50% of all the money the industry earns comes in the three months before Christmas. People like to see BOXES under the Christmas tree. Nobody wants to get a little slip of paper with a note reading, "Here is the URL of your Christmas present."
Many, many games are sold at Wal-Mart. Whiny children who are bored shopping with mom get a new game to keep them quiet. This is a fact.
The benefits of electronic distribution are unquestionable. But for now, there are other benefits to retail distribution. By controlling manufacture, the console-builders guarantee that they get their cut.
I spent some time in northern Sudan as a child. We had kerosine lamps that used wicks, and Petromax pressure lamps that used a mantle (like the Coleman lamps in the USA). As an 8-year-old I loved having my own kerosine lamp to read by in bed. Yeah, it was dim -- but in a pitch black room with dark-adapted eyes, it was plenty.
They DO pollute, they ARE a fire hazard... but the world will be a little poorer when the last kerosine lamp is gone.
Suppose I Google the name of my prospective employer to find out if he or she is an irresponsible dickhead who likes to post pictures of himself drunk online? Should I be allowed to do that, or not? If I can, why can't they?
Here's a tip: keep stuff that you want to be private, private. Don't put things on the Internet that don't reflect well on you. Or, alternatively, go right ahead and be prepared to take the consequences.
Doctors don't have to pay huge malpractice insurance fees not because it's illegal to sue them, but because as employees of the NHS, they're covered by the NHS. If you're the victim of malpractice, you sue the NHS, not the doctor.
Secondly, in the UK the courts are not nearly as willing to award huge punitive damages or damages for intangibles like pain and suffering. Charging the NHS money is charging the taxpayer money, and it takes money away from patient care.
Finally, there simply isn't the lawsuit culture. People are justly proud of the NHS as one of Britain's great postwar achievements, and while they keep a close eye on its performance, they don't like to see it attacked for no good reason. Judges take a dim view of frivolous lawsuits -- and so do juries. You can't just file a lawsuit any time you like -- you have to ask permission and demonstrate that you have a case to answer before it goes anywhere at all.
As for your final point -- I acknowledged that there were plenty of dumb Americans (as in all countries) who can't reason soundly about actuarial realities. I'd take free-at-point-of-service healthcare for life and $8 a gallon gas without hesitation, but then I can do math.
Americans ought to be delighted with that deal. You can find ways to cut back on your gasoline usage. It's a lot harder to ensure that you won't be hit by an uninsured drunk driver and need several thousand dollars worth of treatment.
One of the coolest things about universal health care is that it drives down the cost of so many other things as well. Car insurance is cheaper because it doesn't have to cover huge treatment costs. Health insurance (yes, it's available in the UK for those who want extra protection) is cheaper because so few people actually make claims. Doctors don't have to pay colossal malpractice insurance fees.
Mind you, as in every country, there are a lot of dumb Americans who would rather save a small amount at the gas pump and take their chances about later. It's a bad bet. EVERYBODY is going to get old and need health care, unless they're killed outright early on.
I've experienced both systems first-hand -- I'm an American living in Britain. Government-provided health care is FAR superior to what I received in the USA. Easier to get, cheaper, and of equivalent quality. No comparison.
What makes you think people "will be dismissive of most unsubstantiated anonymous claims"? People believe the face of Jesus appears on tortillas. People believe 9/11 was really caused by Israel to get the US fired up against the Muslim world. People will believe all kinds of nonsense.
It takes very little to trash a person's character online. Of course no employer will pay attention to "she's a slut!" But no employer can afford to ignore "he was given a suspended sentence for child endangerment in Knox County, Kentucky in 1987." Will they really going to call up the Knox county courthouse and check? Of course they won't. They'll just toss that resume in the trash and move on.
Until the government (regardless of what level) decides that your pal Tony did something that maybe they don't like and decide to haul you and everyone else spotted with him in for a good cavity search. They can even look at the tv and say "That guy beat me at *name of event* back in high school!" and get a bogus warrant so that they can ruin your life as well. There are a LOT of police out there who only became police officers for the power and to feed their ego knowing that they are allowed to carry a gun, beat people up, and toss a little baggie on you and your life is screwed up for years. Giving those very people unlimited power over your life is one of the dumbest things you can do.
