... not working right when 700,000 Privates with the last name of Chen vote for the Communist party candidate.
Who needs a Manchurian Candidate when you can just elect Chairman Jia Qinglin himself?:-P
~UP
Maybe I can put a bit of perspective on it for you.
Take the viewpoint of any of the ten reviewers. You can either sit without comment, or you can tell the men with guns that the voting program they produced is a piece of crap.
From my (limited) perspective, the above or the chance that it's a fact that the six reviewers so unsure about the system that they cannot comment one way or the other are the only two possible reasons for the failure to submit any kind of report whatsoever.
And since those six could probably get away with submitting a report saying "we can't tell one way or another," I'm guessing that it might be the former rather than the latter which has caused six out of ten to refrain from commenting on the Pentagon's voting software.
If that's not enough for you, then I suggest you look up the statistics behind surveys, specifically in regaurds to voluntary respondants and the reliability of the data in voluntary-response surveys.
Any way about it, it's probably safe to assume that the voting program probably really is a chunk of manure.
Although I've never been to Iraq, and am not currently working a "sh*t job" (I'm currently unemployed), I do think I've been in a pretty bad work situation.
Back in the summer of 2001, I worked for a highway construction site flagging company. We were the people who set up all the traffic cones, signs, etc. and stood out there all day (often 12+ hours) trying to get people to slow down so that they wouldn't hit anyone or ram their car into one of the big 4-ton excavation machines.
At first, all I had to do was stand around, wave my neon-orange caution flag, and "look pretty," as my foreman would say. Not a real problem; the deisel fumes sucked and the long hours did a number on my (already screwed-up) feet, but it payed 10 an hour and the foreman was a really cool boss who knew what she was doing, so it wasn't so bad.
Well, after the first week, things picked up as we switched jobs from curb work to a full-fledged re-pavement of a stretch of the main drag / highway in this particular small, western town in the desert. I was promoted (thankfully) to "relief flagger," though I didn't get an actual raise (the job payed 11 an hour for every flagger except the foreman).
Since I'm in a rush right now, here's a list of all I (and most others on the job) had to contend with: brats on the radio trying to disrupt our communications (almost ended up in an accident), a minor flash flood, old tourists in RVs who couldn't drive (we had four people with injuries to their hands, and one person with a broken neck thanks to five seperate drivers who couldn't drive in a straight line), enraged business owners who threatened to shoot us (cops came and left, but didn't do anything), incliment weather (with highs around 106 and lows of below freezing, and winds above forty MPH), a broken gas main and the panic in trying to get five hundred people to shut off their engines and -not- murder us becuase of the fact that we couldn't move anyone who wasn't an emergency service worker (this included an FBI agent who "just had to get beyond the break so that he could get to his investigation"), at least one rattlesnake, severe sunburn (one poor guy forgot his sunscreen and ended up with 3rd degree sunburn; he was back on the job the very next day), and a lot more that I can't recall right now.
All in all, though, that wasn't the worst job I've ever had. Just goes to show that it's the boss that makes all the difference, I guess.
... that the ISPs will win this war. The RIAA and by extension, because it has been created and continually supported by a majority of them, the record companies seek, like nearly every other company or tightly-knit industry, to gain the maximum ammount of profit. To this end, they have thrown away their morals, the talents of many good, true artists, and a good deal of choice as to what kind of music is listened to, and heard.
They control the artists, they control the market, and they now strive to control the "consumer," a nebulous term meant to "normify" and lump together everyone and anyone who has ever listened to music.
They believe that they can make the maximum ammount of profit by demonstrating their capability to financially destroy anyone who listens to the music they shove into bins and shelves, but does so in a way they cannot control and without paying the greivously bloated Troll's Toll. In doing so, they hope to control the "consumer," so that he or she first chooses to deny using peer-to-peer to aquire the music chosen by the industry, and then he or she chooses to eschew "free" music, altogether.
It's an ugly claim, but it's an ugly strategy they pursue. Some of us "consumers" choose to ignore them and to avoid them, to continue to listen to music we want to listen to, whether or not it is "theirs," without needing to pay exhorbant fees to RENT the legal ability to enjoy it!
Is it legal or moral to "steal" this music? No, not really; but how else can anyone tell them that we do not appreciate or condone what they are doing and how they are doing it? They have extended their presence off our shores, into our legal systems, and across our internet so far that it is now difficult, though not yet impossible, to find music that they do not "own." (How many independant artists, or artists contracted under a small lables sit in the bins or on the shelves of Wal-Mart, Sam Goody, Target, or any of the other music retailers who have more than one small store tucked into a corner in a city?)
