This thing's only been out for a month!! at least give them some time to do their own testing, which they did!
Yeah, that whole concept of testing a product before you release it is so passe! You can't expect them to figure out these things until at least a month after release. Those unappreciative customers have been so unreasonable and demanding!
So you think that MS wants to get in the middle of deciding what messages would go out? Setting aside the implementation cost, why would they want to touch such a PR nightmare? I can just see the headlines now: "Mother say that MS refused to send out alert on her missing toddler!"
No, MS will either just refuse to do it at all, or they'll hand over the reins to NY authorities. Once they open the door to messages going out then they're stuck in the same PR trap even if they try to set rules. The NY people will eventually break the rules, and if MS then decides to pull the plug then they get a bunch of bad publicity.
There's absolutely no reason for MS to get involved in this cluster-fuck unless NY pays them a bunch of money. Then the question becomes whether the money could be better spent elsewhere. In this case I think the answer would be a resounding yes.
If this was only used for *real* emergencies, then you'd be right. Unfortunately, the bar for what constitutes an emergency will be constantly lowered until they're sending out alerts for the most inane crap imaginable.
For example, my wife works for a major university. After 9/11 they decided to create an alert system to keep employees and their loved ones informed in the event of major emergencies. The system was intended for things like terror attacks, earthquakes, tornadoes, alien invasion etc. My wife signed me up so that I'd get a text message when ever they issued an alert. At first, I'd get a text every few months as they periodically tested the system. Then they decided to use the system to warn people about violent crime anywhere near the campus. Then it was power outages. Pretty soon it was building maintenance issues. Now if someone on campus gets a hangnail, I receive a text message keeping me informed. It is indeed fucking moronic.
This NY system will start out the same way, and end up the same way. People will be getting alerts because of a traffic accident half way across the fucking state. People will hate it, and turn it off if they can, thus totally defeating the original purpose. If they can't turn it off, they'll totally ignore it and quickly dismiss the message without reading it, once again totally defeating the original purpose. It's a bad idea. There are plenty of other ways to inform people in the event of an emergency. This is just stupid and will be waste of money and effort.
I would argue that a responsible society would provide extra help to such people, rather than punishing them for something that they have no control over.
OK, I'd be willing to chip in to get them a bus pass.
Along with the usability issues with the design of the Therac-25 it's obvious that the attitude of the medical staff contributed greatly to the problem. Patients complained of being burned, but their complaints were essentially ignored. Meanwhile, they were sent back for multiple treatments. Overwhelming evidence of radiation burns was ignored or given only cursory investigation because medical personal or manufacturer reps claimed that it was impossible for the Therac-25 to be responsible for the burns.
You pretty quickly dismiss the suspension as not being a factor. That lake bed isn't exactly as smooth as a billiards table. If you want to keep control of the car and keep going in a straight line, a decent suspension is a good thing to have when your going over 100mph.
I agree that for a game that is purely driving or flying that joysticks or wheels would be better. However, there are many games (FPSs for example) that incorporate driving or flying as some small part of the game, but the bulk of the game is better controlled with a mouse and keyboard. This could potentially improve those driving/flying games sequences.
While they don't currently monitor your mileage with some kind of device, they don't exactly just take your word for it. You're asked for you odometer reading, and the mileage you expect to drive. While you could lie about odometer reading, if it's grossly off and you make a claim they'll find out what the odometer really reads when the car goes into the shop. At that point I guess they could deny the claim based on your false statement on the application / renewal form.
Yes, I know this is far from fool proof. You could tamper with the odometer, get the shop to report the wrong number, switch insurance frequently and give low mileage to the new company in anticipation of driving lots of miles etc. etc. However, I imagine it discourages many potential scammers.
Insurance is expensive in CA and many people do try scams to avoid paying high rates. It's always a gamble though. For instance many people register their car at the parents address back home in Iowa or where ever. This gets them cheaper insurance rates and cheaper registration; however, when they make a claim the insurance company often figures it out and denies the claim. Similarly with the mileage, you could lie about lower mileage to get cheaper rates, but you're gambling that you won't have a claim and/or that they won't catch you. If you end having to pay a few thousand in repair bills out of your own pocket, that offsets saving a few hundred a year pretty quickly.
