Interesting chart. What do the people of northern Europe, who are regularly regarded as tech savvy, know about HD-DVD that the rest of the world does not?
What I wonder is what percentage of iPhone and iPod Touch users are going to get their device modded/hacked? If it's a small percentage of the whole (maybe labeled "enthusiasts") and keeps them in the group "coming back for more" and has little to no effect on total revenue then maybe the cat and mouse is preferable to all parties than total lockdown or total open source. The ptb must've seen this as a possible reaction to their products. They'd be idiots not to.
I agree on the fear for no reason. As long as safety is the number one concern of the plant (even before power generation) then I see no problem with nuclear power proliferation. Wasn't there a study that showed that living close to a nuclear power plant versus not had negligible differences in cancer rates? All I could find was a PDF on it but I thought there was something also listed on/.
Nuclear waste becomes more manageable when you can recycle spent rods. If you look at the existing nuclear power plants in the USA, they use the rods until they're spent and then send them off to be stored for 10s of thousands of years. If you recycled them, you could create a secondary nuclear power layer using fast (breeder) reactors. The waste that comes from these are either recyclable (put back into the fast reactor) or have a much, much shorter half-life.
Unfortunately, the necessary first step to this infrastructure is recycling spent rods. This can't be done because of an executive order during the Carter era to encourage nuclear non-proliferation. In other words, recycling spent rods gives you not only fast reactor material but also weapons-grade material. One solution to this dilemma, however, is to use the existing nuclear weapon stockpile to build the initial fast-reactor infrastructure, thus circumventing the executive order, and then proving that it's economically and environmentally feasible. Then you overturn the order, build the spent-rod recycling facilities, and offer your services to recycle to foreign nations as an export industry, thus giving an positive economic shift in the GDP and unofficially regulating weapons-grade material (i.e., you see it's used peacefully).
So while something like "instantaneous" or even slightly "backward in time" messages may seem spooky in some ways may be possible, I'd bet that the time differences we're talking about wouldn't be large enough to make for any of the paradoxes people imagine using sci-fi based "time travel" notions.
I was reading an article yesterday that said something similar. It was comparing DDR2 memory to DDR3 memory, saying that the priors latency would cause a 6.25ns response whereas the latters latency would cause a 6.75ns response, which seems insignificant until you take into account the billions or trillions of responses a CPU has per cycle.
As such, couldn't you make a relay that receives from moments ahead the signal and sends it back? Theoretically it'd only go as far back as the technology was activated, but 20 years down the road if the device was still on, it'd be sending messages way back to the beginning.
I am a techie and like the latest and greatest toys, however for my phone I want it simple. All I want to do is make phone calls with it. No cameras, MP3 players, no frills really.
Since I liked the quality of customer and phone service that T-Mobile offered, I looked at their phones. I came across the Motorola V195s.
Simple phone, has a nice color screen, and is very inexpensive. Best of all, it works with a MyFaves plan so the top 5 people I call all the time (mobile or landline) are unlimited talk-times. Since this phone is also a Quad Band phone, it can be used in all four available world-wide frequencies, including the recently released 850MHz band (previously analog, I believe, and in a lot of rural areas). Check out their coverage map and see if your Mom can get one where she lives.
Under the agreement, which the United States says it expects to be signed this week, both EU and U.S. satellites would send information on the same radio frequency, enabling receivers to get signals from both systems and combine the data.
Does anyone have any further information on how the signals are jammed? I was under the impression that the signals would send the same data but the decryption device (hardware or software) would interpret the signals to a level of specificity based on its level of ability. For example, a consumer gets level 2 but military may get level 5, and setting the data bit at level 2 would mean levels 2, 1 and 0 can't pinpoint as well the same data that levels 4 and 5 can.
Also, how well will the consumer be able to turn on and/or off specific data streams (GPS, WAAS, Galileo)? How well will the EU and the US work together to make sure that when one wants to jam the other also complies for the same constellation of satellites servicing an area? Does this agreement make it easier to perform jamming?
