First off, sorry to hear you lost your job. The economy is biting a lot of folks in the ass.
Second, see if you can get an assessment of the nature of the security risk. They are probably show you as a "single point of failure" (ie. exploitable either financially or otherwise).
Third, write a counter proposal to the security consultant's assessment. Be sure to include any achievements, successes, etc. that your time there. It may be too late for this one.
I think that being a "security risk" is only part of the reason you got. Office politics and the economy being what they are, you need to constantly sell yourself to your manager and show the benefits of having someone like you around. Lots of geeks are really terrible about the interpersonal skills and with a title of "Network Security Analyst," you're ripe for being downsized. You're only visable and important to them when they get attacked. They don't alwasys know or understand what you're doing in the background. It's up to you to sell yourself and keep your supervisors and managers up to date on what tasks you are performing and how that benefits the company. Without it, you're just a guy taking up a high salary for doing nothing.
Forget revenge. Forget the other company. Leave your number with your manager and ask if you can use him as a reference. See if you can improve your skills between jobs.
Yeah I'm old. But before there was all of these fancy windowing systems, there was the original UNIX multiplayer shoot-em up game hunt and the original UNIX multiplayer explore-build-techup-destroy game empire.
Hours of entertainment, barely a blip on your network, and hardly a cough on nearly any UNIX box built in the last ten years.
There is no reason to restructure the electrical infrastructure to the level suggested by the article. It would be akin to fitting all homes with their own natural gas turbines to produce electrical energy for themselves. And the natural gas infrastructure itself would need to be upgraded to deal with the massive increase in usage. The analogy fails even more when you consider how creating power differs from ARPAnet and the Internet in general because the physical cost of wiring is so much cheaper and easier to deal with than something potentially deadly such as natural gas or hydrogen.
The better solution is to improve the current infrastructure rather than create an unnecessary secondary infrastructure in order to have distributed power creation.
It's not illegal. So if you throw a game for no good reason, it's perfectly okay. If found out, you'll be fired/lose your scholarship/get kicked from the team/whatever. There is a chance that someone may sue you for breach of contract, but that's a civil trial. You may or may not lose... Mind you, that means you could be libel for all monies noted in the contract, plus any monies determined lost by the school/team/whatever, depending on the vindictiveness of the lawyers.
However, if you did do it for profit (someone paying you), then you're in big trouble. It becomes racketeering (confidence scheme/fraud) if it can be proven that someone who knew of the "fix" either bet or profitted by the outcome of the game. Note that you don't need to bet money in order to "profit" from a game. There are other reasons to do so (make a future game more valuble, devalue team, etc.).
It's much harder to prove single players are "throwing" a game without a paper/money trail. So if Andre Agassi decides to do poorly in a low prize game so he can get an easier seed rating for a future one, it would be nearly impossible to determine. However, if it is found out, his sponsors could sue him for fraud and breach of contract.
If the damn Sims would simply accept paying more taxes, I could build the nuclear plant and maybe get a stadium too. It would make them all happier too!
Sigh. They probably weren't Scuds. Iraq has the right to keep missiles with less than 100km range under the UN resolutions. Plus they had about 75 al-Samaud 2 missles left that were to be destroyed under inspection.
Yah wanna know how you can tell between a 100km range missile falling down on you versus a 50km one? You don't. You run for shelter.
The webcasts will probably not be very tech-savvy for a few good reasons.
1) Human element: In baseball most of the important judgement calls are made by a single person. There has been a push to have this computerized to make a precise judgement(ie. was the pitch a strike or a ball) but this has been successfully countered by the umpires union and a deep desire by those involved to keep the game as "non-technical" as possible. There has been a quest by some to introduce "instant-replay" to the game, but that would just make the game longer and less entertaining. And Entertainment is the goal.
2) Brief instances of excitement, long periods of waiting: If you listen to a baseball game, much of the real action can be compressed into about 10 minutes for three hours of gameplay. Each pitch takes about 2-3 seconds including windup and the longest plays take about 20 seconds. Commericals might take up about 40 minutes. That's over two hours you need to fill with analysis, strategies, stories, league goings-on, and keeping the listener/watcher otherwise entertained. They NEED human broadcasters to fill in the holes because virtual ones would be too hard to create, too expensive to pay for, and far less likely to keep an audience interested.
