I beat the campaign mode in the second-highest difficulty, and a few weeks later, once I wasn't pissed off about the cliffhanger anymore, I started redoing the game at the highest difficulty.
I'm currently trapped in a little tunnel in the throne room (or whatever it is on the Covenant home world) with a bunch of brutes and grunts waiting for me outside. I killed the first bunch with nothing but some plasma grenades, a needler, a brute plasma rifle, a cov carbine (with only a little ammo) and a plasma pistol, but now I'm almost out of ammo and I have no grenades left. I didn't even manage to get the brute shot, either; I'd say I'm completely screwed.
Well... Ok, I was trying to be charitable. Of course, you're right, there are plenty of cops who are complete assholes. I agree that the field sort of self-selects for that kind of thing. I didn't want to just come out and SAY it, though...;)
I'm going to assume you actually aren't aware of what's going on, and that you're not deliberately trying to pretend, and supply you with some reading material. Please consider the following articles in support of my statements:
Here's a Register article about how the Patriot Act isn't being used against terrorists, but rather regular criminals (a group for which the act was not meant to be used, I'd consider that an abuse), side-stepping their civil liberties: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/05/22/us_antiter ror_law_used_against/
Well, what I heard was that the FBI tried to update all their internal systems to make them interoperate better, but the contractor they selected to do the work didn't work out. Now, they're still looking for a contractor who can handle the scale of the project, and they're looking for people they can hire internally as well.
My understanding of it is that it's basically just a big modernization project, with no sinister elements whatsoever. Apparently there's also a big problem with lots of information being handled on paper, of all things. Boxes and boxes of the stuff, instead of a computerized system that would be searchable and streamlined.
Can you blame them? If I was in the FBI I'd be trying to hire some people too.:)
The only thing I worry about in terms of police making people's lives difficult is that not all cops are all that bright.
What if the cop who decides YOU are a freak deserving of "special treatment" just happens to be an idiot who barely passed his coursework? What if he's a big, stupid goon and he just didn't like your face (so now he's going to pick on you)?
That DOES happen, you know. Practically every town in the U.S. has at least one cop whose neighbors consider him a "live one". Maybe he's the guy wearing the "Better dead than red" T-shirt on weekends, who thinks anyone not toeing the party line is a "hippie freak". Maybe he's the buttoned down 55-year old who can't stand "damn kids these days". There's one in every town.
Cops in general may be very professional, smart, and trustworthy -- but it only takes one knucklehead to make your life a living hell. And the abuse of power I'm talking about is so common in our culture most people don't even blink over it.
I believe that what most of us find irritating about the Patriot Act is that many of the powers Bush asked for after 9/11 were not used to pursue terrorists, but rather political groups that the president disliked. For example, the airport no-fly list was mostly not used to prevent terrorists from flying (they all had false ID anyway) but rather, to prevent hippies and other malcontents from attending protests.
Now, I believe you and I both completely agree that asshole fundamentalists with bombs should be repeatedly forced to endure body cavity searches performed by a very large man hopped up on speed, with his choice of implements (no lube).
HOWEVER, I also believe that Bush should be prevented from abusing the powers he has received. I believe the FBI should be absolutely barred from using these powers against American citizens unless they can document, to a judge's satisfaction, that the person is in fact up to no good and has actually committed a crime (or is about to).
Now, what's wrong with that? Most of the funamentalists with bombs aren't in fact Americans. So my little restriction of government power won't affect your desire to not be blown up in the slightest.
I await your reply...
Re:OH, joy. Another anti-IT witch-hunting book. Ya
on
Insider Threat
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· Score: 1
"He's got a shoe! A SHOE!"
Re:OH, joy. Another anti-IT witch-hunting book. Ya
on
Insider Threat
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· Score: 1
Fair enough. Maybe your book IS balanced. I'm not going to buy it to find out, of course... But you do realize that this sort of book traditionally sets management and employees at odds.
Who reads it? Management, which feels above reproach and won't consider itself to be a threat even if your book has a whole chapter entitled "Management: A Threat".
Who suffers from it? Mostly the IT department, because they're closest to the data, they're usually not politically connected at all, and Management doesn't know how their jobs really work, so they're mysterious and spooky.
Joe Manager isn't going to pick on his sales staff. He understands them. He gets along with them. They go drinking together. The same goes for his fellow managers.
Joe's going to pick on the weirdos in the IT department. He's going to read your book and think "they have control over MY database! They're weird and different, and I don't drink with them! Somebody must DO something!"
And, just like that, your so-carefully-balanced book becomes a tool for management to use against employees, usually by justifying the implementation of ridiculous, poorly-thought-out policies designed to "get those people under control". It's just basic human nature, and it's disingenious for you to say it doesn't work like that.
