Judges in this country use sentensing guidlines, a thick volume which essencially implements an algorithm for sentencing. Of course, everything is subject to appeal. The point is that a Judge's failure to follow the guideline can raise a red flag and he will have to defend his decision to deviate. That is the differance between algorithm w/ appeal versus no algorithm.
There may be one small downside to that. If this idea takes off then there will be a large number of insincere college applications. Colleges will be forced to make more cuts based on numerical data like SATs instead of reviewing applications for more personal information. So if you're a smart guy who just doesn't test well, chances are your application will be lost amoung all the people who are just submitting an application in order to get their HS diploma.
>Since the only real winners of a class action lawsuit are the lawyers, you have to wonder why anyone tries to be a part of one.
For justice? Probably not.
Most people don't seem to understand the tort system. How are we to keep big comanies honest? We could maintain an expensive federal agency that regulates every single thing that every single company does. Or, we can tell them "Do whatever you want, but if it's not cool, swarms of hungery lawyers will sue your ass off.". The tort system is a good system and the lawyers deserve the bulk of the punative damages for doing the work of protecting society. I sleep better at night knowing that big comanies are kept in line by fear of lawsuites.
The problem is the small number of lawyers who file frivilous suits, hoping for a settlement. It seems like they are more common than they really are because no one pays attention to just lawsuites.
Let's say that I am done some wrong by a big evil company. I sue them but their team of evil, overpaid lawyers wins the case by trickery (let's say they overwhelm my lawyer with paperwork and filings beyond my ability to pay). Assuming a loser-pays system, am I now faced with millions in fees? That potential outcome would prevent most people from even considering a lawsuit to address grievences.
I never had a wife or kids. Instead I saved up enough money that I can spend my time doing charity and working on my self-sufficient farm. I guess I must be irresponsible for not following your little genetic breeder script and bringing little copies of myself into a world that already has more people than it can sustain. Thanks for the insight. My life is a failure.
This is more a problem with the listing data provided by Tribune Media Services. To be fair, it's a lot of data to coordinate.
Here's what I hate: Say my prefs are 1) Daily Show, and 2) Lost, and let's say both are on at 8pm. Tivo will record The Daily Show and skip Lost, even though there is another showing of the Daily Show at 11pm.
2. He could change the DNS name, but then every legitimate user would have to change their configuration, and there's no guarantee D-Link wouldn't just update the firmware with the new name.
If D-Link does update the firmware with the new name then this gives him better legal support since he could prove that D-Link knowingly perpetuated the problem after he explicitly notified them of his objections.
Well, my logic might be off but since it's long past midnight here and the dateline is west of the US, I suspect everywhere except North and South America.
Damn! Why are we always the last to find out about these things?
For what it's worth, the steel will only spark and smoke when it conbines with O2. I think we need to assume that the saber's containment field would protect the moten metal from oxidizing.
So, where are all these ponies I keep hearing about?
I have to agree with the author about certain character classes being unworkable. I created a monk character and brought him to level 10 after a day or two of play. I got those levels by exploring the world and increasing my skills (sneaking around, picking locks, fixing armor, etc...). I didn't engage in combat as my main activity though I did kill a lot of creatures with my bow. The problem is that the monsters scale with my level. I went back to trying to fight monsters but now every creature I find can kick my ass immediately, presumably because I raised my level through non-combat experience. It's not like you can go back to the easy dungeons and grind away to improve your skills.
Another problem I had was with the controls. World of Warcraft has very easy, intuitive controls but Oblivion is a pain in the ass. Dialog boxes have to be manually closed by clicking on a small corner button instead of being dismissed with something like the escape key. And the controls are not at all intuitive. It one point I was examining the inventory of a character that was in the mages' guild, as I was. I meant to close the inventory box so I hit the spacebar (which can make some of the other dialogs go away) and instead I unintentionally stole the guy's money, which but me in serious trouble with the mages' guild.