3) Professionals at play: If you want to see basic animation at work, play a video game. Seeing professionals play the game at a high level is why people pay a premium to attend games and watch them on TV. It's the difference between reading a play, seeing it done by kids, and seeing it done by good actors. You get more from the better experience.
Now don't get me wrong. If there is a game that can clog your webcast with more stats than you ever thought could be generated for a 22 year old rookie, baseball is it. But that isn't the goal of the game, just a result. The goals for Major League Baseball to Entertain and give the viewer/listener an Experience. And, like all good stories, that means putting a human face to it.
It doesn't really matter to them. They are just making a very basic attempt to preserve the broadcasting rights of each team. If you get through, they shrug their shoulders and say "well, we tried". Honestly. It's not really that much of a problem for them.
Almost right on target. Webcasting would not devalue the broadcasting rights, but does violate them. Each team "owns" the broadcasting rights to their home games. That's a LOT of money. The Yankee Corporation get about $1/month for every person subscribed to their basic cable channel, Yankee Entertainment System (YES). MLB cannot broadcast a competing product without violating their contract, EVEN THOUGH IT'S CHEAPER TO WATCH IT ON CABLE. That is, very few people will watch the Yanks in NYC via the MLB webcast, but MLB has to make some effort to insure YES that they are not undercutting them. It's the appearance of preserving the rights of individual teams rather than appear as a "rival" to them.
All advertising will probably be blacked out or replaced with a "filler" screen so there is no legal problems from that end.
The big losers for this will people who would like to watch the game from work within the "banned" radius. The internet radio version of this was great for people trapped in buildings with no reception. Too bad the MLB got involved and let their lawyers loose on the "implications."
It's not the ICBMs that you're worried about for this case. Unless you're Russia, Britain, France, China, or the US, ICBMs take lots of time to fuel up and are sited in a fixed spot for launch. You want this thing to catch IRBMs or SRBMs which can be placed on mobile platforms. And if you are catching ICBMs, you had better be at "war standing" since during the intercept time, you can't determine destination. The other side can say it was a test which was to fall into the Pacific Ocean. Perfectly legal and you're playing the paranoid warmonger.
The SAM threat is still a threat. Even with Prowlers, sufficient fire can render the 747 inoperative during a launch.
And the SRBM is just a capable of hold a NBC weapon as a ICBM or a IRBM. You can cause a target overload at launch time with a few "dummy" missles.
I did think of something else. Not seeing the thermal bloom. Korea has lots of mountains and steep terrain. Somewhat harder to see the initial heat bloom if you're in the wrong spot. Not too sure what sort of problems would occur if you don't get sight it immediately.
From reading your response, I see a disagreement as to usage. I see it as a tactical platform while you see it more of a strategic/operational one. The problem with the strategic/operational view is the same as having the B-52s constantly in the air during the Cold War. Having a squadron of these up and operating near a target continuously is costly and possibly impractical especially with a limited coverage range of a few hundred square miles and on a peacetime footing. If you could sight the thermal bloom and you're in the wrong spot, you'd have no time to intercept. The 747 is not a high stress platform.
As an anti-BM tool, they would work against mobile lauchers in a war setting where you have an idea of where the lauchers are located. In a similar situation with fixed BMs, a few tomahawks or a bombing run would be better solutions.
Of course, something like this is better than nothing.....
Cute idea, but it assumes a lot. Off the top of my head....
1) Clear flyable weather. While you can detect the thermal blooms of launch, you can't rely on that for tracking, thus the need for a ranging laser. Will this work if you've got 5-10k ft of cloud cover to visually confirm the target? How about minor-major turbulance?
2) Total aerial supremancy. As with AWACS, you'll need to dominate the skies to the point where SAMs are not making the plane suddenly jink and miss the shot at the wrong time.
3) Target overload. If there are a "lot" of thermal blooms, how long will it take to determine which one is shooting the real missle? Which is just an fire/explosion on the ground? Recall that Iraq is tasked with destroying 100+ short-range ballistic missles. How do you tell a 200km range missle with a nuke vs. a 50km one with conventional explosives. You have 20 shots to figure it out.
