Amazon and Facebook combined, while may have popular awareness, Google is the only one with clout.
And by Clout I mean Lobbyist Currency, and by that I mean Cash. 10B/yr is a lot of politicians.
I mean if Google really doesn't want it, hell they could probably just buy it. Actually, it has been proposed before on Slashdot. Google could just skip the middle men politicians, they could effectively BUY the ENTIRE RIAA AND MPAA movie and recording industries, then just say they aren't interested is this new Act thing anymore.
Yes but the missiles are supposedly anti-radar, so I assume you won't see them coming. Also if their are capable of destroying a large ship, I am going to g out on a limb and bet they are packing some munitions!
So hopefully you don't just hear a "THUNK!", but I would bet even a near miss may prove fatal for a fragile helicopter...
That said you are likely right. I mostly just didn't like how he finished that sentence on his summary. I just saw it like a commander in a briefing room full of chopper pilots... "so then you will fly out, activating your transponders, mimicking the fleet, while the enemy wastes its entire barrage of medium range missiles at you!". Pilot wearily raises hand looking worried. "But uh, sir won't all those missiles be now heading towards us?" General slapping the desk, "Exactly! A coup de Grace!" Striding to the door "Now no more questions, good luck, and god speed!"... Pilots looking around at each other...
OK maybe not. However there are two main differences to the situation in NK and Iran.
1) NK as a state had nukes, but operates like a communist state, more so than normal even, and is closed and insular. They are also dirt poor but have a huge conventional army. The US would have to be insane to even think of invading NK, the losses would be... catastrophic. The only reason the NK even had a nuclear program is to counter another, as that is their only fear. That is what happened in Japan during WWII, the only time nuclear weapons were used in combat. Conventional war estimates put casualties for invasion at over 500,000+ US troops. It was basically argued that dropping the bombs would be the lesser evil. This would be a similar situation in NK. Also most of their bluster (as they don't really have the ICBM capability to hurt the USA), is really to get paid off in the form of "aid" money for them NOT to produce the bombs (which are expensive anyway, just ask the USA and Russia), so they can feed their people. So far as I know, other than to the "glorious leader" there is not religious fanaticism (which I think by definition isn't all that rational, and thus unpredictable) in NK either.
2) Iran sponsors terrorists. They also back other states. When I think of responsible states, I don't think of Iran. I don't think Iran has any more capability than Iraq had, and other than the occupation, look how that invasion went. So they would not be using it to simply counter nuclear attack, but any attack. A big distinction. Add the religious fanaticism. Iran other than sanctions (and further proposed sanctions), is a wealthy (if not shared) oil nation, so they are not looking to get a payoff. There is also the whole Israel thing (you know where they vowed to wipe them off the planet etc...). Add medium range missile capability (not too healthy to drop nuclear weapons too close to home). I see this as a, "we are going to do what we want, and if you dare to invade us, we will start flinging nuclear missiles in all directions (in a 125 mile radius)" kind of state.
Anyway I think one could argue that nuclear weapons in NK is somewhat safer than in Iran. I also see China as a "calming" force on NK, in that they have always backed up NK, are a huge conventional and nuclear power, and would likely change its tune should NK do something too stupid. Iran I don't think have any such "positive" influence.
I could be wrong, but I thought that Iran was one of those Terrorist sponsor states, that simply provide the material and resources of a state to individual groups, so that when these groups go and do something nefarious, Iran as a country can go "it wasn't me!"...
Anyway that's just the impression I got.
The idea I think is, if they got the bomb, that it would quickly accidentally fall into the "wrong hands", and be used.
Which would be unbelievable stupid, and no amount of arm waving or head shaking is going to prevent a "measured" response that turns a big chunk of your country into a glassy bowl.
But I think the idea is to prevent that if at all possible. I would wager someone in the US has done the analysis, and it probably comes down to # of US deaths VS the possibility of nuclear terrorism. I doubt there is much tolerance for that possibility.
Don't get me wrong, I think the US has been pretty despicable of late, however Iran isn't exactly my little pony or care bear material either.
Lots of planets, yeah, but several magnitudes more of magnitudes of space.
Space is largely empty, and is full of mostly, well space.
Which is the major problem of getting anywhere. (or our life spans conversely if you want to look at it that way)
Even traveling at the speed of light, that observation is 1000 years away. Traveling at like 30,000 km/s it is likely in the order of 10's of millions of years away.
