The problem with this kind of thing, that everyone seems to be failing to notice, is that it doesn't really have to be a bomb to kill people. Starting a panic can be every bit as dangerous as setting off a IED. My first reaction when I saw this story was to think that maybe this girl was a little off, and had put together something that might look like a bomb, with the intent of causing a disturbance. Before people jump up and say "but it doesn't!" keep in mind that's form close examination at a safe distance, not in a split second observation while the wearer screams "I'VE GOT A BOMB!". In that kind of situation, it would be a good idea to take their word for it.
Of course, that wasn't the situation here, I think this girl just might not have thought things through before she got dressed for the airport. But security was justified in keeping her out of the airport until her motives could be ascertained, a process it seems she could have expedited if she had answered the counter girl's question. Airport personnel need to be on guard against hoaxers as well as terrorists, people in airports are too nervous to do otherwise.
You're right that this really has nothing to do with psychohistory. Interestingly enough, it actually is similar to was the "personailty simulator" mentioned by Frank Herbert in the Dosadi Experiment and the other books set in the Consentiency universe. These could be used to predict the reactions of an individual, given enough data about them. It thus became of paramount importance to keep certain information about yourself either secret, or to seed your opponents simulation with incorrect information.
He entered a larger space full of projection-room gloom with shadowed figures seated facing a holographic focus on his left. McKie identified Jedrik by her profile, slipped into a seat beside her.
McKie recognized the subtle slippage of computer simulation. That was not a flesh-and-blood Broey in the focus.
"Why simulation?"
"He's beginning to do things I didn't anticipate."
Jedrik was reworking the simulation model of Broey which she carried in her head. McKie saw that every seat in the room had an arm keyed to the simulations. The figures at the focus were being adjusted to the combined memories [of those present].
it would seem to me that the primary focus of the DARPA project would be similar, providing an alternative method for predicting the reactions of politicians and military leaders to certain events and situations, and thus get inside their decision cycle, a la John Boyd.
Well, guess what? Last time I checked, climatologists don't run the planet. So that means in the end, if you want anything done, a lot of people who aren't climatologists are going to have to make decisions on whether or not to listen to those who are, and if they are convinced then they will decide what must be done about it. For some reason this seems to be a common mistake among interested in science, that somehow if they learn the truth it will come with the authority to act on it. Sorry to say, that's not the case. The best you can do is try to make a convincing argument to those in power. They'll listen only when it becomes obvious to them.
That same cop that is infringing on your "right" to speed by hitting you with radar and fining you for having jammers is also the same cop that pushes you to the ground and takes a bullet for you when someone decides to hold up the convenience store. Guess what, even off duty, cops frequently wind up doing their job in emergency situations like this because that is what they were trained to do. Unfortunately for them, they usually don't have all their protective gear when something like that happens, so that bullet is far more likely to be fatal.
Oh yeah, I remember now, that happened to me last week.
Oh no, wait, I'm confused, I was thinking of the fireman who heroically pushed me out of the way of the oncoming train and was hit instead.
Or maybe the mailman who drove his mailtruck into the flaming runaway tanker hurtling towards the coffeeshop I was in. Or it could be the park ranger who jumped into that bear's mouth so that I would have time to run away. Or maybe even the IRS agent who flew that stolen F-15 directly into the heart of the alien mothership before it could level my city with its death ray. Or it could be any one of the other public servants who saved my life (and yet sacrificed their own) in a totally ridiculous hypothetical scenario that has no place in a serious, or even not so serious, debate.
The problem is the 20th century ideology that says, "no cause that requires sacrifice can possibly be legitimate." That ideology caused WWII to become the hell that it was
Care to elaborate on that, because I can't figure out what you're talking about. Last time I checked, that war was chock full of people willing to die for the cause. A large number of them were part of the Axis.
The problem with this reasoning is that you're applying it to asymmetric warfare, in assuming that one side has killer robots and the other does not. The parent poster is more than likely right in positing that in a symmetric conflict where both sides had this kind of armament, casualties would actually increase as a result.
