One thing that top schools also offer is experience, in the form of top internships. As a current student at one of these so-called elite universities, I have had a difficult time applying to internships. I can only imagine how difficult it is for someone with a weaker college on their resume to get these positions. For college freshmen, other than GPA the biggest factor in whether or not they get picked for an internship is their school. I've talked to recruiters; a 4.0 at a non-top 3 state school vs. an ivy league 3.5 will see that job go to the ivy leaguer almost every time (from what I've seen, and from what my friends have seen).
Second year rolls around, and the internship competition that year depends mainly on, you guessed it, where you were your first year (probably 75% is based on that) followed by school/gpa.
The point I am making here is that the elite school alone really only helps in the college internship arena, but that name (if you use it well) can set off a chain of events that CAN make you better prepared than peers who went to worse-ranked universities. Then again, I'm only talking about top jobs in high paying fields here, but then again, that is what students at elite colleges are after.
I'd like to point out one great counterexample: Team Fortress 2. As a longtime player, I have all the extra weapons. However, they don't necessarily give you an advantage. They allow you to customize your play style further, but (with the exception of maybe Natascha) they don't make you significantly stronger. A good player with stock weapons can beat a slightly less good player with custom weapons. The problem in most games is just that the creators aren't creative enough to design a shift in play styles; they would rather just give +10 dmg and leave it at that.
I fail to understand how SCOTUS could be so short-sighted. When they made the ruling, I agreed with their judicial logic, but that was a case where very clearly the ruling was not in the good of the general population. I don't know how much transparency matters; if you can buy an election, you need not bother with appeasing the populace - you can just ignore it.
If this is supposed to be an article about 3g vs 4g vs wifi, as the title led me to believe, why does tfs begin
"Some of the most popular Android smartphones currently available are members of Samsung's Galaxy S line. Powered by Samsung's own 1GHz ARM Cortex A8-based Hummingbird processor with a four-inch Super-AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, it's no wonder Samsung has sold over 5 million Galaxy S phones."
Everyone talks about America's unquestioned air superiority. I don't doubt it would be an easy win in terms of military power, but what happens if we went up against a force that could hack our planes out of the sky? Seriously, how likely is that? I don't have a good handle on that.
According to military contractor friends, basically, they inflate the bid, then they use that money on another project that is waaaay overbudget, and when the deadline comes around for the project they got funding for, they say "we need more funding" and get it. Repeat ad infinitum.
As someone who speaks competent spanish, "Quando você não pode competir, você se declara aberto. Isso mascara a incompetência". Translates to "When you can't compete, you declare it open. It masks the incompetence."
I learned on alice YEARS ago, and I remember my first project was a fps (enemies would run at you, and melee you when they got close, gun bound to camera bound to wasd with a little sphere projectile as a bullet that killed what it touched, etc) and the second was a maze type thing with things that tried to kill you. You can make legitimate, fun games with alice (not that mine were) and I recommend it to everyone who wants to learn how to code.
I'm not an expert, but I would bet that you want the windshield to be as strong as it can be, while still being able to safely shatter. That way it absorbs maximum kinetic energy in the event of a crash.
I think WoW got it right with their 2 weeks or level 20 cap, for free. By level 20, you get to experience a couple of primary factors in the game, like pvp, different zones, dungeons, etc. and it was plenty of time to decide whether or not you'd enjoy leveling to max. Of course, it gave no insight into arena or raiding, but no one decides to start playing WoW and spend 100+ hours getting to max level just to do max level stuff. While that may be the main draw, I highly doubt there is anyone who would enjoy that and would hate their first level to max.
I think the goal isn't to have free and paying players coexisting, the goal is to make the free players want to spend their money. I forgot what you were talking about at this point but wrote enough that I think I should post anyway. Sorry, everyone.
Probably the executive level guys did the math, and found out that between maintenance staff and servers, there wasn't a whole lot of extra cash that could go towards paying their 200k+ salaries, and decided it would be better to give themselves a nice bonus than to continue with the game.
Audio advertisements? That's unforgivable. It's not hard to look away, but we hear everything, and the day I get an ingame audio advertisement is the day I *some generic statement.*
What about, say, Starcraft 2 - a compelling single player story, with totally unrelated excellent multiplayer game? The two are not mutually exclusive. It's just that all too frequently the way the devs go about writing it is either "Let's get this multiplayer thing down and then add some story" or "Let's take our single player stuff and make it online."
As an enthusiastic fan of multiplayer gaming, let me be the second to say that Windows Live is perhaps the stupidest, most awkward, piece of crap to have ever been designed for gaming. It is inane, it removes functionality, it insists on running in the background while providing no added value, and it screws up everything. Until microsoft realizes what a useless, stupid, infuriating platform this is, they are essentially shooting their pc games in the feet, knees, stomach, and at least a few other vital organs. Please fix this, as some games (Batman Arkham Asylum, Bioshock 2) are actually worth playing were it not for the idiocy that is Windows Live.
And of course, because myspace = "my space" i.e. a place to put your things, and facebook = a book of faces... they aren't JUST made up names, they are actually pretty good descriptions. Unfortunately OSSFacebook isn't as catchy and probably is infringement.
