I did not say that RNG are a "difficulty crutch", I said I hate when they are used as "difficulty crutches". Yes they are used to add some variability, however a net same effect can be achieved with sufficiently advanced mechanics for example.
With RNG, you can just Roll 1 Die for the amount of damage a person can do according to a specific stat and then roll 1 die for the amount of defense a person is capable of to see if they can cancel out some or all of the incoming damage.
RNG in this case is being used to "simplify" the mechanics of the engagement for expedience and is entirely understandable within the scope of table top gaming.
In computer gaming, you can actually do it right. The attacker's skill, weight, strength, dexterity, agility along with the type of weapon they are using would be then be compared against the skill, weight, strength, dexterity, agility along with the type of material/tool that is being used to defend against said weapon could be calculated.
With RNG weak characters could get lucky and take out powerful characters in unrealistic ways that would not be possible if chaos math level of calculations were being applied. For example a weak weapon taking out a dragon because of the rolls just worked out. No matter how powerful an attacker is... if they are using poor quality equipment they are just not going accomplish much unless they have skills to overcome things.
Simple RNG does all of this without the advanced logic, and when a developer uses RNG without any logic controls on the RNG then it become a crutch to ad difficulty because it is just easier to randomly give your enemies more health than to develop creative ways to increase difficulty such as an enemy AI figuring out you overuse a certain unit type and then producing a unit effective at countering their skills. It is even more difficult still to produce this effect in believable ways without giving the AI a cheat method do it. Say, like making the AI have to qualify for a condition, like having a spy in your barracks, before it can learn what your Army is made up of instead of just always knowing because it is the AI.
I thought I covered your scenario with this line here in my original post...
"People who play these games just to pass the time as they move from moment to moment in life should not be considered, regardless of the types of games they play. They are clearly immune or are able to see these gimmicks for what they are."
The interest is in people that allow games with these mechanics to impact their lives to a noticeable degree, especially if that impact is clearly negative.
The Skinner Box, yes, that is a great analogy for this. But I don't think skinner was the first to think of the concept, just the first to study it and record his findings in this way. Society itself is largely a skinner box construct itself, if you think about it, and if you apply that logic to things all over life there are all sorts of skinner boxes everywhere you look.
Regarding my comment on RNG in roguelikes, I did not say it did not work great, I like RNG, I said I dislike those that use it as a difficulty crutch, as in the only form of difficulty comes from the RNG itself. I do not consider "inherent difficulty" as a companion mechanic, I consider it just an extension of the story. Take the game they are billions TAB. RNG in map generation can be harsh on new players, but an experienced person can overcome that, which makes the game a good example of allowing RNG add difficulty but also not rely on it like a crutch the way FTL might do so. Both games have a "rush" mechanic where you have a limited time/turns to get things done. However, TAB minimizes the RNG by making your choice of Mayors modify the game only a little bit. FTL can affect your game heavily based on the results of store events and store stock.
In short, there is nothing more frustrating than playing a game that is not possible to win because it was not my skill or a failure of my creation that caused the failure... just a pseudo random mechanic that has no basis in reality because if you understand chaos math... because random really is not that random. So yea, use the random to "enhance" the game play, just don't rely on it as a crutch for adding difficulty.
I have not played Binding of Isaac, so I cannot comment on game play for that game. But I can say that I am not a session based game player. While it is not a total turn off, I am more of a reward over time player. I can work without immediate pay off/reward. The accomplishment for resolving a coplex task successful is a bigger pay out for me emotionally than a loot box that gave me the most powerful weapon in the game after 100 tries.
Though the random nature of the drops in games like Borderlands were enjoyable because they did not overtly affect gameplay in such a way that my skill could not overcome bad RNG.
Take the Halo series, I actually enjoyed playing those games on Legendary because my skill was 100% on the line there. I rarely enjoy games on their hardest because like doom... the only difference in difficulty was just enemies with more health. That is not a skill based difficulty, that was a lead over time scale making ammo management the win gimmick and not my skill as a player. Halo, at least made the enemies seek to avoid the danger I was sending them... the elites hid behind rocks... that was the first time a game ever did that to me and I loved it. Enemies that seem to care about saying alive instead of bum rushing me until I filled them with enough lead to drop them like a sack of potatoes.
It is society that is making it hard for game players to stop playing. As a long time player let me explain why.
I hate games that use RNG as a difficulty crutch (some rouge likes), gambler logic (loot boxes), and Feed and Starve (candy crush/pay for lives/continues) to hook me. Why ? because it makes me angry when playing their games because I know what gambling is and how it works on the mind, but more importantly, because I am looking for MORE from my game than simple risk/reward gimmicks.
