There are lots of weak spots in the alien franchise... for example in aliens, after seventy-four years or so, had put a colony there that looked pretty new (Âtwenty years?). That would make fifty years just sitting in the knowledge that there was something there.
Also, the mere idea of putting the colony to get the aliens is just foolish. A lot of investment just to feed the beasts, without knowing if someone could survive enough to provide the data needed. Sending an appropiate ship full of Ashes, or mercenaries, or some of the weapons development scientists with prior knowledge would have been faster, cheaper, and with more probabilities of success and withouth government intervention.
On the original film, the fact that Ash was there and that it looked like that androids were relatively new and scarce seems to support that Weyland-Yutani knew something was there, but probably if they knew it was that dangerous they would have sent a better team. After all, if the ship lands but the aliens kill everyone before it can be sent back home there is no gain. Ash would be there probably as a "political officer" to put people in the "right track" and, in case things went wrong, to try to get the specimen back at all costs and/or kill everyone to avoid compromising the company.
You patent the implementation, not the idea. You can't patent flying cars, you can patent the flying car you manufacture and the neat tricks inside it.
And yes, for complex requests as in data mining, SQL and XPath make sense. For people who aren't developpers, SQL makes sense as well. For interoperability with 3rd-party apps, SQL is also useful, just as FAT is still useful today in order to share filesystems between operating systems.
But for the rest of us....
Sorry, but could not help thinking but to this line from "Life of Brian":
But apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?
More seriously, if the main example of the trouble with SQL is that you want to be able to find a record by id with less keystrokes, I do not see how this can be so much of a problem.
Don't you love it when the summary already tells you which is your position? I mean, the editor may think it is not a good move, it will alienate users, and so on, but alright claiming that
do EA & Blizzard not get that this method of attempting to thwart piracy will fail like others have?
leaves little room for opinion. Makes you wonder why do they let us comment at all, since the truth has already been established.
I think he probably knew something was there before he went in the first official travel.
See, the radius of Earth had already been calculated by Eratosthenes at III BC and was an accepted truth between the educated people of Colon's time. The west route to Asia because people correctly guessed that the distance that way could not be crossed.
The fact that Colon went against that knowledge probably was due because he had independent information (and possibly proof, because he was able to find a sponsor) that there was something much closer than it was believed.
After being in an organization that had to pass from 4 IT guys in 4 centers to an IT departament (plus a heavy increment of workload), I see two non-exclusive approachs here:
1) Manage expectations: Things break. Tell users that at any moment his PC, the network, the servers, can go down. Than IT does what they can to prevent/mitigate it with the budget it has, but it will still happen from time to time. That when assistence is needed it will come as fast as possible, but it can be that it is not immediate if someone else trouble is more important. Also, educate them to rely less in 100% available PCs (for example, if some daily task is mandatory, recommend them to do it at the start of the day rather than at the end so if something breaks it can still be fixed)
2) Escalate the trouble. That needs that you have a half-decent boss that knows that you are doing reasonably well and that, if he tells you to do task A, you won't be doing task B at the same time. If users tell their workplace is more important, tell them to refer to your boss so he can set priorities. If they complain that response times are too long, tell them you are already at 100% and encourage them to complain to higher-ups so the management decides to hire someone more / set you new priorities. If a user is constantly causing trouble / breaking things, tell your boss so he can talk to his boss.
3) Enforce respect. Users may not be in a good mood because their PCs went down. Anyway that does not gives them freedom to be unprofessional / rude / insulting. If they are, and based in how serious is the incidence, fix it and complain to his boss or complain to his boss and, AFTER having the user fixed, fix the system. If the boss is not there or the situation does not improve, consider just walking away.
4) Not that it helps a lot, but you can get some leverage by lowering "bad" users priority. While making them wait while they can't do any job may backfire, there are plenty of IT actuations that can be delayed that are not lessive to the bussiness but annoying to the user ("my pc is slow to boot/work", "sometimes my screen shows strange colors", "I need to install a new program/version/upgrade my computer"). Just for revenge, do not expect them to be nicer with you because you delay their requests.
Of course 2), 3) and 4) may mean trouble if you are not properly backed by your bosses, but think that changing your users attitudes means just that, a change, and that it will require pressure to show them the "right" way and force them out of the "bad" way.
The main trouble I see (IMHO all this post, by the way) is not by the sand that flies higher than the wall as for the sand that get stopped at the bottom of the wall. I'd think that the sand that accumulates there will progresively form a half-dune. Once this happens, one of two might be the end:
The wall colapses due to the weight of the sand.
(more likely) the dune causes the wind to go uphill so the wall is rendered useless.
At the very least, the wall should be combined with other measures (growing plants that fix the sand, for example) to be effective.
