Comment Not applicable (Score 1) 257
Separate from the fact that the EU "right to be forgotten" is applicable to search engines and not the publishers; the Washington Post is a US publisher and thus not subject to EU laws.
While some overselling is reasonable since everyone won't come at the same time nor stay the entire day
Why is it reasonable? If customers pay for the right to be there the entire day, why should the promoter be allowed to gamble on whether a critical mass of attendees will exceed the building's capacity? If promoters want to bet on margins and keep a negative float, they should get a license to trade financial instruments.
Done properly it has no impact on the customer experience. While you cannot accurately predict what any one person will do you can get a pretty good idea of aggregate behavior; so identify your peak and sell accordingly. If 90% of the purchased ticket is the max load then selling selling extra ticket that take them close to the capacity is reasonable. With enough historical data they can avoid issues and maximize attendance revenue. Problems only arise if they oversell without planning properly.
True, but the Wright Flyer couldn't be used for a lot of things either nor could Goddard's rockets reach space; but they were important first steps. Aviation is built on incremental steps and who knows where SpaceShip Two will lead? I have no idea where it will go but that is no reason not to try and see.
We took those first steps over half a century ago. If you'r building a Wright Flyer TODAY, you're not going to be learning much, are you?
SpaceShip two could be considered the Wright Flyer of today. Both had very little utility beyond showing what might be possible, and lead to a revolution in aviation.
So? Many early flights were for thrills (and money) as well. By your logic, Lindbergh's flight was just for thrills since we already knew how to reach France by boat.
"By my logic" nothing. What I am actually saying that if we had jets crossing the Atlantic already, then yes, Lindbergh's flight would be just for thrills and we wouldn't learn a damn thing from it.
Since Lindbergh didn't use a jet your analogy makes no sense. However, to continue my point, people were flying across the Atlantic years before Lindbergh and yet his flight was a useful in advancing aviation.
A better solution would have been to NOT SELL TICKETS TO MORE PEOPLE THAN YOUR VENUE CAN ACCOMMODATE.
I know it's a wild and crazy idea but it just might be crazy enough to work.
While some overselling is reasonable since everyone won't come at the same time nor stay the entire day, at some point you need to cutoff sales because the sheer numbers of tickets sold would indicate a high probability of capacity issues. It sounds like they sold at least 20% more than the previous year; a simple analysis of traffic patterns would have told them what the likelihood of reaching capacity would be and indicate when to cutoff sales to avoid problems.
The organizers apparently work at an airline in real life.
While I realize your statement is mad in jest, had they worked at an airline they may not have had such a problem. Airlines are actually very good at capacity control; what throws them off is usually weather or mechanical issue start disrupt the flow of passengers. When that happens they have to redo schedules and often will cancel flights, even when a plane is at the gate, to maximize the number of people getting to their destination.
I was *at* the con when this went down, was in the rotunda where the marshal/police were, and listened in on all the conversations. The fire marshal is completely to blame for this, he's an idiot.
It sounds like the organizers didn't properly keep track of occupancy levels and overloaded some floors, resulting in the fire marshall stepping in to fix the situation. The real idiots are the organizers who failed to be sure they could properly control the crowds; especially since they knew the number of tickets sold and could gauge expected attendance and plan accordingly.
To reduce the number of people, the fire marshal ordered anyone leaving the con could not reenter for any reason, and decided that going to the ground floor constituted leaving the con... despite having con functions on the ground floor.
As long as the ground floor and the building were not at capacity that is a perfectly reasonable response.
I innocently went down the escalator to check out the [ground floor] kids area and was marooned. No jacket, no cell phone, and no car keys to get into my vehicle and it was 'friggin cold outside.
Next time, don't leave your stuff somewhere when you wander away. Simple solution.
A better solution would have been to stop letting new people in, while letting the steady stream of outgoers reduce the number.
