I can remember when plasma HDTV's first came out they cost $15,000-$20,000 and not even most hardcore early-adopting videophiles (incl. myself) could hope to afford them. It's taken over 10 years for those to become mainstream. So early adopter data means nothing. Now, if these things still aren't selling 5 or 6 years from now, then they'll be in trouble.
Yeah, which makes it even WORSE for us because we have to wear those annoying glasses uncomfortably over the glasses we already have. DOUBLE ANNOYANCE!
That's exactly what it sounded like to me. This sound like one of those Duke Nuke'em Forever projects that becomes so hopelessly dysfunctional at the studio level that nothing short of having big daddy come in and shitcan everyone (or just releasing it unfinished) is ever going to get it to gold status. It's not EA's fault that Mythic couldn't get their shit together. What did this guy expect them to do, indulge them forever no matter how many times they had screwed up in the past?
Yeah, but how often do people take their cellphone for granted to the point where we forget it's even there? It's been known for 20 years now that you should mute your cellphone in a theater or meeting, but at least one person in the room still always forgets. The cellphone is so ubiquitous now (and thought of as so innocuous) that even the vast majority of criminals probably don't think of it in terms of being a tracking device and bug for cops. This is especially true if you don't have any reason to suspect you're being tracked (i.e., you're an innocent person, being tracked illegally by the government--as this guy apparently was).
That's a real crowd-pleaser at parties. Personally I like the "writing an executable java program without a main method" trick to impress the ladies myself--that is, if I ever get to meet an actual lady who would even get that trick.
Humans are used to natural numbers because they're simple. But do natural numbers even exist in the real world? For the vast majority of practical purposes, 0.99999 can be thought of as one. But "one" itself is usually just a construct in the real world. There is no such thing as the perfect one of anything. The more precise we get, the more "one" becomes more of a mathematical ideal than a reality. So we spend our entire lives rounding off, because that's practical. We teach kids to count 1, 2, 3, 4... We can't very well teach them to count 0.000001, 0.00001, 0.0001, 0.001... (or any of the infinite variations of "counting" without resorting to natural numbers).
Proving that 0.99999 = 1 is an interesting intellectual exercise. But in the real world, we do it every minute of every day.
Actually, you're probably wearing an even better FBI tracker on your belt right now. You even paid for it yourself, with two-year contract to a carrier who will gladly allow the FBI to follow you anytime they like. Hell, you've even given them a mic and video camera to use too. Think that sounds all tin-foil hat? Read all about it.
Actually, a vehicle tracking device is pretty crude these days. The tracking devices of choice today are cellphones. With built-in GPS (with easy law enforcement override if you shut it off), and procedures from all the major carriers for law enforcement tracking--it's a no-brainer. And they don't even have to send an agent out to your house. They could probably even find a way to remotely enable the mic to spy on you directly if they really wanted to (I would hope that the carriers would at least resist that one, but I wouldn't bet on it).
He also had a Congress in his majority for about a year's time where he could have rewritten the rules
This would be true if the Democratic Party weren't so undisciplined. Unlike the Republican Party, the Dems are loaded with blue dogs and hardcore DINO's, making even a Congressional majority pretty useless. And even if they were disciplined, they still represent their own state interests way ahead of the President. So every time the President tries to trim the military or NASA for example, he always catches blowback from Congressmen in states with military bases and NASA contractors/facilities.
And, yes, it applies to Republicans too. The only advantages Bush had were a more disciplined party in Congress and Dick Cheney as a pretty vicious attack dog. But even with that, he couldn't have cleaned house. One of Donald Rumsfeld's early goals was to streamline the military, for example, and that went over like a lead zeppelin.
Won't work on me. My car has a special "white man" transmitter. Being of European heritage, my car was by default equipped with a device that signals to cops not to pull me over, to FBI agents that I'm a good American, and to gated communities that I'm okay to let in. The downside is that the signal has damaged my motor cortex skills, meaning I'm a terrible dancer and even more terrible basketball player. But I do get a 10% discount at participating Cracker Barrel restaurants.
Reagan was only able to do that because the air traffic controllers actually broke a federal law by striking. When they refused his order to return to work, they foolishly made themselves fair game for immediate firing, bypassing all normal federal employee protections.
Most of the professional level federal employees are protected by laws and union contracts (only the director is an at-will employee that the President can hand his walking papers whenever he feels like it). That means you would have to go through Congress, and maybe even the courts, for the changes needed to just start firing people (or zeroing out their budgets). And good luck with that.
