Never once, has windows automatically connected to the most powerful random network unless I had the AUTOMATICALLY CONNECT TO NON-PREFERRED NETWORKS box selected
Whether the box is checked by default or not shouldn't really be an issue.
My phone will automatically connect to any unsecured wi-fi it comes across to download my email and voice messages and stuff.
I don't actually recall whether this was default behavior or if I checked an option somewhere along the way - possibly last year sometime when I first got it and was looking around to see what's available.
But, whether the option was checked by default or not really isn't the issue. The fact remains that it's an option you can enable by checking a box. According to your post, on XP the box is labeled "AUTOMATICALLY CONNECT TO NON-PREFERRED NETWORKS". Obviously that wouldn't be an option if it was illegal to do so. I think that you can make a pretty good case that a reasonable person would not be aware that enabling a standard operation that comes with the operating system could be a felony.
Drives that size would be an awesome donation for a charity such as (blatant plug) Geeks Without Borders.
A lot of our donated computers don't come with hard drives, so we're always in need of hard drives more than just about anything else.
We wipe all drives to DoD standards before ever putting them in anything, too. (Well, anything other than the machines we use to wipe 'em.)
If you don't want to ship them all the way to Eugene, there's lots of other charities that do the same kind of thing, and probably have the same disproportionate computer to hard drive donation ratio.
(Though, to be fair, we can probably pretty much count on it now.)
Maybe not.
Most of the people we incarcerated in Guantanamo might not have been our enemies, but after 6 years of being tortured they sure hate us now. That may have been what pluther meant.
That is what I meant, yes.
But I'm willing to admit I was projecting.
I have several times been amazed at people's capacity to forgive and move on. If it was me, I would have started hating the US back in 1994 when, after meeting all the conditions for lifting the sanctions we strengthened them instead. (Not to mention all the bombing throughout the 90s). But, as fm6 pointed out, not everyone is necessarily that vengeful. And the Iraqis I've interacted with have seemed to have more faith in the US people and the Constitution than your average American does, so he could be right.
True, but there is a big difference from catching a German Speaking Nazi and holding him until the war is over, and catching someone who might or might not be a terrorist and you having to figure out if they are friend or foe.
True. In the case of the Nazi, you know he's an enemy.
With many of those in Guantanamo, we didn't have that assurance before we put them there.
(Though, to be fair, we can probably pretty much count on it now.)
I agree that he probably hasn't changed as much as I'd thought.
In 2000, I registered Republican specifically so I could vote for him in the primary. Bush was just scary back then. (Turns out, I underestimated how scary).
I was part of the effort to encourage him to run again in 2004. He declined to do so, and instead threw his full support behind Bush and started supporting all of his policies, including support of continued torture of suspected criminals, which he was very loudly against up until that point.
He's no longer the man we knew in 2000. But, I'm willing to concede that that's most likely because we never really knew him, rather than because he's actually changed.
As the UN is not particularly an US insitution, can you charge the US president for impeachment for not following the UN charter ?
Yes. As the description for that article pointed out, the war powers act specifically said that Bush still had to abide by international treaties authorized by Congress, including the UN charter. He did not do so. So, by disobeying UN directives, he was disobeying Congressional directives.
There is no difference between "microevolution" and "macroevolution" - except to people with agends, and those who don't know what they're talking about.
Since we haven't had a good car analogy in this thread yet:
Microevolution would be if you drive your car across town. This has been proven so many times that by now everyone accepts it as true.
Macroevolution would be if you could drive your car all the way to another country. This is, as everyone in America knows, impossible.
Come to think of it, this analogy could help explain why they hardly ever have these kinds of debates in Europe, too...
Something about the new edition's been bothering me for a while, and I think I finally figured out what it was.
I've only looked briefly at the rules, so maybe I'm wrong in some of this.
The alignment system isn't as "broken" as it looks. The original frankly wasn't that great, and the new one isn't so very different. It looks silly at first, but only if you're used to the old one, which has been there since 1st edition. Neither one was a hard and fast stricture on how you can role-play your character, despite some people trying to make it that.
The new races actually look kind of cool. And all classes having "powers" which are about the same. For instance, some have pointed out that there's now no functional difference between a ranger firing his bow every round and a wizard firing off a magic missile every round. OK, but there's still a big difference in flavor. Although I'm going to miss them each having their own separate advantages, disadvantages, and different defenses for each.
