Seriously, I think it's well past time we stop thinking of professional sports as some kind of special or noble endeavor, and acknowledge their "athletes" for what they really are: entertainers. Pro sports are a multi-billion dollar for-profit business. No actually, they're a collection of several multi-billion dollar for-profit businesses. And it's show business, pure and simple. Steph Curry's and LeBron James' jobs are not to put the ball through the hoop. It's not really David Beckham's job to kick the ball into the goal. And it's not the job of those 11 guys to put their ball in the end zone. In all cases, their real jobs are to put on a show that sells arena and stadium seats and puts eyeballs on the television screens.
So why not just drop the pretense, acknowledge pro "athletes" for what they really are, quit obsessing about how they attain their performance levels, and just let them put on a good show? After all... We don't drug test Lady Gaga just after the Grammys, and take hers back if she tests positive for pot (Which she's admitted using, saying it makes her more creative.). Nor do we randomly drug test the Rolling Stones and suspend Keith Richards for the next ten tour dates if he tests positive for... well, it's Keith Richards. Take your pick.
Killing pirates has been one of the primary duties of navies pretty much since there's been such a thing as navies. It's kind of in the job description.
The whole ship doesn't need to be sealed; just the control spaces and circuit runs to the engine, rudder actuator, and so on. Said spaces could even be permanently flooded while underway with halon or nitrogen or CO2 to, you know, cut down on the risk of fire. And even then, the seals and/or gas don't have to hold out forever, just long enough to rendezvous with whatever naval warship is operating in that zone.
1) Pirates board. 2) Remote operator notifies the navy, is instructed to send the ship to whatever coordinates. 3) Ship sets flank speed, steers towards rendezvous with navy. 4) Pirates have a choice, jump off, or wait for the navy to show up. 5) If pirates jump off, operator notifies the navy, and returns ship to its pre-set course. 6) If pirates stay on the ship, the navy has the convenience of knowing for certain that there are zero friendlies or hostages on board. This makes the boarding action considerably simpler.
Last job I worked at where I had access to our analytics, total traffic from.ru was less even than that of IE6 worldwide. And the company had decided before I worked there that IE6 users represented so minuscule a share of our hits that they weren't worth accommodating. So I'd expect that they'd have made the same decision about Russians too, if they had some law that required us to do additional engineering work to accommodate them.
Apple does not make collection of your data mandatory for use of its products and services, or even for them to be fully functional. They didn't base their entire business model around hovering up every bit of personal data possible and selling it to the highest bidder.
But it's probably inaccurate to say: "Apple doesn't like collecting your data.". If you're happy giving it to Apple, I'm sure they're happy to accept it. It's a nice bonus for them, but not a requirement for entry.
Who would take that chance anyway? On my Mac, I do a full data backup to an external drive, then physically disconnect it, before routine OS updates. On my iDevices, I do backups to both iCloud and my Mac before updates. I've never actually lost data. But I'm a bit paranoid on that score and, as they say, better to have the backup and not need it than the other way around. And really, if anything calls for a backup, re-partition, re-format, and install everything from scratch; a filesystem update s that thing.
See, for me, Facebook seems bound and determined to keep shoving "Hillary is Satan/Hitler/Davros/etc." crap in my face. I've no doubt it's because I have a few Bernie Sanders supporters amongst my friends. But it does suggest to me that the algorithm has at least as much, if not more, influence than the curators.
Zuckerberg is prep-schooled, Harvard educated, Westchester County old money. He's known to associate himself with the likes of Chris Christie and Peter Thiel (Including fundraising for the former.). And now he's prostrating himself to the American Enterprise Institute and ordering his employees trained to their standards. And this is the guy you think designed and built Facebook to be a bastion of liberalism?
Look at the list of prominent American Enterprise Institute members and associates. It's practically a rogues' gallery of the extreme right wing; including the likes of Robert Bork, Newt Gingrich, Antonin Scalia, John Yoo, and even Darth Cheney himself. If Zuckerberg had a "liberal bias", he wouldn't give that lot the time of day, much less interviews, assurances, and concessions.
I think the difference is that those friends of yours actually do (I assume) train for and ride competitively in those 100mi races. That's not the case with the majority of people spending stupid amounts of money on fancy-pants bicycles that sit in the garage the bulk of the time.