So reading through most of these/. responses, I noted that a great majority, if not all, of you will be unticking boxes that allow MS to collect this info. Fine, that's your right. So who's info are they going to collect? The people not savvy enough to untick, which is probably the subset of users that coincides with the subset that doesn't read/., ars technica, etc. So now MS has anonymous usage statistics from the people who aren't power users and design their products accordingly. These people also happen to be a majority subset in a larger group.
Now the power users, for one reason or another, still have to use the OS that MS comes up with (games, work, etc). Wouldn't it be better to find out what sort of statistics are being collected, find out to what degree they are anonymous, improve upon the anonymity while allowing MS to collect useful data about the power users who actually use MS products? Because if they can't collect even the most anonymous info from power users, how are they going to build an OS that appeals to us?
It's seems like most people don't want to be grouped into a category unless it's a category they already agree with. Fine, stand up for your category and make MS build something that appeals to it.
Does it make sense that the wings are Carbon Fiber because they hold the fuel for the plane? On impact, how well does carbon fiber hold up to the crash and furthermore does it offer any increased protection to the fuel, e.g. to make the plane less likely to explode on impact?
Personally, I think being censored by your peers is a lot worse than having a watchdog do it. We all play because we enjoy it and just because there's an unwelcome element shouldn't prevent us from continuing to play. I've read through the posts and there are some ideas I really like.
Give warnings - Nearly all IM clients have this, where you can warn a person. Institute an option to "warn" a person, making them accountable for their actions. Don't make it a public view offense, i.e. don't allow users to see that someone has been warned and by how much. If you give everyone 2% warning ability per person per long time period, chances are that if the person being warned is really being offensive then they'll hit 100% pretty quickly. Set a threshold for how much they can write and a higher one for being flagged to a GM.
Turn your profanity filter on - Mine is off because I like to see what people are actually using for their choice swear words, but this is on by default and usually replaces a word with $*!# symbols.
Get out of chat rooms - If you don't like the chat in General or never want to trade on Trade, get off these channels. They're on by default because they can really help a noob as much as help a veteran.
Report spammers - I like that in upcoming WoW 2.1 I'll be able to report a tell directly to the game makers.
Track 10-day Trial codes - You can either get them from the retail box or can get them online. Whatever the case, you can track where they came from and almost where they went to. For the retail box, if a key is associated with a real key, shut them both off. Make them pay for it, literally. As for the free download code, track the IP or something a little more identifiable that is the same as when they finally use it. Shut them down, maybe temporarily (10 days) so they have to do more than just downlaod another code.
These could easily be implemented and would give the world some self regulation (empowerment?). This would also make it easier for the game makers than to setup a rudeness police.
Is this a National ID card?
No. The proposed regulations establish common standards for States to issue licenses. The Federal Government is not issuing the licenses, is not collecting information about license holders, and is not requiring States to transmit license holder information to the Federal Government that the Government does not already have (such as a Social Security Number). Most States already routinely collect the information required by the Act and the proposed regulations.
...
What is the Machine Readable Technology specified in the NPRM?
The regulations propose the use of the 2-D barcode already used by 46 jurisdictions (45 States and the District of Columbia). DHS leans towards encrypting the data on the barcode as a privacy protection and requests comments on how to proceed given operational considerations.
Will REAL ID driver's licenses include RFID cards?
The NPRM does not specify the use of RFID cards as a minimum standard. States may independently choose to implement an RFID solution, in addition to the standard 2-D barcode, to meet their constituent's needs.
It would seem to me that the US Government is setting a standard for all the states to follow since they all do not seem to play well together. In doing so there could be an increase in efficiency with interstate information gathering and/or duplication, etc. This appears to contain no information about the federal government collecting more information than they already know (e.g., SSN and Passport numbers). Please give me links to government issued documents to show that this has changed.
Fascinating which stories get us to really think and respond.
It would appear to me that Blizzard believes that users of WoWGlider are violating the EULA and TOU. That much seems to be agreed upon. Is it getting out of control enough that they decide the best course of action is to attack the source? This maybe why they went after MDY instead of against each person individually, as they have been doing.
