crowd. One of the (3) dolphins mis-hit it and it just move a few metres towards the edge of the tank. The dolphin knew it had mis-hit it and had a look at the ball and realised it was far to close to the edge of the tank for it to be able to swim under and kick again, so it swam around and (gently) kicked it back into the middle of the tank, then swam round and HOOFED it into the crowd! For me, that showed a huge amount of awareness and problem solving (assuming of course it hadn't just been trained to do it like that!).
At what point were they "robbing?"
As I see it the problem here is that they knew the wins were bogus (and indeed, they knew because they engineered it!). If some hapless fool had chanced upon such a win (and therefore didn't know it to be bogus) they could legitimately have claimed the cash.
Also, I think that if the machine actually paid out the money directly, they'd have an argument to say the machine was faulty, but taking the print out to the cash desk definitely is one step too far over the line.
The high rollers still get all sorts of free crap.
LOL! My guess is that the high rollers are actually paying for all the free crap. Do you honestly think the casinos are going to be encouraging the big players to come to their casinos if they're winning? Sheeez!
Actually, while I have your attention, I've got this old bridge in London I'm trying to sell ...
There's a reason why NTSC is said to be a shorthand for Never Twice the Same Color (obviously not colour :-))
... In China, it's no problem! You simply confiscate the land and build. Progressivism is alive and well in China.
See also France's TGV network ... We Brits are looking to put a new HST line from London to Birmingham (and thence to Leeds and Manchester) but the arguments over who's back yard it must go through mean it'll probably never be built, which is a crying shame for the country (though possibly good for the un-blighted countryside! - funny if you look back at the initial spread of the railways and see the building work done for them - tunnel entrances built to look like stately homes and the most wonderful bridges - now it's all just concrete and steel and most definitely a blot on the landscape!).
Even funnier is to look at the British Empire and how we dealt with the Train Tech that we invented. We parcelled it up and 'king gave it away, like every other bloody thing we ever invented [shakes head].
Anyway, I for one welcome our new Chinese overlords ...
Just because China wanted to build in-country, doesn't mean anyone was ripped off.
Assuming the deals cut were signed by both parties I fail to see how anyone was ripped off. If the sellers didn't like the T&C's then they were perfectly at liberty to let some other company sell them the wares.
This is surely just China flexing it's muscle as not just a huge market but, certainly at the moment, the huge market! All companies want a slice of the action because China is where the action is! A friend works for a large multinational company who ended up with a Chinese subsidiary due to a buyout deal somewhere back in time. The tax requirement for getting the profits out of China is HUGE making it not worth it (and the company is V. Successful!), but they they also buy a HUGE amount of materials from China and found that having a Chinese company do the buying was much much cheaper than buying from abroad. The end result is they are V. happy to have (accidentally) bought a Chinese company even though they'd have never gone out just to buy one, and now find they have a lot of expertise in the Chinese market. ... and that foot in the door is EXACTLY why the various train tech companies were (and still should be!) happy to have made the deals!
They have a foot in the door
Ground crew have privileged access to secure areas of the airport that demands more security, not less. Make them do an iris scan and enter a passcode in addition to swiping their badge.
Unless the ground crew also go through the wonderful new nudey-scan machines (or are otherwise touched up and fondled) EVERY TIME they cross into air-side then there's a glaring hole in the process! Any one of the ground crew could be turned (I've got your daughter and you will carry this item through and hand it to my partner air-side) or simply go postal, or be a long-time plant or sleeper, which means they MUST be subject to searches to prevent them from carrying any of the otherwise disallowed items air-side. Hell, they don't even need to be suicide jockeys they can just plant the stuff for the suicide squad to pick up once they clear the security theatre as regular passengers!
Of course "ax" is the correct pronunciation for "ask" in certain quarters too, so perhaps the confusion runs deeper still and it's actually a "rescue ask" that's looking medieval?
... but from someone in the military's perspective, it's better they not read something they aren't supposed to.
Actually, it's laughable! What this says to me is that the bonehead air force nutjob who instigated (and any who approved!) this has abso-bloody-lutely no idea what-so-ever how the internet works!
Shoot twice, then move gun quickly.
Hmmmm. Perhaps a Disappearing Gun then ...
Clearly, no wetware is gonna make it through alive. Ditto for normal fabricated parts & stuff. Lots of electronics and explosives will handle it (cannon shells, for example), but there we are, squarely in military applications.
There really aren't any civilian applications for this.
Water? You could presumably fire containers full of water into orbit ... though a problem of heat does present itself to whatever catches the suckers and they're gonna be WAY hot when they arrive and one of the problems in space is getting rid of excess heat!
If you fired the things from high in a mountain range somewhere would that make a sufficient difference to make schlepping the cargo there worth while I wonder?
So if they pointed this sucker 'up' would it be able to throw stuff (you don't mind being squashed - a bit!) into orbit?
"Beyond Petroleum" was just a corporate slogan. The company's official name is "BP" which doesn't officially stand for anything any more.
Yes indeed, but the old "British Petroleum" did indeed merge with the "American Oil Company" (Amoco) to become "BP".
So the deniers are always wrong? ...
I think by definition deniers are wrong. They are people who wilfully deny the evidence. That is one of the reasons they don't like being called deniers, because the word assumes they are wrong.
... Even when the proponents change their models to reveal that they were right?
The deniers are still wrong, they're just not the same group of people!