I could see going up to $800 for a Public Bike D8i or M7i, if I were going to commit to making my commute to work every day via bicycle. More than that is really wasted (And bike-thief paranoia inducing.) unless you are a competition bike racer or triathlete.
I live in a city with hills so steep that in some places they gave up on the notion of sidewalks and put in stairs. Actually, I live about halfway up one of these hills. A fairly basic electric assist bicycle would be pretty handy, especially if it folds as small as most of the folding bikes I've seen.
Green made momentary contact with LeBron James... not a nut-shot, as evidenced by the fact the James wasn't on the floor clenched over in pain... while getting up off the floor after James knocked him down and then stood over him, trying to prevent him getting up, whilst taunting him and shoving his junk into Green's face. And Green is the dirty player? I think we just found the ohio fanboi here.
And they booted Steph Curry in game 6. And they called other various fouls on the Warriors in games 5 and 6 while letting similar offenses pass for ohio players. Game 7 was a legit ohio win, and just a very good game in all regards. But the officiating in 5 and 6, plus the suspension of Green, was rotten to the core.
Each one of those seven games represents over a billion dollars profit, spread between the NBA, the television network, and various other interested parties. They have a vested interest in a seven game series. And they very obviously made sure that's what they got.
Additionally, when ifixit did their tear-down of the iPhone 6s and 6s+, they found a significant amount of resistance had been added. The case seals shut with a rubber gasket and the cable connectors on the logic board are waterproofed. Apple has not advertised, or to my knowledge mentioned, this. So the 6s and 6s+ are not likely fully waterproof, nor even certified water resistant. But it's there.
Eliminating the 3.5" port may also be another step towards eliminating entry points for water, possibly pointing towards an actual waterproof iPhone in the future.
Also, for tradition's sake, all submarines are boats. Yes, even the nuclear powered ones that can stay at sea longer than anything short of a nuclear aircraft carrier and could easily blow one out of the water or sterilize a continent. They're still just "boats".
There's also the difference that Brendan Eich's crusade of hate was actively bringing discredit to Mozilla and was creating a toxic environment at the company. Seriously, if you worked for a company whose CEO had publicly avowed that he hated your living guts and believed your were sub-human and undersizing of the same civil rights of other citizens, I expect it's be a major issue. That hostile of work environment could even be actionable under California law. He clearly had to go.
Peter Thiel, on the other hand, may be something of a creep. Personally, I find his other company, Palantir, and its enabling of the various three-letter-agencies to attack our privacy and other civil rights to be the biggest problem with him. Seriously... you're going to name your company after the talisman that the Dark Lord Sauron used to corrupt Saurman and Denethor and turn them to evil? W T literal F? But, in this case, he took down Gawker, an organization that was very much more vandalism than journalism and, on its best day ever, was the equivalent of the Weekly World News's reporting on the antics of Bat Boy and the Loch Ness Monster. Not only is no one mourning the loss. More than a few people are celebrating. And it elevates Thiel in the eyes of many. In other words, it brings credit, not discredit, on Facebook to keep him around.
Well, seeing as this policy imposes on everyone, not just the people who behave obnoxiously, in order to cater to the self-righteously snooty; it's definitely a bod policy. If someone's being an ass and continuously blocking others' views... as opposed to someone just taking a quick picture; stuck-up, pretentious, "live in the moment or you're not living" wannabe philosophers can bite my shiny metal ass... then the thing to do is have a bouncer tell them to knock it off. And if he doesn't listen, eject him. Or relocate him. The Grateful Dead, for example, had a specific section set aside at their concerts for people who wanted to record. But don't punish everyone for the actions of a minority.
Also, what's some hired thug going to do in a medical emergency? There's a reason that EMTs and paramedics undergo quite a lot more training than the eight hours it takes to get a "guard card".
Plus, venue security is usually more concerned with the venue and it's reputation than the health and well-being of the customers. Around here for example, there were several notorious incidents shortly after the passage of the R.A.V.E. Act, when security guards, encountering someone having medical issues or even sought out for help by someone's friends, simply dragged people out of the club, marched them around the corner, and threw them to the curb; at no point calling 911 or summoning any medical help whatsoever. The city did finally set up an entertainment commission and started bitchslapping the nightclubs that pulled these stunts. But it still speaks volumes as to the mentality of security guard types and their usefulness (rather, their lack thereof) in an emergency.
