Fear of guns is not irrational. The fact is, someone with a gun can kill you and there's not the damndest shit you can do to defend yourself.
If however someone tries to attack you with a knife you at least have the chance to try and punch them in the fact and stamp on their balls afterwards.
That's why gun murders are a different problem to other murders - they're harder to defend against, and even if you have a gun yourself it doesn't help because a criminal will always ensure they get the jump.
Even outside of that, if you do manage to fire back then there's a greater chance that stray bullets will kill innocent bystanders, something that doesn't happen when you're instead resorting to punching someone in the face.
It's also very easy to stick up, injure, or kill multiple people with a gun - you can quite easily assault a group of 5 people with a gun, but assaulting 5 people with a knife is probably the fastest way to get yourself a good kicking. You may injure or kill one or two of them but the fact you're going to get the shit beaten out of you after that is a rather massive deterrent.
So yes, violence occurs without guns, but guns amplify the problems of it by making it too easy.
This isn't to say I think banning guns outright is the answer in the US - they're too prominent and widespread for a UK style amnesty that has been extremely successful to work, but pretending they're harmless items that don't cause any problems is stupid, it's pretty obvious that they do.
But to turn your "I have never understood anti gun folk irrational fear of an inanimate object." comment around, I've never understood pro gun folks irrational fear of leaving their house without their gun or living without one in the first place. Are you really so lacking in confidence of your ability to defend yourself should someone try and physically attack you or what?
Yes but it's how you go about doing it. There's a difference between doing it and telling the world which is attention whoring, and just letting their IT team know, and if they don't fix it, escalating it to parliamentarians themselves.
If you want fame you can still have it - wait until they've fixed it and then tell the world about how you found an exploit to access the e-mail of EU parliamentarians.
The fact is, if you exploit without permission, you are by definition not a white hat, even if you do tell people they need to fix it afterwards.
So your argument against Windows hosting is that Microsoft used Linux for Hotmail (the platform and stack Hotmail was built on before they bought it) back in the 90s? Really? You don't have anything more convincing than that?
Windows Server and IIS are pretty solid nowadays (can't speak for Exchange, not touched it in the best part of a decade) and there isn't really much in it in terms of performance and definitely not in terms of security and stability.
It's more expensive, but if you're developing with.NET and are a Microsoft shop internally anyway then that cost can easily be justified from productivity gains and the lack of need to spend time retraining etc.
I'm fairly easy going when it comes to platform choice, I'm not really a zealot for one or the other and have delivered large projects with both - there's really nothing in it particularly and the choice more often than not comes down to what skillset the client has to manage it post-delivery.
The only people who take jobs where they're doing exactly what they've always done are people who have been kicked out of doing exactly what they've always done.
More competent staff have a constant interest in learning new things and if you're not willing to offer that in the job you're not going to get competent staff who can take your IT forward.
Your philosophy sounds like an awesome way to ensure your company remains consistently mediocre in terms of IT at best, or on the path to obsolescence at worst. Certainly though you're never going to have an IT department that can compete with companies that are forward thinking and looking to constantly improve though.
Hiring people who don't know everything about the job is the best thing you can do, it's far better to have someone who is a highly competent fast learner with a genuine fascination with what they're doing because it's new to them than it is someone who is bored of it but "does it because it pays" and has shit productivity because they frankly don't care about the job, just as you don't care about their needs either.
You're right that jobs are about getting work done and tasks completed, it's unfortunate that you're entirely unaware of the needs of people required to optimise this. Maybe you're staying afloat, maybe you're struggling, maybe you're even doing well right now, but I guarantee you that your attitude is sacrificing you profit potential, and I guarantee you you're only one of those little upstart's startups away from having the rug pulled right out from under your business.
"This from the country that banned Michael Savage"
I don't understand this. You realise most countries deny entry every single day for various reasons including the US for the reason we banned Michael Savage?
The only reason it was news when the UK did it is precisely because it was a big deal and precisely because the UK has historically had one of the most liberal border crossings in the world.
Even supposedly liberal Canada I was very nearly refused entry into once simply because the customs officer did not believe I was not there to work for the simple fact I took a laptop with me when I really was just there for a holiday. Apparently he couldn't comprehend why someone would take a laptop on holiday. It was only when I asked for British consular advice that they said okay and stopped harassing me and let me get on with my holiday.
There is no inherent right to cross a nation's borders, and people get refused every single day for far less than hate speech. Just because the UK has started doing it too in a very small fringe amount of cases doesn't make it exceptional, though it did make it newsworthy precisely because we did used to let the likes of Abu Hamza et. al. in - in this respect we've always been much more tolerant of controversial speakers than even the US.
I don't really see the difference, a threat to influence government could be:
"Lower taxes or I'm going to start a protest that will disrupt traffic in London"
Or intimidate a section of the public could be:
"I'm sick of some travellers being a group responsible for excess litter where they've been staying, I'm going to start photographing them doing it and reporting such littering to the police"
Threat is a very broad term, so broad as to effectively mean any attempt to exert political pressure for any kind of change.
Even "Stop infringing my civil liberties or I'll vote against you" is a clear threat.
It's nothing to do with the vote or outside intervention. Catholics have been fighting Protestants and Jews fighting Palestinians in these regions since long before anyone from the outside decided to intervene. In Ireland before the Catholic vs. Protestant conflict it was conflict between Saxons, Normans, and Celts.
I know it's still popular for the losers of the wars in which the British empire was successful in dominating them to blame them for everything, but it's stupid to blame them for conflicts that have been going on since the time Britain wasn't even Britain but was merely a land full of disparate and warring tribes. Part the reason Ireland was subject to "brutal repression" in the first place was a misguided attempt to stop them killing each other.
You can't just take a random arbitrary point in 2000+ year old conflicts and say "Okay, well from this point on it's these guy's fault!", for example, in Israel, is it the fault of Israel for suppressing the Palestinians? what about in the early 50s and before when the Palestinians had the upper hand and the Jews were suppressed by the Brits? What about during the crusades and all the shit stirring that went on between Britain, France, and many other European nations then? What about 1500 years or so ago when it was the Palestinians oppressing the Jews? what about 2000 years ago when it was the Jews oppressing the Palestinians again?
At this point, "who started it" is so long lost in history that it's irrelevant.
Oh and FWIW Hezbollah aren't "nationalistic organisations in countries that are under intense external pressure", they're a tool of the Syrian-Iranian intelligence agencies that are a long running reason for the conflict and strife in Lebanon. They are the very tool of oppression in that nation with more weight than the extremely objective and secular Lebanese military who could be running the place as a modern succesful, progressive nation if it weren't for Hezbollah. I don't see how such a foreign funded paramilitary can ever be nationalistic, it is by definition being paid and armed to protect the interests of Iran and Syria, not Lebanon.