4) Equipment. How long to reload between shots? Fast enough to take a second shot? What sort of stress does this put on the plane and the internal equipment? If you do miss, can you still track the missed target?
5) Limited range. From the description it can cover a few hundred square miles. Say 400 square miles or an area of 20 miles by 20 miles. Expand that by constantly flying large fig-8s and you got maybe an area of 3000 sq. miles covered for about five minutes every hour. Lots of luck tracking down the right five minutes of launch...
If this was fully operational during the 1991 Gulf War, it might have saved a few lives and eased the stress level in Israel and Saudia Arabia, but I doubt it would have gotten more than one or two missles. And this works only on that level. A battlefield defense versus an enemy with some ballistic capability, without significant air support, and limited firing capabilities.
It is a big step forwards though. I'll give them a few years to see if they can miniturize to limited fighter usage. Now THAT would be worthwhile.
After ten years of apprenticeship, Tenno achieved the rank of Zen teacher. One rainy day, he went to visit the famous master Nan-in. When he walked in, the master greeted him with a question, "Did you leave your wooden clogs and umbrella on the porch?"
"Yes," Tenno replied.
"Tell me," the master continued, "did you place your umbrella to the left of your shoes, or to the right?"
Tenno did not know the answer, and realized that he had not yet attained full awareness. So he became Nan-in's apprentice and studied under him for ten more years.
Too late. It came out in 1974 as live action. Hide the polyester, it was scary bad.... Bad enough where I couldn't actually watch one laserdisk worth... I think there was a plot, but I couldn't get that far...
Rupan Sansei: Nenriki Chin Sakusen Lupin III: Strange Psycho-kinetic Strategy
Theatrical release: 1974 (Toei)
Japanese title: Nenriki Chin Sakusen
Comments: This is the live-action version of Lupin III. The actor portraying Lupin wears a white suit and has an "L" tattoo on his chest. The rest of the Lupin cast is in it except for Goemon. Zenigata does not have his trademark hat and works with two assistants.
The largest problem is that there is no time or budget to review and improve the human experience on software products. In the "Skate or Die" world of software development, finishing touches are always set aside for the next version of the product.
Software companies aren't profiting on the fact that their programs were the easiest to use. They make money buy selling their products with shinier chrome and more options than the other guys. Even worse, companies will try to glue on new shiny bits and pieces of bought-out software onto their product and hoping to get it to work. And if they get it out first, they'll get all of the customers who might need those features (and drag in those who were happy with the old one but need to upgrade because the new formats are no longer compatible).
Selling the support contracts makes companies a pretty penny too.
There is VERY little incentive to improve user interfaces or simplifying tasks. Apple has been able to tap into this market from the beginning, but even now is derided by those "in the know" as more toy than tool.
Software engineers are a problem too. The "cool" and "sexy" obscure features of a product appeal to most programmers while the rather mundane problems of fixing bugs and ease of use fall to the wayside.
Even customers are a problem. Management wants to be able to keep tabs and increase production by having new and different reports created and all information tracked. And they are willing to buy software from a different company (with an imcompatible format) to get that information. Plus demands for customization increases the level of task obscurity. Oh, and if they don't spend the money for the upgrade, they lose the money in next year's budget.
If you've read about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, then you know of the tremendous radiation sickness and death caused after the nuclear explosion. A large number of those who weren't killed in the initial blast died within the next two years to extreme exposure to radiation. There were a huge number of wounded at Port Chicago and no evidence or stories similar to those that came from Japan.
The whole nuclear theory is fairly bogus and insulting to the real tragedy.
For a more historical view, try the
Port Chicago Mutiny
website.
Re:Roulette baiting Re:Hacking Roulette?
on
Net Vegas
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· Score: 2, Interesting
The casino wins in roulette if you put money down on the table and it has a reasonable chance of gettting it.
There are two ways displays work. First, it attracts casual gambling by those who might be walking by, see the displayed trend, and put money down because they feel "lucky" betting for/against the trend. Supermarkets call this an impulse buy.
Second, if you have a roulette player there who MIGHT bet trends, he/she will risk more money during trends even though that is completely illogical. Again, the concept of "luck."