I wonder how durable these bags are. Wildly guessing, I'd speculate that if they're cheap enough to hand out on mass numbers, they're also made of light enough materials to be torn open by hand, or cut into with, perhaps, the extraneous key I have on my keychain for when I'm tempted to pry or screw something with a key but don't want to muck up one of the keys that actually open things I care about. One thing I do know, is that if any venue tries this stunt with me, and I can't tear the bag open, it's going home with me to be cut open and shredded there.
If you want to be a pretentious "live in the moment or you're not living", "photographs make your memories inauthentic", and "disconnect from the world, open your eyes, smash your cell phone" type, fine. Don't use your own cell phone. Don't try to shove your freshman-level philosophy class down my throat.
Yup. My first Japanese car (a Subaru) lasted fourteen years. That's longer than both american cars I'd owned previously, put together, twice over, and then some. And it never broke down. The only maintenance I did were the scheduled services recommended in the manual, and replacement of consumables like tires and brake pads. The same can definitely not be said of the Ford or Chrysler. For that matter, I could have gotten a few more years out of the Subaru. But it was due for a new set of brakes plus a timing belt & water pump. The cost of that was more than the value of the car. And I'm more of a city than outdoors person these days, so the mileage penalty of all-wheel drive doesn't make sense anymore.
My rule now is that to even be worth consideration, the VIN must start with the letter "J". Anything else is a non-starter.
The dual-clutch gearboxes on 100k+ sports cars like the Nissan GTR or Porsche 911, and especially race cars like F1, do easily match and exceed the capabilities of even the most capable professional drivers.
The automatics on cars that mere mortals like myself drive? Not so much. A skilled driver in a manual Civic, a Mazda 3, or even an MX-5 will outperform the auto every time. And before anyone jumps down my throat about the EPA numbers for autos exceeding the manual in some cases these days; note that I did specify a SKILLED driver. If you're a putz who doesn't know how to drive, go ahead and buy the miserable little slushbox.
We're not talking asinine BS like how the DMCA forbids you from modding your Playstation... on your own and with no interaction with, or aid from, Sony. Many of these laws place some very onerous requirements on the vendors.
They require vendors to surrender internal documentation, designs, schematics, and procedures to pretty much any random un-vetted third party that wants them. This includes software patches and updates, and sometimes even private signing keys. Sometimes the vendor is required to let these people piggyback on their own parts and supplies chain, rather than have the repair shops establish their own supplier relationships. They usually abrogate the usual NDA requirements for third-party partners. And they almost always require all of that with no compensation.
No company in their right mind would let that pass without fighting tooth and nail against it.
You know, even when I could still hear it (well into my late 20s, actually) the "teenager repellant" tone didn't bother me all too much. Start playing Garth Brooks, Billy Ray Cyrus, or any of the rest of their genre ilk, over the muzak speakers though; and I'd be looking to leave post-haste. Nothing but nothing was more uncool than country music when I was a teenager.
That's really not a good way to handle it though. It shouldn't issue the coupon code, only for it not to work for a customer, at all. Rather, a "spin the wheel to win a free pizza" system or similar would control the numbers of free pizzas being issued, whilst still maintaining customer goodwill and not exposing Dominos to the perception of having broken their promises. T-Mobile does, after all, not only know where you live, but where you ARE. (Even if you disable location services or deny access to the TMO app, they can still place you with a couple hundred meters via cell tower triangulation.) So they could easily have controlled the numbers going to any given Dominos location.
This. I had not eaten Dominos pizza in years... probably since college. But for free, I figured I'd given them a shot. They must have changed their recipes at some point, because it was much better than I'd remembered. It was on par with the local pizza shop I usually goto, and certainly adequate for a quick lunch or on a tipsy night. They came close to winning me as a customer, and not just on Tuesdays.
It was not, however, so good that they get a pass for reneging on the deal. I won't go so far as to say I'll never eat there again. But they'll have to give me a really good reason to trust them again.