On a side note, a few years back my girlfriend was working on a project that involved taking apart an XBox, so she bought one and also bought a copy of GTA: San Andreas to test the video quality and the graphics speed of the box. She way not a big game player and she had a lot of trouble figuring out the controls. When she came into work the next day she said "So, last night I accidentally killed prostitute and stole all her money. I didn't mean to do it but we were in an alley and she just wouldn't get out of my way!" Well, maybe you had to be there.
Also, I have a pretty studly setup but it still had trouble generating satisfying graphics. I think the two main problems were all the individual plants and also stuff off in the distance. And the keyboard interface only sometimes registers key events. It seems to ignore key presses if anything else of consequence is happening. This make combat difficult. I might press one key to select a spell and then another key to execute it, only to find that the game ignored my first key so I executed some other, previously-selected spell, usually a powerful healing spell which wastes all my mana and has no effect because I am already healthy.
So, it seems like a great game but the keyboard and creature-level issues made it unplayable for me. For me, the small amount of AI can't compete with WoW's massively multiplayer nature. There may be a way around the keyboard and level issues but when you come down to it this is just another "go kill whatever then come back and be rewarded" kind of game.
Here's what I would really like to see in a game: a MMORPG, like WoW, where a) high-level players can add their own textures/gadgets/NPCs to the game, and b) real humans take turns playing key "NPCs", perhaps in exchange for their monthly online fee.
-b
My theory is that information technology has advanced to a stage where polling can accurately predict election outcomes. As such, I think we are seeing narrower and narrower elections because any given partisan issue which gives one side an advantage will be coopted by the other side. We no longer have politician who stand for issues; they pick their issues to maximize their votes. Now that election science has progressed to such a state and we have closer and closer elections, there is that much more temptation to tamper with the election. In other words, a smaller and less detectable amout of tampering now has a much bigger payoff. As we saw in Florida in 2000, a very small "error" could decide the entire race.
No. I just followed your link and spent an hour reading the saga. That boy has issues. And now he's 16. I wonder if there's a "Where are they now?" column about him.
I used to work as a software developer at a small startup company with a large customer base. I had a tech support database where you could see a customer's call history. We rated customers (internally and informally) by how stupid their questions were (i.e. the insist on doing the impossible or they refuse to consult the manual). Customers who reported bugs or supplied all the information we required were rated higher. Again, this was just an informal system to let us know what to expect during a call / how much time to allocate. We would frequently ship out t-shirts with our releases and someone came up with the idea of choosing the t-shirt color based on the customer's rating. Then, when we went to trade shows we could see who was who. A tie-dye for the cool people and a red shirt for the clueless ones. We never actually did that. If word got out we would have taken a lot of flak, I sure.
If it were me (if I was a developer) I would create a character that had unlimited power but looked like a noobie. Sort of a sting operation. It might not work, but it sure would be fun.
I think we are going to see a lot more close races. It seems to me that the marketing people are dialing in on the ability to predict what the people will vote for. If one candidate has a position that is gaining him/her votes, then the other candidate will co-opt that position. Given that politics is mostly marketing these days, I see the market naturally converging to a 50-50 split.
The Santa Cruz Operation actually started out as a pretty cool company with a great coporate culture here in Santa Cruz, California. I knew a lot of the engineers and I was even part of their High-Tech Corporate Bowling League, which was a joke but kind of spooky when you look back at it. At some point in the mid-1990's the executives started taking the company in questionable directions. Every year the staff puts on the SCO follies. One year they did a parody of A Christmas Carole in which the CEO of SCO saw a vision of the future if he continued in his evil ways. Then there were a series of mergers and renamings that I didn't really follow. And there they are now.
Slashdot Mirror
Judges in this country use sentensing guidlines, a thick volume which essencially implements an algorithm for sentencing. Of course, everything is subject to appeal. The point is that a Judge's failure to follow the guideline can raise a red flag and he will have to defend his decision to deviate. That is the differance between algorithm w/ appeal versus no algorithm.