Out of combat skills have been scaled way back, which is kind of a shame. In 3.5, you could give more information, or make the NPCs a little friendlier based on knowledge or gather information or diplomacy checks, letting a character be a diplomat or master of social situations even if the player wasn't. In 4th ed, it seems like things like this rely purely on the players skill at convincing the DM. Which eliminates all those characters whose builds were focused on their ability to resolve encounters through other than violent means.
The biggest problem, though, is the online component. Maybe if I was playing regularly again I could justify it. But I'm between groups now and will probably be that way for a while. Normally, I'd be getting Dragon magazine during times like these, but they canceled that. But it's not just extra content it looks like. Significant parts of the rules - most of the classes, powers, monsters, etc. - will be online only. Having to pay an extra $15/month to make the core rulebooks complete makes me want to not buy the core rulebooks rather than make me want to pay extra for the online content.
1. Not knowing what KOTOR is. This is, of course, the very least of the un-nerd-like tendencies displayed in your post.
2. Not bothering to look it up. Assuming it stems from laziness rather than a lack of curiosity, this still isn't enough to completely lose nerddom, though it's getting close.
3. Being proud of your ignorance rather than making an attempt at fixing it. Sorry, this is the end for you. Turn in your nerd badge and take those pens out of your pocket. Go buy some beer (and no micro-brews or imports!), and get yourself off the internet and in front of a TV.
but Apple... Really? Like for realsies? Sorry bro, I'm into computers... Not toys.
Perhaps you are - but a great many people are into toys. People aren't buying iPhone's because it's the most useful ultra-portable computer around (it isn't even close) - they're buying it because it's fun.
Yeah, I'd be watching Apple again, too. Not their desktop computer lines, but they have a lot more going for them than that.
MS doesn't gain anything they don't already have by acquiring yahoo...Yahoo is only worth something to NOT MS.
Which may be exactly why MS is so interested in acquiring Yahoo. They do a lot of the same things. And so does Google. So, instead of MS vs. Yahoo vs. Google, it would be MS Yahoo vs. Google.
Sometimes the point isn't to expand into new markets, but to gain control of the ones you're already in.
So go ahead and build your cybernetic superhumans to do your bidding, but you might have to sign a contract that says you'll do the bidding of the US government, too.
Sure, go ahead and sign the contract.
Just remember that when all's said and done, you're the one with the army of cyborg supersoldiers.
Frankly if I had someone telling me they were quitting I would drop their access and put them in a debriefing mode of around two to three days. If they can't do turn over of knowledge of outstanding issues then I have been doing something wrong in the working of my shop.
In any big project, there's always more documentation that can be written, and more details to pass on.
If you've got an employee that can turn over all their knowledge in two or three days, you've been hiring the wrong people.
One answer to your earlier question about "why weren't you passing/sharing knowledge the whole time you were there before?" It's not always about hoarding knowledge - often, there's simply nobody to turn it over to. In a busy environment, it's difficult to find time to sit down and train someone in a system they're unlikely to use. Those other employees all have their own projects to get done, too. Documentation and cross-training, while good to have, often slip in priority compared to getting the newest patch out.
As a contractor, I tend not to have this problem as much. Since I know from the beginning that I won't be there long, I can be meticulous in my documentation and training, planning from the beginning to get my work ready to turn over to someone else. Most regular employees, though, usually don't have that luxury.
I get a little suspicious when people start throwing the "lie" tag around, because if you stop and think about it, what does a user have to gain by lying during a tech support call?
It's not what they have to gain, but what they think they have to gain.
I spent a few years doing tech support, too. One of the products I supported had an installer bug that required a reboot for it to work after the first time using it. It would work fine after that. It wasn't always easy to convince the customer of this, though.
It was not uncommon for a user who didn't want to "waste" time trying a solution they didn't think would work to insist they already had rebooted. In this case, I knew the symptoms well enough to tell they hadn't. (It always worked after I convinced them to reboot "again".)
Not that I can always fault the customer for lying. Unfortunately, it's too common for a tech support rep who doesn't know what they're doing to tell the client to reboot or some other time-wasting thing just to get them off the phone, especially in those places that put too much emphasis on the number of calls they take and none of customer feedback. "Please-reboot-and-call-back-if-you-still-have-any-questions-thank-you-goodbye."
