Perhaps the police are just putting about a story that the consoles are broken in order to discourage potential buyers. Like the news stories of pushers adding ground glass and rat poison to drugs (presumably to kill their repeat customers in order to make less money?)
For about the same price (in my locale -- YMMV) you could buy the games second hand from a pawn shop (well, PS2 / PSX games anyway). I've never had any trouble with second hand Playstation discs skipping... they seem to be nigh indestructible. A friend of mine once tried to deliberately damage a PSX disc to get a refund on a shitty game, and it took him hours to do so (with the aid of a stanley knife, chocolate sauce, and a brillo pad). Give it a shot.
From the two days that we I get at so far, the calendar looks pretty useful. For those who haven't bothered to RTFA, the first two days cover validating user input without referring to a copy of Mastering Regular Expressions. I can see myself using something from this calendar in the new year, if I survive the family xmas lunch with my sanity intact.
You're making the case, or trying, that Dresden
had NO tactical or strategic value, you claim that since it was a predominantly cultural center it had neither industry nor infrastructure.
You've read my posts, so you know that's not what I'm saying. What I am saying is that the firebombing targeted civilians. If you read the Wiki I linked to earlier you'll see mention of optics facilities and so forth, so I am aware that Dresden did have some strategic value, but in my opinion its main value to the Allies was as a shock and awe tactic.
The Airforce disputes this.
Sure. Who wouldn't dispute such an accusation? But when determining guilt or lack thereof, it's customary not to simply take the word of the accused. Pointing to air force documents in this context is an appeal to false authority, akin to taking Kissinger's word about the Gulf of Tonkin incident.
One might even observe, from the US noticed the German cassualty estimates were understated do to a less than complete consideration of available data.
Sorry, could you rephrase that?
Further more, bombs spent killing civillians are pretty well wasted, as if they can be put to retarding an enemies ability to wage war, the war will end sooner
Your argument presupposes that civilian deaths can never impact on an effort to wage war, or govern a state under attack. Off the of my head, some military reasons to bomb civilians include the demonstartion of power (Hiroshima), morale, reduction in the draft pool, damage to support services (e.g. hospitals, farms), along with the less rational reasons like revenge or fanaticism.
Terrorism illustrates that a lot of people do not consider bombs spent killing civillians to be wasted.
Even if the allied commanders really were sadistic fucks, they weren't good at it.
Well, I don't think that they were sadistic as a general policy. I think they were understandably furious at the Germans (over the Blitz amongst other things), and that Dresden was an overreaction. Presumably this is why Churchill said "the destruction of Dresden remains a serious query against the conduct of Allied bombing". It's not the policy of bombing per se, it's that it got out of hand and perhaps lost sight of its objectives (which would support your assertion about the pointlessness of bombing civilians).
The increased casualties in Dresden could well be accounted for not only in the presence of refugees fleeing the Russian advance, but also the construction of the city itself, and the objective. They weren't going for the ball berring plant next door to the elementary school. They were striking many widly distrubted targets, and the infrastructure of roads and railways themselves. The use of incendiaries, the false sense of security, the influx of refugees, the age of buildings in the city, the targeting of transportation infrastructure (how would you flee a city being bombed?) lead to a higher casualty total.
True enough. The allies were aware of these factors, though, having firebombed Hamburg and witnessed the effects of the Blitz. I think you're actually supporting my argument here.
Funny how you irrationally say well, tons are tone, atomic weapons are light. I might as well compare a flint hand axe to a machine gun, since they both have the power to kill.
My point exactly. The tonnage dropped (which your air force document relies upon) is irrelevant. It's what you drop (incinderies in this case), where you drop it (on transport infrastructure so people can't flee the firestorm, as you note above) etc that influence the casualties.
Berlin was bombed with conventional weapons, as was Dresden. The tonnage of explosive ordinance would under circumstances where all other things were equal result in proportional casualties.
They were both conventionally bombed (in the sense of non-nuclear weapons being used), but Berlin was hit with ex
READ THE STRATEGIC BOMBING ASSESMENT. It talks about how targets were chosen, the effects they had, and a fair amount of why.
I've read the stuff you copied from www.airforcehistory.hq.af.mil (you could have just linked to it, BTW). I find it selective, biased, and unconvincing, especially the emphasis on 'tonnage' as opposed to casualties. Imagine applying the same logic to Hirsohima and Nagasaki -- so little tonnage! Pay no attention to the dead people cluttering up the joint!
There seems to be much dispute as to the number killed in Dresden. Four estimates I have found that keep cropping up are 35 000, 60 000, 100 000, and 135 000. You can take your pick as to which of these is the most accurate, but while you are doing so, bear in mind that the total British civilian casualties from German bombing in WWII were 65 000.
