None of that matters to the definition of a robot, an electronic arrangement which makes some of its own decisions and reacts to some stimuli.
By that definition the night light in the bathroom is a robot, and so is the coffee maker. I'm surrounded by robots.
There is no reasonable definition under which a cruise missile is not a killer robot.
There plenty of definitions for which it is. But usually when people talk of robots their is some "human-like quality". The Ford assembly robots, and cruise missile robots task complexity is still pretty simple... assembly robots automate tedious repetitive assembly line work, cruise missles for all their complexity have a very simple task... proceed to X, explode. Sure they are robots, but then, technically so is a microwave.
Robotic drones that patrol about, identify targets, kill them, and then move on, are another evolutionary step in robot task complexity towards human-like.
they look the same, the corners aren't rounded is the only difference; not sure if that looks 'crappier' or not. looking at them side by side i think 7 basic looks worse than 8 to be honest, but aesthetics are subjective.
I still remember when XP was berated mercilessly here for its "green start menu button" and adding stuff to the start menu and called the worst thing ever. And now many of the same people are clinging to it saying its greatest thing Microsoft ever made.
All I've learned from that is that some people are just not open to change.
Lol, good call. I should have found a screenshot just showing some generic Office and Browser windows. The OS-specific version of explorer is definitely another giveaway.
So, tell me how a cruise missile that's autonomously guiding itself via GPS or TERCOM toward a target after being launched isn't already a "killer robot"?
The cruise missile is fired by a human. The cruise missile's target is set at launch. The cruise missile did not choose to launch, nor did it choose its target.
It was commanded to launch, yes, but isn't a robot that's being commanded to head out on a mission where it could kill just being given a longer lifetime to act?
Its being given decision making capabilities. It is choosing it's targets, and choosing to fire at them. Its worlds apart.
but how is this different from existing CAPTOR mines that can ignore one type of ship and go after another?
Yeah, its not that different. Its less controversial because it specifically targets submarines, and its deployed in an place that is otherwise inhospitable to humans. So there's no impending "I was minding my own business and got attacked by a captor mine." You've got to be in a submarine in a warzone. Or as is the case with all "mine" tech, "former warzone".
And its also worth pointing out that mines are controversial in their own right, even the dumb mines precisely because they ALSO kill indiscriminately without human decision, often years later when the war is over.
I think this Pandora's box has already been open for a long time.
When it comes to mines the box is already open... yes... but a lot of people are trying to close it. The focus is on anti-personnel mines since those are the most likely to take out innocents... and its high profile and highly visible.
It would be pretty interesting (tragic) if one day a future scientisfic or tourist expedition gets blown up by a long forgotten CAPTOR style mine while on a research/tourist submarine or submersible not programmed on its 'friendlies list', or if an ailing but otherwise friendly vessel gets taken out because it doesn't sound right.
Even if the door is open, that doesn't mean its too late to try and fix it.
That aside... the Wii U's far from dead. If anything I'd say it hasn't even lived yet. What it needs are games, first party, be they classic IPs or new ones. It's a game console, guys. Give us some good games and you can take all my money.
Agreed. Its having a similar start as the 3DS did. Its only real weakness is the dearth of good games. Even looking through what's coming out, its a bit weak.
I've got one, and the family like it a lot for what it is. We've got nintendoland, super mario, skylanders giants, batman, and lego city undercover.
I'm looking forward to the DLC update to mario "New Super Luigi U", along with Pikman 3. I know the kids will want the next skylanders installment which has been announced along with Yarn Yoshi, given how much they liked the Kirby yarn title for the Wii.
The re-release of Windwaker in HD will be great for players who missed Windwaker on Gamecube, but I'm not sure I'd buy it myself having already finished the original.
There is also another new Zelda title in the works, that will likely be a must-buy for me.
If you skipped the Wii the Wii-U is good value, being backwards compatible. But otherwise, its still a bit weak.
I'd love to see a new Fire Emblem strategy game, or a BattleToads. Could do some great stuff with the touch screen controller there. The console lacks a good Kart racing game , ssbb title. FZero's been away for a while too now. And another good metroid outing is due. I'm hoping the planned Eternal Darkness "spiritual successor" shows up as well.
Do you have any idea at all at just how much effort Nintendo has put in towards making their online interactions kid-safe? It actually blows my mind.
The new 'social area' on the home screen, lets you post questions, comments, and even freehand doodles... and they pop up on other peoples wii-u.
Any normal person would have expected it to be just a constant stream of pictures of cocks and cleverly slightly obfuscated vulgarity... but its not. I don't know how they did it, and its actually pretty impressive. Props to N for that.
But I do feel sorry for the guy whose job it is to reject submitted cock doodles all day though.
Windows used to be highly customizable, but Win8 virtually eliminates this.
You couldn't put the old start button in the middle of the taskbar, or resize it in windows 7, and you still can't in 8. You could change it's colors when it popped up, change what's pinned on it and the order of some of things, and you can do all that with the new one too.
You are seriously overstating the case.
. Partly it's due to marketing and partly due to evil "UI experts" who believe one size should fit all and that options are bad.
Its mostly its due to the fact that windows wants the core operating system to be operable by touch.
And behond that the UI guys were right. The old start menu was stupid. A small non-resizable POPUP window containing a huge deep heirarchy of folders is beyond poor.
There ARE a few widgets and functions that the start menu did well. Most of them are more than adequately served by defining a toolbar.
The ONLY thing missing from windows 8 is a good small desktop search box. That's it. That's pretty much the entirety of the "travesty" of the windows 8 start menu debacle.
There's a few other complaints...such as hot corners, but really its nowhere near as bad as somple people have made out.