Whenever I hear about a book like yours, I think "what's he selling me?" Because anytime someone tells you you should be worried about X, they're about to sell you Y.
Of course, what you're selling is a BOOK.
OH, joy. Another anti-IT witch-hunting book. Yay!
on
Insider Threat
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· Score: 1, Interesting
Here we go again. Yet another book claiming that companies can't trust their employees, as if we're all crooked and evil (and not merely underpaid and mistreated, but that's another story). ANOTHER book justifying management treating us like shit. ANOTHER book telling the bosses what they want to hear. Hooray. And it's in a book so It Must Be True.
Meanwhile, over here IN REAL LIFE, people like me are running a company's entire business, with full access to everything, and yet, we don't break the law! We don't even BEND the law. How can we explain this bizarre paradox? Because if our collective bosses were to admit that their IT staff possesses PROFESSIONAL PRIDE, and MORALS, and A DESIRE TO DO THE RIGHT THING ALL THE TIME, NOT JUST WHEN IT'S GOOD FOR BUSINESS, well, that'd just be chaos! I mean, our whole society would fall apart if we admitted something like that!
What to do, what to do... The book says we're evil, common sense says we're not... What's a manager to do?
But if your geothermal plant is used to process alcohol, which is then used to power the automobile, you could argue that the alcohol is acting as a sort of battery and the auto is, in a sense, powered by the geothermal plant. What do you think about that scenario?
Don't worry, though. If I know the British, the conversation will go like this:
Brit: "Oi, mum, gi' me back me bollocks!"
British Lady (BL): "Cor Blimey! And what d'ye think yer gonna do wif'em?"
Brit: "Harrumph... Oh, well, I suppose, um..."
BL: "EXXXXXXXactly. You hardly even know what they're for! Worry not, love, I've got them safe and sound here in me purse."
Brit: "But, Peaches, I needs 'em!"
BL: "Poppycock! You just wants 'em. You're liable to go spending them on trashy skirts and cheap American beer. They're safe and sound right here in me pocketses. Now, run along and make yourself useful, check on me Yorkshire pudding, it should be almost ready." (starts to knit).
Ahem. We were talking about the demise of the strip club I was talking about, not the drughead bashing windows while he chased me down the street at twenty miles an hour.
Supposedly, the strip bar was involved in some kind of weird dealings and got shut down. That has NOTHING to do with the drug episode.
MY POINT BEING: there WERE hot strippers in Flagstaff. That place closed down. So the place you mentioned was a different place. Understand?
Isn't that too bad? Yeah, you go ahead and live according to your own values. I look forward to hearing all about your ongoing despair at how well the rest of us are living. I'll smoke a cigar, drink a glass of champagne (the good stuff) and think of you.
Isn't it lovely that we live in a society where EVERYONE gets to be prosperous and happy? It's little wonder the whole rest of the world wants to live here.
So? There are more alternative power generation schemes than just alcohol. I just believe alcohol has a big, comfy seat at the table, right up there next to wave power, geothermal power, nuclear power, wind power (etc).
Ha! Touched a nerve, eh? Well, good. It's good for you. Re-read your other post and THEN tell me you're not a scummy elitist swine. I bet you get hardons when you think about British royalty; I'll bet you secretly wish you were of noble birth. You sad little thing...
BTW: I'm just a poor, middle-class civil servant who doesn't like people with your crummy attitude. I'll take our relative prosperity over whatever hellhole you're pining for ANY day.
Yeah, I could see that. I never thought nuclear power was all that bad; I never could understand why people got so hot under the collar over it. It's a whole lot better than coal, which throws tons of dioxin into the air!
That's certainly true; you know, petroleum companies and auto manufacturers regularly hire college kids who work on anything even remotely "alternative energy" related. One of the kids who went to my college got hired by G.M. shortly after he built a hydrogen-burning engine (a very small one, just sort of a senior project). Once they get hired, you never hear about their ideas again. They end up making door gaskets and such, instead of working on anything useful.
I bet their work is all stockpiled somewhere, "just in case" the companies in question ever need it. They'll hold out on us, milking the petroleum economy as long as they can, and shift over to something else when they're good and ready (and have figured out a way to control it).
Yes, but as I've mentioned to other people, you wouldn't use ONLY alcohol. You'd have wind generators in parts of the country where they're practical (like the plains states), wave and thermal convection generators on the coasts, geothermal in some places, nuclear plants, etc... And you could generate alcohol as a nice portable energy source as well. It's part of a larger picture. Cars don't run off of mains, they run off of fuel; but that fuel could be generated from power available elsewhere, and so on.