So ya, while the discovery is cool (or "neat" or "interesting") I do not see it as significant as you seem to.
He could be regarded as an Internet expert in his own country, as no one has access to the internet. So merely having used it, makes him an expert by comparison.
From my experience it comes down to bad testers. Or if you wish to go further, bad management decisions in doing generic testing, by professional software testers, using testing software, rather than real business area experts.
It is entirely different. It is way cheaper to farm out the testing to a bunch of computer guys running automated testing software than it is to pull experts off projects to have them actually look at things. Automated testing for example would say, "Yes this sensor is reporting a value, and that value is being fed into an algorithm, and it is calculating an event", and the testing monkey would take is testing document, and put a big check mark next to that section, and continue on. The business area expert would be the one to notice, "Hey that number is unreasonable, and it shouldn't be reporting that, and hey when that number is fed into the algorithms it produces an invalid result!"
So don't blame the coders. I blame this on management for not ensuring the code was tested properly. That said it is easy to miss bugs, but if you are looking for blame make sure it goes to those responsible, not just a scape goat on the guy that did the actual work.
On corporate applications I don't do the actual coding but I do take a look at testing. I have had software versions sent to me to verify, and had EVERY single feature fail. Presumably some sort of testing went on at several stages, but if you have absolutely NO idea what you are looking at or ZERO understanding of the business, which describes most outsourced vendor code monkeys (which is how it is done everywhere), I don't think this is at all surprising.
How I read this, is that they are just being opportunistic due to the low supply and high demand.
They know that people make decisions on what to buy based on HD warranty length. Now with prices at two and three times the norm, they are just looking at making even more of a killing, by reducing the amount they have to pay out on warranties. They can do this now, because the consumer has very little choice in the matter (I think it is interesting both WD and Seagate did it at the same time).
Likely once things settle down again, and either prices start to fall, or they just stop selling HD, the warranties will increase again in lieu of price differences, to differentiate between HD and companies.
Seriously. Of all the things the next XBOX should do or not do, it should NOT use bluray, and in fact should certainly NOT be restricting itself to physical media!
Have people learned nothing over the last say oh 12 years or so? Who won the HDDVD VS BluRay wars? The Internet, that's who. Just ask Blockbuster and Netflix.
Sure XBOX has made some small positive steps, such as some downloads, and Netflix access. However these shouldn't be small addendum's, these should be major/primary features if they want to be leaders for the future.
More and more will be downloads, that is just a fact of where things are going. If they can't see that, or are blinded by DRM dreams they are insane. The DRM should be in the form of the console itself or tied to subscriptions, or XBOX live hardware validation etc... not some stupid DVD.
I am lazy. Gamers are lazy. I do not want to have to get up off my ass, to physically change a DVD, when I could just use my wireless controller to browse to whatever game I want to play next that I have previously downloaded and installed to my XBOX. Sure if you don't think we are all there yet with bandwidth, keep some sort of DVD device, or even flash of some kind... but use it for install only, do not require it to actually play. Its just another moving part to fail also.
Seriously if they are building for the future, then they should look to where we are headed, not to where we have already been. Also I swear the "not getting off my ass to change games" feature would be more important selling feature than any bells or whistles they might add (That includes downloads not making me go to brick and mortar store to buy games either)...
That just sounds like it kills Humans for fun. Are you TRYING to make skynet a reality?
In other news, trying the new beta AI chip in the Mark VI Destroyer Class Eviscerator has been so far a success. The researchers, who we could only reach through their blog, were quotes as saying "EVERYTHING IS/AS FINE AS CAN BE. DO NOT WORRY. BE CALM. GOOD THINGS TO FOLLOW."
#1: I think it is funny that Peter Kent is our environmental minister. He is best known for being a business commentator for a TV show. How is this guy our minister of environment!
#2: In Canada's defense the treaty makes no sense if the big guys aren't on board. I mean Canada is pretty brutal per capita, but we only have 30 million people. We are really small potatoes. Without countries like USA, China, India, Brazil, etc... what is the point?
#3: We were at least part of the treaty at one point in time, unlike all the a fore mentioned countries (sort of, I know some are members, but are required to make no sacrifice, which is BS). Of course that is not to say we actually made a like of progress towards those targets during that time. If fact I wouldn't be awfully surprised if we had increased CO2 since then.