What Microsoft should be doing on the desktop is making the whole thing skinnable and customizable with XAML
I disagree. If you want to do that, Linux has more window managers and widgets and effects to choose from than you'll ever want. After you play around with them for a few years (because it will take that long to just try most of them out with any sort of depth), while you may find a setup that fits you like a glove you'll come to see its drawbacks too... not least that it took you a few years.
Then there is also the issue that documentation is impossible to write, and support is impossible to provide, things break unexpectedly, and so on. And that the users least qualified to completely reskin their system are the ones most likely to have done it. My mother in law downloaded something that made her pc sort of resemble OSX (new icon sets, cursors, backgrounds, task bar layout, etc I'm sure you've seen them out there); she was lost beyond hope, and couldn't even figure out how to undo it. She was able to limp along a bit could still read her email and browse the web... until she bought a new printer. Can you imagine what the support call to the poor saps at HP would have been like?:p
That's when I got involved, cleaned it out, restored it to default and suggested she not customize it.
Two weeks later she'd replaced all her cursors and had custom sounds effects that she couldn't figure out how to get rid of.
End result: user blames Windows for being terrible.
You mean, besides the ugly-as-sin window controls that look like a wireframe work in progress rather than a finished product?
That's less of a tell than it could be. Its better looking than Windows 7 basic,... really it pretty much IS Windows 7 basic without rounded corners, and flat close/minimize/restore boxes.
Fair enough, it's also a Windows 8 tell, but less so since its just theme, and there are plenty of windows 8 themes for Windows 7... but they all retain a start button. (albeit with the monochrome perspective logo) which i assume is what it will be in 8.1 too. At which point, 8.1 will be indistinguisable from someone using 7 with an 8 skin. (at least until they open the start screen or control panels etc.)
Other companies do just need the equal security of SSL and have their CRM/ERP/ETC as a web application. That really removes a lot of management overhead. VPN client and remote desktop replaced with web browser. Same security, less work.
A web application is not a substitute for all but the simplest scenarios.
The only case when you need extra security you really need end to end security. Tamper-proof bios, firmware and operating system. That means you need to run ChromeOS which are the only OS that currently have end-to-end security.
On any single monitor, more than two applications can be run simultaneously. Instead of Windows 8's fixed split, where one application gets 320 pixels and the other application gets the rest, the division between apps will be variable. It'll also be possible to have multiple windows from a single app so that, for example, two browser windows can be opened side-by-side
What? That's applies strictly to metro apps. And I don't know anybody who uses those on a desktop, except for maybe the Netflix one.
What most of us wanted back was the Start menu, not just the Start button.
You been modded up by people who support you, and that's fine.
But all I wanted was the start button instead of having to use a hotcorner. That was counter intuitive. Most of the time I already use the win key because, I already liked the start screen better as a place to search for infrequently used apps. Returning the old start menu would have been a real step backwards and I'm glad MS stuck to their guns on this one.
What do you think you need the start menu for, that a small pop-up non-resizable window makes sense for?
Frequently used applications? Desktop short cuts, pinned apps, pinned folders, and for power users custom start menu should have you more than covered.
The Windows 7 search box is the only thing I even slightly miss on Windows 8.
The search on the start screen is fine if I'm really going to be looking for something that I don't really know what I'm looking for exactly. Then a full screen interface makes a lot mroe sense than the a small non-resizable popup.
But for quickly searching for and launching things I do know the name of... mstsc, cmd, gpedit, the old start menu search makes more sense.
And really what i want is an OSX style spotlight widget. And there are a number of decent 3rd party options -- still I think Windows should have something built in.
My only other real complaint about windows 8 is hot corners on the desktop, being non-optional. I dislike hot corners.
And to offset the complaints there are several things win8 does better. Its faster. Client hyper-V, the new task manager, etc.
a crypto nerd will talk about a search space, there's nothing physically stopping the police from reading the data other than the vast search space of possible keys.
Comparing it to a search space is pretty interesting.
If the police suspect you buried a body in the desert, there's nothing physically stopping the police from finding it, other than the vast search space.
If they have evidence its somewhere reasonably specific they can go looking, but otherwise the search space is too big.
If the police can coerce you to reveal a password the believe you have, so they don't have to search the key space, why not coerce you to reveal the location of a body they believe you know the location of so they don't have to search the desert?
How is one fundamentally different from the other?
Bottom line - the 5th guarantees that you do not have to provide ANY EVIDENCE to be used against you.
So a warrant for a DNA sample or fingerprint?
Look, I agree with you here, but you've overstated the case. The password itself is 'testimony' which is protected by 5th... being told to enter the password unobserved to decrypt is a much greyer area. I think it should be protected. I'm not confident it will be.
you're spending more on licensing for NAC and VDI/RDP/ICA.
Unless you aren't.
Many companies have an outbound sales force. The use a VPN + virtual infrastructure for laptops to access email email, access to the CRM, point of sale/sales quote system, and intranet resources. BYOD vs company hardware is a wash for licensing here.
You also need to amp up the local tier1/2 support because now without standards they're going to be spending more time dealing with more types of machines. Any gains made by standardization will be utterly destroyed.
Definitely true to a point.
In practice, for a lot of companies, they do end up ahead. Employees tend to treat the units better. There's no hassle with recovery after an employee leaves. They frequently tend to buy better hardware for themselves than corporate budgets would spring for. Insurance, droppage, spillage, etc is eliminated.
Ditto for smart phones -- if you don't have or need particularly stringent policies in place for email; and you already are just using some generic hosted exchange, or gmail hosting, or zimbra hosting or whatever then byod gets a lot cheaper fast.