It would be interesting in a study to see if people with more developed intellectual capacity fall for these game types than people who have not cared to develop their intellectual capacities. I admit that I believe that some people are hooked on these games because they either do not care or are shallow enough to allow their time to be used in this way.
That said, I think the distinction in such a study needs to be on people that actually have some form of addiction. It does not need to be major, but enough of one where it is clear that their gaming habits are at least noticeably affecting their work/friend/love/life balances.
People who play these games just to pass the time as they move from moment to moment in life should not be considered, regardless of the types of games they play. They are clearly immune or are able to see these gimmicks for what they are.
As a gamer myself, I hate most MMO's as a never ending grindfest, mobs stand around like cattle, bosses never really die, the environments are not really changeable by the players actions, though so mmo's try to emulate this with updates. I mean nothing says it more than... go kill 10 slimes and return here. Or running the same stage over and over and over ad nauseum where one mistake can lead to disaster and angry people because game balance in MMO's always mean as a single unit you are never strong or capable. Sure teamwork is nice but if those monsters are really that strong how can the popoulations the players represent live in those worlds? O right, I forgot, bosses are immortal, over sized and never have to leave their lairs and just happen to have mobs of defender acolytes for what reason again?
I liked terraria for the exploration, world modification, and creative boss fights, though I do not think the boss fights are really balanced. I liked factorio for its complex crafting and logic gameplay, but mobs on even the hardest configurations are pie cake to deal with and at best annoyance.
I very much appreciate games that provide at least semi plausible reasons for things going on, not just being used as plot devices or macguffins.
it is my opinion that because society is more about giving people knowledge without actually attempting to teach them "why" that knowledge if valuable, they waste it or misunderstand it leading them to become easily suckered by so many things... least of which is a game with mechanics so simple that only a simple mind can enjoy them! Or in short, shallow risk reward mechanics! People who require "deeper" and "more meaningful" experiences are busy doing something else because these games are just too shallow to hold their attention.
So can you really blame game developers for figuring out how the simple minded tick? Nope! Just give them their money, they earned it! Or rather, they earned tricking it out of their pockets!
"It is unacceptable for communications providers to deceive their customers," the Congressmen wrote, "but when the consumer in question is a government entity tasked with fire and emergency services, we can't afford to wait a moment longer."
Yes we know, you should be ashamed that you deceived yoru citizen customers but HOW DARE you deceive the government or its entities!
Fun fact, had those millions of other "deceptions" been looked at by the government that cares so much we would not need something like this to get our attention. There is a reason why politicians do not really care that much about their voters.
The inspector for my home says it passed for grounding. I have also verified this visually myself and with a wiring tester. So far the test is okay unless I have a fault somewhere that showed good while I tested it but gets faulty if something shifts, which is possible.
However, I am not aware of bad grounding being a culprit for LED failures. Grounding is not something that really has play in electrical applications in this way. Electrical grounding is a safety mechanism and if grounding is being engaged in a way that it is part of my LED failures, then I likely have a bigger problem than proper grounding going on and need to find out the source of whatever is causing electrical problems that are leading to early LED failure.
I agree with your idea, the point I was trying to get at is that once again the politicians wasted a bunch of effort putting in "feel good" laws that are more waste of time than a value add to the problem at hand.
These kinds of laws are nothing more than feel good legislation to get ignorant voters off their backs or an end run parlay by mfgs to gain a market advantage through regulation.
If they want to make sensible regulation by enforcing a minimal manufacturing quality like forcing LEDs to carry a minimum 20 year warranty where mfgs are also legally required to stage recycling centers at hardware suppliers and "free shipping" then they would be getting somewhere. Until then, it is my opinion they just tricked a whole bunch of voters into thinking the did something good without really doing anything meaningful at all... other than to get rid of halogen bulbs.
The same amount of energy and waste will likely be had with LED production because it is just too easy to game the system.
"So, which is it? Or does reducing power usage not count as solving a problem?"
Your thinking is too narrow. Just like how everyone found out that the total energy needed to produce ethanol as a fuel was not really saving any effort, if LED light manufacturing is allowed to do the same we are not "technically saving energy". We are just playing a card trick by moving the cost of energy outside of your home and towards the constant manufacturing of cheap and poor quality LEDs that do not last. But it appears that this little bait and switch is lost on you which is they reason I said what I said.
"That's exactly what I said when they started selling automobiles -- the change would never help with the nation's horseshit-in-the-streets problem, because auto manufacturers would deliberately add horseshit to their cars so that they could sell more of them. Perfectly logical, no?"
Speaking of "horseshit". The mfg industries have a well documented history of "planned obsolescence" and your mockery only shows how ignorant you are of it all. It is far too easy to trick people like you because all that is needed is to put on a little "theater" to get you to believe anything.