Yes, but most people assume the President has a lot more power than they actually do. You come in as President, you appoint a new director of agency X, you tell him to do such-and-such at that agency, he says okay, and then he goes off and doesn't do it. Your own cabinet will often lie to you, deceive you, outright ignore you, stall you, etc. And everyone is just waiting around for the day when you'll be gone (which they know will be, at most, 8 years from now). Any given federal employee is way more worried about covering their ass and sticking around for the long-term than with any directive you might issue. No one gives a shit about your campaign promises or legacy except you and maybe a few members of your cabinet. It's like being the captain of a boat on the very of mutiny--for 4-8 years.
Any Presidential administration that comes into the federal government promising to combat bureaucracy and duplication is either lying (most likely) or is truly epically deluded. No agency in the federal government is going to let some johnny-come-lately President who's going to be gone in 4-8 years come in and fundamentally change the way they've worked for 60 years or more. Oh sure, they'll TELL him they'll do it. They kiss the ass of their new director (aka his political toadie appointee, also to be gone in 4-8 years). But the most they'll *actually* do is stall, make token gestures, lie, and basically find other ways to run out the clock until the next administration comes in (with a whole new set bullshit streamlining promises). There are long-term professionals in these agencies who've been playing out that scenario since the Carter administration (maybe even some old Nixon/Ford guys).
Bill Clinton said it best (and I'm paraphrasing here) "The most shocking thing I discovered about the Presidency is that people don't do what you say."
"Quick, Kif, transmit a picture of my medal!"
"But they're 20 light years away and wouldn't even know what the medal-"
"No time for semantics, Kif, just do it!"
"Yes sir."
Yeah, now all you have to do is build a pulse plasma engine that can accelerate for several hundred years in deep space without malfunctioning and with little solar power available. As soon as you finish designing that, we'll get right on launching that probe.
Slashdot Mirror
Wow, that is the most eloquent way I've ever heard "MOD parent up!" expressed in my years on /.
They dry my eyes out too bad (especially in my work environment, which is by nature very dry). Maybe I'll look into that LASIK surgery someday.
My mass and characteristics change every second. So which one of me are you referring to?
01010010 01100101 01100001 01101100 00100000 01101101 01100101 01101110 00100000 01110101 01110011 01100101 00100000 01100010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001 00101110
--
Congratulations Fry, you've snagged the perfect girlfriend. Amy's rich, she's probably got other characteristics...
I can remember when plasma HDTV's first came out they cost $15,000-$20,000 and not even most hardcore early-adopting videophiles (incl. myself) could hope to afford them. It's taken over 10 years for those to become mainstream. So early adopter data means nothing. Now, if these things still aren't selling 5 or 6 years from now, then they'll be in trouble.
Yeah, which makes it even WORSE for us because we have to wear those annoying glasses uncomfortably over the glasses we already have. DOUBLE ANNOYANCE!
That's exactly what it sounded like to me. This sound like one of those Duke Nuke'em Forever projects that becomes so hopelessly dysfunctional at the studio level that nothing short of having big daddy come in and shitcan everyone (or just releasing it unfinished) is ever going to get it to gold status. It's not EA's fault that Mythic couldn't get their shit together. What did this guy expect them to do, indulge them forever no matter how many times they had screwed up in the past?
Yeah, but how often do people take their cellphone for granted to the point where we forget it's even there? It's been known for 20 years now that you should mute your cellphone in a theater or meeting, but at least one person in the room still always forgets. The cellphone is so ubiquitous now (and thought of as so innocuous) that even the vast majority of criminals probably don't think of it in terms of being a tracking device and bug for cops. This is especially true if you don't have any reason to suspect you're being tracked (i.e., you're an innocent person, being tracked illegally by the government--as this guy apparently was).
That's a real crowd-pleaser at parties. Personally I like the "writing an executable java program without a main method" trick to impress the ladies myself--that is, if I ever get to meet an actual lady who would even get that trick.
Humans are used to natural numbers because they're simple. But do natural numbers even exist in the real world? For the vast majority of practical purposes, 0.99999 can be thought of as one. But "one" itself is usually just a construct in the real world. There is no such thing as the perfect one of anything. The more precise we get, the more "one" becomes more of a mathematical ideal than a reality. So we spend our entire lives rounding off, because that's practical. We teach kids to count 1, 2, 3, 4... We can't very well teach them to count 0.000001, 0.00001, 0.0001, 0.001... (or any of the infinite variations of "counting" without resorting to natural numbers).