"In the case of pre/post natal care obviously men don't need it. In the case of cancer screening there is no equivalent periodic check for male cancers, beyond self-testing by feeling for lumps regularly. Precisely what regular tests for cancer do you think men should get that they are currently not getting?"
To be fair, he has a point here. The NHS is much more proactive in helping to counter female cancers through breast cancer screening and cervical smears and so forth than they are testicular cancer. My girlfriend receives her cervical smear test reminder letter every once in a while, when's the last time you had a letter reminding you to come in for a check for testicular or male prostate cancer?
"More men than women commit suicide... What was your point?"
Why do you think that might be? This in itself is a societal imbalance, it's not that many are any more prone to depression and such than women but that there are more pressures on men - that greater average pay that men receive doesn't come without it's costs, such as longer average working hours.
"Exactly what do you mean by that?"
Does it matter? Surely the fact that females do better in the education system alone is evidence enough that the education system is biased in a manner that benefits females? It could simply be the imbalance between male and female teachers, or it could be something to do with a biological difference between how men and women learn best - i.e. are men better at practical projects whilst women are better at exams for example?
Another area that's grossly biased towards women even to this day is in separation also. Women still do better in both divorce proceedings and custody battles on average than men even where it's simply not justified.
Whilst women get paid less, they also work less hours on average, often being granted more flexible working conditions so that they can for example, collect their children from school - this is a concious choice a couple makes. This is part the problem in simply measuring pay - it doesn't take into account whether the female in a male-female relationship has consciously made a decision with her partner to be the one who works shorter hours to look after the family and hence sacrifice a career as a result. The problem is that those arguing women are discriminated against purely on the pay argument are basically arguing that women should get to decide to be the member of a couple that works shorter hours and goes home to look after the kids but still also deserves the pay and career benefits of a male colleague who has opted with his partner to be the one that works longer hours to pursue a career instead. I agree there's still bias against women in the workplace (though there is bias against males in some workplaces too) but the picture is muddied by the fact that couples themselves are making the choice that the female should work shorter hours and be less dedicated to the job and more dedicated to the family - until the imbalance of people doing that is resolved, until men are equally being chosen amongst couples as the member of the family that's more dedicated to the family and less dedicated to work, it's meaningless to compare career progression and salary stats between the two sexes because it's this fundamental imbalance in attitudes to work/life balance that's the primary cause of it.
I actually agree with what I believe you're trying to get at - that the GPs view that he seems to feel he's hard done by is probably a bit silly, but I think making the point you're trying to make you're taking it a step too far in arguing against ALL of the GPs points which gives the impression you're arguing that women gain no advantages at all. Whilst I agree with your underlying premise that women suffer greater discrimination than men, I think you need to be willing to accept that there are plenty of cases where women do also benefit from imbalances in their favour too. It's definitely not entirely one sided, even though society is slanted towards the benefi
"No it isn't. Warrants are issued for arrest for questioning all the time in the UK"
When this happens you're arrested under suspicion of something. Assange hasn't been arrested under suspicion of anything. Your comments about not lining up to Swedish justice are false, this myth about Sweden having different policing concepts has been dispelled many times over already, I don't know why anyone would keep parroting it.
"He can't be 'charged' in Sweden without then being brought before the court fairly quickly, which the prosecutor can't do because he won't return there."
Nonsense again. There's nothing to say that when someone has been charged they have to be brought before the court, just about every country on earth including Sweden can allow charges to remain outstanding pretty much indefinitely.
"Huh? He has served no time on remand or under a tagging order for the crime of bail jumping or anything similar. Under your theory, anyone on bail for more than a year could simply abscond - or commit some other crime with a maximum punishment under a year - if they felt like it and there could be no possible punishment. That wouldn't be much of a disincentive to bail jumping, would it? "
This makes no sense. If Sweden drops it's request it has the explicit implication that there was no case to answer. If there was no case to answer then he was under effective house arrest for over a year for no reason. The result would be that he skipped bail when he shouldn't have been under bail conditions in the first place because there turned out to be no case to answer. If Sweden were to drop the case then Assange would be deemed to be cleared as innocent all along. Your nonsense implies that you believe that being wanted for question = guilty of crime. That's not the case, and hopefully never will be.
"No, 1(1)b refers to people under arrest for an offence, and Sweden issued a European Arrest Warrant against Assange."
But this is the very crux of the problem, Assange isn't under arrest for an offence, he's under arrest because he's wanted for questioning which is an extremely obscure situation. If Sweden were to drop the request for questioning then he'd effectively have been under arrest for for nothing all that time. I don't see how any judge could realistically punish him given those circumstances.
If he was actually wanted because he'd been charged for the assaults you'd be dead right, but he's not been charged. Even those who agree with the judges decision to authorise extradition for questioning because the judge has interpreted the law right admit that the law makes no sense because extradition is intended for crimes, not mere questioning and it hits at the core of the problem with the EAW.
Or in other words, Assange is avoiding an unjust and nonsensical implementation of the law. The judges right now have to interpret it as it's written and so have to authorise extradition, but if the request is dropped then what was he actually being held on bail for? It certainly wasn't for any actual criminal charges.
Regarding your comment about the starting point being for relatively minor crimes, that's already covered in the exact table I directed you too - that's the difference between magistrates and county court. The magistrates guidelines are for less serious issues, the county court is where serious issues are escalated to and it was the county court section I was referring to.
But again, even if they threw the maximum punishment at him, just for arguments sake let's say they did, then he'd already served that under bail conditions before he absconded so it'd still be written offer regardless because they can't not subtract time served when that time should never have been served.
The site you linked is merely the CPS' information on the issue, that's the Crown Prosecution Service - i.e. the people who advocate primarily for the police, so they're going to overhype the seriousness of laws because they want to deter people from breaking them as it makes their job easier.
But regardless, even the link you posted alone says the maximum penalty for skipping bail is 6 months in jail. That'd likely be applied as a suspended sentence (i.e. no actual jail time) or even just written off altogether as it would be covered under the time he spent under house arrest if Sweden dropped it's extradition request. The advice the judiciary uses is different though, and having just Googled the Bail Act (1976) legislation itself the maximum penalty is apparently actually 12 months. The judiciary's guidelines can be found here:
Note that the case that would apply to Assange, has a starting point of 14 days in custody if you plead not guilty, Assange wouldn't do that as there's no question he's guilty so that would reduce it further, if the extradition request was dropped then that would've meant there was no case he was skipping bail over, which would further reduce the penalty. Realistically it looks like he'd probably only get a community order, if given the exceptional circumstances the judge didn't just let him off outright completely.