To make it even clearer for you without using all caps: compare Dresden (conservatively say 60 000 casualties at 7 100 tonnes) with Hamburg (45 000 casulaties at 39 000 tonnes). Still don't think civilians were targeted?
Take a look at wikipedia's main page, where they say, accurate, they really mean popular.
A fair point. The WIKI at least goes through the motions of presenting both sides of the argument, which is more than can be said for your airforce website.
FWIW. I don't think you're an atypical moron. You're just a little more on the lazy side than my unusually ridged standards are comfortable with.
I'd have a doctor check out those unusual ridges. They may well be the cause of your discomfort.
To my mind, the definition of laziness is browsing an airforce website for objective information about alleged airforce atrocities. What did you expect them to say?
If a Machiavellian view of histroy is what you need to understand your world, well it would be awfully petty of my to begrudge you that.
Gah. The popular misrepresentation of Machiavelli shits me almost as much as the popular misrepresentation of Darwinism. Have you even read Machiavelli? Be honest now... this argument is all about the truth, right?
For the record, I am not a rabid conspiracy theorist or historical revisionist. There is plenty of material out there to support my view, just as there is plenty to support yours. Calling me names without even understanding what those names mean does not strengthen your argument.
I could label you a neocon christian nationalist, but it wouldn't refute any points you might have.
And so begins another pointless argument with someone unwilling to put even an assumed name to their 'thoughts'...
</ad hominem>
You're reading a lot into my comment that isn't there. I am aware that the Nazis were the villians and instigators of the piece. My contention is simply that attacks on strategically irrelevant civilians are sadistic. Dresden was not a major production centre for Nazi material by any means, especially not its suburbs.
I'm reading John Brunner's The Shockwave Rider at the moment, and the DARPA Policy Analysis Market seems eerily similar to Brunner's idea of Delphi boards. Interestingly, in the novel the government manipulates the odds slightly in order to undermine dissent. People checking the Market for (rigged) odds of an event happening might conclude that a vote against the government or a protest against a controversial policy would be pointless.
In that case, I'd say you're going against the PPT grain. Usually the PPT stuff I encounter consists of bullet points, clip art, and cheesy transitions. You're a black sheep, twisting PPT into something useful and unusual.
It's possible. I lurked for four years before finally making an account. I felt like I had a lot of Dilbert and O'Reilly books to read in order to catch up enough to post.
It's the wrong tool for the job, in my opinion. Powerpoint (or MS) can be partially blamed because it's marketed as a communication package, but is unsuited for a lot (perhaps most) of the things that organisations need such a package to be able to do. If you have time, have a read of this for a more coherent argument against PPT as a tool.
unless you're a dedicated hermit and mystery of the James Tiptree Jr persuasion, you will have to deal with practically as many people as a solo novelist
For those who missed the reference...
James Tiptree Jr was the pen name of US science fiction author Alice Sheldon. She wrote under a male name (taken from a marmalade jar) so that her stories would have a better chance of selling, and (with the aid of Harry Harrison, I think) devised a 'manly' life story for Tiptree. Drawing on her own career as a secret agent (really!), and borrowing liberally from Ian Fleming, the Tiptree on the dust jackets of her books was a James Bond figure -- the sort of man of action whose stories a Heinlein fan would buy.
Her SF covered addiction, loss, sex, and betrayal, in a way that was somewhat disturbing, and makes me think she may have been mentally ill at the end. Much of her writing has that obsessive Philip K Dick quality. In the end she killed her (invalid) husband and committed suicide.
If you want to check out her stuff, the best place to start is the short story collection 10,000 Light Years From Home. The novels are a bit patchy. Also have a look at the Tiptree Award for feminist writing in SF (the 2002 winner was Light, which Gaiman also mentioned) and a decent potted bio here.
Slashdot Mirror
Check his journal for details.
(Credit where it's due.)
I see you are not yet acquainted with my favourite Slashdot post. Enjoy!
Perhaps the police are just putting about a story that the consoles are broken in order to discourage potential buyers. Like the news stories of pushers adding ground glass and rat poison to drugs (presumably to kill their repeat customers in order to make less money?)
There's a great education site for teaching kids to write valid HTML here at Webmonkey.
Works for scared adults too.
if( print "Hello\n" )
{
print "True!\n";
}
else
{
print "False!\n";
}
For about the same price (in my locale -- YMMV) you could buy the games second hand from a pawn shop (well, PS2 / PSX games anyway). I've never had any trouble with second hand Playstation discs skipping... they seem to be nigh indestructible. A friend of mine once tried to deliberately damage a PSX disc to get a refund on a shitty game, and it took him hours to do so (with the aid of a stanley knife, chocolate sauce, and a brillo pad). Give it a shot.