You save on hardware, you save on support. Its your device, if the speaker stops working, or its dropping too many calls, go get yourself a new one. You don't have to manage their airtime packages and data usage. Or bill them, or monitor them. Typically you just give them a $X phone service allowance, and your done.
Not every business is paranoid about 'customer health and financial information leaking'. The sales guys knocking on doors trying to get you have their company fix your companies elevator, wash your companies buildings windows, do your companies landscaping, do the HVAC, do building envelope testing for water penetration, supply you with printer toner...
You don't always have to micromanage their devices. Sometimes you do, and then BYOD makes no sense, for all the reasons you state... but sometimes you just don't.
Fair enough on the distinction between what you meant by strong and weak.
But this 'weakness' you ascribe to them isn't necessarily resolved by 'fighting back' especially if you are over-matched. If part of their psyche is to deal with their sense of powerlessness over something else in their life by overpowering you -- then as long as they can do that they will. Fighting back, if you don't win, just reinforces their bullying you as an outlet to regain a feeling of power over something.
Remember they selected you to bully because they think they CAN control you. And while everyone loves the fairy tale ending where the smaller kid learns karate and fights back and the bully retreats and leaves him alone... in the real world they just as often, if not most of the time, get their ass kicked by the bully when they try to fight back. As you said, the bully is physically stronger, chose his victom precisely because he is weaker, and perhaps, as you noted he even has a psyhchological need for this power over his victim. He'll fight to keep it and the odds in a fight are heavily stacked in his favor.
"After cell death, enzymes start to break down the bonds between the nucleotides that form the backbone of DNA, and micro-organisms speed the decay. In the long run, however, reactions with water are thought to be responsible for most bond degradation. Groundwater is almost ubiquitous, so DNA in buried bone samples should, in theory, degrade at a set rate."
So, that 'half life' is for buried bones in fairly specific situations. It doesn't apply everywhere.
Best part of all, is that story you linked to has its own related stories, and the first link is another story where they recovered DNA from 19,000 year old eggshells.
The second link is a story about sequencing the DNA from 100,000+ year old polar bears. Where the 'cold DRY' environment allows DNA to be preserved.
And if you are that 120 bookish loner, go take some karate lessons, or go to a gym and take some boxing/muy tai classes.
The awkward 120lb bookish loaner is going to sign up for karate and boxing? What part of "awkward bookish loner" do you not get? He likes to read. He avoids sports. He's not much good at sports. And even if he forces himself to take karate he's not going to be particularly good at it. Meanwhile the bully is on the school football team and the school wrestling team, and unlike his victim he is good at it. If you think a few karate lessons are going to level the playing field you've got rocks in your head.
break his nose and I guarantee you he will stop bullying you
When you mentioned a broken nose that reminded me of something. My brother in-law (who of course wasn't at the time) got into a fight with bullies as a teen. They jumped him on the way home from school and he fought back, and they broke his nose. Now what? What happens if you fight back and they hurt you even worse? What happens if they break your nose instead?
He got a bit of reprieve after that because the police got involved, charges were laid, it went to court, etc. So the overt physical attacks dropped off but the verbal and social tactics persisted along with passive physical torment (blocking his movement, cutting in front, etc.)
Bullies are weak. If they weren't, they wouldn't be bullying people.
That isn't true. Or even logical. Bullies are frequently strong, or popular, or both. The idea that strong or popular people wouldn't be bullies is idiotic.
Because on a basic level, that bully in high school is no different than that crappy boss or manager everyone either knows or hears stories about.
Its entirely different. If I were to find myself in a job where I was ostracized and nobody liked me and the boss was a giant bully... I'd just quit and get a different job, and I'd never see those people again. I'd find a job where I got along with with people.
Kids in school have a lot less freedom to choose who they associate with.
Sure, the awkward 120lb bookish loner is going to beat up the 4 180lb jocks who literally walk all over him.
Sometimes you can stand up to the bullys. Sometimes not.
Teach children to have self esteem and know that what other people think doesn't really matter, and nothing a bully does can affect them.
And you are back in your ivory tower.
If bullies know that you will fight back or that they have no power over you, they will move on.
Yeah. Sure. If one has to deal with the wimpiest bullies going. Their are other ones out there, ones that don't care if you fight back because they'll kick your ass. And you can't take away their 'power' over you, because its real. They'll arbitrarily decide when you enter a room, when you leave it, by blocking the door and taunting you. They'll take your stuff, or push you around. They'll ensure you are ostracized at every opportunity. School is a social environment... you frequently need to be in pairs, partners, groups, teams, etc. They'll make sure that's hell. That you aren't welcome. That anyone who goes anywhere near you suffers.
I've encountered bullies like that, I myself didn't bear the brunt of it -- I had enough friends that although unpopular with the bully crowd I had enough support that fighting back was possible. But others weren't so fortunate, and I know of at least one guy whose parents ultimately had to move and get him into a new school district so he could get a fresh start.* I moved some years later, and bumped into him again -- he'd been able to make good on the fresh start.
*Not even sure that would work with today's facebook profile following you everywhere.
I moved again midway through highschool and was astonished at the school district I landed it. It was so tame relative to where I grew up; the "bullying" there... sure "standing up for yourself" and "ignoring them" were perfectly viable strategies.
But in the school district I came from... the kid who tried to "stand up for himself and fight back" went home with cigarette burns on his arms. And the perpetrators had already circulated rumors that 'the faggot' had done it to himself to try and get attention.
The kids dad? A police officer.
There's a good reason schools are trying hard to address the bullying problem. It can be a HELL of a lot worse than anything you seem to have experience with.
Defendants routinely claim that a) they didn't do it, b) they were intoxicated when doing it and c) it was an accident.
I don't think people claim intoxication as a defense much anymore. But that's beside the point.