The 0 and 00 do make the core of the money for the casino. And it makes even more if there is more money on the table when a "trend" stops. There is a 1/29 chance for a big win for the casino, and a smaller win if the trends stops against the way the majority of the players bet. The casinos lose if trends last a long period of time (ie. anything that is highly improbable).
Roulette baiting Re:Hacking Roulette?
on
Net Vegas
·
· Score: 1
Actually, the casinos have baited the roulette tables. These days roulette tables have a display showing the last 20 numbers that have come up. Anyone who knows odds understands that the past numbers don't matter, but on a psychological level, people will react to that display, betting for a trend or against a trend, depending on the gambler. Either way, it means more money on the table and more possible money for the casino.
Of course, the American roulette tables started the whole added percentage thing by adding a "00" to the European version. It's all about the small percentages...
Re:Player Tracking Technologies
on
Net Vegas
·
· Score: 1
Sigh. The recycler/scavanger companies charge the city to pick up your stuff. The city charges you.
BUT if the scavanger doesn't pick up your recyclables, then the garbage company does and tosses into a landfill. Figuring folks might recycle 30% of their garbage, the city (and you) save 30% off of the landfill fee. Why is that important? Because landfills cost money, and the further the landfill is, the more it costs. And the faster you fill the landfill, the sooner it closes and they have to build another one, most likely farther away.
So recycling means you're not making new landfills further away that are costing you more money to dump your trash.
And by recycling your computer and monitor, you don't have to pay for toxic waste cleanup after the lead and other chemicals leech into the ground.
This is bogus. You want to know why the tech economy sucks right now? Because rich VCs couldn't figure out that people would rather go out and buy a 50 pound bag of dog food instead of having it delivered even if it saved them a buck. Having a lot of little tech folks sitting around providing service and being collectively being paid about a quarter of what the CEO is making (his stock options not included) is not the problem. Having the CEO buying a personal jet as a "business expense" is the problem.
Americans have been forcefed the idea of faster, harder, cheaper when smarter is a better idea.
Is it better to have a client/customer waiting on the phone for 30 minutes because you've decided to cut your staff? What if it is a time-critical product? Do folks on the other side of the world deserve the same sort of response time/treatment as those in your timezone? What happens to your lowly paid staff who are on the phone now nearly full time? Can your find experienced people who can troubleshoot your problems that will do a graveyard shift on the cheap? How long will they stick around?
Not that the aforenamed example is the best use of company resources, it could be used in a smarter fashion. But the question is it okay for folks to play games during business hours, especially if they are stuck in a spot where they are doing that, or nothing at all.
Hell, yeah. If it keeps them up and the calls get answered and it doesn't interfere with work in general. I'd rather have folks playing games than surfing porn.
Still company information. If they gave it up willingly, there is not much you can do about it. The workplace is one of the worst places for "privacy rights." Your phone calls are barely private, just about everything else is not. Bathrooms seem to be about the only safe place from cameras. Your personal bag and wallet/purse may be safe, but very little else.
Decent AI is the biggest problem. Not only for enemy reactions, but also for your own forces. In a game, losing a member of your squad is a slight inconvience. Having someone you know get shot or killed is a wholly different situation. Plus there is the problem of instant and total knowledge in gameplay. You normally know where every one of your guys are and what their status is. Real life is nowhere near as nice about this.
In addition, the enemy AI would have to be able to constantly outthink a human player who has gone outside the parameters of the scenario (which is why chess masters can defeat most programs/machines, if they realize they are playing a computer). If the human player does something unexpected, can the AI react properly or does each new idea have to be programmed in. Personally, I'd opt for a PvP version where more experienced officers who know the game and terrain play against trainees (akin to the USAF's Aggressor training).
There are many problems to overcome with a land-based squad leader type game. Line-of-sight, communication, accurate reflections of both sides forces, command and control, dealing with casulties, dealing with individuals as individuals and not as robots. Everything on the market now makes for a nice game, but is nowhere close to what real combat is about.
All that said, I'd love a chance to play this sucka if they ever put it to market.....
Different aspect, but the same concept. Very troubling, but not very surprising. Billions of dollars at stake and lots of military guys who will retire out to contractor jobs if this gets past Congress. -S. Louie
Slashdot Mirror
First off, sorry to hear you lost your job. The economy is biting a lot of folks in the ass.