They were doing just that; except they were not letting anyone in. Letting people go in and out does nothing to solve the overcrowding problem. By not letting people who left the upper floors back in, they addressed the occupancy issue. Once the occupancy levels were within the legal limits and under control, then they can let people in.
There was no fire, no emergency, no need to be a complete prick to people who were already at the con.
This was the fire marshal being ignorant and inflexible. He's an idiot.
The fire marshall's job is to minimize the potential for loss of life due to overcrowding, inadequate exits, etc. before a fire breaks out. Fires are pretty inflexible themselves and don't really care if they inconvenience someone.
Responsibility for this lies with the organizers. The knew what the advance sales were, what previous attendee patterns were and the venue capacity; they could have put plans in place to deal with the crowds and maybe even work with the venue and fire marshall to be sure there were no issues. They may have done that but clearly were not properly prepared based on what happened.
Are you sure the space program was not about the military getting access to rockets that could fly a warhead from Iowa to Moscow in the shortest possible time ?
Considering the early US rockets were first military ones I'd answer "No." That technology was already being developed separately; a more useful military tool would be the ability to put military astronauts into orbit for spy missions but even that was better accomplished by satellites and Blackbirds. Certainly the military had an interest in adapting technology used for spaceflight and had a large, if not visible, presence at NASA that would be useful in identifying potential military uses of technology, especially beyond missiles.
SpaceShipTwo is not going to bring the human race into a new age. It's not a craft that can be used to reach space, no matter how much you test or develop it.
True, but the Wright Flyer couldn't be used for a lot of things either nor could Goddard's rockets reach space; but they were important first steps. Aviation is built on incremental steps and who knows where SpaceShip Two will lead? I have no idea where it will go but that is no reason not to try and see.
We already know how to reach space. This is not how. This is just for thrills.
So? Many early flights were for thrills (and money) as well. By your logic, Lindbergh's flight was just for thrills since we already knew how to reach France by boat.
Well, 5 mod points and a dozen donuts for anyone with a solution. It's bad situation considering that U.S. and China depend on each other for business and economic reasons yet we treat each other like adversaries. The Chinese government hasn't given much historical respect to the concerns of intellectual property. When it comes to bringing hard consequences to malicious hackers in their borders they offer us zero cooperation in cases like this. So WTF do we do?
Use it to supplied bad information. Bogus code, code that fails at critical times, misinformation about deals, bargaining positions, etc. Use it as a vector to infect computers with destructive viruses that destroy data, open up their machines for penetration, or cause control systems to fail.. In short, turn the malware into a double agent.
Not because anyone disagrees with him, but because they all are thinking the same thing: "Oh, deal Lord, he's going to get crazy old Mrs. Doddard stated again on fossils again. How can I get out of here politely?"
Which means you are de-facto agreeing with "crazy old Mrs. Doddard" because you are remaining silent and accepting her viewpoint. I understand not wanting to get involved with an argument with a crazy person but quietly allowing her viewpoint to remain dogma because confrontation makes you uncomfortable is rather pathetic. Crazy Mrs. Doddard is permitted to inflict her nonsense on everyone else because it is allowed.
Hardly. It's more like " I won't bring this up here because old Mrs. Doddard will then start on her rant. So, by keeping quiet the rest of us can continue our discussion and not get sidetracked by a nutcase. Nowhere did the OP say they wouldn't bring it up if someone else started the conversation or if OMD did, just that there is no reason to start a discussion you know will only end in one person ranting and everyone else looking for an exit.
Car thieves in any country have been expressing their opinions on the security of keyed car entry and/or control systems. The thieves are happy to steal them (often using equipment intended for dealer maintenance of the vehicles *OR SIMPLY USING A COAT HANGAR/SLIM-JIM, A PAIR OF WIRE CLIPPERS/STRIPPERS/THEIR TEETH AND THEIR HAND AND FINGERS*)
Too slow. A body pull tool pops the key mechanism out of the dash/column and exposes the wires.
Suggest you just sit there and wait till life gets easier.