From the two days that we I get at so far, the calendar looks pretty useful. For those who haven't bothered to RTFA, the first two days cover validating user input without referring to a copy of Mastering Regular Expressions. I can see myself using something from this calendar in the new year, if I survive the family xmas lunch with my sanity intact.
You're making the case, or trying, that Dresden had NO tactical or strategic value, you claim that since it was a predominantly cultural center it had neither industry nor infrastructure.
You've read my posts, so you know that's not what I'm saying. What I am saying is that the firebombing targeted civilians. If you read the Wiki I linked to earlier you'll see mention of optics facilities and so forth, so I am aware that Dresden did have some strategic value, but in my opinion its main value to the Allies was as a shock and awe tactic.
The Airforce disputes this.
Sure. Who wouldn't dispute such an accusation? But when determining guilt or lack thereof, it's customary not to simply take the word of the accused. Pointing to air force documents in this context is an appeal to false authority, akin to taking Kissinger's word about the Gulf of Tonkin incident.
One might even observe, from the US noticed the German cassualty estimates were understated do to a less than complete consideration of available data.
Sorry, could you rephrase that?
Further more, bombs spent killing civillians are pretty well wasted, as if they can be put to retarding an enemies ability to wage war, the war will end sooner
Your argument presupposes that civilian deaths can never impact on an effort to wage war, or govern a state under attack. Off the of my head, some military reasons to bomb civilians include the demonstartion of power (Hiroshima), morale, reduction in the draft pool, damage to support services (e.g. hospitals, farms), along with the less rational reasons like revenge or fanaticism.
Terrorism illustrates that a lot of people do not consider bombs spent killing civillians to be wasted.
Even if the allied commanders really were sadistic fucks, they weren't good at it.
Well, I don't think that they were sadistic as a general policy. I think they were understandably furious at the Germans (over the Blitz amongst other things), and that Dresden was an overreaction. Presumably this is why Churchill said "the destruction of Dresden remains a serious query against the conduct of Allied bombing". It's not the policy of bombing per se, it's that it got out of hand and perhaps lost sight of its objectives (which would support your assertion about the pointlessness of bombing civilians).
The increased casualties in Dresden could well be accounted for not only in the presence of refugees fleeing the Russian advance, but also the construction of the city itself, and the objective. They weren't going for the ball berring plant next door to the elementary school. They were striking many widly distrubted targets, and the infrastructure of roads and railways themselves. The use of incendiaries, the false sense of security, the influx of refugees, the age of buildings in the city, the targeting of transportation infrastructure (how would you flee a city being bombed?) lead to a higher casualty total.
True enough. The allies were aware of these factors, though, having firebombed Hamburg and witnessed the effects of the Blitz. I think you're actually supporting my argument here.
Funny how you irrationally say well, tons are tone, atomic weapons are light. I might as well compare a flint hand axe to a machine gun, since they both have the power to kill.
My point exactly. The tonnage dropped (which your air force document relies upon) is irrelevant. It's what you drop (incinderies in this case), where you drop it (on transport infrastructure so people can't flee the firestorm, as you note above) etc that influence the casualties.
Berlin was bombed with conventional weapons, as was Dresden. The tonnage of explosive ordinance would under circumstances where all other things were equal result in proportional casualties.
They were both conventionally bombed (in the sense of non-nuclear weapons being used), but Berlin was hit with ex
Does it need to be in caps? Is that it?
It would certainly suit the breathless tone.
READ THE STRATEGIC BOMBING ASSESMENT. It talks about how targets were chosen, the effects they had, and a fair amount of why.
I've read the stuff you copied from www.airforcehistory.hq.af.mil (you could have just linked to it, BTW). I find it selective, biased, and unconvincing, especially the emphasis on 'tonnage' as opposed to casualties. Imagine applying the same logic to Hirsohima and Nagasaki -- so little tonnage! Pay no attention to the dead people cluttering up the joint!
There seems to be much dispute as to the number killed in Dresden. Four estimates I have found that keep cropping up are 35 000, 60 000, 100 000, and 135 000. You can take your pick as to which of these is the most accurate, but while you are doing so, bear in mind that the total British civilian casualties from German bombing in WWII were 65 000.
To make it even clearer for you without using all caps: compare Dresden (conservatively say 60 000 casualties at 7 100 tonnes) with Hamburg (45 000 casulaties at 39 000 tonnes). Still don't think civilians were targeted?