Not because incandescent bulbs are being phased out but because it does not solve any problems. Just like incandescent bulbs have always been manufactured to be intentionally limited so will LED lights. Waste will not be cut by any meaningful measurement. Sure power will be lower, but the mfg's never had to worry about that issue anyways.
I have had several LED lights fail within just a fraction of their lifespans, and by different MFG's as well. What is even worse is that LED's are not the only things that can fail. The power supply components on these bulbs that get hot fail often as well, ensuring that the entire bulb is now worthless.
There is more than one way to sucker an ignorant group of politicians.
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
Let me break this down. This amendment says the word "unreasonable" but that word is not saying that anything the "government deems" as reasonable is now fair game. The amendment is specifically stating that any "search or seizure" that is NOT accompanied by a WARRANT, particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized, is what the meaning of unreasonable is in the context of the 4th amendment.
I could convince all the pro NN folks to drop that pursuit and instead pursue taking the monopolies themselves away from the ISP's entirely. The poles, wires, and buried cable all become publicly funded just like roads and managed by contract bid out to whoever wants to run and maintain them so long as it is never one of the carriers, where the businesses now pay for the % of bandwidth their customers use with the price set by a commission, where anyone willing to start a new ISP can easily move into the marketspace and offer broadband to their neighbors without Comcast, Verizon, Cox, or whoever from blocking them in court or BS laws!
AND also removing all local municipalities from being able to sign exclusive deals with ISP's entirely!
Prices would drop like dying flies and every carrier would be advertising how they don't track you, keep your data private, and would never throttle your connection to netflix over comcast!
Your Version of "decency" is what is to be enforced right?
It used to be indecent to do a lot of things, like race mixing, anything more than holding hands in public, women showing too much skin... did you see her ankles? What a fucking slut!!!
Yea yea we get it... we really do get! Free Speech for me, but not for thee!
Nope, like all case law, it depends on your argument.
When intel sold their product they agree to certain legal obligations. They cannot alter those legal obligation with a TOS/EULA. Sure it does not stop them from trying but no judge is going to uphold a contract that states you have no 1st Amendment rights after buying our CPU on a PUBLICLY SOLD product. They might have a case if they sold their product exclusively where they can control the purchase start to back. And this does not even get into 2nd hand items.
Intel cannot shirk it's legal warranty requirements in this fashion and they certainly cannot place a moratorium on public data about a publicly sold product expost facto to its sale.
You can ignore stupid shit like this. Intel can sue for you for looking cross eyed if they wanted to. It does not mean that they will win even if you lose everything defending yourself from it.
No company can legally require a person this kind of performative obedience under any circumstance as a sold product like this. Additionally, there have already been cases where judges have rendered TOS/EULA agreements as total bullshit and unenforceable. Especially after a sale has already been completed, just look at the Sony Linux feature removal class action on the PS3 that cost them millions.
That said, it could still be a nightmare to deal with but that is the nature of SLAP lawsuits to begin with. The intention is not to win, but to financially drain you into a loss or to scare people... mainly the websites publishing benchmark data.
One wrong move by Intel and they will be facing the same kind of fucking class action lawsuit themselves. Everyone should slap so many fucking benchmarks online that intels heads spin!
When was the last time you saw anyone actually asking for representation?
Last time I checked the election was between R's and D's. Neither of which are for the little guy. Both are for big business, they just go about it in different ways so that people can use cheap excuses to say they are really different. There is a reason both parties are splintering. Both of their own recognize that they cannot get representation.
Bush a republican created this problem and Mr "we are 5 days away from fundamentally transforming America" Obama a democrat didn't change a single fucking thing... except the rhetoric.
"My god, the amount of people who latch onto FULL SOCIALISM when they hear anything with the word socialism is staggering."
Yes, totally, everyone that goes for socialism always just goes right at it, 100% no gradual steps just one giant leap off the edge right into the abyss.
You are totally clueless. Even capitalism in the USA before it won independence was not adopted overnight. Like everything, there is a slow and gradual movement from one to the next.
So yea... just a little socialism today leads to more socialism tomorrow and full socialism later. It's not really a mystery either. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, and since socialism is on the other side right now, the ignorant folks readily eat at the trough of empty promises of prosperity for nothing... well as long you vote for one of the rich people they say you should hate to rule over you after all.
It's almost like you guys want to destroy yourselves, you don't want to spread prosperity, you just want to spread poverty because you are angry at your own failure to obtain whatever your definition of success is.