I spent most of high school sitting in boring classes teaching myself physical skills while some teacher droned. One was holding my breath (started ~45s, finished ~3min). One was writing efficiently (i.e. writing e by making a single trace, rather than the c + horizontal line that I learned with). And one was writing (passably) with my left hand. I assure you - write 5 spiral notebook pages of a single letter each day, and your bad hand will quickly learn to write. After 3 years, I could write almost as well with my left as with my right (oddly enough, the left looks like a younger person mimicking the right).
Let me put my opinion into a mathematical analogy (it'll make sense). Let's say there's a big graph. Y Axis is "How great your country is" in some sort of measurement. X Axis is time. We move right on the graph as time moves forward. Right now, the US function may be at/near the top of the graph. However, the derivative of the US function is negative. In fact, if the derivatives of all the nation's position functions were graphed, we would be pretty close to the bottom. Sure, there are some countries (like African ones that just had a coup, or something) that may be falling faster than us, but our derivative is negative and big. And more importantly, our second derivative is negative, and it's also very negative. We are going to get worse faster than we have been, is basically all that means.
Some analysis of that: Position (where we are right now) we rank 1st, let's say. Speed (what's being done right now) we are going in the wrong direction, and we are heading there quickly. Acceleration (what's going to happen to the speed) is also headed in the wrong direction, and its also getting more negative quickly. To translate this to the real world, position is our current set of laws. Speed is the laws that are getting passed that are dropping our position (right to privacy, open government, etc), and acceleration is really public opinion - a positive acceleration with a very negative speed means that the population realizes things are bad, and they are trying hard to change it for the better. An acceleration of zero means people are happy with the direction the country is going in, or at least they don't care enough to change it. Negative acceleration means people are actively setting the stage for the next batch of politicians to be even worse than the current ones.
It may be lengthy, but I like using these three criteria as a means of rating government. When people tell me America is the greatest, I agree, but then explain how it won't be very soon. Most people disagree at first, but after some arguing, most people agree with the acceleration argument, and probably half (democrats, mainly) agree with the speed.
This seems to be more an example of Zynga taking advantage of economies of scale, and entering new game genres to eliminate competition. Which is a monopoly.
Slashdot Mirror
One thing that top schools also offer is experience, in the form of top internships. As a current student at one of these so-called elite universities, I have had a difficult time applying to internships. I can only imagine how difficult it is for someone with a weaker college on their resume to get these positions. For college freshmen, other than GPA the biggest factor in whether or not they get picked for an internship is their school. I've talked to recruiters; a 4.0 at a non-top 3 state school vs. an ivy league 3.5 will see that job go to the ivy leaguer almost every time (from what I've seen, and from what my friends have seen).
Second year rolls around, and the internship competition that year depends mainly on, you guessed it, where you were your first year (probably 75% is based on that) followed by school/gpa.
The point I am making here is that the elite school alone really only helps in the college internship arena, but that name (if you use it well) can set off a chain of events that CAN make you better prepared than peers who went to worse-ranked universities. Then again, I'm only talking about top jobs in high paying fields here, but then again, that is what students at elite colleges are after.
I'd like to point out one great counterexample: Team Fortress 2. As a longtime player, I have all the extra weapons. However, they don't necessarily give you an advantage. They allow you to customize your play style further, but (with the exception of maybe Natascha) they don't make you significantly stronger. A good player with stock weapons can beat a slightly less good player with custom weapons. The problem in most games is just that the creators aren't creative enough to design a shift in play styles; they would rather just give +10 dmg and leave it at that.
I fail to understand how SCOTUS could be so short-sighted. When they made the ruling, I agreed with their judicial logic, but that was a case where very clearly the ruling was not in the good of the general population. I don't know how much transparency matters; if you can buy an election, you need not bother with appeasing the populace - you can just ignore it.
If this is supposed to be an article about 3g vs 4g vs wifi, as the title led me to believe, why does tfs begin
"Some of the most popular Android smartphones currently available are members of Samsung's Galaxy S line. Powered by Samsung's own 1GHz ARM Cortex A8-based Hummingbird processor with a four-inch Super-AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, it's no wonder Samsung has sold over 5 million Galaxy S phones."
Less blatant next time, please...
Didn't you see the part about it being a sequel? Adrian Grenier doesn't do sequels for less than $20 million.
Everyone talks about America's unquestioned air superiority. I don't doubt it would be an easy win in terms of military power, but what happens if we went up against a force that could hack our planes out of the sky? Seriously, how likely is that? I don't have a good handle on that.
According to military contractor friends, basically, they inflate the bid, then they use that money on another project that is waaaay overbudget, and when the deadline comes around for the project they got funding for, they say "we need more funding" and get it. Repeat ad infinitum.
Is that really the more incompetent of the two examples given?
As someone who speaks competent spanish, "Quando você não pode competir, você se declara aberto. Isso mascara a incompetência". Translates to "When you can't compete, you declare it open. It masks the incompetence."
