Apr. 14th, 2009

jack: (Default)
Bujold is really wonderful at giving enough information everything makes sense, and hinting at more things behind the scenes, while actually leaving the details unspecified, so there probably isn't an exact answer to my question. My question is, in Vorkosigan-verse

* a plasma arc is a military-grade weapon that destroys everything
* a nerve disruptor is a military-grade weapon that destroys people
* a stunner is (?) shorter range and stuns people (which is not safe, but safe enough)

What is a needler? Physically, is it a flechette weapon? What is its defining features? My guess is that it's the state-of-the-art handgun or machine-gun equivalent, less effective than a plasma arc or nerve disruptor, but safer to use in areas filled with people or flammable things, and possible to miniaturize to carry concealed, and the weapon of choice by people who are not quasi-military. Does that sound reasonable? Alternatively, is it the best weapon in more specific circumstances, eg. more spread or more penetration?

There's half-a-dozen quotes, but I won't try to enumerate them yet as they'll be minor spoilers. ETA: Some here (Spoilers) )
jack: (Default)
The history[1]

Over the weekend it was discovered that Amazon.com had de-listed a wide variety of books, prominently just about anything vaguely gay or lesbian, including children's books like "Heather has Two Mommies". This was a fairly major disaster: Amazon is a very important place to buy books, and removing books from turning up in searches practically makes them not exist. It began a month (??) ago. Authors said "I wrote this book, did a book signing, and several people said, I wanted to buy it on amazon, but couldn't find it." People found the extent to which the world tolerated their existence dropped a fraction, because they were gay.

There was a gigantic, gigantic shit-storm. There was much speculation. (I would say "uninformed speculation", but that's not true. Speculation was the only way real information was turned up.)

Customer service and PR had nothing useful to say, either giving an explanation for why actually obscene/adult books are removed at all, or (as of the weekend) that there was a "glitch", which without further background is not very convincing. Without better systems for percolating information through, that's inevitable, but it does raise the question of whether they SHOULD have better systems.

Now Amazon said it was their fuck-up and they were embarrassed. They are fixing it rapidly. But they didn't specifically apologise. Nor explain in any detail what had actually gone wrong. Some people apologised for thinking the worst.

[1] On the internet, "history" can refer to two days ago. (Or maybe a month ago.)

What Went Wrong, Lessons, and Links )
jack: (Default)
When I was looking up what happened in #amazonfail weekend (see previous post) I read Mike Daisey's web site. He's a stand up comedian and other things who wrote a book about having worked at amazon in a cubicle farm.

And then I was seized with uncertainty. Is this website genuine? Normally, faked websites and comments are sufficiently artificial that you can see them if you have some idea what to expect, although phishing sites, ziphead comment spam ("astroturf" -- supposedly independent comments in fact methodically generated by paid volunteers), google tricking sites stealing content from other web sites, etc are now problems.

But if a few intelligent and professional[1] trouble-shooters got together for a day, they could fake a completely convincing website. For all I knew, not knowing anything about loud american comedians, Mr Daisey had been entirely fictitious (or a real person with a newly created website). And the website just good enough to fool a few random clickings. And that in a few days would come out and say "my friend in amazon says it's all ok, he can't talk about it, but I trust him, it wasn't malice, it actually was an awful but minor mistake."

In fact, the website was especially archive-ful, and checking archive.org and wikipedia page history, has been around for ages in much the same form. But I was temporarily seized with uncertainty -- when that happens, will I know it? It's checked mainly by people checking things retrospectively later (which has also been helped a lot by the internet) and that people aren't organised enough to keep up a conspiracy long-term. That sort of thing already happens a lot, how much worse will it get?

[1] In the sense of being consistently competent to the level of being paid for it, not in the sense of being responsible.

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