Yes we are in the Milky Way galaxy, so technically any nearby stars you can see are part of the Milky Way. However, the Milky Way they're referring to is a dense band of distant stars you see when looking towards the galactic core. It's visible as a band of white across the sky. There's some photo's in the Wikipedia article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milky_Way
The fact that you seem to not understand what they're referring to clearly illustrates their point. (I'm assuming that your question was serious.) Apparently you've never seen (or at least noticed) this band of stars. Do yourself a favor and go out to the mountains or desert. The beauty of the night sky in areas away from the cities is well worth the trip.
I would agree with you as long as the workings of these devices are totally transparent to the public. That would have to include open source for all of the S/W and algorithms used to determine what material is evidence of illegal activity. If it's not transparent, then they could claim that anyone's computer shows evidence of illegal activity and there would be no way to defend against it.
"To generate the dice rolls, I have used Math.random, Random.org and other sources, but have always received numerous complaints that the dice are not random enough. Some players have put more effort into statistical analysis of the rolls than they put into their doctoral dissertation."
So, basically it was to quiet complaints about the randomness of the computer generated dice rolls. I question whether it's really better, but the players think it's better and in this context I guess that's all that matters.
Well, I think both the Verizon people and the Police were idiots. Verizon should have turned on the phone for as long as it took to find the guy, even without the bill being payed. Once Verizon decided to be assholes the cop there should have just whipped out his wallet and paid them the $20. If I thought that someone's life was truly in danger I would pay $20 to find them. Now if they wanted $200 and the cop had kids to feed etc, etc maybe it would be different. But for $20 this shouldn't have taken 11 hours.
Re:Remember when Apple was going to buy Nintendo?
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Apple Eyeing EA?
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· Score: 1
Most of the scams seem to rely on you having an account on at least one of the social networking sites. They use the info from that site to impersonate you on another site. If you didn't use any of the sites then it would be much harder for them to get the info needed to impersonate you convincingly. They might still be able to convince strangers, but people who really know you, and thus trust you, wouldn't be fooled.
Also, if you totally ignore these sites (like I do) then it would be doubly hard to convince any of your friends and family. Anyone who knows me would probably laugh if they got a friends invite supposedly coming from me on Facebook or some other social site. They would either assume it was a joke or a scam, or they'd call my wife to ask if I was feeling OK.
So, I agree with FreakyGreenLeaky that ignoring these sites solves this problem for the most part. Knowem.com is solution to a problem that doesn't really exist for many if not most of us.
I know Slashdot geeks have a rep for not getting out much, but *you* really do need to get out more.:)
Utah has a huge tourist industry. Zion National Park is one of coolest places I've every been, and Bryce Canyon, Capital Reef, Canyonlands, Arches are very nice as well. The skiing in the Wasatch mountains east of Salt Lake City is some of the best in the world. There's nothing like gliding through knee deep "champagne" powder. In short the state in an incredible location for scenic beauty and outdoor activities. It's a pity that there's so many bigots there, but it's still a pretty nice place to visit.
Also, regarding your "hikers not partiers" comment - personally I like to relax with a couple beers after a hard day of hiking, so the groups are not mutually exclusive. Also a lot of the people who visit these areas never stray more than a 1/2 mile from their cars; there's still plenty to see. Then in the winter, skiers are famous (notorious?) for their drinking. So, I think that plenty of the Utah tourist are affected by these kind of rules.
Also, what makes you think that the cables are always in water that deep? They have to come ashore some time, so they always enter shallower water at some point. Ships don't carry 20,000 foot long anchor chains either. Regardless of how they were cut, these cables were cut in relatively shallow water.
While it was no doubt lots of fun to put some egg on the face of the US Navy, I have to wonder why the Chinese did this. Why tip your hand? Now that the Navy knows how sophisticated they Chinese subs are they'll be much more careful in the event of an actual conflict. No doubt there's people thinking of new counter measures even as I type this.
Unfortunately the article makes it sound like the people killed and injured were just the poor grunts manning the gun. The guy responsible for buying it was probably sipping a martini on the deck of his yacht somewhere.
This may have been surprising, but if the two companies were onboard with this move it can hardly be dire, right?
Such naive optimism! I miss those days before my heart was a dried up little rotten apple of cynicism. Oh well, I'll give it a try. Yeah... right... this can't be that bad. It's probably even a...
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It has changed recently. I just charged $41 at the grocery store and didn't have to sign.
This thing's only been out for a month!! at least give them some time to do their own testing, which they did!
Yeah, that whole concept of testing a product before you release it is so passe! You can't expect them to figure out these things until at least a month after release. Those unappreciative customers have been so unreasonable and demanding!