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Seriously, I think it's well past time we stop thinking of professional sports as some kind of special or noble endeavor, and acknowledge their "athletes" for what they really are: entertainers. Pro sports are a multi-billion dollar for-profit business. No actually, they're a collection of several multi-billion dollar for-profit businesses. And it's show business, pure and simple. Steph Curry's and LeBron James' jobs are not to put the ball through the hoop. It's not really David Beckham's job to kick the ball into the goal. And it's not the job of those 11 guys to put their ball in the end zone. In all cases, their real jobs are to put on a show that sells arena and stadium seats and puts eyeballs on the television screens.
So why not just drop the pretense, acknowledge pro "athletes" for what they really are, quit obsessing about how they attain their performance levels, and just let them put on a good show? After all... We don't drug test Lady Gaga just after the Grammys, and take hers back if she tests positive for pot (Which she's admitted using, saying it makes her more creative.). Nor do we randomly drug test the Rolling Stones and suspend Keith Richards for the next ten tour dates if he tests positive for... well, it's Keith Richards. Take your pick.
Killing pirates has been one of the primary duties of navies pretty much since there's been such a thing as navies. It's kind of in the job description.
The whole ship doesn't need to be sealed; just the control spaces and circuit runs to the engine, rudder actuator, and so on. Said spaces could even be permanently flooded while underway with halon or nitrogen or CO2 to, you know, cut down on the risk of fire. And even then, the seals and/or gas don't have to hold out forever, just long enough to rendezvous with whatever naval warship is operating in that zone.
1) Pirates board.
2) Remote operator notifies the navy, is instructed to send the ship to whatever coordinates.
3) Ship sets flank speed, steers towards rendezvous with navy.
4) Pirates have a choice, jump off, or wait for the navy to show up.
5) If pirates jump off, operator notifies the navy, and returns ship to its pre-set course.
6) If pirates stay on the ship, the navy has the convenience of knowing for certain that there are zero friendlies or hostages on board. This makes the boarding action considerably simpler.
Last job I worked at where I had access to our analytics, total traffic from .ru was less even than that of IE6 worldwide. And the company had decided before I worked there that IE6 users represented so minuscule a share of our hits that they weren't worth accommodating. So I'd expect that they'd have made the same decision about Russians too, if they had some law that required us to do additional engineering work to accommodate them.
Apple does not make collection of your data mandatory for use of its products and services, or even for them to be fully functional. They didn't base their entire business model around hovering up every bit of personal data possible and selling it to the highest bidder.
But it's probably inaccurate to say: "Apple doesn't like collecting your data.". If you're happy giving it to Apple, I'm sure they're happy to accept it. It's a nice bonus for them, but not a requirement for entry.
Who would take that chance anyway? On my Mac, I do a full data backup to an external drive, then physically disconnect it, before routine OS updates. On my iDevices, I do backups to both iCloud and my Mac before updates. I've never actually lost data. But I'm a bit paranoid on that score and, as they say, better to have the backup and not need it than the other way around. And really, if anything calls for a backup, re-partition, re-format, and install everything from scratch; a filesystem update s that thing.
See, for me, Facebook seems bound and determined to keep shoving "Hillary is Satan/Hitler/Davros/etc." crap in my face. I've no doubt it's because I have a few Bernie Sanders supporters amongst my friends. But it does suggest to me that the algorithm has at least as much, if not more, influence than the curators.
Zuckerberg is prep-schooled, Harvard educated, Westchester County old money. He's known to associate himself with the likes of Chris Christie and Peter Thiel (Including fundraising for the former.). And now he's prostrating himself to the American Enterprise Institute and ordering his employees trained to their standards. And this is the guy you think designed and built Facebook to be a bastion of liberalism?
Look at the list of prominent American Enterprise Institute members and associates. It's practically a rogues' gallery of the extreme right wing; including the likes of Robert Bork, Newt Gingrich, Antonin Scalia, John Yoo, and even Darth Cheney himself. If Zuckerberg had a "liberal bias", he wouldn't give that lot the time of day, much less interviews, assurances, and concessions.
I think the difference is that those friends of yours actually do (I assume) train for and ride competitively in those 100mi races. That's not the case with the majority of people spending stupid amounts of money on fancy-pants bicycles that sit in the garage the bulk of the time.