There may be one small downside to that. If this idea takes off then there will be a large number of insincere college applications. Colleges will be forced to make more cuts based on numerical data like SATs instead of reviewing applications for more personal information. So if you're a smart guy who just doesn't test well, chances are your application will be lost amoung all the people who are just submitting an application in order to get their HS diploma.
Or not?
I'm reserving judgement until I see the new Minesweeper.
What use is OS X without expensive 3D accelerator hardware?
>Since the only real winners of a class action lawsuit are the lawyers, you have to wonder why anyone tries to be a part of one.
For justice? Probably not.
Most people don't seem to understand the tort system. How are we to keep big comanies honest? We could maintain an expensive federal agency that regulates every single thing that every single company does. Or, we can tell them "Do whatever you want, but if it's not cool, swarms of hungery lawyers will sue your ass off.". The tort system is a good system and the lawyers deserve the bulk of the punative damages for doing the work of protecting society. I sleep better at night knowing that big comanies are kept in line by fear of lawsuites.
The problem is the small number of lawyers who file frivilous suits, hoping for a settlement. It seems like they are more common than they really are because no one pays attention to just lawsuites.
Let's say that I am done some wrong by a big evil company. I sue them but their team of evil, overpaid lawyers wins the case by trickery (let's say they overwhelm my lawyer with paperwork and filings beyond my ability to pay). Assuming a loser-pays system, am I now faced with millions in fees? That potential outcome would prevent most people from even considering a lawsuit to address grievences.
I never had a wife or kids. Instead I saved up enough money that I can spend my time doing charity and working on my self-sufficient farm. I guess I must be irresponsible for not following your little genetic breeder script and bringing little copies of myself into a world that already has more people than it can sustain. Thanks for the insight. My life is a failure.
It was, in fact, a contrived example. I couldn't remember the name of the show that was at a lower priority than Dialy and at the same time.
This is more a problem with the listing data provided by Tribune Media Services. To be fair, it's a lot of data to coordinate.
Here's what I hate: Say my prefs are 1) Daily Show, and 2) Lost, and let's say both are on at 8pm. Tivo will record The Daily Show and skip Lost, even though there is another showing of the Daily Show at 11pm.
If D-Link does update the firmware with the new name then this gives him better legal support since he could prove that D-Link knowingly perpetuated the problem after he explicitly notified them of his objections.
Damn! Why are we always the last to find out about these things?
For what it's worth, the steel will only spark and smoke when it conbines with O2. I think we need to assume that the saber's containment field would protect the moten metal from oxidizing.
So, where are all these ponies I keep hearing about?
My bad
I didn't realize that HTML was the default.
I have to agree with the author about certain character classes being unworkable. I created a monk character and brought him to level 10 after a day or two of play. I got those levels by exploring the world and increasing my skills (sneaking around, picking locks, fixing armor, etc...). I didn't engage in combat as my main activity though I did kill a lot of creatures with my bow. The problem is that the monsters scale with my level. I went back to trying to fight monsters but now every creature I find can kick my ass immediately, presumably because I raised my level through non-combat experience. It's not like you can go back to the easy dungeons and grind away to improve your skills. Another problem I had was with the controls. World of Warcraft has very easy, intuitive controls but Oblivion is a pain in the ass. Dialog boxes have to be manually closed by clicking on a small corner button instead of being dismissed with something like the escape key. And the controls are not at all intuitive. It one point I was examining the inventory of a character that was in the mages' guild, as I was. I meant to close the inventory box so I hit the spacebar (which can make some of the other dialogs go away) and instead I unintentionally stole the guy's money, which but me in serious trouble with the mages' guild. On a side note, a few years back my girlfriend was working on a project that involved taking apart an XBox, so she bought one and also bought a copy of GTA: San Andreas to test the video quality and the graphics speed of the box. She way not a big game player and she had a lot of trouble figuring out the controls. When she came into work the next day she said "So, last night I accidentally killed prostitute