*rolls eyes*
So you think that MS wants to get in the middle of deciding what messages would go out? Setting aside the implementation cost, why would they want to touch such a PR nightmare? I can just see the headlines now: "Mother say that MS refused to send out alert on her missing toddler!"
No, MS will either just refuse to do it at all, or they'll hand over the reins to NY authorities. Once they open the door to messages going out then they're stuck in the same PR trap even if they try to set rules. The NY people will eventually break the rules, and if MS then decides to pull the plug then they get a bunch of bad publicity.
There's absolutely no reason for MS to get involved in this cluster-fuck unless NY pays them a bunch of money. Then the question becomes whether the money could be better spent elsewhere. In this case I think the answer would be a resounding yes.
If this was only used for *real* emergencies, then you'd be right. Unfortunately, the bar for what constitutes an emergency will be constantly lowered until they're sending out alerts for the most inane crap imaginable.
For example, my wife works for a major university. After 9/11 they decided to create an alert system to keep employees and their loved ones informed in the event of major emergencies. The system was intended for things like terror attacks, earthquakes, tornadoes, alien invasion etc. My wife signed me up so that I'd get a text message when ever they issued an alert. At first, I'd get a text every few months as they periodically tested the system. Then they decided to use the system to warn people about violent crime anywhere near the campus. Then it was power outages. Pretty soon it was building maintenance issues. Now if someone on campus gets a hangnail, I receive a text message keeping me informed. It is indeed fucking moronic.
This NY system will start out the same way, and end up the same way. People will be getting alerts because of a traffic accident half way across the fucking state. People will hate it, and turn it off if they can, thus totally defeating the original purpose. If they can't turn it off, they'll totally ignore it and quickly dismiss the message without reading it, once again totally defeating the original purpose. It's a bad idea. There are plenty of other ways to inform people in the event of an emergency. This is just stupid and will be waste of money and effort.
I would argue that a responsible society would provide extra help to such people, rather than punishing them for something that they have no control over.
OK, I'd be willing to chip in to get them a bus pass.
Along with the usability issues with the design of the Therac-25 it's obvious that the attitude of the medical staff contributed greatly to the problem. Patients complained of being burned, but their complaints were essentially ignored. Meanwhile, they were sent back for multiple treatments. Overwhelming evidence of radiation burns was ignored or given only cursory investigation because medical personal or manufacturer reps claimed that it was impossible for the Therac-25 to be responsible for the burns.
There may be only 365 possible birthdays, but birth *date* normally include the year of birth as well as the day.
You pretty quickly dismiss the suspension as not being a factor. That lake bed isn't exactly as smooth as a billiards table. If you want to keep control of the car and keep going in a straight line, a decent suspension is a good thing to have when your going over 100mph.
I was thinking the same thing. I guess that "Green Chaffer" just doesn't have the same ring to it.
I agree that for a game that is purely driving or flying that joysticks or wheels would be better. However, there are many games (FPSs for example) that incorporate driving or flying as some small part of the game, but the bulk of the game is better controlled with a mouse and keyboard. This could potentially improve those driving/flying games sequences.
While they don't currently monitor your mileage with some kind of device, they don't exactly just take your word for it. You're asked for you odometer reading, and the mileage you expect to drive. While you could lie about odometer reading, if it's grossly off and you make a claim they'll find out what the odometer really reads when the car goes into the shop. At that point I guess they could deny the claim based on your false statement on the application / renewal form.
Yes, I know this is far from fool proof. You could tamper with the odometer, get the shop to report the wrong number, switch insurance frequently and give low mileage to the new company in anticipation of driving lots of miles etc. etc. However, I imagine it discourages many potential scammers.
Insurance is expensive in CA and many people do try scams to avoid paying high rates. It's always a gamble though. For instance many people register their car at the parents address back home in Iowa or where ever. This gets them cheaper insurance rates and cheaper registration; however, when they make a claim the insurance company often figures it out and denies the claim. Similarly with the mileage, you could lie about lower mileage to get cheaper rates, but you're gambling that you won't have a claim and/or that they won't catch you. If you end having to pay a few thousand in repair bills out of your own pocket, that offsets saving a few hundred a year pretty quickly.