I could see going up to $800 for a Public Bike D8i or M7i, if I were going to commit to making my commute to work every day via bicycle. More than that is really wasted (And bike-thief paranoia inducing.) unless you are a competition bike racer or triathlete.
I live in a city with hills so steep that in some places they gave up on the notion of sidewalks and put in stairs. Actually, I live about halfway up one of these hills. A fairly basic electric assist bicycle would be pretty handy, especially if it folds as small as most of the folding bikes I've seen.
Green made momentary contact with LeBron James... not a nut-shot, as evidenced by the fact the James wasn't on the floor clenched over in pain... while getting up off the floor after James knocked him down and then stood over him, trying to prevent him getting up, whilst taunting him and shoving his junk into Green's face. And Green is the dirty player? I think we just found the ohio fanboi here.
And they booted Steph Curry in game 6. And they called other various fouls on the Warriors in games 5 and 6 while letting similar offenses pass for ohio players. Game 7 was a legit ohio win, and just a very good game in all regards. But the officiating in 5 and 6, plus the suspension of Green, was rotten to the core.
Each one of those seven games represents over a billion dollars profit, spread between the NBA, the television network, and various other interested parties. They have a vested interest in a seven game series. And they very obviously made sure that's what they got.
Additionally, when ifixit did their tear-down of the iPhone 6s and 6s+, they found a significant amount of resistance had been added. The case seals shut with a rubber gasket and the cable connectors on the logic board are waterproofed. Apple has not advertised, or to my knowledge mentioned, this. So the 6s and 6s+ are not likely fully waterproof, nor even certified water resistant. But it's there.
Eliminating the 3.5" port may also be another step towards eliminating entry points for water, possibly pointing towards an actual waterproof iPhone in the future.
Also, for tradition's sake, all submarines are boats. Yes, even the nuclear powered ones that can stay at sea longer than anything short of a nuclear aircraft carrier and could easily blow one out of the water or sterilize a continent. They're still just "boats".
There's also the difference that Brendan Eich's crusade of hate was actively bringing discredit to Mozilla and was creating a toxic environment at the company. Seriously, if you worked for a company whose CEO had publicly avowed that he hated your living guts and believed your were sub-human and undersizing of the same civil rights of other citizens, I expect it's be a major issue. That hostile of work environment could even be actionable under California law. He clearly had to go.
Peter Thiel, on the other hand, may be something of a creep. Personally, I find his other company, Palantir, and its enabling of the various three-letter-agencies to attack our privacy and other civil rights to be the biggest problem with him. Seriously... you're going to name your company after the talisman that the Dark Lord Sauron used to corrupt Saurman and Denethor and turn them to evil? W T literal F? But, in this case, he took down Gawker, an organization that was very much more vandalism than journalism and, on its best day ever, was the equivalent of the Weekly World News's reporting on the antics of Bat Boy and the Loch Ness Monster. Not only is no one mourning the loss. More than a few people are celebrating. And it elevates Thiel in the eyes of many. In other words, it brings credit, not discredit, on Facebook to keep him around.
Well, seeing as this policy imposes on everyone, not just the people who behave obnoxiously, in order to cater to the self-righteously snooty; it's definitely a bod policy. If someone's being an ass and continuously blocking others' views... as opposed to someone just taking a quick picture; stuck-up, pretentious, "live in the moment or you're not living" wannabe philosophers can bite my shiny metal ass... then the thing to do is have a bouncer tell them to knock it off. And if he doesn't listen, eject him. Or relocate him. The Grateful Dead, for example, had a specific section set aside at their concerts for people who wanted to record. But don't punish everyone for the actions of a minority.
'Cuz I trust a word that anyone from that organization says. Oh wait, not trust. The other thing.
Also, what's some hired thug going to do in a medical emergency? There's a reason that EMTs and paramedics undergo quite a lot more training than the eight hours it takes to get a "guard card".
Plus, venue security is usually more concerned with the venue and it's reputation than the health and well-being of the customers. Around here for example, there were several notorious incidents shortly after the passage of the R.A.V.E. Act, when security guards, encountering someone having medical issues or even sought out for help by someone's friends, simply dragged people out of the club, marched them around the corner, and threw them to the curb; at no point calling 911 or summoning any medical help whatsoever. The city did finally set up an entertainment commission and started bitchslapping the nightclubs that pulled these stunts. But it still speaks volumes as to the mentality of security guard types and their usefulness (rather, their lack thereof) in an emergency.