It could just be subjective perceptions, but I think it might be possible that it may just reveal a little bit of your bias that you divide the videos into the categories "conservative" and "protecting terrorists".
What makes me sick is how many think this is a Google issue and not an Indian human rights issue.
It's both.
That India is horrible at human rights isn't really news, though. The country has a long history of violations.
That doesn't mean that Google has to actively support them in their human rights violations, however. Especially since they make a bigger claim than most companies about not being evil.
... even in North America, companies are expected to play by the rules of the law. When the judge says give up the info, you are supposed to do so, not ask what they are going to do with it.
And that's a scary, scary thought.
"What are they going to do with it?" should be exactly the question asked when anyone is asked to give up personal information.
And when the answer is "we're going to imprison him and mistreat him for speaking an opinion we don't like", the response should be "No."
Yes, this would cause problems with China. They might threaten to fine them, or even to kick them out of the country. And Google can respond by threatening to close their data centers in China or to leave the country.
Sure, fighting back's not the easiest route, nor the most profitable, to take, but certainly the only one in keeping with their slogan of Don't Be Evil, which is now being shown to be increasingly meaningless.
And, as for "...even in North America..." I don't know the law in Canada, but in the US and Mexico there is a great deal of law and legal procedure that can be used to protect people in cases like this. In the US especially, mindless obedience to authority goes against the most important founding principles of the country.
If it were truly anecdotal, I'd apologize. I picked a recent and well known example that shows licensing doesn't mean a thing.
"Anecdotal" doesn't mean it didn't happen, or that it's unverified hear-say. It means that it's just individual examples that don't show anything about the overall pattern. In other words, exactly what you posted.
If you think a few exceptions show that "licensing doesn't mean a thing" you need to re-read the second to last paragraph of my earlier reply.
Here's a basic question, do you know of, or ever heard of, a licensed contractor who didn't know what he was doing?
No, I never have.
I have heard of licensed contractors who deliberately cut corners, making illegal modifications, and subverted the inspection process, but never of one who got a license with no training or proven skills at all.
When these people are caught, they can lose their licenses. Which makes them no longer able to work as a contractor. Which is both a powerful disincentive to break the rules as well as a fairly effective way of eliminating those who do.
Do some sometimes slip through? Sure, but just because the system isn't 100% effective 100% of the time doesn't mean it's totally worthless. There's quite a lot of room between those two extremes.
Yes, it's true that licenses are an artificial barrier to business. But you say that as if it is a bad thing. As someone who has lived a good part of my life inside buildings, some of them very large, and almost all of them built by other people, I am quite happy that there are artificial barriers like licenses, building codes, inspection processes, and so forth in place. Because of these, I've never had a building I've been in fall down on me.
My reaction was the same. Looks like after a few decades of computer games trying to capture the D&D experience, they've reversed it and now D&D is trying to capture the WoW experience.
Which, it looks like, is exactly what the reviewer likes about it.
For instance, some of the more revealing quotes:
In 3.5 hybrid classes were rough to play; why would you want to play a Paladin (a weak fighter bolted to a weak cleric) when you could play one of the core four and do something well? Fourth edition solves this issue by looking at the roles behind the classes rather than at class particulars. The Rogue, for example, is the classic Striker. He uses stealth and guile to cause spikes of high damage at opportune times.
Yeah, why would you want to play a class that has this huge tradition of honor and service and steadfast devotion to a cause and a range of abilities that revolve around that concept, when you can play a character that can hit things better?
Rogues? I always liked using them to sneak around, scout things out ahead of times, climb up walls to sneak into castles, pick pockets to get information or just a little extra gold, and find myriads of other ways to use all these cool skills and abilities for the good of the party. But, really, the most important part is causing spikes of high damage?
Those both make a lot of sense in something like WoW, where all there ever is is combat, but in a pencil and paper game, there's a lot more to it.
The real advance is that each class role should always have something interesting to do in a fight, because every role is defined. If you're a Defender, and you're not interposing yourself between the bad guys and the party, you're doing it wrong.