I don't think you realized that I just trash talked that notion of "joining the rest of the industrialized world". America Lead the world in the industrial revolution even though it started in England. The desire to "be like the rest of world" is the problem here. Our government was setup by the founding fathers to explicitly be unlike the rest of the world for a reason and folks like you not only do not understand that or why and instead keep picking on the minority as you usually do. Loot at the economic deficit those industrialized worlds have now. How do you expect anyone with any real knowledge and information to take your argument seriously? To be a leader means leading, not joining the rest of the world, but that appears to be lost on you.
Talk about being amazed... maybe you should check the mirror some time. You are wearing the rose tinted glasses, and tell me exactly what lessons these countries learned? Case to put anything other than nebulous prattle in words? Afraid they will be debunked? All you have are rose colored ideas that do not bear out in reality, just like every other socialism communist state like Old Russia, Venezuela, Argentina, and lets not forget Greece... the list is quite long!
is the problem. Not only do they not want to learn or understand what they are talking about, any attempt to bring up facts or heaven forbid show them a country that has failed while traveling down the path they want to bring us will only result in name calling and hurt feelings.
Not only that, but most do not even understand the difference between capitalism and free-market. They think that it is okay to destroy the free-market through bad regulation and then blame the free-market for that failure and by proxy transfer that blame to Capitalism because to have a Free-Market you do require Capitalism, but you do not require a Free-Market to have Capitalism.
The war here is simple... They want us to become Venezuela and even though we are looking at a Nation in destitution they still want it. Because they are ignorant... and it is a hell of a drug! Not even facts will change their view.
And as God said in 1 Samual Chapter 8. When you ask for a King and seek salvation from them instead of God, you have rejected God... "18 When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.â
Because this is an easy low hanging fruit law. It is just simple numbers. There are only 2 genders, but several different races and nationalities, ethnicities to consider, that is until we decide to cross into the LBGTQ etc territory.
This allows those in support of these laws to claim that they are for equality without having to actually go the distance, hence the cheap low hanging fruit comment. The idea is to introduce "feel good" laws that serve no purpose other than to advance an agenda.
The problem with things like this is others get left out, in your case your Hispanic origin and still leaves you directly discriminated against. As this progresses at which point do we call it done? There are potentially an infinite number of minority configurations possible. Gender, Race, Religion, Politic, Fraternity, Age, Ugly, Pretty? This is why "individuality" needs to be the ideal. There is no greater minority than the individual, which means any other form of classification only results in a caste/class system where one group gets special treatment at the expense of other groups. It creates division... and right now much division has been created under the guise of inclusion.
It is very much worth noting that the problem with the XKCD article is comparing Aircraft and Elevator safety with Software... why? Because of the law. If you design a bad machine and people die you can be very easily sued out of existence or go to jail. Just imagine that every plane and elevator had a sign posted saying, ride at your own risk because we are not responsible for a malfunction taking your limbs or life... a lot of folks would be taking the stairs and driving places instead.
Write software and you just say, not responsible for my shitty work because we have no standards for expediency and cost purposes.
Changing the law so that software is not allowed to escape a law suit with a simple tos agreement would change a whole farking load of things.
"I don't quiet know how to put this, but our entire field is bad at what we do, and if you rely on us, everyone will die."
Making the field as culpable for its fuck up like manufacturers would change that shit real fucking fast. Shit programmers would be tossed very quickly and several of those "awesome" programmers able to cut corners super fast would fall from grace with some epic face plants into the concrete below.
If we actually are responsible for getting ourselves here, then we can definitely get ourselves out of it.
So tell us, which one of your doomsday scenarios have come truth yet? Ice Caps should have been melted like two times over, a couple of cities are supposed to be under water by now, and little baby seals should be clubbing themselves due to going nuts from all the extra heat they have to experience.
I can accept that there might be a climate problem and that we might have some hand in it, but this constant doomsday mealy mouthing is damaging the cause and driving wedges. And since they can't get their predictions right, there is no reason to trust their conclusions about the evidence either! If you were actually about saving the planet you would stop with the garbage.
This all smells like the same pseudo-science against fat and cholesterol from teh 1950's where a politician made a final decision to say its all bad, caused food mfg's to make fat free garbage and to begin substituting it all with sugars, corn syrups, and alternative food science calling milk bad and eggs death sentences in a bite!
with the exception of crApple phones have pretty much used the USB standards for a while now. Not only that, the only difference is the charging speed depending on the amp the charging device is able to supply through the wire connected to the phone.
To little too late and most likely will only create more problems than it will solve by now.
Slashdot Mirror
I remember when I had an XBOX subscription.
Guess what Microsoft decided to when it got hacked? They entirely cut off access for almost 2 fucking months straight!
I will never willingly purchase another Microsoft product ever again.
I did not say that RNG are a "difficulty crutch", I said I hate when they are used as "difficulty crutches". Yes they are used to add some variability, however a net same effect can be achieved with sufficiently advanced mechanics for example.