Yes we are in the Milky Way galaxy, so technically any nearby stars you can see are part of the Milky Way. However, the Milky Way they're referring to is a dense band of distant stars you see when looking towards the galactic core. It's visible as a band of white across the sky. There's some photo's in the Wikipedia article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milky_Way
The fact that you seem to not understand what they're referring to clearly illustrates their point. (I'm assuming that your question was serious.) Apparently you've never seen (or at least noticed) this band of stars. Do yourself a favor and go out to the mountains or desert. The beauty of the night sky in areas away from the cities is well worth the trip.
I would agree with you as long as the workings of these devices are totally transparent to the public. That would have to include open source for all of the S/W and algorithms used to determine what material is evidence of illegal activity. If it's not transparent, then they could claim that anyone's computer shows evidence of illegal activity and there would be no way to defend against it.
From TFA:
"To generate the dice rolls, I have used Math.random, Random.org and other sources, but have always received numerous complaints that the dice are not random enough. Some players have put more effort into statistical analysis of the rolls than they put into their doctoral dissertation."
So, basically it was to quiet complaints about the randomness of the computer generated dice rolls. I question whether it's really better, but the players think it's better and in this context I guess that's all that matters.
Well, I think both the Verizon people and the Police were idiots. Verizon should have turned on the phone for as long as it took to find the guy, even without the bill being payed. Once Verizon decided to be assholes the cop there should have just whipped out his wallet and paid them the $20. If I thought that someone's life was truly in danger I would pay $20 to find them. Now if they wanted $200 and the cop had kids to feed etc, etc maybe it would be different. But for $20 this shouldn't have taken 11 hours.
EA is a small, recently hatched fish?
Thanks. Now that song is stuck in my head, probably for the rest of the morning.
Most of the scams seem to rely on you having an account on at least one of the social networking sites. They use the info from that site to impersonate you on another site. If you didn't use any of the sites then it would be much harder for them to get the info needed to impersonate you convincingly. They might still be able to convince strangers, but people who really know you, and thus trust you, wouldn't be fooled.
Also, if you totally ignore these sites (like I do) then it would be doubly hard to convince any of your friends and family. Anyone who knows me would probably laugh if they got a friends invite supposedly coming from me on Facebook or some other social site. They would either assume it was a joke or a scam, or they'd call my wife to ask if I was feeling OK.
So, I agree with FreakyGreenLeaky that ignoring these sites solves this problem for the most part. Knowem.com is solution to a problem that doesn't really exist for many if not most of us.
I think he meant the Equal Rights Amendment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Rights_Amendment
I know Slashdot geeks have a rep for not getting out much, but *you* really do need to get out more. :)
Utah has a huge tourist industry. Zion National Park is one of coolest places I've every been, and Bryce Canyon, Capital Reef, Canyonlands, Arches are very nice as well. The skiing in the Wasatch mountains east of Salt Lake City is some of the best in the world. There's nothing like gliding through knee deep "champagne" powder. In short the state in an incredible location for scenic beauty and outdoor activities. It's a pity that there's so many bigots there, but it's still a pretty nice place to visit.
Also, regarding your "hikers not partiers" comment - personally I like to relax with a couple beers after a hard day of hiking, so the groups are not mutually exclusive. Also a lot of the people who visit these areas never stray more than a 1/2 mile from their cars; there's still plenty to see. Then in the winter, skiers are famous (notorious?) for their drinking. So, I think that plenty of the Utah tourist are affected by these kind of rules.
Yes, we do. Try reading this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Blind-Mans-Bluff-Submarine-Espionage/dp/006097771X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1229720621&sr=8-3
Also, what makes you think that the cables are always in water that deep? They have to come ashore some time, so they always enter shallower water at some point. Ships don't carry 20,000 foot long anchor chains either. Regardless of how they were cut, these cables were cut in relatively shallow water.
While it was no doubt lots of fun to put some egg on the face of the US Navy, I have to wonder why the Chinese did this. Why tip your hand? Now that the Navy knows how sophisticated they Chinese subs are they'll be much more careful in the event of an actual conflict. No doubt there's people thinking of new counter measures even as I type this.
Man those folded up wings make for some gigantic blind spots when you're driving on the road.
Unfortunately the article makes it sound like the people killed and injured were just the poor grunts manning the gun. The guy responsible for buying it was probably sipping a martini on the deck of his yacht somewhere.
Such naive optimism! I miss those days before my heart was a dried up little rotten apple of cynicism. Oh well, I'll give it a try. Yeah... right... this can't be that bad. It's probably even a
Oh, never mind.