That's an "advance"? What if your "Defender" is badly wounded? Or out of spells? What if your fighter wants to avoid a fight except when absolutely necessary? What if your rogue starts off only giving his loyalty to one of the other party members and will steadfastly defend him but letting the others hang and only slowly over time comes to care about, or at least see that his long-term interests are served by seeming to care about, all the others?
According to the reviewer, these character concepts are "wrong". Because every character has a specifically defined role, and that role is defined by their class, not the character concept.
Now, I haven't seen the game yet, so maybe I'm completely off-base. It's possible that WotC just took the best concepts of WoW, and kept the best concepts of PnP as well, and the reviewer is so enamored with WoW that he's ignoring everything else. But based on everything else I've seen so far, that doesn't look like the case. And I probably won't be buying this for quite a while after it's out, if ever.
Hey! Someday he will save the world from immanent destruction and even you will say "Thank you Al Gore! You're super awesome!"
Nah, that's the funny part of it. He can only actually get recognition if he fails.
If the environmentalists are successful, then nothing will happen.
It's like the Y2K bug: All those people working to ensure that nothing happens. So when in Y2K, nothing happened, the general response was "huh, guess there never was a problem after all."
Slashdot Mirror
Whether the box is checked by default or not shouldn't really be an issue.
My phone will automatically connect to any unsecured wi-fi it comes across to download my email and voice messages and stuff.
I don't actually recall whether this was default behavior or if I checked an option somewhere along the way - possibly last year sometime when I first got it and was looking around to see what's available.
But, whether the option was checked by default or not really isn't the issue. The fact remains that it's an option you can enable by checking a box. According to your post, on XP the box is labeled "AUTOMATICALLY CONNECT TO NON-PREFERRED NETWORKS". Obviously that wouldn't be an option if it was illegal to do so. I think that you can make a pretty good case that a reasonable person would not be aware that enabling a standard operation that comes with the operating system could be a felony.
A lot of our donated computers don't come with hard drives, so we're always in need of hard drives more than just about anything else.
We wipe all drives to DoD standards before ever putting them in anything, too. (Well, anything other than the machines we use to wipe 'em.)
If you don't want to ship them all the way to Eugene, there's lots of other charities that do the same kind of thing, and probably have the same disproportionate computer to hard drive donation ratio.
But I'm willing to admit I was projecting.
I have several times been amazed at people's capacity to forgive and move on. If it was me, I would have started hating the US back in 1994 when, after meeting all the conditions for lifting the sanctions we strengthened them instead. (Not to mention all the bombing throughout the 90s). But, as fm6 pointed out, not everyone is necessarily that vengeful. And the Iraqis I've interacted with have seemed to have more faith in the US people and the Constitution than your average American does, so he could be right.
True. In the case of the Nazi, you know he's an enemy.
With many of those in Guantanamo, we didn't have that assurance before we put them there.
(Though, to be fair, we can probably pretty much count on it now.)
I agree that he probably hasn't changed as much as I'd thought.
In 2000, I registered Republican specifically so I could vote for him in the primary. Bush was just scary back then. (Turns out, I underestimated how scary).
I was part of the effort to encourage him to run again in 2004. He declined to do so, and instead threw his full support behind Bush and started supporting all of his policies, including support of continued torture of suspected criminals, which he was very loudly against up until that point.
He's no longer the man we knew in 2000. But, I'm willing to concede that that's most likely because we never really knew him, rather than because he's actually changed.
Yes. As the description for that article pointed out, the war powers act specifically said that Bush still had to abide by international treaties authorized by Congress, including the UN charter. He did not do so. So, by disobeying UN directives, he was disobeying Congressional directives.
You forgot that Obama is a white-hating muslim who wants to outlaw christianity!
And, if you've watched Fox "news" for more than a few minutes, you'll notice that his middle name is Hussein.
That's unfair. For the most part, the Guantanamo detainees haven't been charged with anything.
Since we haven't had a good car analogy in this thread yet:
Microevolution would be if you drive your car across town. This has been proven so many times that by now everyone accepts it as true.
Macroevolution would be if you could drive your car all the way to another country. This is, as everyone in America knows, impossible.
Come to think of it, this analogy could help explain why they hardly ever have these kinds of debates in Europe, too...
Something about the new edition's been bothering me for a while, and I think I finally figured out what it was.
