>>>
The reason that these terrorists are willing to die isn't common to their culture. It's common to any military establishment. The purpose of training soldiers is to get them to do things rational people would not normally do. We train our soldiers this way, and every army in history had to lead men, who had a better chance of dying than surviving into a battle. In war there is an expected loss of life on all sides, everyone involved is aware of this.
>>>
When the planners of this attack were training the volunteers, they didn't say,
"This mission will be dangerous, and there is a chance you will die. Some of you will not return."
Rather, they were told,
"This mission will require your death as a condition of its success. On the morning of September 11, you, sitting right ther in your military fatigues, you will die. And so will you and you and you."
Suppose the United States had at its disposal four unarmed jet airliners, fully fueled in a Kabul airport, each with an American crew in standard airline uniform, no parachutes. Assume no anti-air defenses. Also assume no passengers aboard. Just waiting to take off.
I'll just leave the rest of this scenario as an exercise for the reader.
First off, the Chevy Nova story is just an urban legend. Check out snopes2.com.
A bit more seriously, though, there is a name issue, related specifically to the Japanese market, that I wonder about.
In Japan for the past two decades or so, any and every trendy item, especially technologies, eventually picks up a four-syllable nickname, which is "distilled" from the actual name of the product:
Pocket Monsters -> PoKeMon*
Family Computer (Japanese version of NES) -> FaMiCom*
Super NES (Super Famicom) -> SuUFaMi
PlayStation -> PuReSuTe ("PLaySta")
"Pocket Bell" (wireless pager) -> PoKeBeRu ("PockeBel")
DreamCast -> DoRiKya
Print Club (photo-sticker machines) -> PuRiKuRa
* "Mon" is two syllables in Japanese.
So what will X-Box become? In Japanese, X-Box comes out as "ekkusu bokkusu". There's just no way to cleanly distill that down to four syllables. "EKuBoKu"? No. "Bokkusu"? Possibly.
If anything, "box" is likely to be supplanted by the Japanese term "hako (bako)". So we've got "Eku-Bako". Still clumsy.
There's only one likely possibility. Replace "X" with the Japanese term "peke", resulting in PekeBako.
No one's going to buy a console called the Pekebako.
There is a rack of shirts in front of you. You look through them and find a nice casual one you like. When you find one you like, you look at the price tag, which is attached to the shirt.
If it's under $45, you take the shirt and pay for it.
You don't tell anyone to "go fetch me" anything. You don't have to.
Personally, I prefer the former to the latter. Both for computing and for shopping.
>One concern is that the ticket is then given to
>the car owner and not the driver. If you lent
>out your car to a friend or your child,
If your child or friend is driving recklessly in your car with your permission, I would hope that you would take responsibility for the driver's actions or at least make the child/friend shoulder that responsibility.
>or your car was stolen, you would be liable for
>any tickets garnered by the driver of your car.
>It would then be up to you to prove that you
>didn't commit the crime. The burden of proof
>should be on the law enforcement officials, not
>you.
If your car is stolen, couldn't you or wouldn't you have already reported that to the police?
Also, traffic violations such as running a red light aren't crimes, they're misdemeanors.
>Also, there are some cases when running a red
>light is unavoidable...
Come on, this is also a circumstance which could reasonably be taken into account if you appeal the fine.
>>>
What do I think the chances are? I would say they are about the same as the chances of me dating Sarah Michele Gellar next week; realistically as close to zero as anything can be.
>>>>
This calls for nothing less than an all-out letter writing campaign: write to Sarah Michelle Gellar and beg her to please, please, please go out with Veteran this weekend! (And no, Sarah, you don't have to put out at all.)
Notice also that it's Koei. Not Matsushita, not Toyota, not Nikko Securities, not the Ministry of Education. For young hi-tech Japanese these days, job loyalty doesn't mean much more than it does to their American counterparts. The newsstands in Japan are always full of career magazines with advice on the best way to job-hop.
The fact that management is concerned about losing employees should indicate that it is, if not a major problem, at least a possibility.
I also dispute your claim that "The working conditions for technical workers are far better than what you will find in America." Even in high-tech, the offices are cramped, the hours are long, and the bureacracy is thick. And don't forget the infamous Tokyo commute. I think most Japanese high-tech workers can only dream of working in U.S.-style conditions.