As an aside, reading the bail act was interesting though. I can only guess an extradition request places a criminal charge on you in itself because Assange hasn't been charged by Sweden, only wanted for questioning and the bail act explicitly states it applies to criminal charges. If extradition in itself (as opposed to the reason for extradition) doesn't apply a criminal charge against you then this implies he should never have been placed under bail in the first place, but the law is a funny thing and I'm not a lawyer, so despite the fact I can interpret laws as they are written, perhaps laws as their written aren't how lawyers and judges interpret them so who knows. Maybe a lawyer here can explain how extradition for questioning but without charge results in you being placed into the criminal category that is necessary according to the bail act.
But I digress - manslaughter by dangerous driving is serious also, but you don't necessarily end up actually in jail. The judiciary's sentencing guidelines along show that skipping bail is really not taken as seriously as you suggest, and they're the folks who determine the sentences in practice after all.
It depends on what's actually going on. If the whole extradition was orchestrated by the US and the rape charges really are a conspiracy then just because the US wouldn't prosecute him there doesn't mean they're going to drop that avenue.
If it isn't a conspiracy by the US then one of two things can happen:
If Sweden drops the charges then he'll probably get a menial punishment for skipping bail, not likely to be excessive (you can kill someone whilst speeding way over the limit and avoid jail in the UK for crying out loud).
If Sweden doesn't drop the charges then Assange will probably stay in the embassy until Ecuador gets fed up of him, until Sweden starts being reasonable and allows questioning to occur within the embassy (something they can do, despite the lies otherwise, because they've done exactly that in the past), until he gives up and let's Sweden's obscure (in)justice system have it's way with him, or until he dies.
So this whole unlikely to be prosecuted thing may just be weasel words for "We're going to pretend we're nice people that believe in justice because we don't believe he's going anywhere for years anyway and say he's safe from prosecution, but we'll use the qualifier 'unlikely' just in case he does somehow get free so that we can change our mind without having lied". I suppose technically it may be a rather weak attempt by the US government to try and add weight to their pretense that there's no conspiracy against him (assuming there even is) so that Sweden and the UK can pretend he's just paranoid for no reason and that he should come out of the embassy and let them have their way with him.
Either way none of it changes Assange's situation in the slightest so I don't know what the point in the statement is. If the US really wants to change the status quo they need to make a more explicit statement along the lines of "Our inquiry has found that we have absolutely no grounds to prosecute Julian Assange, as he has broken no US law, and therefore we will not be seeking his extradition or prosecution under any circumstances related to the files leaked and published by his organisation to date". It wouldn't mean they wouldn't of course, but at least they'd have to face the consequences politically. The fact they wont issue such an explicit statement and are just putting out meaningless sound bites implies to me that they're just trying to muddy the waters on the issue and trying to win some good will without actually doing anything to deserve it.
The income disparity exists, but isn't anywhere near that large. The poles really do just have a far better work ethic than the Britons they're competing with at that level. It's not because of reward, it's about aspirations - the Brits just want an easy ride and free money for nothing. The polish want to work hard and make something of their lives and go somewhere.
It's often cited that our benefits society is what draws immigrants over, but that's false - they come over for the opportunities, not the free ride. It's in fact our benefits society that gives the laziest in society an entitlement attitude that makes them feel they shouldn't have to work and should get everything for free with little to no effort. The problem here isn't immigration, it's the laziest natives in our society who use immigration as their scapegoat when people dare to ask why they don't get off their arses, exploit one of the many free training programs available to them, work hard, and make something of themselves.
Um, in this case the government is involved. The documentary revealed that Amazon had been paid £10 million by the Scottish government and £8 million by the Welsh assembly to build two of the warehouses in question.
Amazon is successful in large part precisely because it has been receiving government subsidy and has also been allowed to continue avoiding it's corporation tax obligations.
Which is interesting because this documentary revealed that Amazon were getting paid tens of millions to build some of the UK warehouses to create jobs.
So what happens if those jobs are automated? does the tax payer get their money back?
Of course I don't blame Amazon, the councils/governments in question were utter fools for subsidising a company as big as Amazon including building roads explicitly for them and are getting what they deserve, but I'm intrigued all the same.
I actually watched the associated documentary last night and can say it's a bit of everything.
Part of it was simply just whiny workers and union reps who work simply averse to doing the type of job they found themselves doing. For this I have little sympathy and would have to side with Amazon here. It was the classic union story of wanting lots of money for doing fuck all work. According to the worker undercover and whining he was getting over £8 an hour which is about 20 - 25% more than minimum wage and it worked out to about £17k - £18k a year which is well below the national average, but pretty good for a menial job requiring no qualifications. This is about what some bottom of the run IT support staff get that are at least required to be able to perform some diagnostics and have at least a level of IT competence that would require a few years of learning about IT, networks and so forth even if not formal learning - especially in the low income area where the warehouse in question was situated (where hence cost of living is also much much lower meaning a lower salary gets you more than elsewhere).
Part of it annoyed me, I knew Amazon pays no real taxes in the UK because it uses it's subsidiaries to avoid those responsibilities but I wasn't aware parts of the UK such as Wales and Scotland are outright subsidising their existence here meaning it's actually a net cost to the tax payer to have them here, especially when you consider the burden of bad health their premises are genuinely causing some staff on the NHS, which all wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that in subsidising them we're also destroying competition by allowing them to offer cheaper goods which puts indigenous businesses out of business. Something needs to be done here, the whole setup with Amazon is detrimental to competition and detrimental to our country.
But then there was the last part of it, the part where it was clear cut that Amazon was breaking the law. Lights going out in the factory regularly forcing workers to work in the dark, this was a blatant breach of health and safety law and they need to be pulled up on this. The second clear breach was that they were giving staff disciplinaries for going home ill, even if it was work caused illness such as a bad back for lifting heavy goods. This is also out and out illegal, you can only discipline someone for faking illness or self-caused illness (i.e. hangover from drinking too much) not for genuine illness, and most definitely not for work related injuries - on the contrary, in the latter case the employee should be getting compensated if they ask for it, not disciplined.
So it was a mixed bag, some of it was Panorama being typically full of shit as it normally always is, some of it was up for debate depending on your political views such as whether it's better to pay a company to be able to employ people even if that means other people going out of business, and some of it was Amazon unquestionably breaking employment law.
But make of it what you will, the bulk of the documentary focussed on Panorama talking shit and listening to lazy shirkers whining about having to actually work.
I'm personally not keen on Amazon, I think they're anti-competitive and immoral when it comes to things like tax hence why the revelation that not only do they dodge tax but accept public subsidy makes me sick. But despite that I think they deserve some defence here, whilst some of the documentary exposed illegality, much of it was simply unfair criticism.