With RNG, you can just Roll 1 Die for the amount of damage a person can do according to a specific stat and then roll 1 die for the amount of defense a person is capable of to see if they can cancel out some or all of the incoming damage.
RNG in this case is being used to "simplify" the mechanics of the engagement for expedience and is entirely understandable within the scope of table top gaming.
In computer gaming, you can actually do it right. The attacker's skill, weight, strength, dexterity, agility along with the type of weapon they are using would be then be compared against the skill, weight, strength, dexterity, agility along with the type of material/tool that is being used to defend against said weapon could be calculated.
With RNG weak characters could get lucky and take out powerful characters in unrealistic ways that would not be possible if chaos math level of calculations were being applied. For example a weak weapon taking out a dragon because of the rolls just worked out. No matter how powerful an attacker is... if they are using poor quality equipment they are just not going accomplish much unless they have skills to overcome things.
Simple RNG does all of this without the advanced logic, and when a developer uses RNG without any logic controls on the RNG then it become a crutch to ad difficulty because it is just easier to randomly give your enemies more health than to develop creative ways to increase difficulty such as an enemy AI figuring out you overuse a certain unit type and then producing a unit effective at countering their skills. It is even more difficult still to produce this effect in believable ways without giving the AI a cheat method do it. Say, like making the AI have to qualify for a condition, like having a spy in your barracks, before it can learn what your Army is made up of instead of just always knowing because it is the AI.
I thought I covered your scenario with this line here in my original post...
"People who play these games just to pass the time as they move from moment to moment in life should not be considered, regardless of the types of games they play. They are clearly immune or are able to see these gimmicks for what they are."
The interest is in people that allow games with these mechanics to impact their lives to a noticeable degree, especially if that impact is clearly negative.
The Skinner Box, yes, that is a great analogy for this. But I don't think skinner was the first to think of the concept, just the first to study it and record his findings in this way. Society itself is largely a skinner box construct itself, if you think about it, and if you apply that logic to things all over life there are all sorts of skinner boxes everywhere you look.
Regarding my comment on RNG in roguelikes, I did not say it did not work great, I like RNG, I said I dislike those that use it as a difficulty crutch, as in the only form of difficulty comes from the RNG itself. I do not consider "inherent difficulty" as a companion mechanic, I consider it just an extension of the story. Take the game they are billions TAB. RNG in map generation can be harsh on new players, but an experienced person can overcome that, which makes the game a good example of allowing RNG add difficulty but also not rely on it like a crutch the way FTL might do so. Both games have a "rush" mechanic where you have a limited time/turns to get things done. However, TAB minimizes the RNG by making your choice of Mayors modify the game only a little bit. FTL can affect your game heavily based on the results of store events and store stock.
In short, there is nothing more frustrating than playing a game that is not possible to win because it was not my skill or a failure of my creation that caused the failure... just a pseudo random mechanic that has no basis in reality because if you understand chaos math... because random really is not that random. So yea, use the random to "enhance" the game play, just don't rely on it as a crutch for adding difficulty.
I have not played Binding of Isaac, so I cannot comment on game play for that game. But I can say that I am not a session based game player. While it is not a total turn off, I am more of a reward over time player. I can work without immediate pay off/reward. The accomplishment for resolving a coplex task successful is a bigger pay out for me emotionally than a loot box that gave me the most powerful weapon in the game after 100 tries.
Though the random nature of the drops in games like Borderlands were enjoyable because they did not overtly affect gameplay in such a way that my skill could not overcome bad RNG.
Take the Halo series, I actually enjoyed playing those games on Legendary because my skill was 100% on the line there. I rarely enjoy games on their hardest because like doom... the only difference in difficulty was just enemies with more health. That is not a skill based difficulty, that was a lead over time scale making ammo management the win gimmick and not my skill as a player. Halo, at least made the enemies seek to avoid the danger I was sending them... the elites hid behind rocks... that was the first time a game ever did that to me and I loved it. Enemies that seem to care about saying alive instead of bum rushing me until I filled them with enough lead to drop them like a sack of potatoes.
It is society that is making it hard for game players to stop playing. As a long time player let me explain why.
I hate games that use RNG as a difficulty crutch (some rouge likes), gambler logic (loot boxes), and Feed and Starve (candy crush/pay for lives/continues) to hook me. Why ? because it makes me angry when playing their games because I know what gambling is and how it works on the mind, but more importantly, because I am looking for MORE from my game than simple risk/reward gimmicks.
It would be interesting in a study to see if people with more developed intellectual capacity fall for these game types than people who have not cared to develop their intellectual capacities. I admit that I believe that some people are hooked on these games because they either do not care or are shallow enough to allow their time to be used in this way.