None of which is made substantially worse by the presence of CCTV. They could already do all of that stuff without CCTV. CCTV doesn't make it easier for them. CCTV provides far more reliable data than eyewitness testimony. How many people have been wrongly convicted because an eyewitness said it was a guy in a blue jacket, when really it was a guy in a red jacket? CCTV doesn't make those kinds of mistakes.
CCTV also discourages police overreactions. If they know they themselves are being filmed, they're somewhat more likely to behave appropriately.
I really, really don't get all this wingeing about privacy rights on the public streets. Here's a tip: if you're outdoors, you're not in private. Anybody can look at you. Anybody can take your picture. If you don't like that, stay inside. Celebrities deal with this all the time and you don't hear them asking the government to prevent it.
Politics are to technology as sugar in the gas tank is to a Lamborghini Countach. The tech might run for a little while, but not the way it's supposed to.
I added something that was a) true; b) supported by references; c) well-written; d) not inflammatory or controversial to a certain article. I took my time and did it carefully. Foolish me -- someone who was clearly the self-appointed owner of that article removed it within minutes.
How would you know? It didn't exist until a minute ago. It's certainly not cabinet-level, or there would be confirmation hearings.
My point is that most IT people, regardless of their gender, are "cybersecurity chiefs" -- that is, they're responsible for the security of their systems. What makes this one so special?
Most women are too smart to go into IT. As we all know from personal experience, it's a rotten job with too much responsibility, not enough authority, and zero upward mobility.
Yeah, revealing spoilers about the plot or telling me how to solve puzzles "spoils" the game for me. But that's not a patch on what MMOG asshattery does to my game experience. The 13-year-olds don't just spoil the game, they rape it with a baseball bat, beat it unconscious, and leave bleeding to death.
You want to REALLY ruin somebody's game? Make them play with arrogant, ignorant, sexist, homophobic, bigoted, inarticulate, semi-literate, foul-mouthed little punks.
I can't afford to run your candy-ass operating system in eunuch-mode. It's my goddamn machine and I refuse to ask permission to use my machine for the very purpose for which it was intended.
Bring back DOS 5, it was the last OS Windows ever made that was worth a damn.
My wife's system slowed way down for no apparent reason and ultimately stopped altogether. It wasn't a virus, worm, spyware or rootkit. It wasn't the hard drive.
We got in a tech who checked out the CPU -- no problem there. Then he checked out the motherboard. Dead as a doornail. We upgraded both for a fraction of what a whole new system would cost, and now she's back in business.
Now if only I could persuade her not to run the AOL client... there are times when "what you like and are used to" is not a sufficient excuse to keep using an utter piece of shit.
(This is the assumption that the m in F=ma and the m's in F= Gm1.m2/r^2 are the same thing).
I think 350 years of experiments on Newtonian physics have shown that they are the same thing except in weird-ass quantum or near-speed-of-light situations that don't really matter anyway.
Don't go confusing the high school kiddies, please. They're already confused enough about evolution thanks to media spinelessness.
What you have to say has nothing to do with the UAVs of the future. The current ones are designed for a specific task, but it's not always going to be that way.
We're not complaining about the long hours, we're bragging! It's a whose-penis-is-bigger contest. You can't win if you refuse to participate.
Among insiders this is a well-known phenomenon.
on
The Unmanned Air Force
·
· Score: 3, Funny
However, there is still an old guard of macho "Top Gun" guys in the upper ranks who will have to die off before the Air Force becomes completely comfortable with the idea.
An un-manned plane can out-accelerate and out-turn any plane with a human in it, so before long a manned plane will be at a distinct disadvantage. Give it 10 years or so and manned fighters will be gone. We'll still use pilots for AWACS and the like, though.
I've never yet had a computer be able to answer the question, "Could you explain it another way, please?" or "Could you think of an analogy?" A critical part of teaching is the charisma and attention of the teacher. Computers have neither.
Buy yourself a plot and you can rest alongside Jim Morrison, Jacques Louis David, Oscar Wilde, and loads of other interesting folks. They may be pricey, though -- the place is jammed. No rolling lawns or flower beds -- the graves are so close together that worm action is probably mixing up the bones underground.