Take, for example, scaling up. Say you increase the number of players from 8 Million to maybe double that, you have to take into consideration the percentages of people using a specific piece of software, like WoWGlider. If it's just 1% (bear with me here), we're talking about from 80,000 users using this to 160,000. How much time, effort and money does it take then to shut down 160,000 users? If it's anything but a linear cost then it could have an impact on the revenue generated from WoW, due to an impact on the economy within WoW and the loss of gameplay entertainment.
Even if 80,000 reprimands and punishments are doable, can you see now how it's easier to go after the source than 160,000 different accounts?
My question is, after analyzing the laws available to them and the wording of the EULA and TOU, how did they come up with this? There must be much better tactics than this. I believe they should've spent more time thinking this out before pouncing, if going after the source of the cheating is what they are really after. This would seem like quite a shortcut, and one that may backfire.
If you take a look at the site and the story behind the album, one could correlate the behavior of the RIAA to "the man" in the story. Pretty cool how the RIAA attack really helps Trent's cause.
this is the missing link? That sound and electricity are related and it took a biological experiment to make this link? Going very basic here, electricity is the flow of electrons, while sound is mechanical waves propagating from a source. What if electricity is not the flow of electrons but rather the mechanical flow of energy between electrons? That what we have thought is electrons moving is actually the energy from one electron moving to another and so on and so forth? Then, in the end, electricity is nothing but mechanical energy, aka sound, moving at the speed of light.
Disclaimer: I am not a published scientist, merely an imaginer of science fiction, also not published.
Living in Boston, I have mixed feelings about what happened here. I think I may have voiced them in another thread here on/. I've since talked and discussed this with friends and colleagues so I want to just reiterate and elaborate.
Who reported the device in the first place? I assume it wasn't a/. reader, who would've seen the device flyby while on the subway or hanging on a bridge girder and just laughed. Maybe the casual./ reader would've given the finger back or tried to get the device for his/her own personal collection. I'm assuming a lot here although it's good assumptions for you readers here, including myself.
When was the device reported seen? If reports are correct, it was reported at about 8:00am. How well do lite-brite devices work during the daytime? It's certainly one thing to see the lite-brite fly by when on the subway, quite another to see an apparent electronic device just hanging there with thick, duct-tape wrapped bottom. I may have reacted with a cool, what was that. Apparently someone else reacted with a "WTF was that!?"
Did the city emergency response teams respond to this well? While it may not have been efficient, I think they responded as they should've. I think it was a very good test. Since 9-11, most major cities have implemented emergency response teams in regards to terrorist attacks. How does one practice for this? With the exception of New York City and Washington, DC there's really no other real data you can work with so you resort to simulations. I will assume that a simulation is a budgeted, planned event that still has a control to it. In this post-device situation, it was a simulation that no one had either planned or budgeted for. Boston should take the data from the response, find weaknesses and strengths in the emergency response teams, share the data with other public agencies around the country and world, then sell the data for independent study. This could allow other cities and emergency response teams to learn from it while allowing independent review. Boston could be making money off of this for years! And with TBC's payment now it would seem that the data gleaned from this was a bargain. A simulation that not only did not cost the taxpayers anything but also made a profit!? IMO, a win-win.
Did the city and state politics respond correctly to this? This is the non-response team, the post-situation response. The political response is what I don't agree with. What exactly did these guerrilla marketing engineers do that was wrong? It sure seems like a witch-hunt to me and most of the people I talked with agree. In lieu of everything that came out of this (profitable ERT tests, valuable data on responding, etc.) these guys should be given awards. Like I said above, how many REAL simulations can you get where no one was hurt, maybe only inconvenienced? I think that governments on all levels should learn from the political aspect of this as well as the response aspect.
Did the media react and report with the best interests of it's viewers? I remember seeing the images of the event from different helicopter angles, ground angles, reporters, etc. If it had been a malicious device and a device-controller was watching the news, they could've taken out a huge amount of emergency responders with public infrastructure at the same time. Just watch the news, no need for spotters, go 'Speed' on them. I also assume there were people who, in response to the news-media, panicked and others who thought "Well, guess I won't be taking the subway today." When did news lose the facts? Isn't it the job of the news-media to keep us informed, not guide our assumptions? "There is an unknown device. Emergency response teams are being deployed to analyze it." Leave out the "There's speculation on the use of this device" until after the bomb squad has analyzed it. They can use the data from their reporting to improve how and what they report in the future.