Second, see if you can get an assessment of the nature of the security risk. They are probably show you as a "single point of failure" (ie. exploitable either financially or otherwise).
Third, write a counter proposal to the security consultant's assessment. Be sure to include any achievements, successes, etc. that your time there. It may be too late for this one.
I think that being a "security risk" is only part of the reason you got. Office politics and the economy being what they are, you need to constantly sell yourself to your manager and show the benefits of having someone like you around. Lots of geeks are really terrible about the interpersonal skills and with a title of "Network Security Analyst," you're ripe for being downsized. You're only visable and important to them when they get attacked. They don't alwasys know or understand what you're doing in the background. It's up to you to sell yourself and keep your supervisors and managers up to date on what tasks you are performing and how that benefits the company. Without it, you're just a guy taking up a high salary for doing nothing.
Forget revenge. Forget the other company. Leave your number with your manager and ask if you can use him as a reference. See if you can improve your skills between jobs.
Remember this experience and build on it.
Best of luck.
Yeah I'm old. But before there was all of these fancy windowing systems, there was the original UNIX multiplayer shoot-em up game hunt and the original UNIX multiplayer explore-build-techup-destroy game empire.
Hours of entertainment, barely a blip on your network, and hardly a cough on nearly any UNIX box built in the last ten years.
Maybe a nice blitz empire game....
There is no reason to restructure the electrical infrastructure to the level suggested by the article. It would be akin to fitting all homes with their own natural gas turbines to produce electrical energy for themselves. And the natural gas infrastructure itself would need to be upgraded to deal with the massive increase in usage. The analogy fails even more when you consider how creating power differs from ARPAnet and the Internet in general because the physical cost of wiring is so much cheaper and easier to deal with than something potentially deadly such as natural gas or hydrogen.
The better solution is to improve the current infrastructure rather than create an unnecessary secondary infrastructure in order to have distributed power creation.
It's not illegal. So if you throw a game for no good reason, it's perfectly okay. If found out, you'll be fired/lose your scholarship/get kicked from the team/whatever. There is a chance that someone may sue you for breach of contract, but that's a civil trial. You may or may not lose... Mind you, that means you could be libel for all monies noted in the contract, plus any monies determined lost by the school/team/whatever, depending on the vindictiveness of the lawyers.
However, if you did do it for profit (someone paying you), then you're in big trouble. It becomes racketeering (confidence scheme/fraud) if it can be proven that someone who knew of the "fix" either bet or profitted by the outcome of the game. Note that you don't need to bet money in order to "profit" from a game. There are other reasons to do so (make a future game more valuble, devalue team, etc.).
It's much harder to prove single players are "throwing" a game without a paper/money trail. So if Andre Agassi decides to do poorly in a low prize game so he can get an easier seed rating for a future one, it would be nearly impossible to determine. However, if it is found out, his sponsors could sue him for fraud and breach of contract.
Fun stuff eh?
If the damn Sims would simply accept paying more taxes, I could build the nuclear plant and maybe get a stadium too. It would make them all happier too!
Why Is My Power Plant Aging So Quickly?
Hmm. Night approaches....
Why Am I Getting Riots?
Sigh. They probably weren't Scuds. Iraq has the right to keep missiles with less than 100km range under the UN resolutions. Plus they had about 75 al-Samaud 2 missles left that were to be destroyed under inspection.
Yah wanna know how you can tell between a 100km range missile falling down on you versus a 50km one? You don't. You run for shelter.
The webcasts will probably not be very tech-savvy for a few good reasons.
1) Human element: In baseball most of the important judgement calls are made by a single person. There has been a push to have this computerized to make a precise judgement(ie. was the pitch a strike or a ball) but this has been successfully countered by the umpires union and a deep desire by those involved to keep the game as "non-technical" as possible. There has been a quest by some to introduce "instant-replay" to the game, but that would just make the game longer and less entertaining. And Entertainment is the goal.
