All MS has to do is keep backward compatibility for legacy apps and most everyone already using it will simply stay with it.
Um... Good luck running that Windows 3.1 program on Windows Vista.
But seriously, many of my old Win95 and Win98 games won't run on XP without beatting it to death with OS tweaks. Backwards compatibility with Windows usually just means "Most everything in the previous version should work in the next version. We hope." Heck... WinXP SP2 brok a lot of apps that were made for WinXP. I came along to OS X around 2002, but I've found at least from most other people I had to support OS 9 to OS X migrations... It usually went fairly smoothly with running in virtualization rather than making the whole OS supposedly freakin compatible. Although Tiger did break Outlook 2001 (OS 9 legacy app), but you can also beat that app into submission too with a few tricks.
I think the main problem with Windows is they try to make the whole OS compatible which ends up just not working anyways and slowing the system down rather than making the old apps run in virtualization mode until you really don't need them anymore and get the newer native OS versions.
I can only imagine how little work I would get done, and how many more students would fail out of college.
Hangovers do not prevent people from drinking. Hangovers do prevent people from going to class or work the next morning.
The thing about drinking is that people forget fairly quickly what a hangover feels like... And go... "Oh what is one beer going to do to me! Mmmm... This buzz feels good. Another one can't hurt!"
Of course 6 beers, 2 shots of jadger, a 5th of tequila, and then 4 hours later... Your alarm goes off around 6:00am and your still in the bathroom with your head in the toliet and your swearing you'll never drink again.
Of course... Until next week until you decide to have another beer and then all those memories of being hungover are completley forgotten.
If there were no hangovers, then people wouldn't drink more, but wouldn't call out sick the next day.
Seriously, how many college students and workers aroudn the world do you think called out this morning alone because of a hangover? Productivity and grades would increase world wide if they could drink and then get up the next morning without any ill effects.
If I don't find my search on the first page, I re-word my search.
If it isn't on the top first 5 hits, then I'm not going to find it any faster by scouring pages worth of info. Adding quotes or using a different phrase is my next step.
If the universe was any other way... We wouldn't be around to observe it.
We are simply a fluke and the only reason we exist is because nothingness cannot exist and being is only means possible. However the universe is only the simplist route possible which ends up being a universe that has laws of physics and what have you.
But that is only a guess... However, I believe in god, but he isn't a Christian God and chances are the bible is only a tool of mankind (aka the devil) to twist his true being.
You don't always have the right to intrude your "message" into everyone else's consciousness.
Actually, in public places they do. You know... First admentment and whatnot.
But in private places like WoW... Well it is a matter of tresspassing.
Think of it like this...
Your invited to someone's house to play AD&D. During the game, one of the players keeps on going on a diatribe how the other player is oppressing his sexual orientation.
You can of course say "You... You shut the hell up!" or ignore him, but he can go on and on as long as the owner of the house says he can. You as a guest of that house cannot remove the other person or force him to be silent. You can of course take your issue up with the house owner, but you do not have a single right or legal ability to make that other person be silent.
So as long as the owner approves either with consent or non-action, the person making this activist diatribe has the right to implant his agenda into your mind via means of sounds and images (as long as those sounds and images are legal).
You can of course always leave...
However, if it was your house... Then you can remove the guy from your premises, but obviously none of us own the WoW servers.
Even if it is a game, it is not your game. It is Blizzard's game and you have as much rights on their property as they say you do.
If they let people do this to you, then either you need to ignore it, take it up with Blizzard, or quit.
Also, you're wrong that monopolies are always bad for consumers. A monopoly in an industry with low barriers to entry is great for consumers, because the monopolist has to try really hard to keep it, and they have the resources to continously improve the product. Monopolies in industries with high barriers to entry usually are harmful.
Hrm... I'm pretty sure the grand parent just said that. He said the monopolies that aren't bad for consumers are the ones that are heavily regulated.
And in your statement, the following is also true about harmful monopolies... The telcoms have in place extremley high barriers to competition. Not only is this the nature of the industry (no one is going to spend millions to make their own network any time soon), but they also are using government to keep this in place such as the banning of municipal wifi networks around the nation.
There is not too much subjective about the statement "some US troops sexually abused prisoners in Iraq". Thats a fact.
Try to define "sexually".
Then try to define "abused".
Those aren't hard code facts. Because sexually could mean anything from showing them pictures of nakked women to gang rape.
Abuse is also subjective... Does abuse mean calling them bad names or did they hold them down and shove electric cattle prods in their orifices.