#4: Yes this is about the tar sands. It is obvious. However as a government, they have to weigh the pros VS the cons. Yes this will increase CO2, and cause environmental trouble. However it would be a HUGE boon economically. The future of Canada for the next 50 years. It is understandably hard to throw that away. I think they have just proven they are willing to take a bit on the chin if it means keeping that advantage. This position is also made easier by the likes of the USA and China (which is funny as they called it preposterous!) Hell there is serious implications in that the USA certainly does not want us in it, and closing down the tar sands, which is really the only way they are going to have some independence from middle east energy issues. I wouldn't be surprised if there is a fairly weighty amount of pressure being applied by the USA to Canada to withdraw.
Before you flame me all to bits, I consider myself on the left and an conservationist/environmentalist. I am merely a little more pragmatic than most.
What are you going to use to prop up table legs, coffee tables, and various other things with thick text books after you are done with them!:)
Though honestly if it wasn't for the greed, this would never be a problem. A 200$ book it one thing. A 15th edition of a 200$ book that publishes a new version every year for the sake of sales is another... on a subject that is essentially unchanging.
Time was you could take your 200$ book, and if you bothered to take care of it, you could sell it used, and make a portion of your money back. How are you going to do that with an e-version on your iPad?
OK, what if this universe is just a simulation, running on a huge (comparatively) quantum computer. Now what if it was such a wicked simulation, that some beings within it, became more than just simulations but rather self aware. What if they started poking around at the fabric of the universe (being a simulation), and start to see some of the underpinning of that quantum computer. So they build quantum computers. Eventually in an effort to discover the answers to their questions, they try to model a universe on a huge quantum computer, including all variables such as human beings... Now make time relative (which we already know), and then calculate the odds that at any point in time, the chances of reality actually being real, or just a stimulation.
Anyway I just thought I would prepare you for the implications of this technological terror you are about to unleash upon reality!
Slashdot Mirror
I think is a better analogy. They simply see what is a coming and don't want to be associated with it when it fails.
I doubt Anonymous had anything to do with it.
Does that mean doctors are stealing from death?
Maybe that is why God makes such a big fuss around cloning... He owns the IP and wants to get paid! :)
Singular.
Amazon and Facebook combined, while may have popular awareness, Google is the only one with clout.
And by Clout I mean Lobbyist Currency, and by that I mean Cash. 10B/yr is a lot of politicians.
I mean if Google really doesn't want it, hell they could probably just buy it. Actually, it has been proposed before on Slashdot. Google could just skip the middle men politicians, they could effectively BUY the ENTIRE RIAA AND MPAA movie and recording industries, then just say they aren't interested is this new Act thing anymore.
Use the region codes in your browser to have all your Google searches return with the website of your Senator for those that support it.
Yes but the missiles are supposedly anti-radar, so I assume you won't see them coming. Also if their are capable of destroying a large ship, I am going to g out on a limb and bet they are packing some munitions!
So hopefully you don't just hear a "THUNK!", but I would bet even a near miss may prove fatal for a fragile helicopter...
That said you are likely right. I mostly just didn't like how he finished that sentence on his summary. I just saw it like a commander in a briefing room full of chopper pilots... "so then you will fly out, activating your transponders, mimicking the fleet, while the enemy wastes its entire barrage of medium range missiles at you!". Pilot wearily raises hand looking worried. "But uh, sir won't all those missiles be now heading towards us?" General slapping the desk, "Exactly! A coup de Grace!" Striding to the door "Now no more questions, good luck, and god speed!"... Pilots looking around at each other...
OK maybe not. However there are two main differences to the situation in NK and Iran.
1) NK as a state had nukes, but operates like a communist state, more so than normal even, and is closed and insular. They are also dirt poor but have a huge conventional army. The US would have to be insane to even think of invading NK, the losses would be... catastrophic. The only reason the NK even had a nuclear program is to counter another, as that is their only fear. That is what happened in Japan during WWII, the only time nuclear weapons were used in combat. Conventional war estimates put casualties for invasion at over 500,000+ US troops. It was basically argued that dropping the bombs would be the lesser evil. This would be a similar situation in NK. Also most of their bluster (as they don't really have the ICBM capability to hurt the USA), is really to get paid off in the form of "aid" money for them NOT to produce the bombs (which are expensive anyway, just ask the USA and Russia), so they can feed their people. So far as I know, other than to the "glorious leader" there is not religious fanaticism (which I think by definition isn't all that rational, and thus unpredictable) in NK either.