I've only looked briefly at the rules, so maybe I'm wrong in some of this.
The alignment system isn't as "broken" as it looks. The original frankly wasn't that great, and the new one isn't so very different. It looks silly at first, but only if you're used to the old one, which has been there since 1st edition. Neither one was a hard and fast stricture on how you can role-play your character, despite some people trying to make it that.
The new races actually look kind of cool. And all classes having "powers" which are about the same. For instance, some have pointed out that there's now no functional difference between a ranger firing his bow every round and a wizard firing off a magic missile every round. OK, but there's still a big difference in flavor. Although I'm going to miss them each having their own separate advantages, disadvantages, and different defenses for each.
Out of combat skills have been scaled way back, which is kind of a shame. In 3.5, you could give more information, or make the NPCs a little friendlier based on knowledge or gather information or diplomacy checks, letting a character be a diplomat or master of social situations even if the player wasn't. In 4th ed, it seems like things like this rely purely on the players skill at convincing the DM. Which eliminates all those characters whose builds were focused on their ability to resolve encounters through other than violent means.
The biggest problem, though, is the online component. Maybe if I was playing regularly again I could justify it. But I'm between groups now and will probably be that way for a while. Normally, I'd be getting Dragon magazine during times like these, but they canceled that. But it's not just extra content it looks like. Significant parts of the rules - most of the classes, powers, monsters, etc. - will be online only. Having to pay an extra $15/month to make the core rulebooks complete makes me want to not buy the core rulebooks rather than make me want to pay extra for the online content.
For three reasons:
1. Not knowing what KOTOR is. This is, of course, the very least of the un-nerd-like tendencies displayed in your post.
2. Not bothering to look it up. Assuming it stems from laziness rather than a lack of curiosity, this still isn't enough to completely lose nerddom, though it's getting close.
3. Being proud of your ignorance rather than making an attempt at fixing it. Sorry, this is the end for you. Turn in your nerd badge and take those pens out of your pocket. Go buy some beer (and no micro-brews or imports!), and get yourself off the internet and in front of a TV.
Friends five times a day is your future. Sorry.
Perhaps you are - but a great many people are into toys. People aren't buying iPhone's because it's the most useful ultra-portable computer around (it isn't even close) - they're buying it because it's fun.
Yeah, I'd be watching Apple again, too. Not their desktop computer lines, but they have a lot more going for them than that.
Which may be exactly why MS is so interested in acquiring Yahoo. They do a lot of the same things. And so does Google. So, instead of MS vs. Yahoo vs. Google, it would be MS Yahoo vs. Google.
Sometimes the point isn't to expand into new markets, but to gain control of the ones you're already in.
Sure, go ahead and sign the contract.
Just remember that when all's said and done, you're the one with the army of cyborg supersoldiers.
In any big project, there's always more documentation that can be written, and more details to pass on.
If you've got an employee that can turn over all their knowledge in two or three days, you've been hiring the wrong people.
One answer to your earlier question about "why weren't you passing/sharing knowledge the whole time you were there before?" It's not always about hoarding knowledge - often, there's simply nobody to turn it over to. In a busy environment, it's difficult to find time to sit down and train someone in a system they're unlikely to use. Those other employees all have their own projects to get done, too. Documentation and cross-training, while good to have, often slip in priority compared to getting the newest patch out.
As a contractor, I tend not to have this problem as much. Since I know from the beginning that I won't be there long, I can be meticulous in my documentation and training, planning from the beginning to get my work ready to turn over to someone else. Most regular employees, though, usually don't have that luxury.
It's not what they have to gain, but what they think they have to gain.
I spent a few years doing tech support, too. One of the products I supported had an installer bug that required a reboot for it to work after the first time using it. It would work fine after that. It wasn't always easy to convince the customer of this, though.
It was not uncommon for a user who didn't want to "waste" time trying a solution they didn't think would work to insist they already had rebooted. In this case, I knew the symptoms well enough to tell they hadn't. (It always worked after I convinced them to reboot "again".)
Not that I can always fault the customer for lying. Unfortunately, it's too common for a tech support rep who doesn't know what they're doing to tell the client to reboot or some other time-wasting thing just to get them off the phone, especially in those places that put too much emphasis on the number of calls they take and none of customer feedback. "Please-reboot-and-call-back-if-you-still-have-any-questions-thank-you-goodbye."