This small minority could write letters and emails, boycott and protest, and raise what hell it could in hopes of communicating its collective displeasure, but would it make a difference? It hasn't so far, and so long as the majority agrees, or worse, allows itself to be cowed into submission, it won't.
But there are at least two ways to effectively communicate this particular displeasure. The first, as we all know, is to download "their" music, through peer-to-pear programs and networks, or any other means, for that matter, so that they cannot help but notice that more of "their" music is being freely traded; as I said earlier, it is neither legal nor exactly moral, but it is a method that seems to work. (And for clarity, I should mention that I've not downloaded music illegally in a very long time, that I do not even listen to the radio, and that I absolutely do not pay with my own money for that which is in this day and, in my opinion, illegitimately called music by those companies.)
The second way is to tell those organizations which encompass more than just the minority just how distasteful the tactics and strategy employed by those major record lables and the RIAA is to us. For the most part, the ones who have listened, and who have recently and now take firm and just stand against the major record lables and RIAA, are the ISPs. They have heard, they have recognized the wisdom, financially and morally, in denying the RIAA what it needs to pursue its disgusting work. And I salute them for doing so, because the ISPs alone may stop the RIAA/major record lables by doing exactly what they have done.
For me, this fight is not just about music, not just about artists, nor simply about evil corporations; for me, it's about freedom--real freedom, that which I hold nearest and dearest of all the rights and virtues of Men and Women.
Godspeed, ye who stand as shield against the slings and arrows of the hated lawyers and greedy businesspeople of "big" music.
I am just pointing out that if its possible for movies, why not for games?
Well, see, that's the thing... it isn't possible, even with movies. For instance, Lord of the Rings: Return of the King was rated PG-13, yet I saw dozens of children well under 13 when I went to see it in the theatre, and that was not an uncommon thing for me to see, even in that particular conservative, small town. Movie theatres have been "supposed" to self-regulate and keep the kids out of movies rated "R," but they don't. As long as the owner makes more money by "bending" or breaking the rules, and as long as it's a major inconvenience for the minimum-wage workers to check the ages of a majority of their young audience members, the movie theatres won't enforce the ratings; not until they are made to do so.
The same goes/will go for video games: So long as the stores keep making money off the younger kids buying games which aren't rated for them, and so long as the clerks will have to work more for the same pay in enforcing the system, it won't happen. Not until it's enforced through anything but "self-regulation."
The industry should get together with the retailers and the various groups involved in this (including the "violent computer games are bad, ban them" crowd) and come up with a form of self-regulation and self-policing that ensures that minors dont get violent games (or at least that makes it harder for minors to get violent games) and that keeps the "violent computer games are bad" crowd at bay.
They already did that, and the product was the ERSB rating system. What you're talking about is caving in and letting the paranoid anti-video game groups push through a law supporting the system. What I'm saying is that it won't happen because of the logistics and cost, and that it shouldn't happen, period.
There has to be a middle ground between what we have now and "government mandated laws" (which is what these idiots want)
One would hope so, and certainly might think so, but I wonder if there is, and if there is, if it will be accepted by the extremists. Perhaps it is the paranoid within me, but I cannot help wondering if there isn't some ulterior motive even within the dedicated anti-video game (violence) groups; something which might go along the lines of, "if we can force them to stop doing what they want to do, maybe we can force them to do what we want them to do!"
I know the difference between the virtual and the real, but it seems to me that those who advocate such censorship don't, that they fear their lack of understanding, and blame their fear on the virtual (electronic games) instead of the real (themselves).
There are three problems with that: One, most 13 year-olds don't carry legal IDs, two, such a thing would be incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to enforce, and three, the ESRB ratings are not nearly complex enough to use them for any sort of law. They are "guidelines," and not meant to be set in stone.
In order to do what you're proposing, those guidelines would need to be expanded by an order of magnitude; you'd have to have seperate ratings for realistic violence (ie Soldier of Fortune II), cartoon violence (ie Marvel vs Capcom), and "standard" violence (ie CounterStrike). In effect, you'd need to take every descriptor and every current ERSB "rating" and combine them to form however many "ratings" those produced, and then arbitrarily assign them a minimum age level. Each level of morally offensive material (and who is to judge what such a subjective thing should be, when put into objectively-restraining laws?) would need its own rating.
And then you'd need to enforce it all. You would have to require every kid able to hold a controler or move a mouse to have an official ID, just to prove that they are old enough to own or purchase the game. People have a tendency of looking older or younger than they are, so you'd need to "card" everyone who wanted to buy a video or computer game.