This conspiracy theory came up along time ago after a few cables were cut off the coast of Egypt some years back. People were saying it must be a conspiracy because it's so impossible that 2 undersea cables could be cut in such a short time span.
At the time I looked into it and found a link to a fairly objective organisation which I frankly can't remember who published some information and stats on the issue. I think it may well have been the IMO - the International Maritime Organisation that all UN states are party to so about as unbiased as you can realistically get, and it stated that on average about 3 cables are cut every single week. Reasons cited ranged between ships anchors, to heavy trawler nets, to tectonic plate movement, to debris movement, and even to shark bites.
So long story short you can put your conspiracy theory to bed. A cable cut is unlikely to mean a conspiracy, and as you hinted at yourself, if the NSA were going to do it you probably wouldn't know, they'd likely hit the points at which they reach land or even where termination occurs. These cables are often maintained by private companies and checked either manually or using robotic vehicles. If you cut and then placed a device on a cable in the middle of the sea then someone is going to stumble across it and wonder what the fuck is attached to their cable.
This is why all interceptions to date are occurring in countries that are on board - because then they can just stick the equipment and the trunk line to their monitoring HQ directly into the data centres the cables arrive in where anyone entering said data centre will be told not to ask questions. These are places where foreign nations can't just trivially inspect, whereas taps placed on undersea cables in international waters would be ripe for theft by say Chinese or Russian subs who could then steal, replicate, and possibly even sabotage or place their own taps into the technology.
"Nations usually act on a single motivating factor: self-interest. "
I would qualify this, I think it's better phrased as:
Nations usually act on a single motivating factor: perceived self-interest.
What a nation, or at least, the leaders of a nation, perceive to be in their self-interest sometimes isn't. Tony Blair's government was convinced that attacking Iraq was in our self-interest but in reality it wasn't, it cost us billions in cash, it cost us lives, and it ripped our international reputation and political credibility to shreds, something we've only really started to recover from with the goodwill of a successful Olympics, royal wedding, royal baby, and jubilee - were it not for the mere chance happening of those events we'd still be far worse off politically than we are now.
I think there are many fine examples of where the perceived self-interest for a nation by it's leadership conflicts greatly with what is actually in it's interests.
Whether this is actually in their self-interest only time will tell. But selling your sovereignty to another nation that only has you in it's interests whilst you're useful, certainly isn't necessarily in your own self-interest.
"You really want to make this world a fairer place: how about paying all your employees a decent wage"
Er, staff at all those places get paid well above the average. They do get a decent wage, more than decent in fact - exceptional wages relative to their roles.
This even includes all their H1-B hires, which shows what a farce the argument that they just want to expand H1-B to bring wages down is because the very fact they pay all their H1-B hires more than the national average means they're actually raising the average with their H1-B hires.
There's plenty of criticism that can be pulled up for these companies, but what they pay their staff isn't it, and claims that they just want to reduce wages with H1-B are also false given that they demonstrably raise the average wage with what they pay them. H1-B wages for their hires are available publicly as are statistics on national average wages for different fields, hence this is something you can trivially verify with your own eyes using a Google search.
They're already doing exactly what you ask by raising the average by paying much more than the average, I can't fathom why you got modded up because your post was full of false but populist nonsensical tosh. I thought Slashdot was above populist nonsense, but apparently enough people here ARE that stupid nowadays to mod something up that sounds like it's sticking it to the man, but is in practice 100% wrong.
"The points made about millimeters in the article come off as a waste of money since everyone has different hands."
It's about finding the best on average.
This is exactly how the clothing industry has worked for years, notice how some brands have "small, medium, large"? What does that mean? what is large? if you're 6ft are you medium or large? It's about taking samples and dividing them into groups and selecting the most prominent. If you have 10 different sizes of controllers and they were all equally deemed as good across a wide sample size of people you'd expect 10% of the sample group to like all of them, but if say, 40% like one controller then that means that that controller is a size that is comfortable to far more people than any of the others, so makes sense to select. The 360 controller was popular and well remember because it was comfy, Dualshock 3 in contrast was awful and I'd wager had it undergone similar study it would not have made the cut.
They didn't spend $100mill on just determining the size so it's nonsense to keep repeating that, that will only have been a fraction of the cost, again they tried lots of new ideas and technology, smell, and so forth and others they've no doubt not published, possibly even because they've still got potential but haven't perfected yet and will release at a later date but need to keep secret from the competition in the meantime.
The millimetre changes was a classic optimisation problem, it was about optimising the controller to be preferable to the largest group of people.
Lots of these ideas get discussed but never go anywhere though. They've had the same discussion in the UK a few times but it's one of those issues that has so little public support they have zero hope of ever going ahead with it.
Actually if you look at all controllers this generation they all closely resemble the 360 design.
The Wii U Pro controllers are pretty much identical to the 360 controller albeit without the battery pack sticking out the bottom. The Dualshock 4 is a split between the Dualshock 3 and the 360 controller - the shape of the Dualshock 4 is basically exactly that of the 360 controller but with Sony's stick/button layout and style stuck onto it.
Given that Microsoft spent all this money trying to innovate and ended up finding that people basically just liked what they already had last time around (which is pretty much what the new controller is) it may well be that the 360 controller was that one ideal controller shape.
It seems a little coincidental that literally everyone in the game has copied the important bits of it's design in terms of ergonomics this time round.
I think that was one of the 360s major successes, it pretty much did perfect the console controller - it was extremely comfortable, very responsive, and about the right weight which is again hence why everyone else has copied it this time around and why Microsoft despite spending $100 million couldn't come up with anything better.
They did some genuinely new stuff here, adding scent to gaming hasn't really been done before even though it's dreamt about before. I understand the user studies didn't respond positively but at least they were willing to research the idea and try it - it's not really their fault that an idea that many people have to date thought was an awesome new idea didn't turn out to be appreciated by users in reality, but without spending that money to try it how the hell could they possibly know if it was a terrible idea in practice, or the next hot new idea? What if it had been appreciated? what if it triggered a new path in the technology world? what if it could've been extended to allow say people's smartphones to let them preview scent based products when shopping online for perfume or whatever? If that had happened it would've more than paid for the $100 million.
Of course if they knew from the outset that they were just going to end up with something similar to the last gen controller then they could've save tens of millions, but if you don't try new things how do you ever advance?
Good on them for trying new shit and taking a gamble, it didn't pay off this time but I hope the negative comments don't put them off trying to innovate in future. Innovation is exactly what stale old boring Microsoft is in desperate need of.
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Fear of guns is not irrational. The fact is, someone with a gun can kill you and there's not the damndest shit you can do to defend yourself.
If however someone tries to attack you with a knife you at least have the chance to try and punch them in the fact and stamp on their balls afterwards.