By that statemnt we don't know what really happened... Just that some type of sexual abuse went on. Some people might read it and thing it was nothing other than college prank sexual harrasment event while other readers might envision a 3rd world torture chamber were people are starved, burned, electrocuted and beaten to an inch of their life.
The truth is most likely inbetween, but that simple statement does not give the real facts of the matter. Just assumptions depending on your bias.
FTS (From the summary): But I wonder how much energy did it consume to produce those huge amounts of Hydrogen & Oxygen?
Consider this... Japan has to import all its oil. There is hardly a drop they can get from their own land. They are more dependant than the United States since we still have the Gulf Coast and Alaska. It might cost them less to produce fuel cells with nuclear power than to import more oil.
So, Microsoft is putting the squeeze on those customers they know won't jump ship by leaving out the glitter, thus reducing their incentive to pirate
Hrm? You mean the consumers who weren't going to pirate anyways?
I mean... We are talking about Joe Sixpack, right? I mean it is kind of pointless to target people for piracy who wouldn't know how to burn an ISO image much less find one on the internet... Or even be able to find a CD key on google?!
Sorry, but I have to side with the IRS here. Everyone who isn't paying the taxes they're supposed to be deserves to be found out. People who cheat on their taxes just make the rest of us pay more.
I think I see the problem here... The problem is that we are paying taxes on things that do not need to be taxed.
Or rather... You are paying too much taxes without fighting it.
The way I see it... The people who are really frauding the tax system are corporation with multi-million dollar loop holes or maybe Uwe Bolle with that German tax law movie budget thing and not Grandma making extra cash on her ebay sales.
You see other people as criminals and tax frauds... While the other side sees these people as reducing government income that would have been spent on pork barrel anyways.
Truth be told, I perfer the middle route. Legally pay as less taxes as possible... Unfortunatley, since I own a small business, I am litterly screwed unless I claim an ungodly amount of expenses.
And you would be suprised what you can use as legitimate expense... From travel time... Donating to wikipedia... Housing costs... Kids... Entertainment costs for your business... New computer... Advertising costs... etc...
Keep in mind... My refund check was only $26 from working a full time job and having my small business. Now if I didn't have a business (or didn't report my earnings) I'm sure I would have made several hundred back, but I like to do things legally.
If you really feel hurt by taxes then I suggest really taking a look at how much you yourself can reduce your tax burden and not blame tax evaders for your high taxes because they aren't the ones to blame...
For example, if the artist is going to generate an elf character... that might typically involve one day of inspiration, and two weeks of pixel pushing.
Thats not how it always works in 3d modeling with larger companies. Chances an full time artist will make a pre-design sketch of an elf the old fasion way with pen, paper, ink, paint, or what have you... This gets approved by art manager and then passed on to modeling. This usually involves a pose with front and side profile.
The 3d modelers take this art and scan it... From there they model the 3d character based around the art in Maya or 3d studio based exactly on what the sketch (or rough sketch) getting the polys down and getting the skin wrapped around correctly. These guys are artists per say but generally don't need inspiration like the hand drawn guys.
However, in smaller companies (indie developers) chances are that this position is combined and may work quite different depending on whoever is doing it.
The source code of the Quake and QuakeWorld engines was licensed under the GPL in 1999. The id Software maps, objects, textures, sounds and other creative works remain under their original license. The shareware distribution of Quake is still freely redistributable and usable with the GPLed engine code. One must purchase a copy of Quake in order to get the registered version of the game which includes more single player episodes and the deathmatch maps.
Sure its not free as in BSD, but doesn't cost anyone to download and use (and even release a commercial game) as long as they adhear to the GLP license.
If more of the source code was open, less developers would be needed. As time goes on, less and less developers are needed, until finally none are needed and we end up with programmers out of jobs and large variety of the same game.
That's not true.
Take John Carmack for example. He releases all his code with games after a while. Not only that... He's pretty much licensed out his engines to other companies before he does that. Yet we didn't see every single game using code from Quake or Doom and then ditching all their devs. In fact we usually see this companies hire on more.
Secondly, most companies do this already through licensing... These days either they are licensing the Doom3 engine or Unreal Engines.
That and others build from scratch depending on their needs.
However, I would say that making this open source really helps fledgling devs to figure out the "how'd they do that?" kind of questions.
How long before this device opens and something launched automatically into a ballistic trajectory directly into someone's chest because of a system error?
AFAIK, the US military has never lost a civil suit in a combat situation due to technical or human error.