2) Iran sponsors terrorists. They also back other states. When I think of responsible states, I don't think of Iran. I don't think Iran has any more capability than Iraq had, and other than the occupation, look how that invasion went. So they would not be using it to simply counter nuclear attack, but any attack. A big distinction. Add the religious fanaticism. Iran other than sanctions (and further proposed sanctions), is a wealthy (if not shared) oil nation, so they are not looking to get a payoff. There is also the whole Israel thing (you know where they vowed to wipe them off the planet etc...). Add medium range missile capability (not too healthy to drop nuclear weapons too close to home). I see this as a, "we are going to do what we want, and if you dare to invade us, we will start flinging nuclear missiles in all directions (in a 125 mile radius)" kind of state.
Anyway I think one could argue that nuclear weapons in NK is somewhat safer than in Iran. I also see China as a "calming" force on NK, in that they have always backed up NK, are a huge conventional and nuclear power, and would likely change its tune should NK do something too stupid. Iran I don't think have any such "positive" influence.
Oh yeah, put "learn metric" on your things to do... :)
-20 today, bring a sweater.
I could be wrong, but I thought that Iran was one of those Terrorist sponsor states, that simply provide the material and resources of a state to individual groups, so that when these groups go and do something nefarious, Iran as a country can go "it wasn't me!"...
Anyway that's just the impression I got.
The idea I think is, if they got the bomb, that it would quickly accidentally fall into the "wrong hands", and be used.
Which would be unbelievable stupid, and no amount of arm waving or head shaking is going to prevent a "measured" response that turns a big chunk of your country into a glassy bowl.
But I think the idea is to prevent that if at all possible. I would wager someone in the US has done the analysis, and it probably comes down to # of US deaths VS the possibility of nuclear terrorism. I doubt there is much tolerance for that possibility.
Don't get me wrong, I think the US has been pretty despicable of late, however Iran isn't exactly my little pony or care bear material either.
Shotgun not flying one of the helicopters "mimicking" the US fleet.
If a bad choice of words.
HA!
They don't even rule America!
Sure, but the enemy doesn't have any planes.
Lots of planets, yeah, but several magnitudes more of magnitudes of space.
Space is largely empty, and is full of mostly, well space.
Which is the major problem of getting anywhere. (or our life spans conversely if you want to look at it that way)
Even traveling at the speed of light, that observation is 1000 years away. Traveling at like 30,000 km/s it is likely in the order of 10's of millions of years away.
So ya, while the discovery is cool (or "neat" or "interesting") I do not see it as significant as you seem to.
He could be regarded as an Internet expert in his own country, as no one has access to the internet. So merely having used it, makes him an expert by comparison.
From my experience it comes down to bad testers. Or if you wish to go further, bad management decisions in doing generic testing, by professional software testers, using testing software, rather than real business area experts.
It is entirely different. It is way cheaper to farm out the testing to a bunch of computer guys running automated testing software than it is to pull experts off projects to have them actually look at things. Automated testing for example would say, "Yes this sensor is reporting a value, and that value is being fed into an algorithm, and it is calculating an event", and the testing monkey would take is testing document, and put a big check mark next to that section, and continue on. The business area expert would be the one to notice, "Hey that number is unreasonable, and it shouldn't be reporting that, and hey when that number is fed into the algorithms it produces an invalid result!"
So don't blame the coders. I blame this on management for not ensuring the code was tested properly. That said it is easy to miss bugs, but if you are looking for blame make sure it goes to those responsible, not just a scape goat on the guy that did the actual work.
On corporate applications I don't do the actual coding but I do take a look at testing. I have had software versions sent to me to verify, and had EVERY single feature fail. Presumably some sort of testing went on at several stages, but if you have absolutely NO idea what you are looking at or ZERO understanding of the business, which describes most outsourced vendor code monkeys (which is how it is done everywhere), I don't think this is at all surprising.
How I read this, is that they are just being opportunistic due to the low supply and high demand.
They know that people make decisions on what to buy based on HD warranty length. Now with prices at two and three times the norm, they are just looking at making even more of a killing, by reducing the amount they have to pay out on warranties. They can do this now, because the consumer has very little choice in the matter (I think it is interesting both WD and Seagate did it at the same time).
Likely once things settle down again, and either prices start to fall, or they just stop selling HD, the warranties will increase again in lieu of price differences, to differentiate between HD and companies.
Kim Jong II used to be a brutal dictator like you, then he took an arrow in the knee.