That's why gun murders are a different problem to other murders - they're harder to defend against, and even if you have a gun yourself it doesn't help because a criminal will always ensure they get the jump.
Even outside of that, if you do manage to fire back then there's a greater chance that stray bullets will kill innocent bystanders, something that doesn't happen when you're instead resorting to punching someone in the face.
It's also very easy to stick up, injure, or kill multiple people with a gun - you can quite easily assault a group of 5 people with a gun, but assaulting 5 people with a knife is probably the fastest way to get yourself a good kicking. You may injure or kill one or two of them but the fact you're going to get the shit beaten out of you after that is a rather massive deterrent.
So yes, violence occurs without guns, but guns amplify the problems of it by making it too easy.
This isn't to say I think banning guns outright is the answer in the US - they're too prominent and widespread for a UK style amnesty that has been extremely successful to work, but pretending they're harmless items that don't cause any problems is stupid, it's pretty obvious that they do.
But to turn your "I have never understood anti gun folk irrational fear of an inanimate object." comment around, I've never understood pro gun folks irrational fear of leaving their house without their gun or living without one in the first place. Are you really so lacking in confidence of your ability to defend yourself should someone try and physically attack you or what?
Where is "over here"? If you're talking about the UK then yes it absolutely does.
Shit like the porn filters David Cameron is so proud of are the direct result of a Daily Mail campaign.
Yes but it's how you go about doing it. There's a difference between doing it and telling the world which is attention whoring, and just letting their IT team know, and if they don't fix it, escalating it to parliamentarians themselves.
If you want fame you can still have it - wait until they've fixed it and then tell the world about how you found an exploit to access the e-mail of EU parliamentarians.
The fact is, if you exploit without permission, you are by definition not a white hat, even if you do tell people they need to fix it afterwards.
So your argument against Windows hosting is that Microsoft used Linux for Hotmail (the platform and stack Hotmail was built on before they bought it) back in the 90s? Really? You don't have anything more convincing than that?
Windows Server and IIS are pretty solid nowadays (can't speak for Exchange, not touched it in the best part of a decade) and there isn't really much in it in terms of performance and definitely not in terms of security and stability.
It's more expensive, but if you're developing with .NET and are a Microsoft shop internally anyway then that cost can easily be justified from productivity gains and the lack of need to spend time retraining etc.
I'm fairly easy going when it comes to platform choice, I'm not really a zealot for one or the other and have delivered large projects with both - there's really nothing in it particularly and the choice more often than not comes down to what skillset the client has to manage it post-delivery.
The only people who take jobs where they're doing exactly what they've always done are people who have been kicked out of doing exactly what they've always done.
More competent staff have a constant interest in learning new things and if you're not willing to offer that in the job you're not going to get competent staff who can take your IT forward.
Your philosophy sounds like an awesome way to ensure your company remains consistently mediocre in terms of IT at best, or on the path to obsolescence at worst. Certainly though you're never going to have an IT department that can compete with companies that are forward thinking and looking to constantly improve though.
Hiring people who don't know everything about the job is the best thing you can do, it's far better to have someone who is a highly competent fast learner with a genuine fascination with what they're doing because it's new to them than it is someone who is bored of it but "does it because it pays" and has shit productivity because they frankly don't care about the job, just as you don't care about their needs either.
You're right that jobs are about getting work done and tasks completed, it's unfortunate that you're entirely unaware of the needs of people required to optimise this. Maybe you're staying afloat, maybe you're struggling, maybe you're even doing well right now, but I guarantee you that your attitude is sacrificing you profit potential, and I guarantee you you're only one of those little upstart's startups away from having the rug pulled right out from under your business.
"This from the country that banned Michael Savage"
I don't understand this. You realise most countries deny entry every single day for various reasons including the US for the reason we banned Michael Savage?
The only reason it was news when the UK did it is precisely because it was a big deal and precisely because the UK has historically had one of the most liberal border crossings in the world.
Even supposedly liberal Canada I was very nearly refused entry into once simply because the customs officer did not believe I was not there to work for the simple fact I took a laptop with me when I really was just there for a holiday. Apparently he couldn't comprehend why someone would take a laptop on holiday. It was only when I asked for British consular advice that they said okay and stopped harassing me and let me get on with my holiday.
There is no inherent right to cross a nation's borders, and people get refused every single day for far less than hate speech. Just because the UK has started doing it too in a very small fringe amount of cases doesn't make it exceptional, though it did make it newsworthy precisely because we did used to let the likes of Abu Hamza et. al. in - in this respect we've always been much more tolerant of controversial speakers than even the US.
I don't really see the difference, a threat to influence government could be:
"Lower taxes or I'm going to start a protest that will disrupt traffic in London"
Or intimidate a section of the public could be:
"I'm sick of some travellers being a group responsible for excess litter where they've been staying, I'm going to start photographing them doing it and reporting such littering to the police"
Threat is a very broad term, so broad as to effectively mean any attempt to exert political pressure for any kind of change.
Even "Stop infringing my civil liberties or I'll vote against you" is a clear threat.
It's nothing to do with the vote or outside intervention. Catholics have been fighting Protestants and Jews fighting Palestinians in these regions since long before anyone from the outside decided to intervene. In Ireland before the Catholic vs. Protestant conflict it was conflict between Saxons, Normans, and Celts.
I know it's still popular for the losers of the wars in which the British empire was successful in dominating them to blame them for everything, but it's stupid to blame them for conflicts that have been going on since the time Britain wasn't even Britain but was merely a land full of disparate and warring tribes. Part the reason Ireland was subject to "brutal repression" in the first place was a misguided attempt to stop them killing each other.
You can't just take a random arbitrary point in 2000+ year old conflicts and say "Okay, well from this point on it's these guy's fault!", for example, in Israel, is it the fault of Israel for suppressing the Palestinians? what about in the early 50s and before when the Palestinians had the upper hand and the Jews were suppressed by the Brits? What about during the crusades and all the shit stirring that went on between Britain, France, and many other European nations then? What about 1500 years or so ago when it was the Palestinians oppressing the Jews? what about 2000 years ago when it was the Jews oppressing the Palestinians again?
At this point, "who started it" is so long lost in history that it's irrelevant.
Oh and FWIW Hezbollah aren't "nationalistic organisations in countries that are under intense external pressure", they're a tool of the Syrian-Iranian intelligence agencies that are a long running reason for the conflict and strife in Lebanon. They are the very tool of oppression in that nation with more weight than the extremely objective and secular Lebanese military who could be running the place as a modern succesful, progressive nation if it weren't for Hezbollah. I don't see how such a foreign funded paramilitary can ever be nationalistic, it is by definition being paid and armed to protect the interests of Iran and Syria, not Lebanon.