Which doesn't matter if you think of the ethanol as a "battery" rather than a "power plant". Combine alcohol with other forms of power generation (wind, solar, wave, thermal convection, nuclear, geothermal) and you could set up a whole system of power generation and transport.
yes, but a lot of that food ends up going to waste -- it isn't all consumed. And, if we were to end agricultural subsidies, allowing more of the third world to pitch in on farming for food, we could shift more of the land over to fuel generation. Just an idea...
There's a lot of land that isn't fully utilized yet.
Well, admit, at least, that as one method among many (wind power, wave power, thermal convection, geothermal, pebble bed nuclear, etc) alcohol could be pretty useful...
As I understood an article I read a while back, it's really more about safely containing the nuclear material than making the reactor small -- the nuclear material is sealed into a (graphite?) pebble, which won't ever leak or contaminate anything. It's a good idea, don'cha think?
Oh, I love pebble-bed nuclear reactors. I think they're an excellent idea. You could run one in every major town and city; the best part is that when the fuel is spent, it's contained in its "pebble" so it's much safer to dispose of. It's a great technology.
But alcohol could be a useful addition to that. You could use methanol to fuel personal electronics (instead of batteries, which don't give you much bang for your buck and which are difficult to dispose of cleanly). You could also use it as combustion-engine fuel.
There are a lot of pieces that can go into this type of puzzle. There's wave power, the thermal convection concept they just posted a separate story about, wind power...
They all work, and there's no reason they can't all work together.
Slashdot Mirror
I beat the campaign mode in the second-highest difficulty, and a few weeks later, once I wasn't pissed off about the cliffhanger anymore, I started redoing the game at the highest difficulty.
I'm currently trapped in a little tunnel in the throne room (or whatever it is on the Covenant home world) with a bunch of brutes and grunts waiting for me outside. I killed the first bunch with nothing but some plasma grenades, a needler, a brute plasma rifle, a cov carbine (with only a little ammo) and a plasma pistol, but now I'm almost out of ammo and I have no grenades left. I didn't even manage to get the brute shot, either; I'd say I'm completely screwed.
Ah, well. Sigh...
Well... Ok, I was trying to be charitable. Of course, you're right, there are plenty of cops who are complete assholes. I agree that the field sort of self-selects for that kind of thing. I didn't want to just come out and SAY it, though... ;)
I'm going to assume you actually aren't aware of what's going on, and that you're not deliberately trying to pretend, and supply you with some reading material. Please consider the following articles in support of my statements:
l y/index_np.html/ 09/27/MNNOFLY.TMP&nl=topt estersdetained.htmo sts
n _terror_watch/
/
c t%22+abuses&btnG=Google+Search
3 0214.html
r ror_law_used_against/
3 10/1010abuses.html
h p?aid=619
Let's start with the no-fly list:
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/07/25/no_f
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002
http://www.globenet.free-online.co.uk/reports/pro
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/957183/p
This one's just fun: they barred Ted Kennedy (the senator):
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/19/senator_o
And this one just basically says the No-Fly list is managed rather stupidly:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/04/07/aclu-suit
Now lets look at the Patriot act:
First, this google search returns almost 3 million hits on patriot act abuses:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22Patriot+A
Here's a detailed analysis by the ACLU about what's wrong with the Patriot Act:
http://www.aclu.org//safefree/general/17203leg200
Here's a Register article about how the Patriot Act isn't being used against terrorists, but rather regular criminals (a group for which the act was not meant to be used, I'd consider that an abuse), side-stepping their civil liberties:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/05/22/us_antite
Here's an article about an interesting talk that went on at Harvard about the subject:
http://www.pbs.org/weta/washingtonweek/voices/200
Here's a fun reprint of a Village Voice article about the NYPD seeking to spy on protestors and such:
http://www.refuseandresist.org/police_state/art.p
I could go on and on, but I think I've made my point. The Patriot Act should be quietly killed off and our civil liberties re-affirmed.
Enjoy your readings...
Well, what I heard was that the FBI tried to update all their internal systems to make them interoperate better, but the contractor they selected to do the work didn't work out. Now, they're still looking for a contractor who can handle the scale of the project, and they're looking for people they can hire internally as well.
:)
My understanding of it is that it's basically just a big modernization project, with no sinister elements whatsoever. Apparently there's also a big problem with lots of information being handled on paper, of all things. Boxes and boxes of the stuff, instead of a computerized system that would be searchable and streamlined.
Can you blame them? If I was in the FBI I'd be trying to hire some people too.