Defendants routinely simply refute every statement made against them. That doesn't necessarily imply a contraction.
In any case that's not quite the right characterization.
It's more like the prosecution will charge:
You were there. You stabbed him. You intended to kill him.
And the defense counters: He wasn't there. He didn't stab him. He didn't intend to kill him.
And now the prosecution has to attempt to prove each of his claims. But the defense's statement that "He didn't intend to kill him", isn't tacit admission that he was there and that he did stab him. Its just refuting the claim that he intended to kill him. That's it.
In other cases, the contradiction are more about the specific legal definitions. If you accidently run over a child with your car...
the prosecution might charge you with first degree murder.
You can say I didn't commit murder. I didn't intend to run him over. It was an accident.
Again the claims again don't contradict each other at all. You aren't claiming that you didn't kill the child, you aren't even claiming you didn't run him over. For a conviction of 1st degree murder, the prosecution has to show (amongst other things) intent. So in this case the defense is arguing there was no intent.
In a similar vein... if someone falls off your boat and disappears, you might again be charged with first degree murder.
And this time you might claim: We don't know he's dead. I didn't intend to kill him. It was an accident.
Meaning that a) yes he fell off your boat, but you were close to shore, there is no body, and no certainty he's dead. You can't be convicted of murder if the prosecution can't convince the jury that the guy actually died.
b) yes he fell off the boat, but there was no intent to kill him.
c) In fact, there was no intent to even knock him out of the boat, it was an accident.
The geek in you winces that these can not all be true
Only because you mischaracterized what is actually said, for something slightly different. I mean, otherwise the jury just tears it to shreds. If the defendant ever took the stand and actually said "a) they didn't do it, b) they were intoxicated when doing it and c) it was an accident." The trial would be over.
That may be the structure of the defense, to challenge everything the prosecution has claimed, but that's not at all how you characterized it.
Subtitles themselves do violence to the original movie experience, because you have to take your eyes off the picture to read them.
That's fair. Subtitles are far from perfect. But its the much lesser of two evils.
Dubs are out of sync, low budget, and poorly acted by poor actors under a no-name director. Your watching a movie with a huge part of it literally gutted out and replaced with a grossly inferior version.
In my other reply I compared it to replacing John Williams opera score for star wars with some low budget porno synth work.
Dubbed dialog is invariably out of lip sync. And worse, it is low budget, performed by low quality actors under the direction of a low quality director without any supervision from the original direction.
A dubbed movie is like replacing John Williams orchestra score with some cheap porno synth work.
Or like having all the special effects and explosions redone by the guys who do Robot Chicken. (Although that might be a hilarious treatment of many movies, we can agree it wouldn't be an accurate rendition of the original movie.)
If I'm reading the subtitles, I may not be able to pay full attention to the visuals.
If I'm watching the visuals, I may miss an important few words.
If your watching a dub you WILL miss half the movie. You don't need to understand the language to keep up with the emotional content.
And you can always Rewatch & Rewind.
And if I'm just watching for entertainment, perhaps I don't want to devote my full attention to the screen, perhaps I'm listening to the movie, goofing off on Slashdot, and eating dinner, while occasionally glancing up at the action.
Those are probably times you don't choose to watch dense thickly plotted movies in your native tongue either. If you have to pay attention, and you aren't prepared to pay attention I assume you would simply choose to watch something else.
Sure, the director would probably prefer I learn his or her language perfectly beforehand and watch the original with full attention, but it's not the director's prerogative to control that.
I said "read subtitles" not learn a new language. Where did that nonsense come from?
And not everyone enjoys reading the dialogue instead of listening to it, and there's nothing wrong with that.
That's just it. You aren't listening to "THE" dialog. Your listening to "A" dialog. A low budget, poorly acted dialog grafted on top of the original movie.
Subtitles aren't perfect; anyone who can speak the language while watching a subtitled movie will catch the omissions, defects, short comings, losses of idiom and subtext in the translation relative to the original... but they are much easier to do well than dubbing.
I myself have a Wii sitting in my closet (the only time I bring it out is for parties, and even rarely for those). I bought 3-4 games for it, and that was it.
I myself have a Wii sitting under my TV. It still gets played multiple times per week, even though there's a WiiU next to it. I bought a binder full of games for it over the years.
I don't own an xbox / xbox 360 at all. I do have an HTPC hooked up to my TV though, and another 100 games there via steam / gog.com / humble bundle.
The kids play the Wii & WiiU far more than the HTPC.
Nintendo, by contrast, hasn't made jack-shit off me since my initial purchase
And the only thing I've purchased from Microsofts Xbox division is an xbox controller for the HTPC.
I doubt I'll buy a WiiU
I don't regret mine; and the kids love it. They're getting a ton of mileage out of Nintendo Land. Netflix works particularly well with the tablet controller.
We only have a few WiiU titles though, there is still a real dearth of good games for it, and I wouldn't necessarily recommend the WiiU to everyone at this point.
But as the titles come out, its value proposition will continue to improve. I'm looking forward to Pikman 3.
I have absolutely zero interest in putting up with the Xbox One; although there have been some games I'd have considered over the years that were exclusives, I have plenty enough to occupy my time and don't really miss them.
I guess we represent different demographics. I won't pretend you don't exist if you'll return the favor.
Slashdot Mirror
None of that matters to the definition of a robot, an electronic arrangement which makes some of its own decisions and reacts to some stimuli.
By that definition the night light in the bathroom is a robot, and so is the coffee maker. I'm surrounded by robots.
There is no reasonable definition under which a cruise missile is not a killer robot.