and stole all her money. I didn't mean to do it but we were in an alley and she just wouldn't get out of my way!" Well, maybe you had to be there. Also, I have a pretty studly setup but it still had trouble generating satisfying graphics. I think the two main problems were all the individual plants and also stuff off in the distance. And the keyboard interface only sometimes registers key events. It seems to ignore key presses if anything else of consequence is happening. This make combat difficult. I might press one key to select a spell and then another key to execute it, only to find that the game ignored my first key so I executed some other, previously-selected spell, usually a powerful healing spell which wastes all my mana and has no effect because I am already healthy. So, it seems like a great game but the keyboard and creature-level issues made it unplayable for me. For me, the small amount of AI can't compete with WoW's massively multiplayer nature. There may be a way around the keyboard and level issues but when you come down to it this is just another "go kill whatever then come back and be rewarded" kind of game. Here's what I would really like to see in a game: a MMORPG, like WoW, where a) high-level players can add their own textures/gadgets/NPCs to the game, and b) real humans take turns playing key "NPCs", perhaps in exchange for their monthly online fee. -b
My theory is that information technology has advanced to a stage where polling can accurately predict election outcomes. As such, I think we are seeing narrower and narrower elections because any given partisan issue which gives one side an advantage will be coopted by the other side. We no longer have politician who stand for issues; they pick their issues to maximize their votes. Now that election science has progressed to such a state and we have closer and closer elections, there is that much more temptation to tamper with the election. In other words, a smaller and less detectable amout of tampering now has a much bigger payoff. As we saw in Florida in 2000, a very small "error" could decide the entire race.
It took a lot of energy to get the density that high.
No. I just followed your link and spent an hour reading the saga. That boy has issues. And now he's 16. I wonder if there's a "Where are they now?" column about him.
I was thinking of the people who lurk around spawn sites. That doesn't sound like it's in the spirit of the game.
I used to work as a software developer at a small startup company with a large customer base. I had a tech support database where you could see a customer's call history. We rated customers (internally and informally) by how stupid their questions were (i.e. the insist on doing the impossible or they refuse to consult the manual). Customers who reported bugs or supplied all the information we required were rated higher. Again, this was just an informal system to let us know what to expect during a call / how much time to allocate. We would frequently ship out t-shirts with our releases and someone came up with the idea of choosing the t-shirt color based on the customer's rating. Then, when we went to trade shows we could see who was who. A tie-dye for the cool people and a red shirt for the clueless ones. We never actually did that. If word got out we would have taken a lot of flak, I sure.
If it were me (if I was a developer) I would create a character that had unlimited power but looked like a noobie. Sort of a sting operation. It might not work, but it sure would be fun.
SCO. That was me. And "linux". That was me too.
But "Britney"? I have no idea where that came from. There was that one night when I drank all those Bud Lights...
Sure. I just didn't want people to think that the SCO engineers from the old days had anything to do with this new group using the same name.
I think we are going to see a lot more close races. It seems to me that the marketing people are dialing in on the ability to predict what the people will vote for. If one candidate has a position that is gaining him/her votes, then the other candidate will co-opt that position. Given that politics is mostly marketing these days, I see the market naturally converging to a 50-50 split.
I know you're kidding but...
The Santa Cruz Operation actually started out as a pretty cool company with a great coporate culture here in Santa Cruz, California. I knew a lot of the engineers and I was even part of their High-Tech Corporate Bowling League, which was a joke but kind of spooky when you look back at it. At some point in the mid-1990's the executives started taking the company in questionable directions. Every year the staff puts on the SCO follies. One year they did a parody of A Christmas Carole in which the CEO of SCO saw a vision of the future if he continued in his evil ways. Then there were a series of mergers and renamings that I didn't really follow. And there they are now.
For as long as need be, certain companies can funnel money to SCO by "buying software" (wink, wink).