Sad news. His postings were a lot better...
on
Roland Piquepaille Dies
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
... than all the slashdotcynicalwhining that pervades the board.
Slashdot Mirror
50% of all the money the industry earns comes in the three months before Christmas. People like to see BOXES under the Christmas tree. Nobody wants to get a little slip of paper with a note reading, "Here is the URL of your Christmas present."
Many, many games are sold at Wal-Mart. Whiny children who are bored shopping with mom get a new game to keep them quiet. This is a fact.
The benefits of electronic distribution are unquestionable. But for now, there are other benefits to retail distribution. By controlling manufacture, the console-builders guarantee that they get their cut.
I spent some time in northern Sudan as a child. We had kerosine lamps that used wicks, and Petromax pressure lamps that used a mantle (like the Coleman lamps in the USA). As an 8-year-old I loved having my own kerosine lamp to read by in bed. Yeah, it was dim -- but in a pitch black room with dark-adapted eyes, it was plenty.
They DO pollute, they ARE a fire hazard... but the world will be a little poorer when the last kerosine lamp is gone.
Suppose I Google the name of my prospective employer to find out if he or she is an irresponsible dickhead who likes to post pictures of himself drunk online? Should I be allowed to do that, or not? If I can, why can't they?
Here's a tip: keep stuff that you want to be private, private. Don't put things on the Internet that don't reflect well on you. Or, alternatively, go right ahead and be prepared to take the consequences.
How about some personal responsibility for once?
Doctors don't have to pay huge malpractice insurance fees not because it's illegal to sue them, but because as employees of the NHS, they're covered by the NHS. If you're the victim of malpractice, you sue the NHS, not the doctor.
Secondly, in the UK the courts are not nearly as willing to award huge punitive damages or damages for intangibles like pain and suffering. Charging the NHS money is charging the taxpayer money, and it takes money away from patient care.
Finally, there simply isn't the lawsuit culture. People are justly proud of the NHS as one of Britain's great postwar achievements, and while they keep a close eye on its performance, they don't like to see it attacked for no good reason. Judges take a dim view of frivolous lawsuits -- and so do juries. You can't just file a lawsuit any time you like -- you have to ask permission and demonstrate that you have a case to answer before it goes anywhere at all.
As for your final point -- I acknowledged that there were plenty of dumb Americans (as in all countries) who can't reason soundly about actuarial realities. I'd take free-at-point-of-service healthcare for life and $8 a gallon gas without hesitation, but then I can do math.
Americans ought to be delighted with that deal. You can find ways to cut back on your gasoline usage. It's a lot harder to ensure that you won't be hit by an uninsured drunk driver and need several thousand dollars worth of treatment.
One of the coolest things about universal health care is that it drives down the cost of so many other things as well. Car insurance is cheaper because it doesn't have to cover huge treatment costs. Health insurance (yes, it's available in the UK for those who want extra protection) is cheaper because so few people actually make claims. Doctors don't have to pay colossal malpractice insurance fees.
Mind you, as in every country, there are a lot of dumb Americans who would rather save a small amount at the gas pump and take their chances about later. It's a bad bet. EVERYBODY is going to get old and need health care, unless they're killed outright early on.
I've experienced both systems first-hand -- I'm an American living in Britain. Government-provided health care is FAR superior to what I received in the USA. Easier to get, cheaper, and of equivalent quality. No comparison.
What makes you think people "will be dismissive of most unsubstantiated anonymous claims"? People believe the face of Jesus appears on tortillas. People believe 9/11 was really caused by Israel to get the US fired up against the Muslim world. People will believe all kinds of nonsense.
It takes very little to trash a person's character online. Of course no employer will pay attention to "she's a slut!" But no employer can afford to ignore "he was given a suspended sentence for child endangerment in Knox County, Kentucky in 1987." Will they really going to call up the Knox county courthouse and check? Of course they won't. They'll just toss that resume in the trash and move on.
None of which is made substantially worse by the presence of CCTV. They could already do all of that stuff without CCTV. CCTV doesn't make it easier for them. CCTV provides far more reliable data than eyewitness testimony. How many people have been wrongly convicted because an eyewitness said it was a guy in a blue jacket, when really it was a guy in a red jacket? CCTV doesn't make those kinds of mistakes.