There plenty of definitions for which it is. But usually when people talk of robots their is some "human-like quality". The Ford assembly robots, and cruise missile robots task complexity is still pretty simple... assembly robots automate tedious repetitive assembly line work, cruise missles for all their complexity have a very simple task... proceed to X, explode. Sure they are robots, but then, technically so is a microwave.
Robotic drones that patrol about, identify targets, kill them, and then move on, are another evolutionary step in robot task complexity towards human-like.
they look the same, the corners aren't rounded is the only difference; not sure if that looks 'crappier' or not. looking at them side by side i think 7 basic looks worse than 8 to be honest, but aesthetics are subjective.
I still remember when XP was berated mercilessly here for its "green start menu button" and adding stuff to the start menu and called the worst thing ever. And now many of the same people are clinging to it saying its greatest thing Microsoft ever made.
All I've learned from that is that some people are just not open to change.
And the lame-ass ribbon interface for Explorer...
Lol, good call. I should have found a screenshot just showing some generic Office and Browser windows. The OS-specific version of explorer is definitely another giveaway.
So, tell me how a cruise missile that's autonomously guiding itself via GPS or TERCOM toward a target after being launched isn't already a "killer robot"?
The cruise missile is fired by a human. The cruise missile's target is set at launch. The cruise missile did not choose to launch, nor did it choose its target.
It was commanded to launch, yes, but isn't a robot that's being commanded to head out on a mission where it could kill just being given a longer lifetime to act?
Its being given decision making capabilities. It is choosing it's targets, and choosing to fire at them. Its worlds apart.
but how is this different from existing CAPTOR mines that can ignore one type of ship and go after another?
Yeah, its not that different. Its less controversial because it specifically targets submarines, and its deployed in an place that is otherwise inhospitable to humans. So there's no impending "I was minding my own business and got attacked by a captor mine." You've got to be in a submarine in a warzone. Or as is the case with all "mine" tech, "former warzone".
And its also worth pointing out that mines are controversial in their own right, even the dumb mines precisely because they ALSO kill indiscriminately without human decision, often years later when the war is over.
I think this Pandora's box has already been open for a long time.
When it comes to mines the box is already open... yes... but a lot of people are trying to close it. The focus is on anti-personnel mines since those are the most likely to take out innocents... and its high profile and highly visible.
It would be pretty interesting (tragic) if one day a future scientisfic or tourist expedition gets blown up by a long forgotten CAPTOR style mine while on a research/tourist submarine or submersible not programmed on its 'friendlies list', or if an ailing but otherwise friendly vessel gets taken out because it doesn't sound right.
Even if the door is open, that doesn't mean its too late to try and fix it.
That aside... the Wii U's far from dead. If anything I'd say it hasn't even lived yet. What it needs are games, first party, be they classic IPs or new ones. It's a game console, guys. Give us some good games and you can take all my money.
Agreed. Its having a similar start as the 3DS did. Its only real weakness is the dearth of good games. Even looking through what's coming out, its a bit weak.
I've got one, and the family like it a lot for what it is. We've got nintendoland, super mario, skylanders giants, batman, and lego city undercover.
I'm looking forward to the DLC update to mario "New Super Luigi U", along with Pikman 3. I know the kids will want the next skylanders installment which has been announced along with Yarn Yoshi, given how much they liked the Kirby yarn title for the Wii.
The re-release of Windwaker in HD will be great for players who missed Windwaker on Gamecube, but I'm not sure I'd buy it myself having already finished the original.
There is also another new Zelda title in the works, that will likely be a must-buy for me.
If you skipped the Wii the Wii-U is good value, being backwards compatible. But otherwise, its still a bit weak.
I'd love to see a new Fire Emblem strategy game, or a BattleToads. Could do some great stuff with the touch screen controller there. The console lacks a good Kart racing game , ssbb title. FZero's been away for a while too now. And another good metroid outing is due. I'm hoping the planned Eternal Darkness "spiritual successor" shows up as well.
And there's always room for new franchises.
Do you have any idea at all at just how much effort Nintendo has put in towards making their online interactions kid-safe? It actually blows my mind.
The new 'social area' on the home screen, lets you post questions, comments, and even freehand doodles... and they pop up on other peoples wii-u.
Any normal person would have expected it to be just a constant stream of pictures of cocks and cleverly slightly obfuscated vulgarity... but its not. I don't know how they did it, and its actually pretty impressive. Props to N for that.
But I do feel sorry for the guy whose job it is to reject submitted cock doodles all day though.
Windows used to be highly customizable, but Win8 virtually eliminates this.
You couldn't put the old start button in the middle of the taskbar, or resize it in windows 7, and you still can't in 8. You could change it's colors when it popped up, change what's pinned on it and the order of some of things, and you can do all that with the new one too.
You are seriously overstating the case.
. Partly it's due to marketing and partly due to evil "UI experts" who believe one size should fit all and that options are bad.
Its mostly its due to the fact that windows wants the core operating system to be operable by touch.
And behond that the UI guys were right. The old start menu was stupid. A small non-resizable POPUP window containing a huge deep heirarchy of folders is beyond poor.
There ARE a few widgets and functions that the start menu did well. Most of them are more than adequately served by defining a toolbar.
The ONLY thing missing from windows 8 is a good small desktop search box. That's it. That's pretty much the entirety of the "travesty" of the windows 8 start menu debacle.
There's a few other complaints...such as hot corners, but really its nowhere near as bad as somple people have made out.
What Microsoft should be doing on the desktop is making the whole thing skinnable and customizable with XAML
I disagree. If you want to do that, Linux has more window managers and widgets and effects to choose from than you'll ever want. After you play around with them for a few years (because it will take that long to just try most of them out with any sort of depth), while you may find a setup that fits you like a glove you'll come to see its drawbacks too... not least that it took you a few years.