2) Brief instances of excitement, long periods of waiting: If you listen to a baseball game, much of the real action can be compressed into about 10 minutes for three hours of gameplay. Each pitch takes about 2-3 seconds including windup and the longest plays take about 20 seconds. Commericals might take up about 40 minutes. That's over two hours you need to fill with analysis, strategies, stories, league goings-on, and keeping the listener/watcher otherwise entertained. They NEED human broadcasters to fill in the holes because virtual ones would be too hard to create, too expensive to pay for, and far less likely to keep an audience interested.
3) Professionals at play: If you want to see basic animation at work, play a video game. Seeing professionals play the game at a high level is why people pay a premium to attend games and watch them on TV. It's the difference between reading a play, seeing it done by kids, and seeing it done by good actors. You get more from the better experience.
Now don't get me wrong. If there is a game that can clog your webcast with more stats than you ever thought could be generated for a 22 year old rookie, baseball is it. But that isn't the goal of the game, just a result. The goals for Major League Baseball to Entertain and give the viewer/listener an Experience. And, like all good stories, that means putting a human face to it.
It doesn't really matter to them. They are just making a very basic attempt to preserve the broadcasting rights of each team. If you get through, they shrug their shoulders and say "well, we tried". Honestly. It's not really that much of a problem for them.
Almost right on target. Webcasting would not devalue the broadcasting rights, but does violate them. Each team "owns" the broadcasting rights to their home games. That's a LOT of money. The Yankee Corporation get about $1/month for every person subscribed to their basic cable channel, Yankee Entertainment System (YES). MLB cannot broadcast a competing product without violating their contract, EVEN THOUGH IT'S CHEAPER TO WATCH IT ON CABLE. That is, very few people will watch the Yanks in NYC via the MLB webcast, but MLB has to make some effort to insure YES that they are not undercutting them. It's the appearance of preserving the rights of individual teams rather than appear as a "rival" to them.
All advertising will probably be blacked out or replaced with a "filler" screen so there is no legal problems from that end.
The big losers for this will people who would like to watch the game from work within the "banned" radius. The internet radio version of this was great for people trapped in buildings with no reception. Too bad the MLB got involved and let their lawyers loose on the "implications."
It's not the ICBMs that you're worried about for this case. Unless you're Russia, Britain, France, China, or the US, ICBMs take lots of time to fuel up and are sited in a fixed spot for launch. You want this thing to catch IRBMs or SRBMs which can be placed on mobile platforms. And if you are catching ICBMs, you had better be at "war standing" since during the intercept time, you can't determine destination. The other side can say it was a test which was to fall into the Pacific Ocean. Perfectly legal and you're playing the paranoid warmonger.
The SAM threat is still a threat. Even with Prowlers, sufficient fire can render the 747 inoperative during a launch.
And the SRBM is just a capable of hold a NBC weapon as a ICBM or a IRBM. You can cause a target overload at launch time with a few "dummy" missles.
I did think of something else. Not seeing the thermal bloom. Korea has lots of mountains and steep terrain. Somewhat harder to see the initial heat bloom if you're in the wrong spot. Not too sure what sort of problems would occur if you don't get sight it immediately.
From reading your response, I see a disagreement as to usage. I see it as a tactical platform while you see it more of a strategic/operational one. The problem with the strategic/operational view is the same as having the B-52s constantly in the air during the Cold War. Having a squadron of these up and operating near a target continuously is costly and possibly impractical especially with a limited coverage range of a few hundred square miles and on a peacetime footing. If you could sight the thermal bloom and you're in the wrong spot, you'd have no time to intercept. The 747 is not a high stress platform.
As an anti-BM tool, they would work against mobile lauchers in a war setting where you have an idea of where the lauchers are located. In a similar situation with fixed BMs, a few tomahawks or a bombing run would be better solutions.
Of course, something like this is better than nothing.....
Cute idea, but it assumes a lot. Off the top of my head....
1) Clear flyable weather. While you can detect the thermal blooms of launch, you can't rely on that for tracking, thus the need for a ranging laser. Will this work if you've got 5-10k ft of cloud cover to visually confirm the target? How about minor-major turbulance?
2) Total aerial supremancy. As with AWACS, you'll need to dominate the skies to the point where SAMs are not making the plane suddenly jink and miss the shot at the wrong time.