The amusing thing about this for me is that I'm a Northern Virginia resident, and I was just trying to decide whether to watch a friend's bootleg of transformers or pay to watch it at - you guessed it - the nearby Regal Cinema.
Ah, the joy of being young and destructive. Reminds me of something I did when I was younger...
I was in my middle school computer lab, bored and I guess pissed off about something. Anyway, the lab machines were these Mac SE/30's, old even for the time. On the hard drive there were eight folders. So in a bid to freak out the next person to use the computer, I placed all of these into one folder. Then I made eight new folders, and renamed them with the names of the eight original folders. Then I placed these into a folder, and copied that folder eight times. I renamed the copies with the names of the eight originals. Then I placed these into a folder, and repeated the process. So now when someone opened one of the folders, they would find the same folders. When they oppened one of those, they would find the same folders again. The actual files I put in some random bottom level folder. (if I had been really trying to be an ass, I would have made them invisible)
Amazingly enough, the instructor did not see the humor in what I had done. For my part I was shocked that she hadn't thought of a better way to find the originals, other than manually searching through all the folders.
I'd say the important point of the grandparent poster is that military architects would have been familiar with what would have been to them a traditional five sided design. And while the pentagon is not a fortress, per se, I think it would be remiss to overlook its very fortress-like qualities. We are talking about a building that was hit by what was essentially a gigantic cruise missle hold a massive fuel air payload, that resulted in fewer than 200 total casualties in the facility. Analysis made in The Pentagon Building Performance Report shows that even before recent improvements, the pentagon was a very resilient structure. I feel it's important to consider that while there were no bombs falling on Washington in 1941, the possibility hung in the air that there soon would be.
Re:They used a student's experiment
on
MacGyver Physics
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· Score: 1
I just want to point out that your sentiment finds itself in humorous juxtaposition with your sig.
I think if you look at his quote "Some proponents of serious games have unfortunately suggested that such games are opposed to the commercial, entertainment games that have come to define popular opinion of the medium." you can see that he's not interested in making games less exciting/fantastical, but rather making more unexciting/less fantastical games. Fantasy games would continue to exist in the numbers they do now, but alongside them would exist more mundane games. As a result, the culture as a whole would become more invested in gaming. I think what he is challenging is the assumption that exciting, fantastical games are the only games that anyone would play, not challenging the worthiness of those games.
My own personal view is that this has already started to happen, via MMO's. As an MMO player myself (COH), I think we can admit that for the most part, MMO's are boring. They require insane amounts of time and feature a steady stream of simple, repetitive tasks. Yet they are full of people, many with little other interest in gaming.
If the video game industry wasn't an extended boys locker room where everything goes because there's no parents or teachers around? I worked for six years in the video game industry where such childish behavior was the norm. The supervisors called each other "douche bags". A woman lead tester was fired for calling a tester an "a**hole" for screwing off on her project, never mind that male testers routinely called each other "hos" and "bitches". Maybe it's time for the video game industry to clean up its act.
that's the dumbest fucking idea I've heard since I've been at Microsoft.
It might be a better idea to choose a smaller star than the sun, firstly to save on materials, secondly to have lower spin rate, and thirdly to have as long lasting a star as possible. I mean after all, if you're going to build a ringworld, you want to build it to last.
The trick is that the gravity of the mass under your feet is exactly counterbalanced by the gravity of the rest of the shell, the majority of which is above you. It's farther away, true, but the fact is there's so much more of it balances out the equation.
Now on the outside of the shell, gravity would work in a more expected fashion.
Actually, it's a comma splice, and it's still bad grammar. As a matter of practice, I suggest that when someone calls you out on a grammatical misstep, don't dilute the impact of your original post by attempting to defend it. Just take your lumps and move on.
I think the problem is the designers are out-thinking themselves.