You know... Every time we drop a bomb on the wrong house or kill someone with friendly fire... It never goes to a civil suit (albeit Court Marhshall and dishonorable discharge)
There have been state side lawsuits I do believe for loss of life, limb, and property but even then they have been few and far between. I doubt they turn this technology on and ride around in US streets for shits and giggles.
Still... If this tech went ballistic on the streets of Bagdad and killed an American soldier or Iraqi civilian I bet a civil case would see the light of day in the US court.
I'm amazed at the hypocrisy of people. On September 11th 2001, the US was attacked. They could have taken the standard terrorist approach and hit back.
Last I checked, Iraq had nothing to do with September 11th.
Secondly, we were responsible for Taliban being in power.
Do you remember the Afghan conflict? The one we sent Stinger missiles and butt loads of money and CIA advisors to Afghanistan? Did we help them rebuild after the Soviets left? No we left them to rot and didn't lift a finger leaving a power vacuum that lets the Taliban take over.
Thirdly, we are responsible for Iran as well... We toppled the legitimate elected government and put the Shah in power and then after his brutal regime had its way with the Iranians they had enough... Unfortunately that revolution of leftist students got usurped by the Mullahs and look what we have now.
A fanatical dictatorship that may eventually build nuclear weapons?
And you know what doesn't work in the 21st century? Pissing around with other countries with Nukes doesn't work.
We had to appease the Soviets and they had to appease us.
Why? Because the instant we decided to go the Churchill route instead of the Neville we'd have something called Mutual Assured Destruction.
Face it, we will have to learn to compromise... And get out of other people's yards.
Do these people attack us because we aren't Muslim? No it is because we have military bases, constant interference via the CIA, and complete disregard for the Palestinians conflict by openly supporting Israel over them although the Palestine is just as guilty of terrorism, so we should wash our hands of the situation and stop supporting both sides... Israel has one of the best militaries in the world and doesn't need our support anymore and they can handle themselves.
Please if you are going to use 9/11 in an argument... Study a bit of history of the Middle East and see what went wrong.
I found that meetings that used jargon were far more efficient than the meetings that didn't.
Color me military school, but what I don't get about meetings is why they are needed in a corporate world?
Most of the companies I have worked for (except the really small ones) don't have meetings. It is basically a top down approach.
The management basically doesn't take input from anyone other than informal email and anonymous drop boxes and the only meetings we have are one on one quarterly reviews with our manager.
99% of our other time is spent working independently. We basically show our work in what we accomplish and not what we have claimed to accomplish in the meetings. (Of course our work is easily measured in metrics and in tasks accomplished and logs)
Anything that needs to be said or communicated to higher management is communicated right then and there in person. Strategies are not formed on the lower level and they do not ask for our input in meetings.
Sure this is kind of autocratic, but businesses aren't democracy... And there is no reason a business cannot function without meetings. Just divide up people into groups of 8-10 (standard military unit) and assign a "squad" leader (no manager type of person who holds similar responsibilities as those under him/her). Those members communicate immediate needs and problems to that "squad" leader and they in turn communicate directly to higher ups and so on in a chain of command.
This way... Work can be done independently and without wasting times in long meetings which information could have just been distributed by email.
Well... If you can't work independently and without constant direction then... Maybe meetings are the only way to go, but of course many companies these days require their employees to be able to work on and take own initiative when accomplishing tasking.
I dunno... I don't think are a good example. The Visigoths, Vandals, and Huns really didn't really follow those kind of rules and caused Rome to file for Chapter 11 after Atilla sacked the bejuses out of them during a hostile takeover.
Apparently the Romans Sentors were too busy laying off Roman soldiers and debating what deliverables (bread) and what kind of synergy (circuses) to give out to people that day at the board meeting.
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All MS has to do is keep backward compatibility for legacy apps and most everyone already using it will simply stay with it.
Um... Good luck running that Windows 3.1 program on Windows Vista.
But seriously, many of my old Win95 and Win98 games won't run on XP without beatting it to death with OS tweaks. Backwards compatibility with Windows usually just means "Most everything in the previous version should work in the next version. We hope." Heck... WinXP SP2 brok a lot of apps that were made for WinXP. I came along to OS X around 2002, but I've found at least from most other people I had to support OS 9 to OS X migrations... It usually went fairly smoothly with running in virtualization rather than making the whole OS supposedly freakin compatible. Although Tiger did break Outlook 2001 (OS 9 legacy app), but you can also beat that app into submission too with a few tricks.