Finally, "yamato" is just an ancient name for Japan. Perhaps you meant wa, or giri, or some other oft-(mis)used term.
...how would the rival companies know who they are?
"Yes, may I speak to your head game designer? The guy who looks about 30ish, long dyed-brown hair, angular face, stubble... oh, and I think he wears an orange T-shirt."
Here on Windows2000, an exception is made, and a reasonable one, for scrollbars. Menus and buttons do not track outside the control, but scrollbars do, and definitely should. There are two reasons for this:
1) The control moves, but it's restricted to only one orientation.
2) The control is very narrow (in the orientation perpendicular to its movement).
Moving a vertical scrollbar for any significant distance requires moving the pointer in a nearly perfect vertical line. Try it and watch how the pointer wanders from left to right. To be usable, the scrollbar should then track in order to accomodate the pointer's inevitable horizontal movement outside of its area. Imagine trying to move a 1-pixel wide scrollbar if it didn't track! (or just try XTerm with Emulate3Buttons with a pencil eraser-type mouse for a reasonable simulation!)
Things are a little different with a menu. When you move the pointer up and down to select a menu item, the "control" (in this case, the menu highlighting) does not need to track because the menu itself is wide enough to accomodate any horizontal wander. Note however, that the the menu itself still tracks: when the mouse leaves its area, the highlighting disappears but not the menu itself. Why? It seems like this behavior is to enable nested menus. Chasing down a deeply nested menu item requires moving the pointer in a series of long horizontal lines punctuated by steps. The menu should track so that if even if you drift off of a menu, you can go back and continue from the last "step".
I believe that KDE and/or GNOME do NOT track nested menus, and this can be VERY frustrating.
Finally, when you click on a button, the button doesn't move, and neither does the pointer -- or at least it doesn't need to. Therefore no tracking. On Windows the button correctly pops back up when the pointer leaves.
BTW, this is all off the top of my head, just from messing around on Windows...
>>>
It's illegal, and it's robbing the ones who created it by allowing you to sit around and watch it without even looking at their ads--their one source of lifeblood.
>>>
Hey, if you want to spend more time fielding e-mail from the office and doing spreadsheets, go ahead. I'd rather read e-mail from friends and play games. And so would most Japanese.
Seriously, this is one major difference between the usage/marketing of wireless services in Japan and the U.S. There's cell-phone advertising everywhere in Japan, but absolutely none of it is marketed towards the "mobile road warrior" seeking to increase his business productivity and efficiency and all that. It's all about games, and downloading the latest baseball scores, and installing the latest hit songs as the incoming call melody, and sending pictures of yourself with the built-in digital camera.
It's all about having fun. People don't want more work, they want more fun, that's what they're using technology for, and they're willing to pay for it. What's wrong with that?
Re:Nostalgic for the freshmeat of the mid nineties
on
Freshmeat II
·
· Score: 1
Yeah! That banner was the greatest. Every time I went to FM, I'd see that kid in a mosh pit and imagine him screaming for the latest version of WindowMaker or some Perl module.
I did like it when they switched to the ice-blue-on-white, though.
I was going to express some skepticism that it really was the "mid-nineties", but I can see from your 3-digit/. account number that you probably know better than I do...
But as the technology reaches and surpasses that stage, the tools for making virtual porn (child or otherwise) will eventually become so affordable, and the production so much cheaper, and the "creative possibilites" so much greater.. who would bother to risk making the "real" stuff any more?
Look at how computer graphics have revolutionized moviemaking. If anything, virtual child porn might, if permitted, actually supplant and eliminate real child porn and the criminal acts that it entails.
For a long time now, I've had my rc.local play a clip of Homer Simpson saying "No time for that now, the computer's starting!" (from the episode where he gets obese and works at home).
Slashdot Mirror
>>>
The reason that these terrorists are willing to die isn't common to their culture. It's common to any military establishment. The purpose of training soldiers is to get them to do things rational people would not normally do. We train our soldiers this way, and every army in history had to lead men, who had a better chance of dying than surviving into a battle. In war there is an expected loss of life on all sides, everyone involved is aware of this.
>>>
When the planners of this attack were training the volunteers, they didn't say,
"This mission will be dangerous, and there is a chance you will die. Some of you will not return."
