Depends.

Joe at Normal job certainly doesn't work for 8 hours straight over five days a week, obviously. Looking at some bureaucrazies, I wonder if they even work five minutes a week.
However, I come from the crazy world of Teaching Artificial Brains How To Think (yeah, also known as Computer Programming) and - if we're not disturbed - we can work for way over eight hours non-stop on an interesting project.

Has this never happened to you? A cow-orker says it's 11:30, inviting you to come along to lunch later. You nod, looking forward, and sink back into the code. Next time you look up it's because you feel a little tired - and it's 11:30 again, pm.

However, if we're disturbed by managers often enough (we all know that a 20 second interruption will cost you about 15 minutes to sink all the way back into work) we surely won't make 8 hours either...

What is it with these nutcases and pornography?
"Eeeeeeek, a woman showing a naked boobie! How horrifying!" ...but sending your own people to an obscure war on the other side of the world to involve them in shooting at civilians, that's okay?

Well, okay, as long as they don't get the "Press any key to continue" message...

As they say: "Going to hell in a handbasket".

Quite a few of us outsiders gaze at the USA, being surprised that they still stand, not having fallen apart as the Soviet Union did some years ago.
But then, again and again, we see messages such as this one, which are quite clear signs that in the near future, the USA will share the fate of Portugal, Spain, Italy, France, Greece, Great Britain, Egypt and quite a few others: they used to be World Powers. Then they fell, and these days the are simply nice tourist spots...

>Apparently you're uniformed, anti-US, or outright stupid. As you're a European I'll vote "anti-US".

Nope. While I find the US political activity (= warfare) idiotic, I consider the EU politicians to be just as moronic, so I'm not anti-US per se. After all, I did live there for a couple of years, and the people themselves are usually rather friendly.

Seeing that I have excellent genes (50% of my extended family are doctors, the others scientists, with merely one manager) and a high-level job, I dare to believe that my intelligence is at least average - certainly not "outright stupid" ;)

Uninformed, however, is always a possibility.
I see your only argument here is against me saying that anti-missile tests usually failed. You claim that this is not the case with SM-3s, which have a hit-probability of around 80%. Now this 80% is the best test record from the marine - which is known for faking quite a few tests, and simplifying a lot of other tests.
I'd think that a no-warnings test would have a hit percentage of around 50% - pretty darn good for taking down a missile, but certainly not enough (even 80% would be too low). Missiles are rather cheap, compared to aircraft carriers...

If I misunderstood you, I do apologize. Your message seems a little, hm, off-the-cuff, and I am more used to argue with people giving me useful data.

I'm afraid that I cannot quite agree with you:

> The SS-N-22 is a hush-hush subject because it basically reduces our carriers to floating targets. Not the case.

Sorry - but carriers already *are* floating targets. I remember quite clearly the fleet showing up at Lybia quite a few years ago. The carriers had aircraft which were used exclusively to protect - the carriers. And bombing was done by aircraft which flew straight from the the US via the UK.
I'm also thinking of that nasty little book in the 80s (I do apologize for not remembering the title right now) which took a long, hard look at the US and USSR weapon efficiency; the last combined NATO maneuver in the north sea showed all (all!) carriers being (simulated to be) sunk on the very first day.
An aircraft carrier these days is a major waste of space, and primarily used for top-class idio^H^H^H^Hpeople to brag^H^H^H^Hprotect our freedom.

> Exocet was a threat when they made the movie Top Gun, but not today.

Really. I'm sure all ships will be able to easily shoot these things down. After all, the anti-missile tests went smashingly well, right? Right?

> In any of these cases, the targeted ship can detect the radar...

Ah, I see. Of course, you certainly need super-special radar to detect a target, right? Normal shipping radar is certainly not sufficient, right? And we cannot possibly hook up a new system to an existing radar - would be too cheap to build...

> A few people mentioned the ethical issue of arming merchant ships

Yes, that's a dumb idea. And seeing that our rules are idiots and morons, this has happened in practically every war since Egypt was founded...

>will change from "ask first, ask again, check three times and only fire when fired upon" to "ask once and if you think he's hostile, shoot." It can even go further to "Check to see if your'e sure he's a friend, and if you can't tell, shoot."

Which already is more or less how civilians are treated by the US Army in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Aaaaah... have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Arts, Section 'Logos': The three shapes were meant to stand for the "basic alphabet of graphic design." Nix EOA, and nix ECA.
Looks like we both learned something new today ;)

(PS: Yeah, I loved the C64, too, but preferred the 48K ZX Spectrum, which actually had more available RAM)

And?

You're looking at a game from EA. You actually spent time in doing so? Better yet, did Beta-testing for them?
EA used to be a brilliant company, many years ago, when it called itself EOA. Times change, companies go to waste, and earn my filter badge. Even EA turned into a piece of garbage, not worthy of my attention (and, worse, money).

The only reason I ever visit The Escapist is Zero Punctuation. Got a direct link to it, and ignore everything else...

Brilliant idea. A lot of people simply buy some magazines because they offer a nice fat demo on the included CD (or, these days, DVD).
You don't want to offer any more demos, probably because you're worried that people will realize that your program is not actually what the PR claims it is.

So, instead of having a magazine increase its sales (and put your name everywhere) by a big "SuperDuperGame Demo inside!", you will... um... well... simply advertise your gane, hoping people won't be surprised when you don't offer a demo? Hoping that you won't piss off the still relatively important magazines?

Good luck.

And you think this will stop them?

This whole moronic idea is only possible if you simply don't have any reality contact anyway...

"Base, trashy and possibly bollocks."

The perfect reason to place it on Slashdot, too?

Stuff that matters.

And this completely uninteresting piece of data ("Crazy girl complains about nonsense") is neither. Who cares about such crap?

So yet another game is announced. . ...so what? It's not out yet, no half-way serious reviews are available, nothing extra special (lkie particular AI) about this game... why should we be interested?
Sounds like an advert. Was slashdot paid to post this?

Outrade is everywhere in the USA?
No. It's complaining which is everywhere. Very different: you complain, then lean back, open another beer and watch some TV.

Have a look what happens when the french public gets outraged. Politicians are actually *forced* to do something *useful*...