That said, I think the distinction in such a study needs to be on people that actually have some form of addiction. It does not need to be major, but enough of one where it is clear that their gaming habits are at least noticeably affecting their work/friend/love/life balances.
People who play these games just to pass the time as they move from moment to moment in life should not be considered, regardless of the types of games they play. They are clearly immune or are able to see these gimmicks for what they are.
As a gamer myself, I hate most MMO's as a never ending grindfest, mobs stand around like cattle, bosses never really die, the environments are not really changeable by the players actions, though so mmo's try to emulate this with updates. I mean nothing says it more than... go kill 10 slimes and return here. Or running the same stage over and over and over ad nauseum where one mistake can lead to disaster and angry people because game balance in MMO's always mean as a single unit you are never strong or capable. Sure teamwork is nice but if those monsters are really that strong how can the popoulations the players represent live in those worlds? O right, I forgot, bosses are immortal, over sized and never have to leave their lairs and just happen to have mobs of defender acolytes for what reason again?
I liked terraria for the exploration, world modification, and creative boss fights, though I do not think the boss fights are really balanced.
I liked factorio for its complex crafting and logic gameplay, but mobs on even the hardest configurations are pie cake to deal with and at best annoyance.
I very much appreciate games that provide at least semi plausible reasons for things going on, not just being used as plot devices or macguffins.
it is my opinion that because society is more about giving people knowledge without actually attempting to teach them "why" that knowledge if valuable, they waste it or misunderstand it leading them to become easily suckered by so many things... least of which is a game with mechanics so simple that only a simple mind can enjoy them! Or in short, shallow risk reward mechanics! People who require "deeper" and "more meaningful" experiences are busy doing something else because these games are just too shallow to hold their attention.
So can you really blame game developers for figuring out how the simple minded tick? Nope! Just give them their money, they earned it! Or rather, they earned tricking it out of their pockets!
"It is unacceptable for communications providers to deceive their customers," the Congressmen wrote, "but when the consumer in question is a government entity tasked with fire and emergency services, we can't afford to wait a moment longer."
Yes we know, you should be ashamed that you deceived yoru citizen customers but HOW DARE you deceive the government or its entities!
Fun fact, had those millions of other "deceptions" been looked at by the government that cares so much we would not need something like this to get our attention. There is a reason why politicians do not really care that much about their voters.
The inspector for my home says it passed for grounding. I have also verified this visually myself and with a wiring tester. So far the test is okay unless I have a fault somewhere that showed good while I tested it but gets faulty if something shifts, which is possible.
However, I am not aware of bad grounding being a culprit for LED failures. Grounding is not something that really has play in electrical applications in this way. Electrical grounding is a safety mechanism and if grounding is being engaged in a way that it is part of my LED failures, then I likely have a bigger problem than proper grounding going on and need to find out the source of whatever is causing electrical problems that are leading to early LED failure.
I agree with your idea, the point I was trying to get at is that once again the politicians wasted a bunch of effort putting in "feel good" laws that are more waste of time than a value add to the problem at hand.
These kinds of laws are nothing more than feel good legislation to get ignorant voters off their backs or an end run parlay by mfgs to gain a market advantage through regulation.
If they want to make sensible regulation by enforcing a minimal manufacturing quality like forcing LEDs to carry a minimum 20 year warranty where mfgs are also legally required to stage recycling centers at hardware suppliers and "free shipping" then they would be getting somewhere. Until then, it is my opinion they just tricked a whole bunch of voters into thinking the did something good without really doing anything meaningful at all... other than to get rid of halogen bulbs.
The same amount of energy and waste will likely be had with LED production because it is just too easy to game the system.
"So, which is it? Or does reducing power usage not count as solving a problem?"
Your thinking is too narrow. Just like how everyone found out that the total energy needed to produce ethanol as a fuel was not really saving any effort, if LED light manufacturing is allowed to do the same we are not "technically saving energy". We are just playing a card trick by moving the cost of energy outside of your home and towards the constant manufacturing of cheap and poor quality LEDs that do not last. But it appears that this little bait and switch is lost on you which is they reason I said what I said.
"That's exactly what I said when they started selling automobiles -- the change would never help with the nation's horseshit-in-the-streets problem, because auto manufacturers would deliberately add horseshit to their cars so that they could sell more of them. Perfectly logical, no?"
Speaking of "horseshit". The mfg industries have a well documented history of "planned obsolescence" and your mockery only shows how ignorant you are of it all. It is far too easy to trick people like you because all that is needed is to put on a little "theater" to get you to believe anything.
Not because incandescent bulbs are being phased out but because it does not solve any problems. Just like incandescent bulbs have always been manufactured to be intentionally limited so will LED lights. Waste will not be cut by any meaningful measurement. Sure power will be lower, but the mfg's never had to worry about that issue anyways.