What a tasteless post. The issues at hand here are:
agents of law distribute photos from an accident scene. Given that they are agents of law, the minor answer should be: fire them. The reasons why they did that do not matter, and, IMHO, the explanation that "we did that to prevent other accidents" does not sound good. If they wanted a campaign against car accidents, they could have passed the idea to higher-ups, or used non-identifiable photographies. To me, it just sounds like "we got caught, we need to make up a good excuse".
The anonymity of internet helps to get issue #1 out of control. That should be the real issue here, but it has been previously discussed a lot here. The only thing that could make this -barely-interesting here is that in this case, most of the people should be expected to side with the family that wants the information restrained, while usually the slashdot crowd -me too- sides with the part that puts the information online. Either way, the general result is that it is not possible, at least right now.
Instead, you pass these points and begin moralizing about the circunstances of the accident. What does it matter that the girl whose photos were -unlawfully- distributed was DUI? It makes it more ok than if the girl was sober and the accident was someone other's fault?. It has no relation at all. Also, it is disturbing to find that you do not know nothing about her family except what you read in the article/s, and yet you are able to judge their actions just from your prejudices.
IMHO the family has all of the right to complain about the mishandling of the pictures and the very light disciplinary action taken. And suing the PD is a sensible action to take, given that it is it that should have ensured, in the first place, that procedures, sanctions and information to the agents are enough to ensure that this kind of thing does not happen.
Is the part about "helps funding organized crime". I always thought that the purpose of organized crime was to make moner, and that it was pretty much "self-sustained".
But now I find that those poor criminals must sell bootlegs to get a income while breaking the law (I suppose they do not know how to make money with burglary, assault, drug trafficking, etc.).
In the end, it must be true that "Crime does not pay".
The Islamic people call the Jews "The People of the Book", and it is their position that those sort of power structures are sinful and wrong.
This is just plain wrong. The "People of the Book" just means that muslims faith is presented as a continuation of Judaism (in the same way christians are; only that christians believe the final prophet was Jesus, muslims believe it was Mohammed or Mahoma, and jews believe it's still due to appear sometime in the future). The Book here is the Ancient Testament, or the Torah. To muslims, People of the Book are jews, christians and muslims themselves, as opposed to pagan people (which was the first enemy of muslims).
You are right that they don't have a religious structure like a catholic or anglican church and that to be imam all they needed is to be recognized as it by its community, but most of the muslim people live in pretty well organized countries. I suspect the issue here is that is more efficient a plain, semi-independent organization than a hierchical one when all of your offices are under constant risk of being shot a missile by Israel.
I can't understand why managers would pride themselves on firing someone in a way that makes it impossible to get unemployment. But they do.
This is not very difficult to understand... The greatest power your boss has over you is firing you; the harder it is to you, the more obedient you are.
Ideally (for your boss) you'd have no house, savings, or prospects of being hired by another company, because then you'd have to do anything to avoid getting fired (because that would mean that you end living in the street).
Exactly... I am a software developer, and I can point to the motherboard or to the CPU. But, for my work, all I need to know is that any of them is missing or broken, the software does not work. I could not care less, either, if some feature is implemented by the motherboard or by the CPU, as the nearest I get from there is with system calls (I agree that a game developer or other SW developer may need further insight, but that's not my case).
So, what's the trouble with someone outside IT (regardless of age) not knowing how to change a motherboard?
I read in a book about curious annecdotes (supposed to be true) that, in the Middle Age, an astronomer told the Pope that the Antichrist was born in Sicilia. The Pope asked what age he might have at that moment, and was told that about three or four years. Then the Pope thougt about it, and said: "Then it will be my successor's trouble!" and it was the last time it was heard about that problem
A program that completes in 25 years gives all of the top staff at NASA time enough to retire and leave the details to the people to come (who will blame his predecessors:-) )
It would be more credible if there was a middle step (what about a long -3, 4 months- to the Moon, to check that the technology is improving and see what is still lacking?)
Until and unless you meet the kid, your assumptions about his character are nothing but projections of your jealousy....
Now the VC, on the other hand, is probably out of his mind.
I know maybe it is to soon to ask, but there is any information about possible translations to other languages (ok, to Spanish, I don't care if it is not translated to French or German). Being a DVD release it means it will reach a smaller public, and I fear that they don't think that it is worth to translate it from English.
Because it was a little too geeky. Many of the jokes involved references to sci-fi movies or series, or scientific / mathematical theory (for example this list (spanish)). Most people won't get what is about a 7-11 clerk in a box, but you know it is the shield from "Dune". Or that a aleph-sub-0 cinema would have a countable infinite number of rooms.