"In the case of pre/post natal care obviously men don't need it. In the case of cancer screening there is no equivalent periodic check for male cancers, beyond self-testing by feeling for lumps regularly. Precisely what regular tests for cancer do you think men should get that they are currently not getting?"
To be fair, he has a point here. The NHS is much more proactive in helping to counter female cancers through breast cancer screening and cervical smears and so forth than they are testicular cancer. My girlfriend receives her cervical smear test reminder letter every once in a while, when's the last time you had a letter reminding you to come in for a check for testicular or male prostate cancer?
"More men than women commit suicide... What was your point?"
Why do you think that might be? This in itself is a societal imbalance, it's not that many are any more prone to depression and such than women but that there are more pressures on men - that greater average pay that men receive doesn't come without it's costs, such as longer average working hours.
"Exactly what do you mean by that?"
Does it matter? Surely the fact that females do better in the education system alone is evidence enough that the education system is biased in a manner that benefits females? It could simply be the imbalance between male and female teachers, or it could be something to do with a biological difference between how men and women learn best - i.e. are men better at practical projects whilst women are better at exams for example?
Another area that's grossly biased towards women even to this day is in separation also. Women still do better in both divorce proceedings and custody battles on average than men even where it's simply not justified.
Whilst women get paid less, they also work less hours on average, often being granted more flexible working conditions so that they can for example, collect their children from school - this is a concious choice a couple makes. This is part the problem in simply measuring pay - it doesn't take into account whether the female in a male-female relationship has consciously made a decision with her partner to be the one who works shorter hours to look after the family and hence sacrifice a career as a result. The problem is that those arguing women are discriminated against purely on the pay argument are basically arguing that women should get to decide to be the member of a couple that works shorter hours and goes home to look after the kids but still also deserves the pay and career benefits of a male colleague who has opted with his partner to be the one that works longer hours to pursue a career instead. I agree there's still bias against women in the workplace (though there is bias against males in some workplaces too) but the picture is muddied by the fact that couples themselves are making the choice that the female should work shorter hours and be less dedicated to the job and more dedicated to the family - until the imbalance of people doing that is resolved, until men are equally being chosen amongst couples as the member of the family that's more dedicated to the family and less dedicated to work, it's meaningless to compare career progression and salary stats between the two sexes because it's this fundamental imbalance in attitudes to work/life balance that's the primary cause of it.
I actually agree with what I believe you're trying to get at - that the GPs view that he seems to feel he's hard done by is probably a bit silly, but I think making the point you're trying to make you're taking it a step too far in arguing against ALL of the GPs points which gives the impression you're arguing that women gain no advantages at all. Whilst I agree with your underlying premise that women suffer greater discrimination than men, I think you need to be willing to accept that there are plenty of cases where women do also benefit from imbalances in their favour too. It's definitely not entirely one sided, even though society is slanted towards the benefi
"No it isn't. Warrants are issued for arrest for questioning all the time in the UK"
When this happens you're arrested under suspicion of something. Assange hasn't been arrested under suspicion of anything. Your comments about not lining up to Swedish justice are false, this myth about Sweden having different policing concepts has been dispelled many times over already, I don't know why anyone would keep parroting it.
"He can't be 'charged' in Sweden without then being brought before the court fairly quickly, which the prosecutor can't do because he won't return there."
Nonsense again. There's nothing to say that when someone has been charged they have to be brought before the court, just about every country on earth including Sweden can allow charges to remain outstanding pretty much indefinitely.
"Huh? He has served no time on remand or under a tagging order for the crime of bail jumping or anything similar. Under your theory, anyone on bail for more than a year could simply abscond - or commit some other crime with a maximum punishment under a year - if they felt like it and there could be no possible punishment. That wouldn't be much of a disincentive to bail jumping, would it? "
This makes no sense. If Sweden drops it's request it has the explicit implication that there was no case to answer. If there was no case to answer then he was under effective house arrest for over a year for no reason. The result would be that he skipped bail when he shouldn't have been under bail conditions in the first place because there turned out to be no case to answer. If Sweden were to drop the case then Assange would be deemed to be cleared as innocent all along. Your nonsense implies that you believe that being wanted for question = guilty of crime. That's not the case, and hopefully never will be.
I'm fully aware of the case. Just because I did something retarded and incorrectly phrased it doesn't mean you need to go full retard "dood".
"No, 1(1)b refers to people under arrest for an offence, and Sweden issued a European Arrest Warrant against Assange."
But this is the very crux of the problem, Assange isn't under arrest for an offence, he's under arrest because he's wanted for questioning which is an extremely obscure situation. If Sweden were to drop the request for questioning then he'd effectively have been under arrest for for nothing all that time. I don't see how any judge could realistically punish him given those circumstances.
If he was actually wanted because he'd been charged for the assaults you'd be dead right, but he's not been charged. Even those who agree with the judges decision to authorise extradition for questioning because the judge has interpreted the law right admit that the law makes no sense because extradition is intended for crimes, not mere questioning and it hits at the core of the problem with the EAW.
Or in other words, Assange is avoiding an unjust and nonsensical implementation of the law. The judges right now have to interpret it as it's written and so have to authorise extradition, but if the request is dropped then what was he actually being held on bail for? It certainly wasn't for any actual criminal charges.
Regarding your comment about the starting point being for relatively minor crimes, that's already covered in the exact table I directed you too - that's the difference between magistrates and county court. The magistrates guidelines are for less serious issues, the county court is where serious issues are escalated to and it was the county court section I was referring to.
But again, even if they threw the maximum punishment at him, just for arguments sake let's say they did, then he'd already served that under bail conditions before he absconded so it'd still be written offer regardless because they can't not subtract time served when that time should never have been served.
The site you linked is merely the CPS' information on the issue, that's the Crown Prosecution Service - i.e. the people who advocate primarily for the police, so they're going to overhype the seriousness of laws because they want to deter people from breaking them as it makes their job easier.
But regardless, even the link you posted alone says the maximum penalty for skipping bail is 6 months in jail. That'd likely be applied as a suspended sentence (i.e. no actual jail time) or even just written off altogether as it would be covered under the time he spent under house arrest if Sweden dropped it's extradition request. The advice the judiciary uses is different though, and having just Googled the Bail Act (1976) legislation itself the maximum penalty is apparently actually 12 months. The judiciary's guidelines can be found here:
http://sentencingcouncil.judiciary.gov.uk/docs/web_Fail_to_Surrender_to_Bail.pdf
Note that the case that would apply to Assange, has a starting point of 14 days in custody if you plead not guilty, Assange wouldn't do that as there's no question he's guilty so that would reduce it further, if the extradition request was dropped then that would've meant there was no case he was skipping bail over, which would further reduce the penalty. Realistically it looks like he'd probably only get a community order, if given the exceptional circumstances the judge didn't just let him off outright completely.