I have had several LED lights fail within just a fraction of their lifespans, and by different MFG's as well. What is even worse is that LED's are not the only things that can fail. The power supply components on these bulbs that get hot fail often as well, ensuring that the entire bulb is now worthless.
There is more than one way to sucker an ignorant group of politicians.
he, NO, your quote is not even correct.
That 4th says...
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
Let me break this down. This amendment says the word "unreasonable" but that word is not saying that anything the "government deems" as reasonable is now fair game. The amendment is specifically stating that any "search or seizure" that is NOT accompanied by a WARRANT, particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized, is what the meaning of unreasonable is in the context of the 4th amendment.
I could convince all the pro NN folks to drop that pursuit and instead pursue taking the monopolies themselves away from the ISP's entirely. The poles, wires, and buried cable all become publicly funded just like roads and managed by contract bid out to whoever wants to run and maintain them so long as it is never one of the carriers, where the businesses now pay for the % of bandwidth their customers use with the price set by a commission, where anyone willing to start a new ISP can easily move into the marketspace and offer broadband to their neighbors without Comcast, Verizon, Cox, or whoever from blocking them in court or BS laws!
AND also removing all local municipalities from being able to sign exclusive deals with ISP's entirely!
Prices would drop like dying flies and every carrier would be advertising how they don't track you, keep your data private, and would never throttle your connection to netflix over comcast!
Your Version of "decency" is what is to be enforced right?
It used to be indecent to do a lot of things, like race mixing, anything more than holding hands in public, women showing too much skin... did you see her ankles? What a fucking slut!!!
Yea yea we get it... we really do get! Free Speech for me, but not for thee!
"That case was different than this."
Nope, like all case law, it depends on your argument.
When intel sold their product they agree to certain legal obligations. They cannot alter those legal obligation with a TOS/EULA. Sure it does not stop them from trying but no judge is going to uphold a contract that states you have no 1st Amendment rights after buying our CPU on a PUBLICLY SOLD product. They might have a case if they sold their product exclusively where they can control the purchase start to back. And this does not even get into 2nd hand items.
Intel cannot shirk it's legal warranty requirements in this fashion and they certainly cannot place a moratorium on public data about a publicly sold product expost facto to its sale.
You can ignore stupid shit like this. Intel can sue for you for looking cross eyed if they wanted to. It does not mean that they will win even if you lose everything defending yourself from it.
No company can legally require a person this kind of performative obedience under any circumstance as a sold product like this. Additionally, there have already been cases where judges have rendered TOS/EULA agreements as total bullshit and unenforceable. Especially after a sale has already been completed, just look at the Sony Linux feature removal class action on the PS3 that cost them millions.
That said, it could still be a nightmare to deal with but that is the nature of SLAP lawsuits to begin with. The intention is not to win, but to financially drain you into a loss or to scare people... mainly the websites publishing benchmark data.
One wrong move by Intel and they will be facing the same kind of fucking class action lawsuit themselves. Everyone should slap so many fucking benchmarks online that intels heads spin!
this would be enough to finally get me to stop using Windows.
I play a lot of PC games, windows is a must for this.
this is utter garbage.
We Americans are at fault for this, allowing a bunch of terrorists to scare ignorant people like you into allowing this tyranny.
Those who give up essential liberty for safety do not get either liberty or safety as well as no longer deserving liberty or safety.
When was the last time you saw anyone actually asking for representation?
Last time I checked the election was between R's and D's. Neither of which are for the little guy. Both are for big business, they just go about it in different ways so that people can use cheap excuses to say they are really different. There is a reason both parties are splintering. Both of their own recognize that they cannot get representation.
Bush a republican created this problem and Mr "we are 5 days away from fundamentally transforming America" Obama a democrat didn't change a single fucking thing... except the rhetoric.
"My god, the amount of people who latch onto FULL SOCIALISM when they hear anything with the word socialism is staggering."
Yes, totally, everyone that goes for socialism always just goes right at it, 100% no gradual steps just one giant leap off the edge right into the abyss.
You are totally clueless. Even capitalism in the USA before it won independence was not adopted overnight. Like everything, there is a slow and gradual movement from one to the next.
So yea... just a little socialism today leads to more socialism tomorrow and full socialism later. It's not really a mystery either. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, and since socialism is on the other side right now, the ignorant folks readily eat at the trough of empty promises of prosperity for nothing... well as long you vote for one of the rich people they say you should hate to rule over you after all.
It's almost like you guys want to destroy yourselves, you don't want to spread prosperity, you just want to spread poverty because you are angry at your own failure to obtain whatever your definition of success is.