Also, many of the jokes are more subtle than those usual to the Simpsons, and probably people won't want to look at a cartoon and have to think harder to understand its humour.
Given the publicity this error has had (and its repercussions), the next CTO should have already learnt from the mistake. If he/she hadn't, I think AOL should select another CTO because, no matter your skills, common sense is still needed.
And if I even get to a job that someone has left vacant, one of my firsts worries will be asking what happened to the previous guys.
Slashdot Mirror
Also, the mere idea of putting the colony to get the aliens is just foolish. A lot of investment just to feed the beasts, without knowing if someone could survive enough to provide the data needed. Sending an appropiate ship full of Ashes, or mercenaries, or some of the weapons development scientists with prior knowledge would have been faster, cheaper, and with more probabilities of success and withouth government intervention.
On the original film, the fact that Ash was there and that it looked like that androids were relatively new and scarce seems to support that Weyland-Yutani knew something was there, but probably if they knew it was that dangerous they would have sent a better team. After all, if the ship lands but the aliens kill everyone before it can be sent back home there is no gain. Ash would be there probably as a "political officer" to put people in the "right track" and, in case things went wrong, to try to get the specimen back at all costs and/or kill everyone to avoid compromising the company.
You patent the implementation, not the idea. You can't patent flying cars, you can patent the flying car you manufacture and the neat tricks inside it.
But for the rest of us....
Sorry, but could not help thinking but to this line from "Life of Brian":
But apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?
More seriously, if the main example of the trouble with SQL is that you want to be able to find a record by id with less keystrokes, I do not see how this can be so much of a problem.
Don't you love it when the summary already tells you which is your position? I mean, the editor may think it is not a good move, it will alienate users, and so on, but alright claiming that
do EA & Blizzard not get that this method of attempting to thwart piracy will fail like others have?
leaves little room for opinion. Makes you wonder why do they let us comment at all, since the truth has already been established.
I think he probably knew something was there before he went in the first official travel.
See, the radius of Earth had already been calculated by Eratosthenes at III BC and was an accepted truth between the educated people of Colon's time. The west route to Asia because people correctly guessed that the distance that way could not be crossed.
The fact that Colon went against that knowledge probably was due because he had independent information (and possibly proof, because he was able to find a sponsor) that there was something much closer than it was believed.
After being in an organization that had to pass from 4 IT guys in 4 centers to an IT departament (plus a heavy increment of workload), I see two non-exclusive approachs here:
1) Manage expectations: Things break. Tell users that at any moment his PC, the network, the servers, can go down. Than IT does what they can to prevent/mitigate it with the budget it has, but it will still happen from time to time. That when assistence is needed it will come as fast as possible, but it can be that it is not immediate if someone else trouble is more important.
Also, educate them to rely less in 100% available PCs (for example, if some daily task is mandatory, recommend them to do it at the start of the day rather than at the end so if something breaks it can still be fixed)
2) Escalate the trouble. That needs that you have a half-decent boss that knows that you are doing reasonably well and that, if he tells you to do task A, you won't be doing task B at the same time. If users tell their workplace is more important, tell them to refer to your boss so he can set priorities. If they complain that response times are too long, tell them you are already at 100% and encourage them to complain to higher-ups so the management decides to hire someone more / set you new priorities. If a user is constantly causing trouble / breaking things, tell your boss so he can talk to his boss.
3) Enforce respect. Users may not be in a good mood because their PCs went down. Anyway that does not gives them freedom to be unprofessional / rude / insulting. If they are, and based in how serious is the incidence, fix it and complain to his boss or complain to his boss and, AFTER having the user fixed, fix the system. If the boss is not there or the situation does not improve, consider just walking away.
4) Not that it helps a lot, but you can get some leverage by lowering "bad" users priority. While making them wait while they can't do any job may backfire, there are plenty of IT actuations that can be delayed that are not lessive to the bussiness but annoying to the user ("my pc is slow to boot/work", "sometimes my screen shows strange colors", "I need to install a new program/version/upgrade my computer"). Just for revenge, do not expect them to be nicer with you because you delay their requests.
Of course 2), 3) and 4) may mean trouble if you are not properly backed by your bosses, but think that changing your users attitudes means just that, a change, and that it will require pressure to show them the "right" way and force them out of the "bad" way.
Also, if I'm protecting the pedestrian, do I lose my entire field of view, and end up running down other pedestrians?
I am almost sure that when you hit a pedestrian you are expected to stop... of course, YMMV
The main trouble I see (IMHO all this post, by the way) is not by the sand that flies higher than the wall as for the sand that get stopped at the bottom of the wall. I'd think that the sand that accumulates there will progresively form a half-dune. Once this happens, one of two might be the end:
At the very least, the wall should be combined with other measures (growing plants that fix the sand, for example) to be effective.