Even beyond that, there's still the need to make sure that the vendors are enforcing the law; you need enforcement of the enforcement. That would require more cops or Federal Agents. (Perhaps the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms) would be expanded and become the ATFG (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Games).)
By this point, you're talking about expenditures large enough to require a significant tax increase just to cover the initial costs. Even beyond the moral and ideological reasons against enforcing one person's or one group of people's moral views over another's, the logistics and accounting of the concept prove it improbible if not impossible in current society. That's why, even if the two jacks manage to set judicial precident, nothing along the lines of a by-age ratings enforcement system for popular media will work, not what you've presented, nor what anyone else can present... not in today's version of American society, at least.
If any Florida Slashdotters are reading this, do me a favor: get a girl you know (yourself, if applicable) to go each of these guys' offices with a copy of the U.S. Consitution (including the Bill of Rights, #1 being highlighted), a (legal) copy of an "infamous violent video game" (say, Quake 2... something that will work on the likely outdated and underpowered computers of conservative lawyers), and printouts of the following articles: This one and this one.
Also be sure to get the local television crews, and newspaper writers and photographers to follow (and make sure that they're informed of the one lawyer's bikini vendor stunt)... because the whole idea here is to embarass these two ugly fellows using their own tactics, except bolstered by evidence.
The downside is that this will get these two the attention they crave; the upside is that it won't get them positive attention and might just make a laughingstock out of them.
Or just hit them both with a pie in the face at a press conference. (Hey, it worked with Bill Gates for the French!)
At what point does "cost cutting" (sometimes aka "corporate greed") go from being "bad" to "acceptable" or even "good?"
Second question: As Microsoft Windows OSs are literally 3rd party software, does this memo (if authentic) indicate that Dell will stop supporting Windows or any other Microsoft OS?
Third and final question: Would or does this memo prevent a tech from telling a customer something along the lines of "I'm sorry [sir/ma'am], but it's company policy that we are not to recommend spyware removal tools, such as AdAware. Even if I wanted to, I could not tell you to visit lavasoftusa.com or advise you to install and run that program. I am sorry again, but it's company policy that we are not allowed to inform or advise you of such things."
Slashdot Mirror
I take it that's a "no"?
~UP
... not working right when 700,000 Privates with the last name of Chen vote for the Communist party candidate. Who needs a Manchurian Candidate when you can just elect Chairman Jia Qinglin himself? :-P
~UP
Maybe I can put a bit of perspective on it for you.
Take the viewpoint of any of the ten reviewers. You can either sit without comment, or you can tell the men with guns that the voting program they produced is a piece of crap.
From my (limited) perspective, the above or the chance that it's a fact that the six reviewers so unsure about the system that they cannot comment one way or the other are the only two possible reasons for the failure to submit any kind of report whatsoever.
And since those six could probably get away with submitting a report saying "we can't tell one way or another," I'm guessing that it might be the former rather than the latter which has caused six out of ten to refrain from commenting on the Pentagon's voting software.
If that's not enough for you, then I suggest you look up the statistics behind surveys, specifically in regaurds to voluntary respondants and the reliability of the data in voluntary-response surveys.
Any way about it, it's probably safe to assume that the voting program probably really is a chunk of manure.
~UP
Although I've never been to Iraq, and am not currently working a "sh*t job" (I'm currently unemployed), I do think I've been in a pretty bad work situation.
Back in the summer of 2001, I worked for a highway construction site flagging company. We were the people who set up all the traffic cones, signs, etc. and stood out there all day (often 12+ hours) trying to get people to slow down so that they wouldn't hit anyone or ram their car into one of the big 4-ton excavation machines.
At first, all I had to do was stand around, wave my neon-orange caution flag, and "look pretty," as my foreman would say. Not a real problem; the deisel fumes sucked and the long hours did a number on my (already screwed-up) feet, but it payed 10 an hour and the foreman was a really cool boss who knew what she was doing, so it wasn't so bad.
Well, after the first week, things picked up as we switched jobs from curb work to a full-fledged re-pavement of a stretch of the main drag / highway in this particular small, western town in the desert. I was promoted (thankfully) to "relief flagger," though I didn't get an actual raise (the job payed 11 an hour for every flagger except the foreman).