They are interested in making the simplest, cleanest, and (they think) easiest to use controls. The problem is that these may actually be contradictory. Consider the control setup for a car, for instance: In my car there are buttons, and switches, and sliders, and knobs. Also levers, levers with buttons, and levers with knobs. Also knobs with buttons. And a D-pad with a switch in it. Not to mention the wheel, which is like a giant knob, which additionally holds buttons and switches. Furthermore, there are large analog force feedback buttons, that you control with your feet.
Looking at it out of context, it sounds fiendishly abstruse. If you proposed this interface for anything out of the blue, I'm sure your average designer would be up in arms, "That's way to complicated! How is the customer going to learn all that? How will they find all of it? Why don't we use a nice contextual menu instead?"
What they forget is that humans have strong spatial memory, and are quite adept at using a number of different control types. In many cases having a different control type actually helps the user by making that operation distinct, and providing unique feedback. In their drive for simplicity, they underestimate the human element, and end up inadvertently stunting the flow of information between device and user.
If just a few thousand of Circuit City's employees decided to strike for a week or two, they would lose so much profit from lost business that it wouldn't be economical to fire them.
Hell yeah! Think if 3,400 of their best salespeople just walked out the door, then they'd have to...
Slashdot Mirror
Wow, that is one awesome list of uncited quotations. Almost good enough to print.
"Done"
"Ah... So that's where the do it!"
Someone explain to me why this is moderated flamebait?
I gather you don't live in or near a capital city.
The problem with this kind of thing, that everyone seems to be failing to notice, is that it doesn't really have to be a bomb to kill people. Starting a panic can be every bit as dangerous as setting off a IED. My first reaction when I saw this story was to think that maybe this girl was a little off, and had put together something that might look like a bomb, with the intent of causing a disturbance. Before people jump up and say "but it doesn't!" keep in mind that's form close examination at a safe distance, not in a split second observation while the wearer screams "I'VE GOT A BOMB!". In that kind of situation, it would be a good idea to take their word for it.
Of course, that wasn't the situation here, I think this girl just might not have thought things through before she got dressed for the airport. But security was justified in keeping her out of the airport until her motives could be ascertained, a process it seems she could have expedited if she had answered the counter girl's question. Airport personnel need to be on guard against hoaxers as well as terrorists, people in airports are too nervous to do otherwise.
it would seem to me that the primary focus of the DARPA project would be similar, providing an alternative method for predicting the reactions of politicians and military leaders to certain events and situations, and thus get inside their decision cycle, a la John Boyd.
Well, guess what? Last time I checked, climatologists don't run the planet. So that means in the end, if you want anything done, a lot of people who aren't climatologists are going to have to make decisions on whether or not to listen to those who are, and if they are convinced then they will decide what must be done about it. For some reason this seems to be a common mistake among interested in science, that somehow if they learn the truth it will come with the authority to act on it. Sorry to say, that's not the case. The best you can do is try to make a convincing argument to those in power. They'll listen only when it becomes obvious to them.
Oh no, wait, I'm confused, I was thinking of the fireman who heroically pushed me out of the way of the oncoming train and was hit instead.
Or maybe the mailman who drove his mailtruck into the flaming runaway tanker hurtling towards the coffeeshop I was in. Or it could be the park ranger who jumped into that bear's mouth so that I would have time to run away. Or maybe even the IRS agent who flew that stolen F-15 directly into the heart of the alien mothership before it could level my city with its death ray. Or it could be any one of the other public servants who saved my life (and yet sacrificed their own) in a totally ridiculous hypothetical scenario that has no place in a serious, or even not so serious, debate.
Care to elaborate on that, because I can't figure out what you're talking about. Last time I checked, that war was chock full of people willing to die for the cause. A large number of them were part of the Axis.
The problem with this reasoning is that you're applying it to asymmetric warfare, in assuming that one side has killer robots and the other does not. The parent poster is more than likely right in positing that in a symmetric conflict where both sides had this kind of armament, casualties would actually increase as a result.
Guess which way I'm leaning now.