Proving that 0.99999 = 1 is an interesting intellectual exercise. But in the real world, we do it every minute of every day.
In other words--eh, close enough.
Mac press, you've been punked! But seriously, he is looking for work. He's got his SAG card and here are some recent headshots.
Hey, it worked on the Genovese family. Of course, that was a few years ago.
Actually, you're probably wearing an even better FBI tracker on your belt right now. You even paid for it yourself, with two-year contract to a carrier who will gladly allow the FBI to follow you anytime they like. Hell, you've even given them a mic and video camera to use too. Think that sounds all tin-foil hat? Read all about it.
Actually, a vehicle tracking device is pretty crude these days. The tracking devices of choice today are cellphones. With built-in GPS (with easy law enforcement override if you shut it off), and procedures from all the major carriers for law enforcement tracking--it's a no-brainer. And they don't even have to send an agent out to your house. They could probably even find a way to remotely enable the mic to spy on you directly if they really wanted to (I would hope that the carriers would at least resist that one, but I wouldn't bet on it).
This would be true if the Democratic Party weren't so undisciplined. Unlike the Republican Party, the Dems are loaded with blue dogs and hardcore DINO's, making even a Congressional majority pretty useless. And even if they were disciplined, they still represent their own state interests way ahead of the President. So every time the President tries to trim the military or NASA for example, he always catches blowback from Congressmen in states with military bases and NASA contractors/facilities.
And, yes, it applies to Republicans too. The only advantages Bush had were a more disciplined party in Congress and Dick Cheney as a pretty vicious attack dog. But even with that, he couldn't have cleaned house. One of Donald Rumsfeld's early goals was to streamline the military, for example, and that went over like a lead zeppelin.
Won't work on me. My car has a special "white man" transmitter. Being of European heritage, my car was by default equipped with a device that signals to cops not to pull me over, to FBI agents that I'm a good American, and to gated communities that I'm okay to let in. The downside is that the signal has damaged my motor cortex skills, meaning I'm a terrible dancer and even more terrible basketball player. But I do get a 10% discount at participating Cracker Barrel restaurants.
Reagan was only able to do that because the air traffic controllers actually broke a federal law by striking. When they refused his order to return to work, they foolishly made themselves fair game for immediate firing, bypassing all normal federal employee protections.
Most of the professional level federal employees are protected by laws and union contracts (only the director is an at-will employee that the President can hand his walking papers whenever he feels like it). That means you would have to go through Congress, and maybe even the courts, for the changes needed to just start firing people (or zeroing out their budgets). And good luck with that.
Indeed. I propose that we commission a study.
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos.
Yes, but most people assume the President has a lot more power than they actually do. You come in as President, you appoint a new director of agency X, you tell him to do such-and-such at that agency, he says okay, and then he goes off and doesn't do it. Your own cabinet will often lie to you, deceive you, outright ignore you, stall you, etc. And everyone is just waiting around for the day when you'll be gone (which they know will be, at most, 8 years from now). Any given federal employee is way more worried about covering their ass and sticking around for the long-term than with any directive you might issue. No one gives a shit about your campaign promises or legacy except you and maybe a few members of your cabinet. It's like being the captain of a boat on the very of mutiny--for 4-8 years.
Any Presidential administration that comes into the federal government promising to combat bureaucracy and duplication is either lying (most likely) or is truly epically deluded. No agency in the federal government is going to let some johnny-come-lately President who's going to be gone in 4-8 years come in and fundamentally change the way they've worked for 60 years or more. Oh sure, they'll TELL him they'll do it. They kiss the ass of their new director (aka his political toadie appointee, also to be gone in 4-8 years). But the most they'll *actually* do is stall, make token gestures, lie, and basically find other ways to run out the clock until the next administration comes in (with a whole new set bullshit streamlining promises). There are long-term professionals in these agencies who've been playing out that scenario since the Carter administration (maybe even some old Nixon/Ford guys).
Bill Clinton said it best (and I'm paraphrasing here) "The most shocking thing I discovered about the Presidency is that people don't do what you say."
"Quick, Kif, transmit a picture of my medal!" "But they're 20 light years away and wouldn't even know what the medal-" "No time for semantics, Kif, just do it!" "Yes sir."
They clearly lack the meticulous attention to detail that species like dolphins possess.
Yeah, now all you have to do is build a pulse plasma engine that can accelerate for several hundred years in deep space without malfunctioning and with little solar power available. As soon as you finish designing that, we'll get right on launching that probe.