Since I'm in a rush right now, here's a list of all I (and most others on the job) had to contend with: brats on the radio trying to disrupt our communications (almost ended up in an accident), a minor flash flood, old tourists in RVs who couldn't drive (we had four people with injuries to their hands, and one person with a broken neck thanks to five seperate drivers who couldn't drive in a straight line), enraged business owners who threatened to shoot us (cops came and left, but didn't do anything), incliment weather (with highs around 106 and lows of below freezing, and winds above forty MPH), a broken gas main and the panic in trying to get five hundred people to shut off their engines and -not- murder us becuase of the fact that we couldn't move anyone who wasn't an emergency service worker (this included an FBI agent who "just had to get beyond the break so that he could get to his investigation"), at least one rattlesnake, severe sunburn (one poor guy forgot his sunscreen and ended up with 3rd degree sunburn; he was back on the job the very next day), and a lot more that I can't recall right now.
All in all, though, that wasn't the worst job I've ever had. Just goes to show that it's the boss that makes all the difference, I guess.
~UP
... that the ISPs will win this war. The RIAA and by extension, because it has been created and continually supported by a majority of them, the record companies seek, like nearly every other company or tightly-knit industry, to gain the maximum ammount of profit. To this end, they have thrown away their morals, the talents of many good, true artists, and a good deal of choice as to what kind of music is listened to, and heard.
They control the artists, they control the market, and they now strive to control the "consumer," a nebulous term meant to "normify" and lump together everyone and anyone who has ever listened to music.
They believe that they can make the maximum ammount of profit by demonstrating their capability to financially destroy anyone who listens to the music they shove into bins and shelves, but does so in a way they cannot control and without paying the greivously bloated Troll's Toll. In doing so, they hope to control the "consumer," so that he or she first chooses to deny using peer-to-peer to aquire the music chosen by the industry, and then he or she chooses to eschew "free" music, altogether.
It's an ugly claim, but it's an ugly strategy they pursue. Some of us "consumers" choose to ignore them and to avoid them, to continue to listen to music we want to listen to, whether or not it is "theirs," without needing to pay exhorbant fees to RENT the legal ability to enjoy it!
Is it legal or moral to "steal" this music? No, not really; but how else can anyone tell them that we do not appreciate or condone what they are doing and how they are doing it? They have extended their presence off our shores, into our legal systems, and across our internet so far that it is now difficult, though not yet impossible, to find music that they do not "own." (How many independant artists, or artists contracted under a small lables sit in the bins or on the shelves of Wal-Mart, Sam Goody, Target, or any of the other music retailers who have more than one small store tucked into a corner in a city?)
This small minority could write letters and emails, boycott and protest, and raise what hell it could in hopes of communicating its collective displeasure, but would it make a difference? It hasn't so far, and so long as the majority agrees, or worse, allows itself to be cowed into submission, it won't.
But there are at least two ways to effectively communicate this particular displeasure. The first, as we all know, is to download "their" music, through peer-to-pear programs and networks, or any other means, for that matter, so that they cannot help but notice that more of "their" music is being freely traded; as I said earlier, it is neither legal nor exactly moral, but it is a method that seems to work. (And for clarity, I should mention that I've not downloaded music illegally in a very long time, that I do not even listen to the radio, and that I absolutely do not pay with my own money for that which is in this day and, in my opinion, illegitimately called music by those companies.)
The second way is to tell those organizations which encompass more than just the minority just how distasteful the tactics and strategy employed by those major record lables and the RIAA is to us. For the most part, the ones who have listened, and who have recently and now take firm and just stand against the major record lables and RIAA, are the ISPs. They have heard, they have recognized the wisdom, financially and morally, in denying the RIAA what it needs to pursue its disgusting work. And I salute them for doing so, because the ISPs alone may stop the RIAA/major record lables by doing exactly what they have done.
For me, this fight is not just about music, not just about artists, nor simply about evil corporations; for me, it's about freedom--real freedom, that which I hold nearest and dearest of all the rights and virtues of Men and Women.
Godspeed, ye who stand as shield against the slings and arrows of the hated lawyers and greedy businesspeople of "big" music.
~UP
I am just pointing out that if its possible for movies, why not for games?
Well, see, that's the thing... it isn't possible, even with movies. For instance, Lord of the Rings: Return of the King was rated PG-13, yet I saw dozens of children well under 13 when I went to see it in the theatre, and that was not an uncommon thing for me to see, even in that particular conservative, small town. Movie theatres have been "supposed" to self-regulate and keep the kids out of movies rated "R," but they don't. As long as the owner makes more money by "bending" or breaking the rules, and as long as it's a major inconvenience for the minimum-wage workers to check the ages of a majority of their young audience members, the movie theatres won't enforce the ratings; not until they are made to do so.