The only thing I worry about in terms of police making people's lives difficult is that not all cops are all that bright.
:)
What if the cop who decides YOU are a freak deserving of "special treatment" just happens to be an idiot who barely passed his coursework? What if he's a big, stupid goon and he just didn't like your face (so now he's going to pick on you)?
That DOES happen, you know. Practically every town in the U.S. has at least one cop whose neighbors consider him a "live one". Maybe he's the guy wearing the "Better dead than red" T-shirt on weekends, who thinks anyone not toeing the party line is a "hippie freak". Maybe he's the buttoned down 55-year old who can't stand "damn kids these days". There's one in every town.
Cops in general may be very professional, smart, and trustworthy -- but it only takes one knucklehead to make your life a living hell. And the abuse of power I'm talking about is so common in our culture most people don't even blink over it.
Sigh... Ok, I'm done now. Please continue.
I believe that what most of us find irritating about the Patriot Act is that many of the powers Bush asked for after 9/11 were not used to pursue terrorists, but rather political groups that the president disliked. For example, the airport no-fly list was mostly not used to prevent terrorists from flying (they all had false ID anyway) but rather, to prevent hippies and other malcontents from attending protests.
Now, I believe you and I both completely agree that asshole fundamentalists with bombs should be repeatedly forced to endure body cavity searches performed by a very large man hopped up on speed, with his choice of implements (no lube).
HOWEVER, I also believe that Bush should be prevented from abusing the powers he has received. I believe the FBI should be absolutely barred from using these powers against American citizens unless they can document, to a judge's satisfaction, that the person is in fact up to no good and has actually committed a crime (or is about to).
Now, what's wrong with that? Most of the funamentalists with bombs aren't in fact Americans. So my little restriction of government power won't affect your desire to not be blown up in the slightest.
I await your reply...
"He's got a shoe! A SHOE!"
Fair enough. Maybe your book IS balanced. I'm not going to buy it to find out, of course... But you do realize that this sort of book traditionally sets management and employees at odds.
Who reads it? Management, which feels above reproach and won't consider itself to be a threat even if your book has a whole chapter entitled "Management: A Threat".
Who suffers from it? Mostly the IT department, because they're closest to the data, they're usually not politically connected at all, and Management doesn't know how their jobs really work, so they're mysterious and spooky.
Joe Manager isn't going to pick on his sales staff. He understands them. He gets along with them. They go drinking together. The same goes for his fellow managers.
Joe's going to pick on the weirdos in the IT department. He's going to read your book and think "they have control over MY database! They're weird and different, and I don't drink with them! Somebody must DO something!"
And, just like that, your so-carefully-balanced book becomes a tool for management to use against employees, usually by justifying the implementation of ridiculous, poorly-thought-out policies designed to "get those people under control". It's just basic human nature, and it's disingenious for you to say it doesn't work like that.
Whenever I hear about a book like yours, I think "what's he selling me?" Because anytime someone tells you you should be worried about X, they're about to sell you Y.
Of course, what you're selling is a BOOK.
Here we go again. Yet another book claiming that companies can't trust their employees, as if we're all crooked and evil (and not merely underpaid and mistreated, but that's another story). ANOTHER book justifying management treating us like shit. ANOTHER book telling the bosses what they want to hear. Hooray. And it's in a book so It Must Be True.
Meanwhile, over here IN REAL LIFE, people like me are running a company's entire business, with full access to everything, and yet, we don't break the law! We don't even BEND the law. How can we explain this bizarre paradox? Because if our collective bosses were to admit that their IT staff possesses PROFESSIONAL PRIDE, and MORALS, and A DESIRE TO DO THE RIGHT THING ALL THE TIME, NOT JUST WHEN IT'S GOOD FOR BUSINESS, well, that'd just be chaos! I mean, our whole society would fall apart if we admitted something like that!
What to do, what to do... The book says we're evil, common sense says we're not... What's a manager to do?
Oh! I know! Follow the book! That was easy...
How do you know? I might have tried it and gotten so drunk I forgot the whole thing!
But if your geothermal plant is used to process alcohol, which is then used to power the automobile, you could argue that the alcohol is acting as a sort of battery and the auto is, in a sense, powered by the geothermal plant. What do you think about that scenario?
Uhhhh.... Sorry about that. I didn't realize you weren't the original guy. :)
Ah, well, no harm no foul.
Heh heh heh, good for her (and you)!
Don't worry, though. If I know the British, the conversation will go like this:
Brit: "Oi, mum, gi' me back me bollocks!"
British Lady (BL): "Cor Blimey! And what d'ye think yer gonna do wif'em?"
Brit: "Harrumph... Oh, well, I suppose, um..."