If the CIA were going to frame him for rape, I'd think they could do a better job of it than they did. No evidence, flimsy and contradictory testimony by the victims, crazy interpretations of the law, public and friendly interactions with him after the fact, waiting days before making the accusation, not even an accusation of violence. I would imagine that a CIA frame up would be a bit better constructed that the case against him is.
Actually, all they need to do is get him to Sweden and from there a rendition flight back to the Good 'ol US-of-A where the real fun starts.
How do you suggest he would have done that? As far as I'm following I understood the charges where dropped while he was in the country, and refiled when he left.
That's what I heard too. Indeed I heard he tried to sort it out in Sweden before he left but they didn't want to talk to him. Once he left they re-filed the charges and could then get Interplod involved because he was no longer in Sweden. Because of Interplod's involvement his bank in Switzerland has now frozen his accounts, etc.
This just all seems far too convenient to be happening now ...
... Hopefully Swedish law will allow Assange to file a counter suit for defamation of character and slander.
But if he sets foot in Sweden I'd expect the rape case to be dropped (or rapidly found not-guilty) and Assange to be whisked onto a rendition flight to the US ...
That said, I would hope that any extradition from the UK would be on condition that no rendition be permitted from Sweden. I won't be holding my breath though!
If you are a man with a woman and she insists on not using a condom, can you later have her charged with rape?
In Sweden, it would appear so, even if you both went out and got breakfast together afterwards!
... And most of the info coming out doesn't hurt the US as much as Assange would like it to. ...
There seems to be a general assumption that Assange is Quixotically tilting at the US. That's not my perception at all.
WikiLeaks has been given some interesting documents for publication and they are making them public, as per the wishes of the donor! It just so happens some of them are about the US.
Now if people were to suggest that the donor of the US Specific documents was having a go at the US there may be a better case for it, but much like all the fuss in the UK over the MPs Expenses malarky, I could equally validly suggest that having seen the cancer of corruption within the government(corporation, whatever) it is the whistleblower's duty as a citizen(employee, whatever) to provide the sharpest knife to allow the corruption to be cut out!
Indeed, given the knowledge that there is something rotten in your government it could be considered treason if you didn't do something about it!
We, as the public, should stop focusing on Assange as a figurehead (who set himself up as such because of the effort being expended by those outed to discover the people behind WikiLeaks and he thought it better to provide a target than have them discover their own!) and rather concentrate on the information WikiLeaks provides.
Well done to WikiLeaks! In general, you are providing a valuable service to every nation affected because that dirty laundry needs airing and the longer it is allowed to fester the worse it will smell!
Racial profiling is not commonly used because it's ineffective, not just because it's (by definition) racist. Do you think terrorists all look the same? Do you think that even if they do now that they always will? If you just search for swarthy individuals, you won't be checking non-swarthies, and if the terrorists start to use them, hey-presto you've just given them a first-class ticket past security. That's why racial profiling doesn't work. It's naive and intrinsically prone to catastrophic failure. Grandma Mabel gets scanned because terrorists might assume racial profiling is in operation, and so are using old ladies who are, or can pass for, white.
In essence, what you are saying is that if the TSA focus on one specific method of transporting explosives onto a 'plane the bad guys will find some other way. But surely that's what they're doing anyway - Liquid explosives = only 100ml liquids allowed. - Shoebomber = remove shoes at airports. The next time they try something they'll use a new method that isn't currently checked for. By your argument we should therefore stop checking liquids & shoes because they won't try that way again? Eh?
The fact that all TSA security (theatre) is reactive rather than proactive underlines the fact that it is a waste of time, but following their own mantra, they should surely concentrate their efforts on muslims because they're gonna have a hard time convincing anyone else to blow themselves up! Sure, how do you pick out the muslims isn't an easy one, but surely that should be the aim?
Not just duty free - but the economic well being of all airport stores. I once had a pair of tweezers confiscated from me for a domestic flight. Passed through security, walked into the airport newsagency, and was able to buy a new pair within 5 minutes.
A mate was flying back (to the UK) from Ireland (the Republic of) and had to buy those stupid plastic bags to put toiletries in. 1 euro for two. He said he only needed one, but the 'guard' insisted he had to buy two! The guy in front said he only needed one of the two he'd just bought and my mate could have the other one, but the guard said NO! He had to buy his own bags!
The same is true for current kidnappings and piracy (Somali pirates, etc). If the World could decide that paying off such people was now illegal and special forces would be deployed in all instances there would be some casualties but ultimately it would stop them doing it!
I would also suggest helping the poor nations could also assist in making piracy a less attractive career prospect.
... It would be used to detonate an incendiary based on a remote or a timer. ...
Presumably so you can get back to your first class cabin when the bomb goes off in coach?
Pretend for a moment that a Muslim posted on Twitter that a UK politician should be stoned to death. Considering the attempted murder of a MP recently and the UK removing YouTube videos, I'm sure that they'd get arrested. I doubt slashdotters would stand up for him in the same manner as they're doing for this jerk.
That's where common sense is needed. I am 100% sure that the dumb politician wasn't actually calling for the annoying Alibhai-Brown to be stoned. It's just not what we do over here! We're more likely to advocate being hung drawn and quartered (though again, very rarely would any such suggestion be serious!). This was so obviously aimed squarely at Alibhai-Brown's unbelievable assertion that UK Politicians aren't allowed to comment on common Muslim punishment rituals that some initial investigation should very quickly come to the conclusion that there's nothing to see and we should all move on!
Now given the history of Muslim encouragement to commit violence (the nutjob suggesting all MPs should be stabbed for example), I would expect such postings to be similarly investigated and a flag or two to be raised for a deeper inspection of the people involved.