Instead, you pass these points and begin moralizing about the circunstances of the accident. What does it matter that the girl whose photos were -unlawfully- distributed was DUI? It makes it more ok than if the girl was sober and the accident was someone other's fault?. It has no relation at all. Also, it is disturbing to find that you do not know nothing about her family except what you read in the article/s, and yet you are able to judge their actions just from your prejudices.
IMHO the family has all of the right to complain about the mishandling of the pictures and the very light disciplinary action taken. And suing the PD is a sensible action to take, given that it is it that should have ensured, in the first place, that procedures, sanctions and information to the agents are enough to ensure that this kind of thing does not happen.
"Funniest", in fact... :-S
Is the part about "helps funding organized crime". I always thought that the purpose of organized crime was to make moner, and that it was pretty much "self-sustained".
But now I find that those poor criminals must sell bootlegs to get a income while breaking the law (I suppose they do not know how to make money with burglary, assault, drug trafficking, etc.).
In the end, it must be true that "Crime does not pay".
The Islamic people call the Jews "The People of the Book", and it is their position that those sort of power structures are sinful and wrong.
This is just plain wrong. The "People of the Book" just means that muslims faith is presented as a continuation of Judaism (in the same way christians are; only that christians believe the final prophet was Jesus, muslims believe it was Mohammed or Mahoma, and jews believe it's still due to appear sometime in the future). The Book here is the Ancient Testament, or the Torah. To muslims, People of the Book are jews, christians and muslims themselves, as opposed to pagan people (which was the first enemy of muslims).
You are right that they don't have a religious structure like a catholic or anglican church and that to be imam all they needed is to be recognized as it by its community, but most of the muslim people live in pretty well organized countries. I suspect the issue here is that is more efficient a plain, semi-independent organization than a hierchical one when all of your offices are under constant risk of being shot a missile by Israel.
I can't understand why managers would pride themselves on firing someone in a way that makes it impossible to get unemployment. But they do.
This is not very difficult to understand... The greatest power your boss has over you is firing you; the harder it is to you, the more obedient you are.
Ideally (for your boss) you'd have no house, savings, or prospects of being hired by another company, because then you'd have to do anything to avoid getting fired (because that would mean that you end living in the street).
Exactly... I am a software developer, and I can point to the motherboard or to the CPU. But, for my work, all I need to know is that any of them is missing or broken, the software does not work. I could not care less, either, if some feature is implemented by the motherboard or by the CPU, as the nearest I get from there is with system calls (I agree that a game developer or other SW developer may need further insight, but that's not my case).
So, what's the trouble with someone outside IT (regardless of age) not knowing how to change a motherboard?
I read in a book about curious annecdotes (supposed to be true) that, in the Middle Age, an astronomer told the Pope that the Antichrist was born in Sicilia. The Pope asked what age he might have at that moment, and was told that about three or four years. Then the Pope thougt about it, and said: "Then it will be my successor's trouble!" and it was the last time it was heard about that problem
:-) )
A program that completes in 25 years gives all of the top staff at NASA time enough to retire and leave the details to the people to come (who will blame his predecessors
It would be more credible if there was a middle step (what about a long -3, 4 months- to the Moon, to check that the technology is improving and see what is still lacking?)
Until and unless you meet the kid, your assumptions about his character are nothing but projections of your jealousy. ...
Now the VC, on the other hand, is probably out of his mind.
Have you met the venture capitalists?
I know maybe it is to soon to ask, but there is any information about possible translations to other languages (ok, to Spanish, I don't care if it is not translated to French or German). Being a DVD release it means it will reach a smaller public, and I fear that they don't think that it is worth to translate it from English.
Because it was a little too geeky. Many of the jokes involved references to sci-fi movies or series, or scientific / mathematical theory (for example this list (spanish)). Most people won't get what is about a 7-11 clerk in a box, but you know it is the shield from "Dune". Or that a aleph-sub-0 cinema would have a countable infinite number of rooms.
Also, many of the jokes are more subtle than those usual to the Simpsons, and probably people won't want to look at a cartoon and have to think harder to understand its humour.
That said, I am already waiting on it.
Please don't try to make jokes about the scientific abilities of Bush.
The press is clear about it.
The only difference is that they call it anti-antimatter
with so few things to do... the probe is beginning to do weird things.
Given the publicity this error has had (and its repercussions), the next CTO should have already learnt from the mistake. If he/she hadn't, I think AOL should select another CTO because, no matter your skills, common sense is still needed.
And if I even get to a job that someone has left vacant, one of my firsts worries will be asking what happened to the previous guys.
Scott, beam me out from here...
But the real question is...
Will they have a casino with hookers?
It is called "voting"