As an aside, reading the bail act was interesting though. I can only guess an extradition request places a criminal charge on you in itself because Assange hasn't been charged by Sweden, only wanted for questioning and the bail act explicitly states it applies to criminal charges. If extradition in itself (as opposed to the reason for extradition) doesn't apply a criminal charge against you then this implies he should never have been placed under bail in the first place, but the law is a funny thing and I'm not a lawyer, so despite the fact I can interpret laws as they are written, perhaps laws as their written aren't how lawyers and judges interpret them so who knows. Maybe a lawyer here can explain how extradition for questioning but without charge results in you being placed into the criminal category that is necessary according to the bail act.
But I digress - manslaughter by dangerous driving is serious also, but you don't necessarily end up actually in jail. The judiciary's sentencing guidelines along show that skipping bail is really not taken as seriously as you suggest, and they're the folks who determine the sentences in practice after all.
It depends on what's actually going on. If the whole extradition was orchestrated by the US and the rape charges really are a conspiracy then just because the US wouldn't prosecute him there doesn't mean they're going to drop that avenue.
If it isn't a conspiracy by the US then one of two things can happen:
If Sweden drops the charges then he'll probably get a menial punishment for skipping bail, not likely to be excessive (you can kill someone whilst speeding way over the limit and avoid jail in the UK for crying out loud).
If Sweden doesn't drop the charges then Assange will probably stay in the embassy until Ecuador gets fed up of him, until Sweden starts being reasonable and allows questioning to occur within the embassy (something they can do, despite the lies otherwise, because they've done exactly that in the past), until he gives up and let's Sweden's obscure (in)justice system have it's way with him, or until he dies.
So this whole unlikely to be prosecuted thing may just be weasel words for "We're going to pretend we're nice people that believe in justice because we don't believe he's going anywhere for years anyway and say he's safe from prosecution, but we'll use the qualifier 'unlikely' just in case he does somehow get free so that we can change our mind without having lied". I suppose technically it may be a rather weak attempt by the US government to try and add weight to their pretense that there's no conspiracy against him (assuming there even is) so that Sweden and the UK can pretend he's just paranoid for no reason and that he should come out of the embassy and let them have their way with him.
Either way none of it changes Assange's situation in the slightest so I don't know what the point in the statement is. If the US really wants to change the status quo they need to make a more explicit statement along the lines of "Our inquiry has found that we have absolutely no grounds to prosecute Julian Assange, as he has broken no US law, and therefore we will not be seeking his extradition or prosecution under any circumstances related to the files leaked and published by his organisation to date". It wouldn't mean they wouldn't of course, but at least they'd have to face the consequences politically. The fact they wont issue such an explicit statement and are just putting out meaningless sound bites implies to me that they're just trying to muddy the waters on the issue and trying to win some good will without actually doing anything to deserve it.
The income disparity exists, but isn't anywhere near that large. The poles really do just have a far better work ethic than the Britons they're competing with at that level. It's not because of reward, it's about aspirations - the Brits just want an easy ride and free money for nothing. The polish want to work hard and make something of their lives and go somewhere.
It's often cited that our benefits society is what draws immigrants over, but that's false - they come over for the opportunities, not the free ride. It's in fact our benefits society that gives the laziest in society an entitlement attitude that makes them feel they shouldn't have to work and should get everything for free with little to no effort. The problem here isn't immigration, it's the laziest natives in our society who use immigration as their scapegoat when people dare to ask why they don't get off their arses, exploit one of the many free training programs available to them, work hard, and make something of themselves.
Um, in this case the government is involved. The documentary revealed that Amazon had been paid £10 million by the Scottish government and £8 million by the Welsh assembly to build two of the warehouses in question.
Amazon is successful in large part precisely because it has been receiving government subsidy and has also been allowed to continue avoiding it's corporation tax obligations.
Which is interesting because this documentary revealed that Amazon were getting paid tens of millions to build some of the UK warehouses to create jobs.
So what happens if those jobs are automated? does the tax payer get their money back?
Of course I don't blame Amazon, the councils/governments in question were utter fools for subsidising a company as big as Amazon including building roads explicitly for them and are getting what they deserve, but I'm intrigued all the same.
I actually watched the associated documentary last night and can say it's a bit of everything.
Part of it was simply just whiny workers and union reps who work simply averse to doing the type of job they found themselves doing. For this I have little sympathy and would have to side with Amazon here. It was the classic union story of wanting lots of money for doing fuck all work. According to the worker undercover and whining he was getting over £8 an hour which is about 20 - 25% more than minimum wage and it worked out to about £17k - £18k a year which is well below the national average, but pretty good for a menial job requiring no qualifications. This is about what some bottom of the run IT support staff get that are at least required to be able to perform some diagnostics and have at least a level of IT competence that would require a few years of learning about IT, networks and so forth even if not formal learning - especially in the low income area where the warehouse in question was situated (where hence cost of living is also much much lower meaning a lower salary gets you more than elsewhere).
Part of it annoyed me, I knew Amazon pays no real taxes in the UK because it uses it's subsidiaries to avoid those responsibilities but I wasn't aware parts of the UK such as Wales and Scotland are outright subsidising their existence here meaning it's actually a net cost to the tax payer to have them here, especially when you consider the burden of bad health their premises are genuinely causing some staff on the NHS, which all wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that in subsidising them we're also destroying competition by allowing them to offer cheaper goods which puts indigenous businesses out of business. Something needs to be done here, the whole setup with Amazon is detrimental to competition and detrimental to our country.
But then there was the last part of it, the part where it was clear cut that Amazon was breaking the law. Lights going out in the factory regularly forcing workers to work in the dark, this was a blatant breach of health and safety law and they need to be pulled up on this. The second clear breach was that they were giving staff disciplinaries for going home ill, even if it was work caused illness such as a bad back for lifting heavy goods. This is also out and out illegal, you can only discipline someone for faking illness or self-caused illness (i.e. hangover from drinking too much) not for genuine illness, and most definitely not for work related injuries - on the contrary, in the latter case the employee should be getting compensated if they ask for it, not disciplined.
So it was a mixed bag, some of it was Panorama being typically full of shit as it normally always is, some of it was up for debate depending on your political views such as whether it's better to pay a company to be able to employ people even if that means other people going out of business, and some of it was Amazon unquestionably breaking employment law.
But make of it what you will, the bulk of the documentary focussed on Panorama talking shit and listening to lazy shirkers whining about having to actually work.
