My conclusion is that if he's a better poker player than us, then we shouldn't play poker with him. We either don't play any game, or choose one that plays to our strengths.

Just because you acknowledge someone's capacities, it doesn't mean that you admire them. To the contrary, my whole point is that we have to understand how he's gotten this far, if we want to have any shot at a positive result.

Plus, the Russians and the Chinese win because we don't set a precedent of having one country take unilateral action when a country decides it's anything-goes on protesters/rebels. Both the Russians and the Chinese want to keep their ability to pull a Tienamen Square without external interference, as long as they can bork things up in the Security council. Neither of them want to see more Kosovo type stuff.

I think it's important to remember how Assad played Kofi Annan for a chump for weeks near the beginning of this conflict. The whole time, he kept everybody talking, dangling the bait of a peaceful solution- some compromise - while he was using tanks on protesters that were overwhelmingly peaceful, and at worst lightly armed and totally disorganized.

He may well be doing the same thing now. He has masterfully played the hand he was dealt with delays, and a gradual escalation of tactics and brutality, essentially boiling the frog of public opinion to avoid any one escalation that yields a response. Dictators for decades will study this. I watched the interview last night with Charlie Rose, and I'm pretty convinced that Putin is probably the only major world leader who'd have a chance against this guy in a poker game.

In the grand scheme of things, though, it isn't that much money. Their plan to blow up a nursing home, for instance, won't be affected by the loss.

At which point the House will decide that it will only pay for this asteroid-protection plan to save the earth if equivalent cuts are made some place else. Now, the Senate ain't gonna buy that. So the asteroid will just go ahead and hit the earth, but fortunately hit someplace nobody (here) cares about. And, for some fucking incomprehensible reason, fully 90% of these asshats will be reelected the next cycle.

Very good post. Mod points if I had them.

Either of these cases seem like weeding. If you can't remember the parts you need to make your tech work, or can't figure out how to survive an outage without losing work product, you're probably not cut out to go work in the business world, either...

How is this different from textbooks? You had to make an exception for some people by making a large print version, or a braille version. It seems to me that this transition, particularly if there's a text-to-speech option, should make the books more accessible, not less. Some extra tech required, but it seems much easier than creating multiple editions of each book.

As I remember, For 80% of my books, that's still a good deal. Book Store used to sell em to us used for $50, and maybe give you back $10. Unless there was a new edition (frequent), in which case you got jack. So, that was 20%, or 0% off, and I didn't own a damn thing.

15 years into my career, I have used exactly 0 of my text books I chose to keep in the last 10 years. But only recently finished paying off the last of my student loans.

Professor Cobden:

Me:

FIRST POST! -This automated post is a service of S4BB Slashdot First Post Blackberry App

I'm so sick of people lecturing me about how bad steroids are, so why don't you SHUT UP! I've got half a mind to come over there and RIP YOUR HEAD OFF just for saying that! What? You gonna look at me like that? THAT'S IT!

Yeah, but that's just splitting hairs. If you factor in all the *nex's , people are blowing about the same amount. It's just more diversified.

Why wouldn't one? Based solely on who_stole_my_kidney's anecdotal argument, and your rather content-free counter-argument, I'd be inclined to follow his advice.

TO: WeatherGang
FROM: J. Bezos
SUBJECT: Weather Conspiracy Theories


Guys,
I know you're not that great at the whole internet thing and all, being a newspaper and such. But one of my other companies is actually pretty good at it. So take my advice. Don't feed the trolls.

Regards,
Jeff