Rather, they were told,
"This mission will require your death as a condition of its success. On the morning of September 11, you, sitting right ther in your military fatigues, you will die. And so will you and you and you."
Suppose the United States had at its disposal four unarmed jet airliners, fully fueled in a Kabul airport, each with an American crew in standard airline uniform, no parachutes. Assume no anti-air defenses. Also assume no passengers aboard. Just waiting to take off.
I'll just leave the rest of this scenario as an exercise for the reader.
Will it be called the "Cheesebox"?
First off, the Chevy Nova story is just an urban legend. Check out snopes2.com.
A bit more seriously, though, there is a name issue, related specifically to the Japanese market, that I wonder about.
In Japan for the past two decades or so, any and every trendy item, especially technologies, eventually picks up a four-syllable nickname, which is "distilled" from the actual name of the product:
Pocket Monsters -> PoKeMon*
Family Computer (Japanese version of NES) -> FaMiCom*
Super NES (Super Famicom) -> SuUFaMi
PlayStation -> PuReSuTe ("PLaySta")
"Pocket Bell" (wireless pager) -> PoKeBeRu ("PockeBel")
DreamCast -> DoRiKya
Print Club (photo-sticker machines) -> PuRiKuRa
* "Mon" is two syllables in Japanese.
So what will X-Box become? In Japanese, X-Box comes out as "ekkusu bokkusu". There's just no way to cleanly distill that down to four syllables. "EKuBoKu"? No. "Bokkusu"? Possibly.
If anything, "box" is likely to be supplanted by the Japanese term "hako (bako)". So we've got "Eku-Bako". Still clumsy.
There's only one likely possibility. Replace "X" with the Japanese term "peke", resulting in PekeBako.
No one's going to buy a console called the Pekebako.
See, here's how a GUI works:
There is a rack of shirts in front of you. You look through them and find a nice casual one you like. When you find one you like, you look at the price tag, which is attached to the shirt.
If it's under $45, you take the shirt and pay for it.
You don't tell anyone to "go fetch me" anything. You don't have to.
Personally, I prefer the former to the latter. Both for computing and for shopping.
"Your modern world confuses and frightens me!..."
Well, I'll admit the phrasing "gets off with a beating" is unintentionally funny.
>One concern is that the ticket is then given to
>the car owner and not the driver. If you lent
>out your car to a friend or your child,
If your child or friend is driving recklessly in your car with your permission, I would hope that you would take responsibility for the driver's actions or at least make the child/friend shoulder that responsibility.
>or your car was stolen, you would be liable for
>any tickets garnered by the driver of your car.
>It would then be up to you to prove that you
>didn't commit the crime. The burden of proof
>should be on the law enforcement officials, not
>you.
If your car is stolen, couldn't you or wouldn't you have already reported that to the police?
Also, traffic violations such as running a red light aren't crimes, they're misdemeanors.
>Also, there are some cases when running a red
>light is unavoidable...
Come on, this is also a circumstance which could reasonably be taken into account if you appeal the fine.
>>> ...
...(see hari-kari, the ritual
>>>
You mean that old baseball announcer with the big glasses?
Excuse me, exactly who are we ?
The ability to create music has no evolutionary value?
Come on, go ask any rock star why, as a pimply-faced teenage boy, he wanted to become a singer/guitarist...
>>>
What do I think the chances are? I would say they are about the same as the chances of me dating Sarah Michele Gellar next week; realistically as close to zero as anything can be.
>>>>
This calls for nothing less than an all-out letter writing campaign: write to Sarah Michelle Gellar and beg her to please, please, please go out with Veteran this weekend! (And no, Sarah, you don't have to put out at all.)
Notice also that it's Koei. Not Matsushita, not Toyota, not Nikko Securities, not the Ministry of Education. For young hi-tech Japanese these days, job loyalty doesn't mean much more than it does to their American counterparts. The newsstands in Japan are always full of career magazines with advice on the best way to job-hop.
The fact that management is concerned about losing employees should indicate that it is, if not a major problem, at least a possibility.
I also dispute your claim that "The working conditions for technical workers are far better than what you will find in America." Even in high-tech, the offices are cramped, the hours are long, and the bureacracy is thick. And don't forget the infamous Tokyo commute. I think most Japanese high-tech workers can only dream of working in U.S.-style conditions.