I live and work in the area as well and I say kudos to the response teams for being safe rather than sorry. If Ignignot is going to give Boston the finger it's only fair to send the Bomb Squad after him and clear him through countermeasures.
Personally, I think the media and political fallout could've been handled better. Of course one could argue that Cartoon Network could've let officials know there was a guerilla marketing plan going on, more of a professional heads-up than an official form to sign. The media attention then could've had a positive spin, like "Mooninites invade Boston, other major cities. Boston responds with defense tactics."
I did read one article that suggested the response from Boston was such because of the impact Boston had on 9-11. Response based on guilt?
Anyways, WBZ Radio 1030 AM has some decent coverage of the story, as well as the "Making of" video of the guerrilla marketing and other coverage. Pretty nice in my opinion.
I was fortunate to get one last Sunday. Here's my recipe for success:
Can't advertise what you don't have - If the Wii is advertised in a store weekly chances are extremely high they will have it Sunday morning. The new advert comes out in the Sunday edition of major papers but it ALSO comes out online between 3:00am and 4:00am.
Experience - Most stores now have experience dealing with a demand they cannot handle. The best way to deal with it is the simplest: Print out numbered tickets and as people arrive before opening hand them out on a first-come-first-serve until you have no more. This takes care of loitering and keeps the lines non-existent, so you won't have to call for backup when a fight over line position breaks out.
Target opens first - Unless you're a 24-hour superstore Target beats the others with an 8:00am opening. Bestbuy and Circuit City? 10:00am.
Accessibility and weather have an effect - If the store isn't near mass transit or easy to walk to less people are going to try to get to it. Furthermore, if it's REALLY COLD or WET when you go down Sunday morning, don't sit in your car. Chances are the person that wants a Wii and is dressed for the current weather will not mind standing right at the door and will be able to walk right up to it. For example, I dressed for the 20F weather that day. I walked right up to the store door and saw 1/2-dozen cars running in the lot. I turned to look inside the store and when I turned around again there were 1/2-dozen people BEHIND me at the door. Guess who got ticket 23/24 for a new Wii;-)
Be polite to the retail workers - They are ultimately making a decision to let you hang out or not before the store actually opens. If you're rude chances are they'll sabotage any chance you had of getting one. Even though the customer is always right, it's their word vs. yours when the police/security are called. Being overly polite won't hurt just don't be rude.
Hope this helps even the playing field for the Wii competition. Now if I could just find another Wii-mote...
If you are like me, you looked up "water intoxication" under WikiPedia to see how it happens and just learn more about it. While reading it, I then went back to the original article. What I found most interesting was the similarities between the article's description of "water intoxication" and Wikipedias. Here, take a look:
Article
Water intoxication (also known as hyperhydration or water poisoning) is a potentially fatal disturbance in brain function that results when the normal balance of electrolytes in the body is upset by a rapid intake of water.
Wikipedia
Water intoxication (also known as hyperhydration or water poisoning) is a potentially fatal disturbance in brain function that results when the normal balance of electrolytes in the body is pushed outside of safe limits by a very rapid intake of water.[1]
Maybe I've been out of college for some time and the rules may have changed however this appears to be nearly 75% of the content of a reference that isn't cited. How often does this happen? What are the rules when you write an article and you use a source like Wikipedia? I mean, Wikipedia cited their source. Are news reporters exempt from this same citing procedure?
Looking through the responses to this, it would appear that there are a good number of people who see this and think "Greedy SOBs." My question then is can a large group of people who have not had problems support the Nintendo side of this and therefore push the legal system through peer pressure into setting a precedent that "This claim is invalid and only goes to show that there is greed cluttering the USA Judicial System?" It could then become the "Stupids Precedent" where if enough people aren't having this problem then the suit really is nothing but greed and frivolity on account of being stupid.
Or maybe I'm just another US Citizen who doesn't even understand his legal system and can only acknowledge that it's broken.
Slashdot Mirror
Interesting chart. What do the people of northern Europe, who are regularly regarded as tech savvy, know about HD-DVD that the rest of the world does not?