Then there is also the issue that documentation is impossible to write, and support is impossible to provide, things break unexpectedly, and so on. And that the users least qualified to completely reskin their system are the ones most likely to have done it. My mother in law downloaded something that made her pc sort of resemble OSX (new icon sets, cursors, backgrounds, task bar layout, etc I'm sure you've seen them out there); she was lost beyond hope, and couldn't even figure out how to undo it. She was able to limp along a bit could still read her email and browse the web... until she bought a new printer. Can you imagine what the support call to the poor saps at HP would have been like? :p
That's when I got involved, cleaned it out, restored it to default and suggested she not customize it.
Two weeks later she'd replaced all her cursors and had custom sounds effects that she couldn't figure out how to get rid of.
End result: user blames Windows for being terrible.
You mean, besides the ugly-as-sin window controls that look like a wireframe work in progress rather than a finished product?
That's less of a tell than it could be. Its better looking than Windows 7 basic,... really it pretty much IS Windows 7 basic without rounded corners, and flat close/minimize/restore boxes.
Fair enough, it's also a Windows 8 tell, but less so since its just theme, and there are plenty of windows 8 themes for Windows 7... but they all retain a start button. (albeit with the monochrome perspective logo) which i assume is what it will be in 8.1 too. At which point, 8.1 will be indistinguisable from someone using 7 with an 8 skin. (at least until they open the start screen or control panels etc.)
Other companies do just need the equal security of SSL and have their CRM/ERP/ETC as a web application. That really removes a lot of management overhead. VPN client and remote desktop replaced with web browser. Same security, less work.
A web application is not a substitute for all but the simplest scenarios.
The only case when you need extra security you really need end to end security. Tamper-proof bios, firmware and operating system. That means you need to run ChromeOS which are the only OS that currently have end-to-end security.
Just Yuck. Interesting, but still yuck.
On any single monitor, more than two applications can be run simultaneously. Instead of Windows 8's fixed split, where one application gets 320 pixels and the other application gets the rest, the division between apps will be variable. It'll also be possible to have multiple windows from a single app so that, for example, two browser windows can be opened side-by-side
What? That's applies strictly to metro apps. And I don't know anybody who uses those on a desktop, except for maybe the Netflix one.
This is a typical windows 8 desktop:
http://blogs.sitepointstatic.com/images/tech/759-windows-8-desktop-big.jpg
The only tell is the missing start button.
Works in windows 7 as well.
What most of us wanted back was the Start menu, not just the Start button.
You been modded up by people who support you, and that's fine.
But all I wanted was the start button instead of having to use a hotcorner. That was counter intuitive. Most of the time I already use the win key because, I already liked the start screen better as a place to search for infrequently used apps. Returning the old start menu would have been a real step backwards and I'm glad MS stuck to their guns on this one.
What do you think you need the start menu for, that a small pop-up non-resizable window makes sense for?
Frequently used applications? Desktop short cuts, pinned apps, pinned folders, and for power users custom start menu should have you more than covered.
The Windows 7 search box is the only thing I even slightly miss on Windows 8.
The search on the start screen is fine if I'm really going to be looking for something that I don't really know what I'm looking for exactly. Then a full screen interface makes a lot mroe sense than the a small non-resizable popup.
But for quickly searching for and launching things I do know the name of ... mstsc, cmd, gpedit, the old start menu search makes more sense.
And really what i want is an OSX style spotlight widget. And there are a number of decent 3rd party options -- still I think Windows should have something built in.
My only other real complaint about windows 8 is hot corners on the desktop, being non-optional. I dislike hot corners.
And to offset the complaints there are several things win8 does better. Its faster. Client hyper-V, the new task manager, etc.
Overall its an upgrade.
a crypto nerd will talk about a search space, there's nothing physically stopping the police from reading the data other than the vast search space of possible keys.
Comparing it to a search space is pretty interesting.
If the police suspect you buried a body in the desert, there's nothing physically stopping the police from finding it, other than the vast search space.
If they have evidence its somewhere reasonably specific they can go looking, but otherwise the search space is too big.
If the police can coerce you to reveal a password the believe you have, so they don't have to search the key space, why not coerce you to reveal the location of a body they believe you know the location of so they don't have to search the desert?
How is one fundamentally different from the other?
A password cannot. It requires the cooperation of the accused as it can only be retrieved from the memory of this person.
Hopefully that never changes.
Bottom line - the 5th guarantees that you do not have to provide ANY EVIDENCE to be used against you.
So a warrant for a DNA sample or fingerprint?
Look, I agree with you here, but you've overstated the case. The password itself is 'testimony' which is protected by 5th... being told to enter the password unobserved to decrypt is a much greyer area. I think it should be protected. I'm not confident it will be.
At least he's a 'job creator' :)
you're spending more on licensing for NAC and VDI/RDP/ICA.
Unless you aren't.
Many companies have an outbound sales force. The use a VPN + virtual infrastructure for laptops to access email email, access to the CRM, point of sale/sales quote system, and intranet resources. BYOD vs company hardware is a wash for licensing here.
You also need to amp up the local tier1/2 support because now without standards they're going to be spending more time dealing with more types of machines. Any gains made by standardization will be utterly destroyed.
Definitely true to a point.
In practice, for a lot of companies, they do end up ahead. Employees tend to treat the units better. There's no hassle with recovery after an employee leaves. They frequently tend to buy better hardware for themselves than corporate budgets would spring for. Insurance, droppage, spillage, etc is eliminated.
Ditto for smart phones -- if you don't have or need particularly stringent policies in place for email; and you already are just using some generic hosted exchange, or gmail hosting, or zimbra hosting or whatever then byod gets a lot cheaper fast.