BL: "EXXXXXXXactly. You hardly even know what they're for! Worry not, love, I've got them safe and sound here in me purse."
Brit: "But, Peaches, I needs 'em!"
BL: "Poppycock! You just wants 'em. You're liable to go spending them on trashy skirts and cheap American beer. They're safe and sound right here in me pocketses. Now, run along and make yourself useful, check on me Yorkshire pudding, it should be almost ready." (starts to knit).
Brit: "Oh, bugger. Yes, mum..."
Ahem. We were talking about the demise of the strip club I was talking about, not the drughead bashing windows while he chased me down the street at twenty miles an hour.
Supposedly, the strip bar was involved in some kind of weird dealings and got shut down. That has NOTHING to do with the drug episode.
MY POINT BEING: there WERE hot strippers in Flagstaff. That place closed down. So the place you mentioned was a different place. Understand?
Jeez...
Woo, woo, woo!
Isn't that too bad? Yeah, you go ahead and live according to your own values. I look forward to hearing all about your ongoing despair at how well the rest of us are living. I'll smoke a cigar, drink a glass of champagne (the good stuff) and think of you.
Isn't it lovely that we live in a society where EVERYONE gets to be prosperous and happy? It's little wonder the whole rest of the world wants to live here.
You're welcome to leave at any time, of course.
So? There are more alternative power generation schemes than just alcohol. I just believe alcohol has a big, comfy seat at the table, right up there next to wave power, geothermal power, nuclear power, wind power (etc).
Ha! Touched a nerve, eh? Well, good. It's good for you. Re-read your other post and THEN tell me you're not a scummy elitist swine. I bet you get hardons when you think about British royalty; I'll bet you secretly wish you were of noble birth. You sad little thing...
BTW: I'm just a poor, middle-class civil servant who doesn't like people with your crummy attitude. I'll take our relative prosperity over whatever hellhole you're pining for ANY day.
Ta, ta!
Yeah, I could see that. I never thought nuclear power was all that bad; I never could understand why people got so hot under the collar over it. It's a whole lot better than coal, which throws tons of dioxin into the air!
Solar shingles? I'd buy 'em...
That's certainly true; you know, petroleum companies and auto manufacturers regularly hire college kids who work on anything even remotely "alternative energy" related. One of the kids who went to my college got hired by G.M. shortly after he built a hydrogen-burning engine (a very small one, just sort of a senior project). Once they get hired, you never hear about their ideas again. They end up making door gaskets and such, instead of working on anything useful.
I bet their work is all stockpiled somewhere, "just in case" the companies in question ever need it. They'll hold out on us, milking the petroleum economy as long as they can, and shift over to something else when they're good and ready (and have figured out a way to control it).
Sigh...
Yes, but as I've mentioned to other people, you wouldn't use ONLY alcohol. You'd have wind generators in parts of the country where they're practical (like the plains states), wave and thermal convection generators on the coasts, geothermal in some places, nuclear plants, etc... And you could generate alcohol as a nice portable energy source as well. It's part of a larger picture. Cars don't run off of mains, they run off of fuel; but that fuel could be generated from power available elsewhere, and so on.
It's just an idea.
Which doesn't matter if you think of the ethanol as a "battery" rather than a "power plant". Combine alcohol with other forms of power generation (wind, solar, wave, thermal convection, nuclear, geothermal) and you could set up a whole system of power generation and transport.
yes, but a lot of that food ends up going to waste -- it isn't all consumed. And, if we were to end agricultural subsidies, allowing more of the third world to pitch in on farming for food, we could shift more of the land over to fuel generation. Just an idea...
There's a lot of land that isn't fully utilized yet.
Well, admit, at least, that as one method among many (wind power, wave power, thermal convection, geothermal, pebble bed nuclear, etc) alcohol could be pretty useful...
As I understood an article I read a while back, it's really more about safely containing the nuclear material than making the reactor small -- the nuclear material is sealed into a (graphite?) pebble, which won't ever leak or contaminate anything. It's a good idea, don'cha think?
Oh, I love pebble-bed nuclear reactors. I think they're an excellent idea. You could run one in every major town and city; the best part is that when the fuel is spent, it's contained in its "pebble" so it's much safer to dispose of. It's a great technology.
But alcohol could be a useful addition to that. You could use methanol to fuel personal electronics (instead of batteries, which don't give you much bang for your buck and which are difficult to dispose of cleanly). You could also use it as combustion-engine fuel.
There are a lot of pieces that can go into this type of puzzle. There's wave power, the thermal convection concept they just posted a separate story about, wind power...
They all work, and there's no reason they can't all work together.