What I wonder is what percentage of iPhone and iPod Touch users are going to get their device modded/hacked? If it's a small percentage of the whole (maybe labeled "enthusiasts") and keeps them in the group "coming back for more" and has little to no effect on total revenue then maybe the cat and mouse is preferable to all parties than total lockdown or total open source. The ptb must've seen this as a possible reaction to their products. They'd be idiots not to.
Sounds like they're trying to compete with InterSystems HealthShare.
How about Unlimited Data Backup for US$79.99 annually?
I agree on the fear for no reason. As long as safety is the number one concern of the plant (even before power generation) then I see no problem with nuclear power proliferation. Wasn't there a study that showed that living close to a nuclear power plant versus not had negligible differences in cancer rates? All I could find was a PDF on it but I thought there was something also listed on /.
Nuclear waste becomes more manageable when you can recycle spent rods. If you look at the existing nuclear power plants in the USA, they use the rods until they're spent and then send them off to be stored for 10s of thousands of years. If you recycled them, you could create a secondary nuclear power layer using fast (breeder) reactors. The waste that comes from these are either recyclable (put back into the fast reactor) or have a much, much shorter half-life.
Unfortunately, the necessary first step to this infrastructure is recycling spent rods. This can't be done because of an executive order during the Carter era to encourage nuclear non-proliferation. In other words, recycling spent rods gives you not only fast reactor material but also weapons-grade material. One solution to this dilemma, however, is to use the existing nuclear weapon stockpile to build the initial fast-reactor infrastructure, thus circumventing the executive order, and then proving that it's economically and environmentally feasible. Then you overturn the order, build the spent-rod recycling facilities, and offer your services to recycle to foreign nations as an export industry, thus giving an positive economic shift in the GDP and unofficially regulating weapons-grade material (i.e., you see it's used peacefully).
Uhhh, negative, I am a "gene popsicle."
...when we should be thinking like Martians.
I was reading an article yesterday that said something similar. It was comparing DDR2 memory to DDR3 memory, saying that the priors latency would cause a 6.25ns response whereas the latters latency would cause a 6.75ns response, which seems insignificant until you take into account the billions or trillions of responses a CPU has per cycle.
As such, couldn't you make a relay that receives from moments ahead the signal and sends it back? Theoretically it'd only go as far back as the technology was activated, but 20 years down the road if the device was still on, it'd be sending messages way back to the beginning.
I am a techie and like the latest and greatest toys, however for my phone I want it simple. All I want to do is make phone calls with it. No cameras, MP3 players, no frills really.
Since I liked the quality of customer and phone service that T-Mobile offered, I looked at their phones. I came across the Motorola V195s.
Simple phone, has a nice color screen, and is very inexpensive. Best of all, it works with a MyFaves plan so the top 5 people I call all the time (mobile or landline) are unlimited talk-times. Since this phone is also a Quad Band phone, it can be used in all four available world-wide frequencies, including the recently released 850MHz band (previously analog, I believe, and in a lot of rural areas). Check out their coverage map and see if your Mom can get one where she lives.Good luck!
After the US-EU GPS story broke, the Air Force decided to announce their plans for contract bidding for the upcoming GPS III.
From the article:
Does anyone have any further information on how the signals are jammed? I was under the impression that the signals would send the same data but the decryption device (hardware or software) would interpret the signals to a level of specificity based on its level of ability. For example, a consumer gets level 2 but military may get level 5, and setting the data bit at level 2 would mean levels 2, 1 and 0 can't pinpoint as well the same data that levels 4 and 5 can.
Also, how well will the consumer be able to turn on and/or off specific data streams (GPS, WAAS, Galileo)? How well will the EU and the US work together to make sure that when one wants to jam the other also complies for the same constellation of satellites servicing an area? Does this agreement make it easier to perform jamming?
So reading through most of these /. responses, I noted that a great majority, if not all, of you will be unticking boxes that allow MS to collect this info. Fine, that's your right. So who's info are they going to collect? The people not savvy enough to untick, which is probably the subset of users that coincides with the subset that doesn't read /., ars technica, etc. So now MS has anonymous usage statistics from the people who aren't power users and design their products accordingly. These people also happen to be a majority subset in a larger group.