CCTV also discourages police overreactions. If they know they themselves are being filmed, they're somewhat more likely to behave appropriately.
Well-behaved people have nothing to fear from being seen sitting and drinking.
I really, really don't get all this wingeing about privacy rights on the public streets. Here's a tip: if you're outdoors, you're not in private. Anybody can look at you. Anybody can take your picture. If you don't like that, stay inside. Celebrities deal with this all the time and you don't hear them asking the government to prevent it.
Politics are to technology as sugar in the gas tank is to a Lamborghini Countach. The tech might run for a little while, but not the way it's supposed to.
I added something that was a) true; b) supported by references; c) well-written; d) not inflammatory or controversial to a certain article. I took my time and did it carefully. Foolish me -- someone who was clearly the self-appointed owner of that article removed it within minutes.
How would you know? It didn't exist until a minute ago. It's certainly not cabinet-level, or there would be confirmation hearings.
My point is that most IT people, regardless of their gender, are "cybersecurity chiefs" -- that is, they're responsible for the security of their systems. What makes this one so special?
Most women are too smart to go into IT. As we all know from personal experience, it's a rotten job with too much responsibility, not enough authority, and zero upward mobility.
Gurlz iz rare in IT. The work/life balance sucks hard. I hope she knows that.
Unfortunately some people are stuck at that age even though their tree-rings reveal them to be as old as 35.
I don't have a little circle of friends. I play alone... for a reason.
Yeah, revealing spoilers about the plot or telling me how to solve puzzles "spoils" the game for me. But that's not a patch on what MMOG asshattery does to my game experience. The 13-year-olds don't just spoil the game, they rape it with a baseball bat, beat it unconscious, and leave bleeding to death.
You want to REALLY ruin somebody's game? Make them play with arrogant, ignorant, sexist, homophobic, bigoted, inarticulate, semi-literate, foul-mouthed little punks.
I can't afford to run your candy-ass operating system in eunuch-mode. It's my goddamn machine and I refuse to ask permission to use my machine for the very purpose for which it was intended.
Bring back DOS 5, it was the last OS Windows ever made that was worth a damn.
My wife's system slowed way down for no apparent reason and ultimately stopped altogether. It wasn't a virus, worm, spyware or rootkit. It wasn't the hard drive.
We got in a tech who checked out the CPU -- no problem there. Then he checked out the motherboard. Dead as a doornail. We upgraded both for a fraction of what a whole new system would cost, and now she's back in business.
Now if only I could persuade her not to run the AOL client... there are times when "what you like and are used to" is not a sufficient excuse to keep using an utter piece of shit.
(This is the assumption that the m in F=ma and the m's in F= Gm1.m2/r^2 are the same thing).
I think 350 years of experiments on Newtonian physics have shown that they are the same thing except in weird-ass quantum or near-speed-of-light situations that don't really matter anyway.
Don't go confusing the high school kiddies, please. They're already confused enough about evolution thanks to media spinelessness.
What you have to say has nothing to do with the UAVs of the future. The current ones are designed for a specific task, but it's not always going to be that way.
We're not complaining about the long hours, we're bragging! It's a whose-penis-is-bigger contest. You can't win if you refuse to participate.
However, there is still an old guard of macho "Top Gun" guys in the upper ranks who will have to die off before the Air Force becomes completely comfortable with the idea.
An un-manned plane can out-accelerate and out-turn any plane with a human in it, so before long a manned plane will be at a distinct disadvantage. Give it 10 years or so and manned fighters will be gone. We'll still use pilots for AWACS and the like, though.
I've never yet had a computer be able to answer the question, "Could you explain it another way, please?" or "Could you think of an analogy?" A critical part of teaching is the charisma and attention of the teacher. Computers have neither.
Buy yourself a plot and you can rest alongside Jim Morrison, Jacques Louis David, Oscar Wilde, and loads of other interesting folks. They may be pricey, though -- the place is jammed. No rolling lawns or flower beds -- the graves are so close together that worm action is probably mixing up the bones underground.
... than all the slashdotcynicalwhining that pervades the board.
He'll definitely be missed by some of us.