You save on hardware, you save on support. Its your device, if the speaker stops working, or its dropping too many calls, go get yourself a new one. You don't have to manage their airtime packages and data usage. Or bill them, or monitor them. Typically you just give them a $X phone service allowance, and your done.
Not every business is paranoid about 'customer health and financial information leaking'. The sales guys knocking on doors trying to get you have their company fix your companies elevator, wash your companies buildings windows, do your companies landscaping, do the HVAC, do building envelope testing for water penetration, supply you with printer toner...
You don't always have to micromanage their devices. Sometimes you do, and then BYOD makes no sense, for all the reasons you state... but sometimes you just don't.
Fair enough on the distinction between what you meant by strong and weak.
But this 'weakness' you ascribe to them isn't necessarily resolved by 'fighting back' especially if you are over-matched. If part of their psyche is to deal with their sense of powerlessness over something else in their life by overpowering you -- then as long as they can do that they will. Fighting back, if you don't win, just reinforces their bullying you as an outlet to regain a feeling of power over something.
Remember they selected you to bully because they think they CAN control you. And while everyone loves the fairy tale ending where the smaller kid learns karate and fights back and the bully retreats and leaves him alone... in the real world they just as often, if not most of the time, get their ass kicked by the bully when they try to fight back. As you said, the bully is physically stronger, chose his victom precisely because he is weaker, and perhaps, as you noted he even has a psyhchological need for this power over his victim. He'll fight to keep it and the odds in a fight are heavily stacked in his favor.
The half life of all DNA is 521 years.
Did you even READ that article?
"After cell death, enzymes start to break down the bonds between the nucleotides that form the backbone of DNA, and micro-organisms speed the decay. In the long run, however, reactions with water are thought to be responsible for most bond degradation. Groundwater is almost ubiquitous, so DNA in buried bone samples should, in theory, degrade at a set rate."
So, that 'half life' is for buried bones in fairly specific situations. It doesn't apply everywhere.
Best part of all, is that story you linked to has its own related stories, and the first link is another story where they recovered DNA from 19,000 year old eggshells.
The second link is a story about sequencing the DNA from 100,000+ year old polar bears. Where the 'cold DRY' environment allows DNA to be preserved.
I didn't say beat them up, I said fight back.
And if you are that 120 bookish loner, go take some karate lessons, or go to a gym and take some boxing/muy tai classes.
The awkward 120lb bookish loaner is going to sign up for karate and boxing? What part of "awkward bookish loner" do you not get? He likes to read. He avoids sports. He's not much good at sports. And even if he forces himself to take karate he's not going to be particularly good at it. Meanwhile the bully is on the school football team and the school wrestling team, and unlike his victim he is good at it. If you think a few karate lessons are going to level the playing field you've got rocks in your head.
break his nose and I guarantee you he will stop bullying you
When you mentioned a broken nose that reminded me of something. My brother in-law (who of course wasn't at the time) got into a fight with bullies as a teen. They jumped him on the way home from school and he fought back, and they broke his nose. Now what? What happens if you fight back and they hurt you even worse? What happens if they break your nose instead?
He got a bit of reprieve after that because the police got involved, charges were laid, it went to court, etc. So the overt physical attacks dropped off but the verbal and social tactics persisted along with passive physical torment (blocking his movement, cutting in front, etc.)
Bullies are weak. If they weren't, they wouldn't be bullying people.
That isn't true. Or even logical. Bullies are frequently strong, or popular, or both. The idea that strong or popular people wouldn't be bullies is idiotic.
Because on a basic level, that bully in high school is no different than that crappy boss or manager everyone either knows or hears stories about.
Its entirely different. If I were to find myself in a job where I was ostracized and nobody liked me and the boss was a giant bully... I'd just quit and get a different job, and I'd never see those people again. I'd find a job where I got along with with people.
Kids in school have a lot less freedom to choose who they associate with.
Did you ever stand up for yourself? Fight back?
Sure, the awkward 120lb bookish loner is going to beat up the 4 180lb jocks who literally walk all over him.
Sometimes you can stand up to the bullys. Sometimes not.
Teach children to have self esteem and know that what other people think doesn't really matter, and nothing a bully does can affect them.
And you are back in your ivory tower.
If bullies know that you will fight back or that they have no power over you, they will move on.
Yeah. Sure. If one has to deal with the wimpiest bullies going. Their are other ones out there, ones that don't care if you fight back because they'll kick your ass. And you can't take away their 'power' over you, because its real. They'll arbitrarily decide when you enter a room, when you leave it, by blocking the door and taunting you. They'll take your stuff, or push you around. They'll ensure you are ostracized at every opportunity. School is a social environment... you frequently need to be in pairs, partners, groups, teams, etc. They'll make sure that's hell. That you aren't welcome. That anyone who goes anywhere near you suffers.
I've encountered bullies like that, I myself didn't bear the brunt of it -- I had enough friends that although unpopular with the bully crowd I had enough support that fighting back was possible. But others weren't so fortunate, and I know of at least one guy whose parents ultimately had to move and get him into a new school district so he could get a fresh start.* I moved some years later, and bumped into him again -- he'd been able to make good on the fresh start.
*Not even sure that would work with today's facebook profile following you everywhere.
I moved again midway through highschool and was astonished at the school district I landed it. It was so tame relative to where I grew up; the "bullying" there ... sure "standing up for yourself" and "ignoring them" were perfectly viable strategies.
But in the school district I came from... the kid who tried to "stand up for himself and fight back" went home with cigarette burns on his arms. And the perpetrators had already circulated rumors that 'the faggot' had done it to himself to try and get attention.