3) Target overload. If there are a "lot" of thermal blooms, how long will it take to determine which one is shooting the real missle? Which is just an fire/explosion on the ground? Recall that Iraq is tasked with destroying 100+ short-range ballistic missles. How do you tell a 200km range missle with a nuke vs. a 50km one with conventional explosives. You have 20 shots to figure it out.
4) Equipment. How long to reload between shots? Fast enough to take a second shot? What sort of stress does this put on the plane and the internal equipment? If you do miss, can you still track the missed target?
5) Limited range. From the description it can cover a few hundred square miles. Say 400 square miles or an area of 20 miles by 20 miles. Expand that by constantly flying large fig-8s and you got maybe an area of 3000 sq. miles covered for about five minutes every hour. Lots of luck tracking down the right five minutes of launch...
If this was fully operational during the 1991 Gulf War, it might have saved a few lives and eased the stress level in Israel and Saudia Arabia, but I doubt it would have gotten more than one or two missles. And this works only on that level. A battlefield defense versus an enemy with some ballistic capability, without significant air support, and limited firing capabilities.
It is a big step forwards though. I'll give them a few years to see if they can miniturize to limited fighter usage. Now THAT would be worthwhile.
After ten years of apprenticeship, Tenno achieved the rank of Zen teacher. One rainy day, he went to visit the famous master Nan-in. When he walked in, the master greeted him with a question, "Did you leave your wooden clogs and umbrella on the porch?"
"Yes," Tenno replied.
"Tell me," the master continued, "did you place your umbrella to the left of your shoes, or to the right?"
Tenno did not know the answer, and realized that he had not yet attained full awareness. So he became Nan-in's apprentice and studied under him for ten more years.
That is why gurus rejoice a good security book.
Too late. It came out in 1974 as live action. Hide the polyester, it was scary bad.... Bad enough where I couldn't actually watch one laserdisk worth... I think there was a plot, but I couldn't get that far...
Rupan Sansei: Nenriki Chin Sakusen
Lupin III: Strange Psycho-kinetic Strategy
Theatrical release: 1974 (Toei)
Japanese title: Nenriki Chin Sakusen
Comments: This is the live-action version of Lupin III. The actor portraying Lupin wears a white suit and has an "L" tattoo on his chest. The rest of the Lupin cast is in it except for Goemon. Zenigata does not have his trademark hat and works with two assistants.
The largest problem is that there is no time or budget to review and improve the human experience on software products. In the "Skate or Die" world of software development, finishing touches are always set aside for the next version of the product.
Software companies aren't profiting on the fact that their programs were the easiest to use. They make money buy selling their products with shinier chrome and more options than the other guys. Even worse, companies will try to glue on new shiny bits and pieces of bought-out software onto their product and hoping to get it to work. And if they get it out first, they'll get all of the customers who might need those features (and drag in those who were happy with the old one but need to upgrade because the new formats are no longer compatible).
Selling the support contracts makes companies a pretty penny too.
There is VERY little incentive to improve user interfaces or simplifying tasks. Apple has been able to tap into this market from the beginning, but even now is derided by those "in the know" as more toy than tool.
Software engineers are a problem too. The "cool" and "sexy" obscure features of a product appeal to most programmers while the rather mundane problems of fixing bugs and ease of use fall to the wayside.
Even customers are a problem. Management wants to be able to keep tabs and increase production by having new and different reports created and all information tracked. And they are willing to buy software from a different company (with an imcompatible format) to get that information. Plus demands for customization increases the level of task obscurity. Oh, and if they don't spend the money for the upgrade, they lose the money in next year's budget.
It's insanity.
The whole nuclear theory is fairly bogus and insulting to the real tragedy. For a more historical view, try the Port Chicago Mutiny website.
The casino wins in roulette if you put money down on the table and it has a reasonable chance of gettting it.
There are two ways displays work. First, it attracts casual gambling by those who might be walking by, see the displayed trend, and put money down because they feel "lucky" betting for/against the trend. Supermarkets call this an impulse buy.
Second, if you have a roulette player there who MIGHT bet trends, he/she will risk more money during trends even though that is completely illogical. Again, the concept of "luck."
The 0 and 00 do make the core of the money for the casino. And it makes even more if there is more money on the table when a "trend" stops. There is a 1/29 chance for a big win for the casino, and a smaller win if the trends stops against the way the majority of the players bet. The casinos lose
if trends last a long period of time (ie. anything that is highly improbable).