The same goes/will go for video games: So long as the stores keep making money off the younger kids buying games which aren't rated for them, and so long as the clerks will have to work more for the same pay in enforcing the system, it won't happen. Not until it's enforced through anything but "self-regulation."
The industry should get together with the retailers and the various groups involved in this (including the "violent computer games are bad, ban them" crowd) and come up with a form of self-regulation and self-policing that ensures that minors dont get violent games (or at least that makes it harder for minors to get violent games) and that keeps the "violent computer games are bad" crowd at bay.
They already did that, and the product was the ERSB rating system. What you're talking about is caving in and letting the paranoid anti-video game groups push through a law supporting the system. What I'm saying is that it won't happen because of the logistics and cost, and that it shouldn't happen, period.
There has to be a middle ground between what we have now and "government mandated laws" (which is what these idiots want)
One would hope so, and certainly might think so, but I wonder if there is, and if there is, if it will be accepted by the extremists. Perhaps it is the paranoid within me, but I cannot help wondering if there isn't some ulterior motive even within the dedicated anti-video game (violence) groups; something which might go along the lines of, "if we can force them to stop doing what they want to do, maybe we can force them to do what we want them to do!"
I know the difference between the virtual and the real, but it seems to me that those who advocate such censorship don't, that they fear their lack of understanding, and blame their fear on the virtual (electronic games) instead of the real (themselves).
~UP
There are three problems with that: One, most 13 year-olds don't carry legal IDs, two, such a thing would be incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to enforce, and three, the ESRB ratings are not nearly complex enough to use them for any sort of law. They are "guidelines," and not meant to be set in stone.
In order to do what you're proposing, those guidelines would need to be expanded by an order of magnitude; you'd have to have seperate ratings for realistic violence (ie Soldier of Fortune II), cartoon violence (ie Marvel vs Capcom), and "standard" violence (ie CounterStrike). In effect, you'd need to take every descriptor and every current ERSB "rating" and combine them to form however many "ratings" those produced, and then arbitrarily assign them a minimum age level. Each level of morally offensive material (and who is to judge what such a subjective thing should be, when put into objectively-restraining laws?) would need its own rating.
And then you'd need to enforce it all. You would have to require every kid able to hold a controler or move a mouse to have an official ID, just to prove that they are old enough to own or purchase the game. People have a tendency of looking older or younger than they are, so you'd need to "card" everyone who wanted to buy a video or computer game.
Even beyond that, there's still the need to make sure that the vendors are enforcing the law; you need enforcement of the enforcement. That would require more cops or Federal Agents. (Perhaps the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms) would be expanded and become the ATFG (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Games).)
By this point, you're talking about expenditures large enough to require a significant tax increase just to cover the initial costs. Even beyond the moral and ideological reasons against enforcing one person's or one group of people's moral views over another's, the logistics and accounting of the concept prove it improbible if not impossible in current society. That's why, even if the two jacks manage to set judicial precident, nothing along the lines of a by-age ratings enforcement system for popular media will work, not what you've presented, nor what anyone else can present... not in today's version of American society, at least.
~UP
If any Florida Slashdotters are reading this, do me a favor: get a girl you know (yourself, if applicable) to go each of these guys' offices with a copy of the U.S. Consitution (including the Bill of Rights, #1 being highlighted), a (legal) copy of an "infamous violent video game" (say, Quake 2... something that will work on the likely outdated and underpowered computers of conservative lawyers), and printouts of the following articles: This one and this one.
Also be sure to get the local television crews, and newspaper writers and photographers to follow (and make sure that they're informed of the one lawyer's bikini vendor stunt)... because the whole idea here is to embarass these two ugly fellows using their own tactics, except bolstered by evidence.
The downside is that this will get these two the attention they crave; the upside is that it won't get them positive attention and might just make a laughingstock out of them.
Or just hit them both with a pie in the face at a press conference. (Hey, it worked with Bill Gates for the French!)
~UP
I have but three questions.
At what point does "cost cutting" (sometimes aka "corporate greed") go from being "bad" to "acceptable" or even "good?"
Second question: As Microsoft Windows OSs are literally 3rd party software, does this memo (if authentic) indicate that Dell will stop supporting Windows or any other Microsoft OS?
Third and final question: Would or does this memo prevent a tech from telling a customer something along the lines of "I'm sorry [sir/ma'am], but it's company policy that we are not to recommend spyware removal tools, such as AdAware. Even if I wanted to, I could not tell you to visit lavasoftusa.com or advise you to install and run that program. I am sorry again, but it's company policy that we are not allowed to inform or advise you of such things."
~U.P.