I don't think you realized that I just trash talked that notion of "joining the rest of the industrialized world". America Lead the world in the industrial revolution even though it started in England. The desire to "be like the rest of world" is the problem here. Our government was setup by the founding fathers to explicitly be unlike the rest of the world for a reason and folks like you not only do not understand that or why and instead keep picking on the minority as you usually do. Loot at the economic deficit those industrialized worlds have now. How do you expect anyone with any real knowledge and information to take your argument seriously? To be a leader means leading, not joining the rest of the world, but that appears to be lost on you.
Talk about being amazed... maybe you should check the mirror some time. You are wearing the rose tinted glasses, and tell me exactly what lessons these countries learned? Case to put anything other than nebulous prattle in words? Afraid they will be debunked? All you have are rose colored ideas that do not bear out in reality, just like every other socialism communist state like Old Russia, Venezuela, Argentina, and lets not forget Greece... the list is quite long!
This video below is making direct fun of folks like YOU!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Tell me jythie, who is going to bail you out when this fails after you have "joined the rest of the broke as world with broke economies!"
is the problem. Not only do they not want to learn or understand what they are talking about, any attempt to bring up facts or heaven forbid show them a country that has failed while traveling down the path they want to bring us will only result in name calling and hurt feelings.
Not only that, but most do not even understand the difference between capitalism and free-market. They think that it is okay to destroy the free-market through bad regulation and then blame the free-market for that failure and by proxy transfer that blame to Capitalism because to have a Free-Market you do require Capitalism, but you do not require a Free-Market to have Capitalism.
The war here is simple... They want us to become Venezuela and even though we are looking at a Nation in destitution they still want it. Because they are ignorant... and it is a hell of a drug! Not even facts will change their view.
And as God said in 1 Samual Chapter 8. When you ask for a King and seek salvation from them instead of God, you have rejected God... "18 When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.â
Because this is an easy low hanging fruit law. It is just simple numbers. There are only 2 genders, but several different races and nationalities, ethnicities to consider, that is until we decide to cross into the LBGTQ etc territory.
This allows those in support of these laws to claim that they are for equality without having to actually go the distance, hence the cheap low hanging fruit comment. The idea is to introduce "feel good" laws that serve no purpose other than to advance an agenda.
The problem with things like this is others get left out, in your case your Hispanic origin and still leaves you directly discriminated against. As this progresses at which point do we call it done? There are potentially an infinite number of minority configurations possible. Gender, Race, Religion, Politic, Fraternity, Age, Ugly, Pretty? This is why "individuality" needs to be the ideal. There is no greater minority than the individual, which means any other form of classification only results in a caste/class system where one group gets special treatment at the expense of other groups. It creates division... and right now much division has been created under the guise of inclusion.
It is very much worth noting that the problem with the XKCD article is comparing Aircraft and Elevator safety with Software... why? Because of the law. If you design a bad machine and people die you can be very easily sued out of existence or go to jail. Just imagine that every plane and elevator had a sign posted saying, ride at your own risk because we are not responsible for a malfunction taking your limbs or life... a lot of folks would be taking the stairs and driving places instead.
Write software and you just say, not responsible for my shitty work because we have no standards for expediency and cost purposes.
Changing the law so that software is not allowed to escape a law suit with a simple tos agreement would change a whole farking load of things.
"I don't quiet know how to put this, but our entire field is bad at what we do, and if you rely on us, everyone will die."
Making the field as culpable for its fuck up like manufacturers would change that shit real fucking fast. Shit programmers would be tossed very quickly and several of those "awesome" programmers able to cut corners super fast would fall from grace with some epic face plants into the concrete below.
If we actually are responsible for getting ourselves here, then we can definitely get ourselves out of it.
So tell us, which one of your doomsday scenarios have come truth yet? Ice Caps should have been melted like two times over, a couple of cities are supposed to be under water by now, and little baby seals should be clubbing themselves due to going nuts from all the extra heat they have to experience.
I can accept that there might be a climate problem and that we might have some hand in it, but this constant doomsday mealy mouthing is damaging the cause and driving wedges. And since they can't get their predictions right, there is no reason to trust their conclusions about the evidence either! If you were actually about saving the planet you would stop with the garbage.
This all smells like the same pseudo-science against fat and cholesterol from teh 1950's where a politician made a final decision to say its all bad, caused food mfg's to make fat free garbage and to begin substituting it all with sugars, corn syrups, and alternative food science calling milk bad and eggs death sentences in a bite!
with the exception of crApple phones have pretty much used the USB standards for a while now. Not only that, the only difference is the charging speed depending on the amp the charging device is able to supply through the wire connected to the phone.
To little too late and most likely will only create more problems than it will solve by now.