I think the main problem with Windows is they try to make the whole OS compatible which ends up just not working anyways and slowing the system down rather than making the old apps run in virtualization mode until you really don't need them anymore and get the newer native OS versions.
I can only imagine how little work I would get done, and how many more students would fail out of college.
Hangovers do not prevent people from drinking.
Hangovers do prevent people from going to class or work the next morning.
The thing about drinking is that people forget fairly quickly what a hangover feels like... And go... "Oh what is one beer going to do to me! Mmmm... This buzz feels good. Another one can't hurt!"
Of course 6 beers, 2 shots of jadger, a 5th of tequila, and then 4 hours later... Your alarm goes off around 6:00am and your still in the bathroom with your head in the toliet and your swearing you'll never drink again.
Of course... Until next week until you decide to have another beer and then all those memories of being hungover are completley forgotten.
If there were no hangovers, then people wouldn't drink more, but wouldn't call out sick the next day.
Seriously, how many college students and workers aroudn the world do you think called out this morning alone because of a hangover? Productivity and grades would increase world wide if they could drink and then get up the next morning without any ill effects.
Because we all know computers never make mistakes right?
Lets not be so harsh on the computers.
Most of the time it is just user error and not the fault of the computer.
Garbage in. Garbage out.
Does any of that sound fair?
Well let us put it this way...
If we didn't do any restrictions on internet usage for the 15 hour users, then the whole internet goes away for everyone in about 50-100 years.
Does that sound fair?
If I don't find my search on the first page, I re-word my search.
If it isn't on the top first 5 hits, then I'm not going to find it any faster by scouring pages worth of info. Adding quotes or using a different phrase is my next step.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_Principle
If the universe was any other way... We wouldn't be around to observe it.
We are simply a fluke and the only reason we exist is because nothingness cannot exist and being is only means possible. However the universe is only the simplist route possible which ends up being a universe that has laws of physics and what have you.
But that is only a guess... However, I believe in god, but he isn't a Christian God and chances are the bible is only a tool of mankind (aka the devil) to twist his true being.
You don't always have the right to intrude your "message" into everyone else's consciousness.
Actually, in public places they do. You know... First admentment and whatnot.
But in private places like WoW... Well it is a matter of tresspassing.
Think of it like this...
Your invited to someone's house to play AD&D. During the game, one of the players keeps on going on a diatribe how the other player is oppressing his sexual orientation.
You can of course say "You... You shut the hell up!" or ignore him, but he can go on and on as long as the owner of the house says he can. You as a guest of that house cannot remove the other person or force him to be silent. You can of course take your issue up with the house owner, but you do not have a single right or legal ability to make that other person be silent.
So as long as the owner approves either with consent or non-action, the person making this activist diatribe has the right to implant his agenda into your mind via means of sounds and images (as long as those sounds and images are legal).
You can of course always leave...
However, if it was your house... Then you can remove the guy from your premises, but obviously none of us own the WoW servers.
Even if it is a game, it is not your game. It is Blizzard's game and you have as much rights on their property as they say you do.
If they let people do this to you, then either you need to ignore it, take it up with Blizzard, or quit.
Also, you're wrong that monopolies are always bad for consumers. A monopoly in an industry with low barriers to entry is great for consumers, because the monopolist has to try really hard to keep it, and they have the resources to continously improve the product. Monopolies in industries with high barriers to entry usually are harmful.
Hrm... I'm pretty sure the grand parent just said that. He said the monopolies that aren't bad for consumers are the ones that are heavily regulated.
And in your statement, the following is also true about harmful monopolies... The telcoms have in place extremley high barriers to competition. Not only is this the nature of the industry (no one is going to spend millions to make their own network any time soon), but they also are using government to keep this in place such as the banning of municipal wifi networks around the nation.
There is not too much subjective about the statement "some US troops sexually abused prisoners in Iraq". Thats a fact.
Try to define "sexually".
Then try to define "abused".
Those aren't hard code facts. Because sexually could mean anything from showing them pictures of nakked women to gang rape.
Abuse is also subjective... Does abuse mean calling them bad names or did they hold them down and shove electric cattle prods in their orifices.
By that statemnt we don't know what really happened... Just that some type of sexual abuse went on. Some people might read it and thing it was nothing other than college prank sexual harrasment event while other readers might envision a 3rd world torture chamber were people are starved, burned, electrocuted and beaten to an inch of their life.
The truth is most likely inbetween, but that simple statement does not give the real facts of the matter. Just assumptions depending on your bias.