I wonder how durable these bags are. Wildly guessing, I'd speculate that if they're cheap enough to hand out on mass numbers, they're also made of light enough materials to be torn open by hand, or cut into with, perhaps, the extraneous key I have on my keychain for when I'm tempted to pry or screw something with a key but don't want to muck up one of the keys that actually open things I care about. One thing I do know, is that if any venue tries this stunt with me, and I can't tear the bag open, it's going home with me to be cut open and shredded there.
If you want to be a pretentious "live in the moment or you're not living", "photographs make your memories inauthentic", and "disconnect from the world, open your eyes, smash your cell phone" type, fine. Don't use your own cell phone. Don't try to shove your freshman-level philosophy class down my throat.
Yup. My first Japanese car (a Subaru) lasted fourteen years. That's longer than both american cars I'd owned previously, put together, twice over, and then some. And it never broke down. The only maintenance I did were the scheduled services recommended in the manual, and replacement of consumables like tires and brake pads. The same can definitely not be said of the Ford or Chrysler. For that matter, I could have gotten a few more years out of the Subaru. But it was due for a new set of brakes plus a timing belt & water pump. The cost of that was more than the value of the car. And I'm more of a city than outdoors person these days, so the mileage penalty of all-wheel drive doesn't make sense anymore.
My rule now is that to even be worth consideration, the VIN must start with the letter "J". Anything else is a non-starter.
The dual-clutch gearboxes on 100k+ sports cars like the Nissan GTR or Porsche 911, and especially race cars like F1, do easily match and exceed the capabilities of even the most capable professional drivers.
The automatics on cars that mere mortals like myself drive? Not so much. A skilled driver in a manual Civic, a Mazda 3, or even an MX-5 will outperform the auto every time. And before anyone jumps down my throat about the EPA numbers for autos exceeding the manual in some cases these days; note that I did specify a SKILLED driver. If you're a putz who doesn't know how to drive, go ahead and buy the miserable little slushbox.
We're not talking asinine BS like how the DMCA forbids you from modding your Playstation... on your own and with no interaction with, or aid from, Sony. Many of these laws place some very onerous requirements on the vendors.
They require vendors to surrender internal documentation, designs, schematics, and procedures to pretty much any random un-vetted third party that wants them. This includes software patches and updates, and sometimes even private signing keys. Sometimes the vendor is required to let these people piggyback on their own parts and supplies chain, rather than have the repair shops establish their own supplier relationships. They usually abrogate the usual NDA requirements for third-party partners. And they almost always require all of that with no compensation.
No company in their right mind would let that pass without fighting tooth and nail against it.
You know, even when I could still hear it (well into my late 20s, actually) the "teenager repellant" tone didn't bother me all too much. Start playing Garth Brooks, Billy Ray Cyrus, or any of the rest of their genre ilk, over the muzak speakers though; and I'd be looking to leave post-haste. Nothing but nothing was more uncool than country music when I was a teenager.
That's really not a good way to handle it though. It shouldn't issue the coupon code, only for it not to work for a customer, at all. Rather, a "spin the wheel to win a free pizza" system or similar would control the numbers of free pizzas being issued, whilst still maintaining customer goodwill and not exposing Dominos to the perception of having broken their promises. T-Mobile does, after all, not only know where you live, but where you ARE. (Even if you disable location services or deny access to the TMO app, they can still place you with a couple hundred meters via cell tower triangulation.) So they could easily have controlled the numbers going to any given Dominos location.
This. I had not eaten Dominos pizza in years... probably since college. But for free, I figured I'd given them a shot. They must have changed their recipes at some point, because it was much better than I'd remembered. It was on par with the local pizza shop I usually goto, and certainly adequate for a quick lunch or on a tipsy night. They came close to winning me as a customer, and not just on Tuesdays.
It was not, however, so good that they get a pass for reneging on the deal. I won't go so far as to say I'll never eat there again. But they'll have to give me a really good reason to trust them again.