I learned on alice YEARS ago, and I remember my first project was a fps (enemies would run at you, and melee you when they got close, gun bound to camera bound to wasd with a little sphere projectile as a bullet that killed what it touched, etc) and the second was a maze type thing with things that tried to kill you. You can make legitimate, fun games with alice (not that mine were) and I recommend it to everyone who wants to learn how to code.
I'm not an expert, but I would bet that you want the windshield to be as strong as it can be, while still being able to safely shatter. That way it absorbs maximum kinetic energy in the event of a crash.
I wonder if there's some legal fun to be had with the points that "never expire."
I think WoW got it right with their 2 weeks or level 20 cap, for free. By level 20, you get to experience a couple of primary factors in the game, like pvp, different zones, dungeons, etc. and it was plenty of time to decide whether or not you'd enjoy leveling to max. Of course, it gave no insight into arena or raiding, but no one decides to start playing WoW and spend 100+ hours getting to max level just to do max level stuff. While that may be the main draw, I highly doubt there is anyone who would enjoy that and would hate their first level to max.
I think the goal isn't to have free and paying players coexisting, the goal is to make the free players want to spend their money. I forgot what you were talking about at this point but wrote enough that I think I should post anyway. Sorry, everyone.
Probably the executive level guys did the math, and found out that between maintenance staff and servers, there wasn't a whole lot of extra cash that could go towards paying their 200k+ salaries, and decided it would be better to give themselves a nice bonus than to continue with the game.
Audio advertisements? That's unforgivable. It's not hard to look away, but we hear everything, and the day I get an ingame audio advertisement is the day I *some generic statement.*
great catch! I missed it. As did (I'm assuming) all above posters.
What about, say, Starcraft 2 - a compelling single player story, with totally unrelated excellent multiplayer game? The two are not mutually exclusive. It's just that all too frequently the way the devs go about writing it is either "Let's get this multiplayer thing down and then add some story" or "Let's take our single player stuff and make it online."
/rant
As an enthusiastic fan of multiplayer gaming, let me be the second to say that Windows Live is perhaps the stupidest, most awkward, piece of crap to have ever been designed for gaming. It is inane, it removes functionality, it insists on running in the background while providing no added value, and it screws up everything. Until microsoft realizes what a useless, stupid, infuriating platform this is, they are essentially shooting their pc games in the feet, knees, stomach, and at least a few other vital organs. Please fix this, as some games (Batman Arkham Asylum, Bioshock 2) are actually worth playing were it not for the idiocy that is Windows Live.
/rant
And of course, because myspace = "my space" i.e. a place to put your things, and facebook = a book of faces... they aren't JUST made up names, they are actually pretty good descriptions. Unfortunately OSSFacebook isn't as catchy and probably is infringement.
I spent most of high school sitting in boring classes teaching myself physical skills while some teacher droned. One was holding my breath (started ~45s, finished ~3min). One was writing efficiently (i.e. writing e by making a single trace, rather than the c + horizontal line that I learned with). And one was writing (passably) with my left hand. I assure you - write 5 spiral notebook pages of a single letter each day, and your bad hand will quickly learn to write. After 3 years, I could write almost as well with my left as with my right (oddly enough, the left looks like a younger person mimicking the right).
I'm inclined to agree - he sensationalizes the whole time, yet never explains why the game is impossible to play with one's right hand.
It's too bad we call him POTUS (POH-tuhs) rather than POTUSA (poh-TOO-sah) sounds much funnier.
Let me put my opinion into a mathematical analogy (it'll make sense). Let's say there's a big graph. Y Axis is "How great your country is" in some sort of measurement. X Axis is time. We move right on the graph as time moves forward. Right now, the US function may be at/near the top of the graph. However, the derivative of the US function is negative. In fact, if the derivatives of all the nation's position functions were graphed, we would be pretty close to the bottom. Sure, there are some countries (like African ones that just had a coup, or something) that may be falling faster than us, but our derivative is negative and big. And more importantly, our second derivative is negative, and it's also very negative. We are going to get worse faster than we have been, is basically all that means.
Some analysis of that: Position (where we are right now) we rank 1st, let's say. Speed (what's being done right now) we are going in the wrong direction, and we are heading there quickly. Acceleration (what's going to happen to the speed) is also headed in the wrong direction, and its also getting more negative quickly. To translate this to the real world, position is our current set of laws. Speed is the laws that are getting passed that are dropping our position (right to privacy, open government, etc), and acceleration is really public opinion - a positive acceleration with a very negative speed means that the population realizes things are bad, and they are trying hard to change it for the better. An acceleration of zero means people are happy with the direction the country is going in, or at least they don't care enough to change it. Negative acceleration means people are actively setting the stage for the next batch of politicians to be even worse than the current ones.
It may be lengthy, but I like using these three criteria as a means of rating government. When people tell me America is the greatest, I agree, but then explain how it won't be very soon. Most people disagree at first, but after some arguing, most people agree with the acceleration argument, and probably half (democrats, mainly) agree with the speed.
I think most of slashdot is pretty clear on the fact that it's against the law - the general consensus here though is that the law is wrong.
This seems to be more an example of Zynga taking advantage of economies of scale, and entering new game genres to eliminate competition. Which is a monopoly.