FTS (From the summary): But I wonder how much energy did it consume to produce those huge amounts of Hydrogen & Oxygen?
Consider this... Japan has to import all its oil. There is hardly a drop they can get from their own land. They are more dependant than the United States since we still have the Gulf Coast and Alaska. It might cost them less to produce fuel cells with nuclear power than to import more oil.
Now if only they'd use the "Make the Servers Work" hammer.
When all you have is a "Ban" Hammer, all problems look like a Gold Farmer.
So, Microsoft is putting the squeeze on those customers they know won't jump ship by leaving out the glitter, thus reducing their incentive to pirate
Hrm? You mean the consumers who weren't going to pirate anyways?
I mean... We are talking about Joe Sixpack, right? I mean it is kind of pointless to target people for piracy who wouldn't know how to burn an ISO image much less find one on the internet... Or even be able to find a CD key on google?!
I agree. MS is just wasting their time with this.
Every majoy piece of software is going "phone home" from here on out.
That is why you use "unofficial" patches on said software.
The greed of the scientists is what drives them to support global warming.
Or maybe these scientists were told to act greedy so that people that support global warming look greedy.
Thereby making it technically properly ratified.
The Supreme Court cannot ratify constitutional amendments.
If the Supreme court tomorrow voted 9-0 to repeal the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 5th amendment in the Bill of Rights doesn't make it so.
Sorry, but I have to side with the IRS here. Everyone who isn't paying the taxes they're supposed to be deserves to be found out. People who cheat on their taxes just make the rest of us pay more.
I think I see the problem here... The problem is that we are paying taxes on things that do not need to be taxed.
Or rather... You are paying too much taxes without fighting it.
The way I see it... The people who are really frauding the tax system are corporation with multi-million dollar loop holes or maybe Uwe Bolle with that German tax law movie budget thing and not Grandma making extra cash on her ebay sales.
You see other people as criminals and tax frauds... While the other side sees these people as reducing government income that would have been spent on pork barrel anyways.
Truth be told, I perfer the middle route. Legally pay as less taxes as possible... Unfortunatley, since I own a small business, I am litterly screwed unless I claim an ungodly amount of expenses.
And you would be suprised what you can use as legitimate expense... From travel time... Donating to wikipedia... Housing costs... Kids... Entertainment costs for your business... New computer... Advertising costs... etc...
Keep in mind... My refund check was only $26 from working a full time job and having my small business. Now if I didn't have a business (or didn't report my earnings) I'm sure I would have made several hundred back, but I like to do things legally.
If you really feel hurt by taxes then I suggest really taking a look at how much you yourself can reduce your tax burden and not blame tax evaders for your high taxes because they aren't the ones to blame...
It's Uncle Sam.
For example, if the artist is going to generate an elf character ... that might typically involve one day of inspiration, and two weeks of pixel pushing.
Thats not how it always works in 3d modeling with larger companies. Chances an full time artist will make a pre-design sketch of an elf the old fasion way with pen, paper, ink, paint, or what have you... This gets approved by art manager and then passed on to modeling. This usually involves a pose with front and side profile.
The 3d modelers take this art and scan it... From there they model the 3d character based around the art in Maya or 3d studio based exactly on what the sketch (or rough sketch) getting the polys down and getting the skin wrapped around correctly. These guys are artists per say but generally don't need inspiration like the hand drawn guys.
However, in smaller companies (indie developers) chances are that this position is combined and may work quite different depending on whoever is doing it.
Hrm.... Well free as in GPL code.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quake#Source_code
The source code of the Quake and QuakeWorld engines was licensed under the GPL in 1999. The id Software maps, objects, textures, sounds and other creative works remain under their original license. The shareware distribution of Quake is still freely redistributable and usable with the GPLed engine code. One must purchase a copy of Quake in order to get the registered version of the game which includes more single player episodes and the deathmatch maps.
Sure its not free as in BSD, but doesn't cost anyone to download and use (and even release a commercial game) as long as they adhear to the GLP license.
If more of the source code was open, less developers would be needed. As time goes on, less and less developers are needed, until finally none are needed and we end up with programmers out of jobs and large variety of the same game.
That's not true.
Take John Carmack for example. He releases all his code with games after a while. Not only that... He's pretty much licensed out his engines to other companies before he does that. Yet we didn't see every single game using code from Quake or Doom and then ditching all their devs. In fact we usually see this companies hire on more.
Secondly, most companies do this already through licensing... These days either they are licensing the Doom3 engine or Unreal Engines.