It could just be subjective perceptions, but I think it might be possible that it may just reveal a little bit of your bias that you divide the videos into the categories "conservative" and "protecting terrorists".
It's both.
That India is horrible at human rights isn't really news, though. The country has a long history of violations.
That doesn't mean that Google has to actively support them in their human rights violations, however. Especially since they make a bigger claim than most companies about not being evil.
And that's a scary, scary thought.
"What are they going to do with it?" should be exactly the question asked when anyone is asked to give up personal information.
And when the answer is "we're going to imprison him and mistreat him for speaking an opinion we don't like", the response should be "No."
Yes, this would cause problems with China. They might threaten to fine them, or even to kick them out of the country. And Google can respond by threatening to close their data centers in China or to leave the country.
Sure, fighting back's not the easiest route, nor the most profitable, to take, but certainly the only one in keeping with their slogan of Don't Be Evil, which is now being shown to be increasingly meaningless.
And, as for "...even in North America..." I don't know the law in Canada, but in the US and Mexico there is a great deal of law and legal procedure that can be used to protect people in cases like this. In the US especially, mindless obedience to authority goes against the most important founding principles of the country.
"Anecdotal" doesn't mean it didn't happen, or that it's unverified hear-say. It means that it's just individual examples that don't show anything about the overall pattern. In other words, exactly what you posted.
If you think a few exceptions show that "licensing doesn't mean a thing" you need to re-read the second to last paragraph of my earlier reply.
No, I never have.
I have heard of licensed contractors who deliberately cut corners, making illegal modifications, and subverted the inspection process, but never of one who got a license with no training or proven skills at all.
When these people are caught, they can lose their licenses. Which makes them no longer able to work as a contractor. Which is both a powerful disincentive to break the rules as well as a fairly effective way of eliminating those who do.
Do some sometimes slip through? Sure, but just because the system isn't 100% effective 100% of the time doesn't mean it's totally worthless. There's quite a lot of room between those two extremes.
Yes, it's true that licenses are an artificial barrier to business. But you say that as if it is a bad thing. As someone who has lived a good part of my life inside buildings, some of them very large, and almost all of them built by other people, I am quite happy that there are artificial barriers like licenses, building codes, inspection processes, and so forth in place. Because of these, I've never had a building I've been in fall down on me.
My reaction was the same. Looks like after a few decades of computer games trying to capture the D&D experience, they've reversed it and now D&D is trying to capture the WoW experience.
Which, it looks like, is exactly what the reviewer likes about it.
For instance, some of the more revealing quotes:
Yeah, why would you want to play a class that has this huge tradition of honor and service and steadfast devotion to a cause and a range of abilities that revolve around that concept, when you can play a character that can hit things better?
Rogues? I always liked using them to sneak around, scout things out ahead of times, climb up walls to sneak into castles, pick pockets to get information or just a little extra gold, and find myriads of other ways to use all these cool skills and abilities for the good of the party. But, really, the most important part is causing spikes of high damage?
Those both make a lot of sense in something like WoW, where all there ever is is combat, but in a pencil and paper game, there's a lot more to it.
That's an "advance"? What if your "Defender" is badly wounded? Or out of spells? What if your fighter wants to avoid a fight except when absolutely necessary? What if your rogue starts off only giving his loyalty to one of the other party members and will steadfastly defend him but letting the others hang and only slowly over time comes to care about, or at least see that his long-term interests are served by seeming to care about, all the others?
According to the reviewer, these character concepts are "wrong". Because every character has a specifically defined role, and that role is defined by their class, not the character concept.
Now, I haven't seen the game yet, so maybe I'm completely off-base. It's possible that WotC just took the best concepts of WoW, and kept the best concepts of PnP as well, and the reviewer is so enamored with WoW that he's ignoring everything else. But based on everything else I've seen so far, that doesn't look like the case. And I probably won't be buying this for quite a while after it's out, if ever.
There are still comics in newspapers?
Nah, that's the funny part of it. He can only actually get recognition if he fails.
If the environmentalists are successful, then nothing will happen.
It's like the Y2K bug: All those people working to ensure that nothing happens. So when in Y2K, nothing happened, the general response was "huh, guess there never was a problem after all."