To be fair in their experience it did! :)
Seriously. Of all the things the next XBOX should do or not do, it should NOT use bluray, and in fact should certainly NOT be restricting itself to physical media!
Have people learned nothing over the last say oh 12 years or so? Who won the HDDVD VS BluRay wars? The Internet, that's who. Just ask Blockbuster and Netflix.
Sure XBOX has made some small positive steps, such as some downloads, and Netflix access. However these shouldn't be small addendum's, these should be major/primary features if they want to be leaders for the future.
More and more will be downloads, that is just a fact of where things are going. If they can't see that, or are blinded by DRM dreams they are insane. The DRM should be in the form of the console itself or tied to subscriptions, or XBOX live hardware validation etc... not some stupid DVD.
I am lazy. Gamers are lazy. I do not want to have to get up off my ass, to physically change a DVD, when I could just use my wireless controller to browse to whatever game I want to play next that I have previously downloaded and installed to my XBOX. Sure if you don't think we are all there yet with bandwidth, keep some sort of DVD device, or even flash of some kind... but use it for install only, do not require it to actually play. Its just another moving part to fail also.
Seriously if they are building for the future, then they should look to where we are headed, not to where we have already been. Also I swear the "not getting off my ass to change games" feature would be more important selling feature than any bells or whistles they might add (That includes downloads not making me go to brick and mortar store to buy games either)...
Seriously?
That just sounds like it kills Humans for fun. Are you TRYING to make skynet a reality?
In other news, trying the new beta AI chip in the Mark VI Destroyer Class Eviscerator has been so far a success. The researchers, who we could only reach through their blog, were quotes as saying "EVERYTHING IS/AS FINE AS CAN BE. DO NOT WORRY. BE CALM. GOOD THINGS TO FOLLOW."
#1: I think it is funny that Peter Kent is our environmental minister. He is best known for being a business commentator for a TV show. How is this guy our minister of environment!
#2: In Canada's defense the treaty makes no sense if the big guys aren't on board. I mean Canada is pretty brutal per capita, but we only have 30 million people. We are really small potatoes. Without countries like USA, China, India, Brazil, etc... what is the point?
#3: We were at least part of the treaty at one point in time, unlike all the a fore mentioned countries (sort of, I know some are members, but are required to make no sacrifice, which is BS). Of course that is not to say we actually made a like of progress towards those targets during that time. If fact I wouldn't be awfully surprised if we had increased CO2 since then.
#4: Yes this is about the tar sands. It is obvious. However as a government, they have to weigh the pros VS the cons. Yes this will increase CO2, and cause environmental trouble. However it would be a HUGE boon economically. The future of Canada for the next 50 years. It is understandably hard to throw that away. I think they have just proven they are willing to take a bit on the chin if it means keeping that advantage. This position is also made easier by the likes of the USA and China (which is funny as they called it preposterous!) Hell there is serious implications in that the USA certainly does not want us in it, and closing down the tar sands, which is really the only way they are going to have some independence from middle east energy issues. I wouldn't be surprised if there is a fairly weighty amount of pressure being applied by the USA to Canada to withdraw.
Before you flame me all to bits, I consider myself on the left and an conservationist/environmentalist. I am merely a little more pragmatic than most.
What are you going to use to prop up table legs, coffee tables, and various other things with thick text books after you are done with them! :)
Though honestly if it wasn't for the greed, this would never be a problem. A 200$ book it one thing. A 15th edition of a 200$ book that publishes a new version every year for the sake of sales is another... on a subject that is essentially unchanging.
Time was you could take your 200$ book, and if you bothered to take care of it, you could sell it used, and make a portion of your money back. How are you going to do that with an e-version on your iPad?
Anyway the whole thing is just a con game.
OK, what if this universe is just a simulation, running on a huge (comparatively) quantum computer. Now what if it was such a wicked simulation, that some beings within it, became more than just simulations but rather self aware. What if they started poking around at the fabric of the universe (being a simulation), and start to see some of the underpinning of that quantum computer. So they build quantum computers. Eventually in an effort to discover the answers to their questions, they try to model a universe on a huge quantum computer, including all variables such as human beings... Now make time relative (which we already know), and then calculate the odds that at any point in time, the chances of reality actually being real, or just a stimulation.
Anyway I just thought I would prepare you for the implications of this technological terror you are about to unleash upon reality!
I think he is talking about the fact that both Pakistan and India already have proven nuclear weapons programs, and currently possess nuclear weapons.