That and others build from scratch depending on their needs.
However, I would say that making this open source really helps fledgling devs to figure out the "how'd they do that?" kind of questions.
How long before this device opens and something launched automatically into a ballistic trajectory directly into someone's chest because of a system error?
AFAIK, the US military has never lost a civil suit in a combat situation due to technical or human error.
You know... Every time we drop a bomb on the wrong house or kill someone with friendly fire... It never goes to a civil suit (albeit Court Marhshall and dishonorable discharge)
There have been state side lawsuits I do believe for loss of life, limb, and property but even then they have been few and far between. I doubt they turn this technology on and ride around in US streets for shits and giggles.
Still... If this tech went ballistic on the streets of Bagdad and killed an American soldier or Iraqi civilian I bet a civil case would see the light of day in the US court.
I'm amazed at the hypocrisy of people. On September 11th 2001, the US was attacked. They could have taken the standard terrorist approach and hit back.
Last I checked, Iraq had nothing to do with September 11th.
Secondly, we were responsible for Taliban being in power.
Do you remember the Afghan conflict? The one we sent Stinger missiles and butt loads of money and CIA advisors to Afghanistan? Did we help them rebuild after the Soviets left? No we left them to rot and didn't lift a finger leaving a power vacuum that lets the Taliban take over.
Thirdly, we are responsible for Iran as well... We toppled the legitimate elected government and put the Shah in power and then after his brutal regime had its way with the Iranians they had enough... Unfortunately that revolution of leftist students got usurped by the Mullahs and look what we have now.
A fanatical dictatorship that may eventually build nuclear weapons?
And you know what doesn't work in the 21st century? Pissing around with other countries with Nukes doesn't work.
We had to appease the Soviets and they had to appease us.
Why? Because the instant we decided to go the Churchill route instead of the Neville we'd have something called Mutual Assured Destruction.
Face it, we will have to learn to compromise... And get out of other people's yards.
Do these people attack us because we aren't Muslim? No it is because we have military bases, constant interference via the CIA, and complete disregard for the Palestinians conflict by openly supporting Israel over them although the Palestine is just as guilty of terrorism, so we should wash our hands of the situation and stop supporting both sides... Israel has one of the best militaries in the world and doesn't need our support anymore and they can handle themselves.
Please if you are going to use 9/11 in an argument... Study a bit of history of the Middle East and see what went wrong.
I found that meetings that used jargon were far more efficient than the meetings that didn't.
Color me military school, but what I don't get about meetings is why they are needed in a corporate world?
Most of the companies I have worked for (except the really small ones) don't have meetings. It is basically a top down approach.
The management basically doesn't take input from anyone other than informal email and anonymous drop boxes and the only meetings we have are one on one quarterly reviews with our manager.
99% of our other time is spent working independently. We basically show our work in what we accomplish and not what we have claimed to accomplish in the meetings. (Of course our work is easily measured in metrics and in tasks accomplished and logs)
Anything that needs to be said or communicated to higher management is communicated right then and there in person. Strategies are not formed on the lower level and they do not ask for our input in meetings.
Sure this is kind of autocratic, but businesses aren't democracy... And there is no reason a business cannot function without meetings. Just divide up people into groups of 8-10 (standard military unit) and assign a "squad" leader (no manager type of person who holds similar responsibilities as those under him/her). Those members communicate immediate needs and problems to that "squad" leader and they in turn communicate directly to higher ups and so on in a chain of command.
This way... Work can be done independently and without wasting times in long meetings which information could have just been distributed by email.
Well... If you can't work independently and without constant direction then... Maybe meetings are the only way to go, but of course many companies these days require their employees to be able to work on and take own initiative when accomplishing tasking.
When in Rome do as the Romans do?
I dunno... I don't think are a good example. The Visigoths, Vandals, and Huns really didn't really follow those kind of rules and caused Rome to file for Chapter 11 after Atilla sacked the bejuses out of them during a hostile takeover.
Apparently the Romans Sentors were too busy laying off Roman soldiers and debating what deliverables (bread) and what kind of synergy (circuses) to give out to people that day at the board meeting.
And for anyone who doubts that "deliverable" is a useful term
Can't you just say... "This product is feasible"
Or rather "We think we can actually develop a product/service that we can sell without going bankrupt and actually make us money."
When one says this product or service is "deliverable", it is quite ambiguous.
GTA resulted in the worse-off outcome.
So did scientists provide the booze and pot aftwards?
Or did the test subjects have to fend for themselves?