Actually, the casinos have baited the roulette tables. These days roulette tables have a display showing the last 20 numbers that have come up. Anyone who knows odds understands that the past numbers don't matter, but on a psychological level, people will react to that display, betting for a trend or against a trend, depending on the gambler. Either way, it means more money on the table and more possible money for the casino.
Of course, the American roulette tables started the whole added percentage thing by adding a "00" to the European version. It's all about the small percentages...
The company you are thinking of exists already.
http://www.acresgaming.com/
Sigh. The recycler/scavanger companies charge the city to pick up your stuff. The city charges you.
BUT if the scavanger doesn't pick up your recyclables, then the garbage company does and tosses into a landfill. Figuring folks might recycle 30% of their garbage, the city (and you) save 30% off of the landfill fee. Why is that important? Because landfills cost money, and the further the landfill is, the more it costs. And the faster you fill the landfill, the sooner it closes and they have to build another one, most likely farther away.
So recycling means you're not making new landfills further away that are costing you more money to dump your trash.
And by recycling your computer and monitor, you don't have to pay for toxic waste cleanup after the lead and other chemicals leech into the ground.
This is bogus. You want to know why the tech economy sucks right now? Because rich VCs couldn't figure out that people would rather go out and buy a 50 pound bag of dog food instead of having it delivered even if it saved them a buck. Having a lot of little tech folks sitting around providing service and being collectively being paid about a quarter of what the CEO is making (his stock options not included) is not the problem. Having the CEO buying a personal jet as a "business expense" is the problem.
Americans have been forcefed the idea of faster, harder, cheaper when smarter is a better idea.
Is it better to have a client/customer waiting on the phone for 30 minutes because you've decided to cut your staff? What if it is a time-critical product? Do folks on the other side of the world deserve the same sort of response time/treatment as those in your timezone? What happens to your lowly paid staff who are on the phone now nearly full time? Can your find experienced people who can troubleshoot your problems that will do a graveyard shift on the cheap? How long will they stick around?
Not that the aforenamed example is the best use of company resources, it could be used in a smarter fashion. But the question is it okay for folks to play games during business hours, especially if they are stuck in a spot where they are doing that, or nothing at all.
Hell, yeah. If it keeps them up and the calls get answered and it doesn't interfere with work in general. I'd rather have folks playing games than surfing porn.
Still company information. If they gave it up willingly, there is not much you can do about it. The workplace is one of the worst places for "privacy rights." Your phone calls are barely private, just about everything else is not. Bathrooms seem to be about the only safe place from cameras. Your personal bag and wallet/purse may be safe, but very little else.
Welcome to the working world.
Decent AI is the biggest problem. Not only for enemy reactions, but also for your own forces. In a game, losing a member of your squad is a slight inconvience. Having someone you know get shot or killed is a wholly different situation. Plus there is the problem of instant and total knowledge in gameplay. You normally know where every one of your guys are and what their status is. Real life is nowhere near as nice about this.
In addition, the enemy AI would have to be able to constantly outthink a human player who has gone outside the parameters of the scenario (which is why chess masters can defeat most programs/machines, if they realize they are playing a computer). If the human player does something unexpected, can the AI react properly or does each new idea have to be programmed in. Personally, I'd opt for a PvP version where more experienced officers who know the game and terrain play against trainees (akin to the USAF's Aggressor training).
There are many problems to overcome with a land-based squad leader type game. Line-of-sight, communication, accurate reflections of both sides forces, command and control, dealing with casulties, dealing with individuals as individuals and not as robots. Everything on the market now makes for a nice game, but is nowhere close to what real combat is about.
All that said, I'd love a chance to play this sucka if they ever put it to market.....
It becomes possible mail fraud if they don't deliver within the time alloted and they don't notify of delays or offer a full refund.
o me .htm
For details and to file a complaint:
http://www.usps.com/postalinspectors/fraud/welc
Different aspect, but the same concept. Very troubling, but not very surprising. Billions of dollars at stake and lots of military guys who will retire out to contractor jobs if this gets past Congress.
-S. Louie
I demand satisfaction! Or at least a better picture.
-S. Louie