Now the power users, for one reason or another, still have to use the OS that MS comes up with (games, work, etc). Wouldn't it be better to find out what sort of statistics are being collected, find out to what degree they are anonymous, improve upon the anonymity while allowing MS to collect useful data about the power users who actually use MS products? Because if they can't collect even the most anonymous info from power users, how are they going to build an OS that appeals to us?
It's seems like most people don't want to be grouped into a category unless it's a category they already agree with. Fine, stand up for your category and make MS build something that appeals to it.
Does it make sense that the wings are Carbon Fiber because they hold the fuel for the plane? On impact, how well does carbon fiber hold up to the crash and furthermore does it offer any increased protection to the fuel, e.g. to make the plane less likely to explode on impact?
Personally, I think being censored by your peers is a lot worse than having a watchdog do it. We all play because we enjoy it and just because there's an unwelcome element shouldn't prevent us from continuing to play. I've read through the posts and there are some ideas I really like.
These could easily be implemented and would give the world some self regulation (empowerment?). This would also make it easier for the game makers than to setup a rudeness police.
Three key points I see from this link to dhs.gov
It would seem to me that the US Government is setting a standard for all the states to follow since they all do not seem to play well together. In doing so there could be an increase in efficiency with interstate information gathering and/or duplication, etc. This appears to contain no information about the federal government collecting more information than they already know (e.g., SSN and Passport numbers). Please give me links to government issued documents to show that this has changed.
Fascinating which stories get us to really think and respond.
It would appear to me that Blizzard believes that users of WoWGlider are violating the EULA and TOU. That much seems to be agreed upon. Is it getting out of control enough that they decide the best course of action is to attack the source? This maybe why they went after MDY instead of against each person individually, as they have been doing.
Take, for example, scaling up. Say you increase the number of players from 8 Million to maybe double that, you have to take into consideration the percentages of people using a specific piece of software, like WoWGlider. If it's just 1% (bear with me here), we're talking about from 80,000 users using this to 160,000. How much time, effort and money does it take then to shut down 160,000 users? If it's anything but a linear cost then it could have an impact on the revenue generated from WoW, due to an impact on the economy within WoW and the loss of gameplay entertainment.
Even if 80,000 reprimands and punishments are doable, can you see now how it's easier to go after the source than 160,000 different accounts?
My question is, after analyzing the laws available to them and the wording of the EULA and TOU, how did they come up with this? There must be much better tactics than this. I believe they should've spent more time thinking this out before pouncing, if going after the source of the cheating is what they are really after. This would seem like quite a shortcut, and one that may backfire.
If you take a look at the site and the story behind the album, one could correlate the behavior of the RIAA to "the man" in the story. Pretty cool how the RIAA attack really helps Trent's cause.
this is the missing link? That sound and electricity are related and it took a biological experiment to make this link? Going very basic here, electricity is the flow of electrons, while sound is mechanical waves propagating from a source. What if electricity is not the flow of electrons but rather the mechanical flow of energy between electrons? That what we have thought is electrons moving is actually the energy from one electron moving to another and so on and so forth? Then, in the end, electricity is nothing but mechanical energy, aka sound, moving at the speed of light.
Disclaimer: I am not a published scientist, merely an imaginer of science fiction, also not published.
Living in Boston, I have mixed feelings about what happened here. I think I may have voiced them in another thread here on /. I've since talked and discussed this with friends and colleagues so I want to just reiterate and elaborate.
Who reported the device in the first place? I assume it wasn't a /. reader, who would've seen the device flyby while on the subway or hanging on a bridge girder and just laughed. Maybe the casual ./ reader would've given the finger back or tried to get the device for his/her own personal collection. I'm assuming a lot here although it's good assumptions for you readers here, including myself.
When was the device reported seen? If reports are correct, it was reported at about 8:00am. How well do lite-brite devices work during the daytime? It's certainly one thing to see the lite-brite fly by when on the subway, quite another to see an apparent electronic device just hanging there with thick, duct-tape wrapped bottom. I may have reacted with a cool, what was that. Apparently someone else reacted with a "WTF was that!?"