Finally, "yamato" is just an ancient name for Japan. Perhaps you meant wa, or giri, or some other oft-(mis)used term.
...how would the rival companies know who they are?
"Yes, may I speak to your head game designer? The guy who looks about 30ish, long dyed-brown hair, angular face, stubble... oh, and I think he wears an orange T-shirt."
I believe this is the technology used on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien's" President Bush/Clinton bits.
Here on Windows2000, an exception is made, and a reasonable one, for scrollbars. Menus and buttons do not track outside the control, but scrollbars do, and definitely should. There are two reasons for this:
1) The control moves, but it's restricted to only one orientation.
2) The control is very narrow (in the orientation perpendicular to its movement).
Moving a vertical scrollbar for any significant distance requires moving the pointer in a nearly perfect vertical line. Try it and watch how the pointer wanders from left to right. To be usable, the scrollbar should then track in order to accomodate the pointer's inevitable horizontal movement outside of its area. Imagine trying to move a 1-pixel wide scrollbar if it didn't track! (or just try XTerm with Emulate3Buttons with a pencil eraser-type mouse for a reasonable simulation!)
Things are a little different with a menu. When you move the pointer up and down to select a menu item, the "control" (in this case, the menu highlighting) does not need to track because the menu itself is wide enough to accomodate any horizontal wander. Note however, that the the menu itself still tracks: when the mouse leaves its area, the highlighting disappears but not the menu itself. Why? It seems like this behavior is to enable nested menus. Chasing down a deeply nested menu item requires moving the pointer in a series of long horizontal lines punctuated by steps. The menu should track so that if even if you drift off of a menu, you can go back and continue from the last "step".
I believe that KDE and/or GNOME do NOT track nested menus, and this can be VERY frustrating.
Finally, when you click on a button, the button doesn't move, and neither does the pointer -- or at least it doesn't need to. Therefore no tracking. On Windows the button correctly pops back up when the pointer leaves.
BTW, this is all off the top of my head, just from messing around on Windows...
Yeah, I see. It's a ripoff of the chromey old Silicon Graphics logo.
>>>
It's illegal, and it's robbing the ones who created it by allowing you to sit around and watch it without even looking at their ads--their one source of lifeblood.
>>>
Please, someone mod that post up -- as "Funny"...
No, "Eben Moglen" was actually what they're saying at the beginning of Def Leppard's "Rock of Ages".
I'm more disturbed by the name of the company Mensys. Can't help but remind me of, well let's just say, something about "that time of the month".
One thing's for sure : don't let Mensys get involved with Siemens...
Hey, if you want to spend more time fielding e-mail from the office and doing spreadsheets, go ahead. I'd rather read e-mail from friends and play games. And so would most Japanese.
Seriously, this is one major difference between the usage/marketing of wireless services in Japan and the U.S. There's cell-phone advertising everywhere in Japan, but absolutely none of it is marketed towards the "mobile road warrior" seeking to increase his business productivity and efficiency and all that. It's all about games, and downloading the latest baseball scores, and installing the latest hit songs as the incoming call melody, and sending pictures of yourself with the built-in digital camera.
It's all about having fun. People don't want more work, they want more fun, that's what they're using technology for, and they're willing to pay for it. What's wrong with that?
Oh, damn, I was hoping it would be Mr. Sparkle.
Yeah! That banner was the greatest. Every time I went to FM, I'd see that kid in a mosh pit and imagine him screaming for the latest version of WindowMaker or some Perl module.
/. account number that you probably know better than I do...
I did like it when they switched to the ice-blue-on-white, though.
I was going to express some skepticism that it really was the "mid-nineties", but I can see from your 3-digit
But as the technology reaches and surpasses that stage, the tools for making virtual porn (child or otherwise) will eventually become so affordable, and the production so much cheaper, and the "creative possibilites" so much greater.. who would bother to risk making the "real" stuff any more?
Look at how computer graphics have revolutionized moviemaking. If anything, virtual child porn might, if permitted, actually supplant and eliminate real child porn and the criminal acts that it entails.
For a long time now, I've had my rc.local play a clip of Homer Simpson saying "No time for that now, the computer's starting!" (from the episode where he gets obese and works at home).
Oh, there are plenty of geeks. They need to get down to Archie McPhee's on the double, that's all.