I'm personally not keen on Amazon, I think they're anti-competitive and immoral when it comes to things like tax hence why the revelation that not only do they dodge tax but accept public subsidy makes me sick. But despite that I think they deserve some defence here, whilst some of the documentary exposed illegality, much of it was simply unfair criticism.
This conspiracy theory came up along time ago after a few cables were cut off the coast of Egypt some years back. People were saying it must be a conspiracy because it's so impossible that 2 undersea cables could be cut in such a short time span.
At the time I looked into it and found a link to a fairly objective organisation which I frankly can't remember who published some information and stats on the issue. I think it may well have been the IMO - the International Maritime Organisation that all UN states are party to so about as unbiased as you can realistically get, and it stated that on average about 3 cables are cut every single week. Reasons cited ranged between ships anchors, to heavy trawler nets, to tectonic plate movement, to debris movement, and even to shark bites.
So long story short you can put your conspiracy theory to bed. A cable cut is unlikely to mean a conspiracy, and as you hinted at yourself, if the NSA were going to do it you probably wouldn't know, they'd likely hit the points at which they reach land or even where termination occurs. These cables are often maintained by private companies and checked either manually or using robotic vehicles. If you cut and then placed a device on a cable in the middle of the sea then someone is going to stumble across it and wonder what the fuck is attached to their cable.
This is why all interceptions to date are occurring in countries that are on board - because then they can just stick the equipment and the trunk line to their monitoring HQ directly into the data centres the cables arrive in where anyone entering said data centre will be told not to ask questions. These are places where foreign nations can't just trivially inspect, whereas taps placed on undersea cables in international waters would be ripe for theft by say Chinese or Russian subs who could then steal, replicate, and possibly even sabotage or place their own taps into the technology.
"Nations usually act on a single motivating factor: self-interest. "
I would qualify this, I think it's better phrased as:
Nations usually act on a single motivating factor: perceived self-interest.
What a nation, or at least, the leaders of a nation, perceive to be in their self-interest sometimes isn't. Tony Blair's government was convinced that attacking Iraq was in our self-interest but in reality it wasn't, it cost us billions in cash, it cost us lives, and it ripped our international reputation and political credibility to shreds, something we've only really started to recover from with the goodwill of a successful Olympics, royal wedding, royal baby, and jubilee - were it not for the mere chance happening of those events we'd still be far worse off politically than we are now.
I think there are many fine examples of where the perceived self-interest for a nation by it's leadership conflicts greatly with what is actually in it's interests.
Whether this is actually in their self-interest only time will tell. But selling your sovereignty to another nation that only has you in it's interests whilst you're useful, certainly isn't necessarily in your own self-interest.
"You really want to make this world a fairer place: how about paying all your employees a decent wage"
Er, staff at all those places get paid well above the average. They do get a decent wage, more than decent in fact - exceptional wages relative to their roles.
This even includes all their H1-B hires, which shows what a farce the argument that they just want to expand H1-B to bring wages down is because the very fact they pay all their H1-B hires more than the national average means they're actually raising the average with their H1-B hires.
There's plenty of criticism that can be pulled up for these companies, but what they pay their staff isn't it, and claims that they just want to reduce wages with H1-B are also false given that they demonstrably raise the average wage with what they pay them. H1-B wages for their hires are available publicly as are statistics on national average wages for different fields, hence this is something you can trivially verify with your own eyes using a Google search.
They're already doing exactly what you ask by raising the average by paying much more than the average, I can't fathom why you got modded up because your post was full of false but populist nonsensical tosh. I thought Slashdot was above populist nonsense, but apparently enough people here ARE that stupid nowadays to mod something up that sounds like it's sticking it to the man, but is in practice 100% wrong.
"The points made about millimeters in the article come off as a waste of money since everyone has different hands."
It's about finding the best on average.
This is exactly how the clothing industry has worked for years, notice how some brands have "small, medium, large"? What does that mean? what is large? if you're 6ft are you medium or large? It's about taking samples and dividing them into groups and selecting the most prominent. If you have 10 different sizes of controllers and they were all equally deemed as good across a wide sample size of people you'd expect 10% of the sample group to like all of them, but if say, 40% like one controller then that means that that controller is a size that is comfortable to far more people than any of the others, so makes sense to select. The 360 controller was popular and well remember because it was comfy, Dualshock 3 in contrast was awful and I'd wager had it undergone similar study it would not have made the cut.
They didn't spend $100mill on just determining the size so it's nonsense to keep repeating that, that will only have been a fraction of the cost, again they tried lots of new ideas and technology, smell, and so forth and others they've no doubt not published, possibly even because they've still got potential but haven't perfected yet and will release at a later date but need to keep secret from the competition in the meantime.
The millimetre changes was a classic optimisation problem, it was about optimising the controller to be preferable to the largest group of people.
Lots of these ideas get discussed but never go anywhere though. They've had the same discussion in the UK a few times but it's one of those issues that has so little public support they have zero hope of ever going ahead with it.
Actually if you look at all controllers this generation they all closely resemble the 360 design.
The Wii U Pro controllers are pretty much identical to the 360 controller albeit without the battery pack sticking out the bottom. The Dualshock 4 is a split between the Dualshock 3 and the 360 controller - the shape of the Dualshock 4 is basically exactly that of the 360 controller but with Sony's stick/button layout and style stuck onto it.
Given that Microsoft spent all this money trying to innovate and ended up finding that people basically just liked what they already had last time around (which is pretty much what the new controller is) it may well be that the 360 controller was that one ideal controller shape.
It seems a little coincidental that literally everyone in the game has copied the important bits of it's design in terms of ergonomics this time round.
I think that was one of the 360s major successes, it pretty much did perfect the console controller - it was extremely comfortable, very responsive, and about the right weight which is again hence why everyone else has copied it this time around and why Microsoft despite spending $100 million couldn't come up with anything better.
They did some genuinely new stuff here, adding scent to gaming hasn't really been done before even though it's dreamt about before. I understand the user studies didn't respond positively but at least they were willing to research the idea and try it - it's not really their fault that an idea that many people have to date thought was an awesome new idea didn't turn out to be appreciated by users in reality, but without spending that money to try it how the hell could they possibly know if it was a terrible idea in practice, or the next hot new idea? What if it had been appreciated? what if it triggered a new path in the technology world? what if it could've been extended to allow say people's smartphones to let them preview scent based products when shopping online for perfume or whatever? If that had happened it would've more than paid for the $100 million.
Of course if they knew from the outset that they were just going to end up with something similar to the last gen controller then they could've save tens of millions, but if you don't try new things how do you ever advance?
Good on them for trying new shit and taking a gamble, it didn't pay off this time but I hope the negative comments don't put them off trying to innovate in future. Innovation is exactly what stale old boring Microsoft is in desperate need of.