Did the city emergency response teams respond to this well? While it may not have been efficient, I think they responded as they should've. I think it was a very good test. Since 9-11, most major cities have implemented emergency response teams in regards to terrorist attacks. How does one practice for this? With the exception of New York City and Washington, DC there's really no other real data you can work with so you resort to simulations. I will assume that a simulation is a budgeted, planned event that still has a control to it. In this post-device situation, it was a simulation that no one had either planned or budgeted for. Boston should take the data from the response, find weaknesses and strengths in the emergency response teams, share the data with other public agencies around the country and world, then sell the data for independent study. This could allow other cities and emergency response teams to learn from it while allowing independent review. Boston could be making money off of this for years! And with TBC's payment now it would seem that the data gleaned from this was a bargain. A simulation that not only did not cost the taxpayers anything but also made a profit!? IMO, a win-win.
Did the city and state politics respond correctly to this? This is the non-response team, the post-situation response. The political response is what I don't agree with. What exactly did these guerrilla marketing engineers do that was wrong? It sure seems like a witch-hunt to me and most of the people I talked with agree. In lieu of everything that came out of this (profitable ERT tests, valuable data on responding, etc.) these guys should be given awards. Like I said above, how many REAL simulations can you get where no one was hurt, maybe only inconvenienced? I think that governments on all levels should learn from the political aspect of this as well as the response aspect.
Did the media react and report with the best interests of it's viewers? I remember seeing the images of the event from different helicopter angles, ground angles, reporters, etc. If it had been a malicious device and a device-controller was watching the news, they could've taken out a huge amount of emergency responders with public infrastructure at the same time. Just watch the news, no need for spotters, go 'Speed' on them. I also assume there were people who, in response to the news-media, panicked and others who thought "Well, guess I won't be taking the subway today." When did news lose the facts? Isn't it the job of the news-media to keep us informed, not guide our assumptions? "There is an unknown device. Emergency response teams are being deployed to analyze it." Leave out the "There's speculation on the use of this device" until after the bomb squad has analyzed it. They can use the data from their reporting to improve how and what they report in the future.
I live and work in the area as well and I say kudos to the response teams for being safe rather than sorry. If Ignignot is going to give Boston the finger it's only fair to send the Bomb Squad after him and clear him through countermeasures.
Personally, I think the media and political fallout could've been handled better. Of course one could argue that Cartoon Network could've let officials know there was a guerilla marketing plan going on, more of a professional heads-up than an official form to sign. The media attention then could've had a positive spin, like "Mooninites invade Boston, other major cities. Boston responds with defense tactics."
I did read one article that suggested the response from Boston was such because of the impact Boston had on 9-11. Response based on guilt?
Anyways, WBZ Radio 1030 AM has some decent coverage of the story, as well as the "Making of" video of the guerrilla marketing and other coverage. Pretty nice in my opinion.
"Quaid... Start the reactor. Free Mars!"
"Eh. No wonder he stayed hidden."
I was fortunate to get one last Sunday. Here's my recipe for success:
Hope this helps even the playing field for the Wii competition. Now if I could just find another Wii-mote...
If you are like me, you looked up "water intoxication" under WikiPedia to see how it happens and just learn more about it. While reading it, I then went back to the original article. What I found most interesting was the similarities between the article's description of "water intoxication" and Wikipedias. Here, take a look:
Article WikipediaMaybe I've been out of college for some time and the rules may have changed however this appears to be nearly 75% of the content of a reference that isn't cited. How often does this happen? What are the rules when you write an article and you use a source like Wikipedia? I mean, Wikipedia cited their source. Are news reporters exempt from this same citing procedure?
Looking through the responses to this, it would appear that there are a good number of people who see this and think "Greedy SOBs." My question then is can a large group of people who have not had problems support the Nintendo side of this and therefore push the legal system through peer pressure into setting a precedent that "This claim is invalid and only goes to show that there is greed cluttering the USA Judicial System?" It could then become the "Stupids Precedent" where if enough people aren't having this problem then the suit really is nothing but greed and frivolity on account of being stupid.
Or maybe I'm just another US Citizen who doesn't even understand his legal system and can only acknowledge that it's broken.