The kids dad? A police officer.
There's a good reason schools are trying hard to address the bullying problem. It can be a HELL of a lot worse than anything you seem to have experience with.
Defendants routinely claim that a) they didn't do it, b) they were intoxicated when doing it and c) it was an accident.
I don't think people claim intoxication as a defense much anymore. But that's beside the point.
Defendants routinely simply refute every statement made against them. That doesn't necessarily imply a contraction.
In any case that's not quite the right characterization.
It's more like the prosecution will charge:
You were there.
You stabbed him.
You intended to kill him.
And the defense counters:
He wasn't there.
He didn't stab him.
He didn't intend to kill him.
And now the prosecution has to attempt to prove each of his claims. But the defense's statement that "He didn't intend to kill him", isn't tacit admission that he was there and that he did stab him. Its just refuting the claim that he intended to kill him. That's it.
In other cases, the contradiction are more about the specific legal definitions. If you accidently run over a child with your car...
the prosecution might charge you with first degree murder.
You can say I didn't commit murder. I didn't intend to run him over. It was an accident.
Again the claims again don't contradict each other at all. You aren't claiming that you didn't kill the child, you aren't even claiming you didn't run him over. For a conviction of 1st degree murder, the prosecution has to show (amongst other things) intent. So in this case the defense is arguing there was no intent.
In a similar vein... if someone falls off your boat and disappears, you might again be charged with first degree murder.
And this time you might claim:
We don't know he's dead. I didn't intend to kill him. It was an accident.
Meaning that
a) yes he fell off your boat, but you were close to shore, there is no body, and no certainty he's dead. You can't be convicted of murder if the prosecution can't convince the jury that the guy actually died.
b) yes he fell off the boat, but there was no intent to kill him.
c) In fact, there was no intent to even knock him out of the boat, it was an accident.
The geek in you winces that these can not all be true
Only because you mischaracterized what is actually said, for something slightly different. I mean, otherwise the jury just tears it to shreds. If the defendant ever took the stand and actually said "a) they didn't do it, b) they were intoxicated when doing it and c) it was an accident." The trial would be over.
That may be the structure of the defense, to challenge everything the prosecution has claimed, but that's not at all how you characterized it.
Subtitles themselves do violence to the original movie experience, because you have to take your eyes off the picture to read them.
That's fair. Subtitles are far from perfect. But its the much lesser of two evils.
Dubs are out of sync, low budget, and poorly acted by poor actors under a no-name director. Your watching a movie with a huge part of it literally gutted out and replaced with a grossly inferior version.
In my other reply I compared it to replacing John Williams opera score for star wars with some low budget porno synth work.
What's "wrong" about watching a dubbed movie?
Dubbed dialog is invariably out of lip sync. And worse, it is low budget, performed by low quality actors under the direction of a low quality director without any supervision from the original direction.
A dubbed movie is like replacing John Williams orchestra score with some cheap porno synth work.
Or like having all the special effects and explosions redone by the guys who do Robot Chicken. (Although that might be a hilarious treatment of many movies, we can agree it wouldn't be an accurate rendition of the original movie.)
If I'm reading the subtitles, I may not be able to pay full attention to the visuals.
If I'm watching the visuals, I may miss an important few words.
If your watching a dub you WILL miss half the movie. You don't need to understand the language to keep up with the emotional content.
And you can always Rewatch & Rewind.
And if I'm just watching for entertainment, perhaps I don't want to devote my full attention to the screen, perhaps I'm listening to the movie, goofing off on Slashdot, and eating dinner, while occasionally glancing up at the action.
Those are probably times you don't choose to watch dense thickly plotted movies in your native tongue either. If you have to pay attention, and you aren't prepared to pay attention I assume you would simply choose to watch something else.
Sure, the director would probably prefer I learn his or her language perfectly beforehand and watch the original with full attention, but it's not the director's prerogative to control that.
I said "read subtitles" not learn a new language. Where did that nonsense come from?
And not everyone enjoys reading the dialogue instead of listening to it, and there's nothing wrong with that.
That's just it. You aren't listening to "THE" dialog. Your listening to "A" dialog. A low budget, poorly acted dialog grafted on top of the original movie.
Subtitles aren't perfect; anyone who can speak the language while watching a subtitled movie will catch the omissions, defects, short comings, losses of idiom and subtext in the translation relative to the original... but they are much easier to do well than dubbing.
I myself have a Wii sitting in my closet (the only time I bring it out is for parties, and even rarely for those). I bought 3-4 games for it, and that was it.
I myself have a Wii sitting under my TV. It still gets played multiple times per week, even though there's a WiiU next to it. I bought a binder full of games for it over the years.
I don't own an xbox / xbox 360 at all. I do have an HTPC hooked up to my TV though, and another 100 games there via steam / gog.com / humble bundle.
The kids play the Wii & WiiU far more than the HTPC.
Nintendo, by contrast, hasn't made jack-shit off me since my initial purchase
And the only thing I've purchased from Microsofts Xbox division is an xbox controller for the HTPC.
I doubt I'll buy a WiiU
I don't regret mine; and the kids love it. They're getting a ton of mileage out of Nintendo Land. Netflix works particularly well with the tablet controller.
We only have a few WiiU titles though, there is still a real dearth of good games for it, and I wouldn't necessarily recommend the WiiU to everyone at this point.
But as the titles come out, its value proposition will continue to improve. I'm looking forward to Pikman 3.
I have absolutely zero interest in putting up with the Xbox One; although there have been some games I'd have considered over the years that were exclusives, I have plenty enough to occupy my time and don't really miss them.
I guess we represent different demographics. I won't pretend you don't exist if you'll return the favor.