Take a look at wikipedia's main page, where they say, accurate, they really mean popular.
A fair point. The WIKI at least goes through the motions of presenting both sides of the argument, which is more than can be said for your airforce website.
FWIW. I don't think you're an atypical moron. You're just a little more on the lazy side than my unusually ridged standards are comfortable with.
I'd have a doctor check out those unusual ridges. They may well be the cause of your discomfort. To my mind, the definition of laziness is browsing an airforce website for objective information about alleged airforce atrocities. What did you expect them to say?
If a Machiavellian view of histroy is what you need to understand your world, well it would be awfully petty of my to begrudge you that.
Gah. The popular misrepresentation of Machiavelli shits me almost as much as the popular misrepresentation of Darwinism. Have you even read Machiavelli? Be honest now... this argument is all about the truth, right?
For the record, I am not a rabid conspiracy theorist or historical revisionist. There is plenty of material out there to support my view, just as there is plenty to support yours. Calling me names without even understanding what those names mean does not strengthen your argument.
I could label you a neocon christian nationalist, but it wouldn't refute any points you might have.
Thank you for acknowledging my talent : )
I use a Macintosh, and iCab is my browser of choice.
But do you actually *have* a right mouse button for the javascript to disable?
(I kid because I love).
First Delta Goodrem, now this.
And so begins another pointless argument with someone unwilling to put even an assumed name to their 'thoughts'...
</ad hominem>
You're reading a lot into my comment that isn't there. I am aware that the Nazis were the villians and instigators of the piece. My contention is simply that attacks on strategically irrelevant civilians are sadistic. Dresden was not a major production centre for Nazi material by any means, especially not its suburbs.
WIKI link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_i
Because they diden't mass murder civilians for sadistic pleasure.
Don't recall the Dresden firebombing, eh?
I'm reading John Brunner's The Shockwave Rider at the moment, and the DARPA Policy Analysis Market seems eerily similar to Brunner's idea of Delphi boards. Interestingly, in the novel the government manipulates the odds slightly in order to undermine dissent. People checking the Market for (rigged) odds of an event happening might conclude that a vote against the government or a protest against a controversial policy would be pointless.
Linkfest: look here here and here.
Interesting. Describe the small l libertarian position to me, and how / whether it provides for the disadvantaged.
In a nutshell, it places market freedom above human concerns.
In that case, I'd say you're going against the PPT grain. Usually the PPT stuff I encounter consists of bullet points, clip art, and cheesy transitions. You're a black sheep, twisting PPT into something useful and unusual.
It's possible. I lurked for four years before finally making an account. I felt like I had a lot of Dilbert and O'Reilly books to read in order to catch up enough to post.
You could spin the shell for apparent gravity and live on the inside equator. There's a ton of lebensraum in a 1AU radius sphere.
It's the wrong tool for the job, in my opinion. Powerpoint (or MS) can be partially blamed because it's marketed as a communication package, but is unsuited for a lot (perhaps most) of the things that organisations need such a package to be able to do. If you have time, have a read of this for a more coherent argument against PPT as a tool.
In NSW our police cars now have only strobe lights on the roof -- perhaps this is why?
unless you're a dedicated hermit and mystery of the James Tiptree Jr persuasion, you will have to deal with practically as many people as a solo novelist
For those who missed the reference...
James Tiptree Jr was the pen name of US science fiction author Alice Sheldon. She wrote under a male name (taken from a marmalade jar) so that her stories would have a better chance of selling, and (with the aid of Harry Harrison, I think) devised a 'manly' life story for Tiptree. Drawing on her own career as a secret agent (really!), and borrowing liberally from Ian Fleming, the Tiptree on the dust jackets of her books was a James Bond figure -- the sort of man of action whose stories a Heinlein fan would buy.
Her SF covered addiction, loss, sex, and betrayal, in a way that was somewhat disturbing, and makes me think she may have been mentally ill at the end. Much of her writing has that obsessive Philip K Dick quality. In the end she killed her (invalid) husband and committed suicide.
If you want to check out her stuff, the best place to start is the short story collection 10,000 Light Years From Home. The novels are a bit patchy. Also have a look at the Tiptree Award for feminist writing in SF (the 2002 winner was Light, which Gaiman also mentioned) and a decent potted bio here.
That's going straight into the sampler when I get home. Soon it will be regular, non-cosmic d n b.
Does the university consider itself the copyright owner of interesting stellar noises, by the way?
function getFactors( aPrime )
{
return [ aPrime, 1 ];
}
// Profit!
Gotta doublequote the width and height attribute values.