For the record, attacking someone's personal character rather that responding to their arguments is an ad hominem fallacy, not a straw man argument.
Ah, the joy of being young and destructive. Reminds me of something I did when I was younger...
I was in my middle school computer lab, bored and I guess pissed off about something. Anyway, the lab machines were these Mac SE/30's, old even for the time. On the hard drive there were eight folders. So in a bid to freak out the next person to use the computer, I placed all of these into one folder. Then I made eight new folders, and renamed them with the names of the eight original folders. Then I placed these into a folder, and copied that folder eight times. I renamed the copies with the names of the eight originals. Then I placed these into a folder, and repeated the process. So now when someone opened one of the folders, they would find the same folders. When they oppened one of those, they would find the same folders again. The actual files I put in some random bottom level folder. (if I had been really trying to be an ass, I would have made them invisible)
Amazingly enough, the instructor did not see the humor in what I had done. For my part I was shocked that she hadn't thought of a better way to find the originals, other than manually searching through all the folders.
I'd say the important point of the grandparent poster is that military architects would have been familiar with what would have been to them a traditional five sided design. And while the pentagon is not a fortress, per se, I think it would be remiss to overlook its very fortress-like qualities. We are talking about a building that was hit by what was essentially a gigantic cruise missle hold a massive fuel air payload, that resulted in fewer than 200 total casualties in the facility. Analysis made in The Pentagon Building Performance Report shows that even before recent improvements, the pentagon was a very resilient structure. I feel it's important to consider that while there were no bombs falling on Washington in 1941, the possibility hung in the air that there soon would be.
I just want to point out that your sentiment finds itself in humorous juxtaposition with your sig.
My own personal view is that this has already started to happen, via MMO's. As an MMO player myself (COH), I think we can admit that for the most part, MMO's are boring. They require insane amounts of time and feature a steady stream of simple, repetitive tasks. Yet they are full of people, many with little other interest in gaming.
yes, but in most touch tone systems, if you sit there and don't do anything, you actually get an operator. Which is likely what gran wants anyway.
It might be a better idea to choose a smaller star than the sun, firstly to save on materials, secondly to have lower spin rate, and thirdly to have as long lasting a star as possible. I mean after all, if you're going to build a ringworld, you want to build it to last.
The trick is that the gravity of the mass under your feet is exactly counterbalanced by the gravity of the rest of the shell, the majority of which is above you. It's farther away, true, but the fact is there's so much more of it balances out the equation.
Now on the outside of the shell, gravity would work in a more expected fashion.
Actually, it's a comma splice, and it's still bad grammar. As a matter of practice, I suggest that when someone calls you out on a grammatical misstep, don't dilute the impact of your original post by attempting to defend it. Just take your lumps and move on.
"Ms. MacDonald, if you read the report you will see that the white-tailed prairie dog is clearly in need of protec-"
"NO!! I NEED TEN MORE HIDES TO COMPLETE MY CLOAK!!"
I think the problem is the designers are out-thinking themselves.
They are interested in making the simplest, cleanest, and (they think) easiest to use controls. The problem is that these may actually be contradictory. Consider the control setup for a car, for instance: In my car there are buttons, and switches, and sliders, and knobs. Also levers, levers with buttons, and levers with knobs. Also knobs with buttons. And a D-pad with a switch in it. Not to mention the wheel, which is like a giant knob, which additionally holds buttons and switches. Furthermore, there are large analog force feedback buttons, that you control with your feet.
Looking at it out of context, it sounds fiendishly abstruse. If you proposed this interface for anything out of the blue, I'm sure your average designer would be up in arms, "That's way to complicated! How is the customer going to learn all that? How will they find all of it? Why don't we use a nice contextual menu instead?"
What they forget is that humans have strong spatial memory, and are quite adept at using a number of different control types. In many cases having a different control type actually helps the user by making that operation distinct, and providing unique feedback. In their drive for simplicity, they underestimate the human element, and end up inadvertently stunting the flow of information between device and user.
Oh wait. Nevermind.