It's more than just anecdotal. There is a large body of research that our first opinions of capabilities of people we meet are based almost entirely upon (first) appearance/impression. And not just the first meeting, but as little as the first 15 seconds. I don't remember the article (my wife was telling me about it from a doctoral discussion group she's in) where they compared class evaluations of professors between those who had taken a course for an entire semester and those who watched a video of the professor giving the course. They were able to shorten the video clip they saw down to 15 seconds and the overall rating of the professor's ability, approachableness, efficacy, etc. was statistically identical to those who had taken the class for the entire year. Like it or not, people have preconceived notions and are more than happy to use them. It can take weeks, months, or even years of personal interaction to reverse those initial impressions. And in many cases you won't have the opportunity to reverse that initial impression.
(As an aside, this article was part of a women in academia discussion group and, unfortunately, being female was one of those things that tended to count against perceived ability, meaning that for women in that environment, the first impression is all that more critical.)
Just remember that what may earn you "street cred" from your friends, may cause you to suffer later in life. (And if you think tatoos are expensive, just look at the cost of tatoo removal!)
Correct: the S/PDIF connection can be optical or coaxial. You connect the equipment with either TOSLINK (fiber) or "coaxial digital" cables. Really any 75 ohm cable will work. (and in reality most any cable will work if your equipment is flexible enough).
The one thing to know, though, is that the PCM data can be sent at any number of frequencies. While most amps can read at 44.1kHz and 48 (and usually lower frequencies as well), not all can. Additionally, some sound cards (particularly the more generic or on-board ones, including the nForce) will resample everything to a fixed frequency, usually 48kHz. This can be problematic if the two don't speak the same frequency. You also have to be careful about coax to optical converters (most sound cards nowadays have coax S/PDIF outputs, but many amps have no or very few coax inputs). Many can only translate sources at 44.1 kHz so you're SOL if your sound card outputs at 48kHz (yes, I'm speaking from bitter experience).
I'm just glad I saw this come across the wire yesterday afternoon and looked at the presentation then!
I can hear the whooshing sound of bandwidth rushing across the ocean floor. Unfortunately I'm headed _to_ an oceanfront cabin in an hour. Maybe the waves will have subsided by then. (Though given it's Friday, I'm sure just about every/.er will click on that link and sit and wait while it loads...)
[And judging by the responsiveness of/. it seems like they're all hitting the homepage just about now!]
While the technical issues may be complex, it already has an Achilles Heel: The system is designed to automatically let through any email sent to the "official" address (in the article this is joe;lucky@domain.com). Should you have this harvested (either from the web or some unscrupulous business/organization which sells your address), you'll get a slow but steady stream of spam.
Presumably emails beyond the first will bounce, but as long as spammers can continue to generate unique addresses, this won't be much of a problem. And while you can change your "primary" pseudonym again, this will get old quickly (and inconvenience anyone who gets a bounce when they try to send to your old new email address).
As long as there are ISPs who don't care (or find it not worth their while to care) about spam coming out of their network, we'll have spam. These systems only escalate the arms race.
Well if you look at the results, you see that either the questionaire was worded really poorly or the person at MIT who answered it is a dope, because MIT does proved web space for students and you can register online (admittedly, there's still some paper work involved as you and your advisor have to sign your reg form and submit that , something I don't think will change for some time as it forces the student-advisor interaction).
So I'd take the rankings with a large chunk of salt.
Also the outcome of the criteria don't always mesh with the sense of the survey: while requiring everyone to have a computer does mean everyone has access to a computer, that isn't necessarily a good thing (IMO). ("Yes we're connected, and yes we provide a tremendous number of public workstations, but you also have to shell out to buy a computer to attend here!")
Just wanted to remind you that while it's easy to lump all record companies into the RIAA, movie studios into the MPAA, etc, there is a difference.
In the case of your post, the RIAA is not the copyright holder. Either the labels or (in a few rare cases) the artists hold the copyright to the music. The RIAA is just the trade group of which many but not all labels are a member. Some of those who aren't were discussed here. (I also recall a discussion regarding labels listed as members who actually weren't, but can't seem to find the link.)
This is not to say that the many of the labels don't agree 100% with what the RIAA is saying/doing, nor that most of the RIAA's funds come from membership dues from these same companies. Rather that there is a difference between the two and that many of these companies have much to gain by maintaining the distinction. ("We can let the RIAA take the most draconian position possible and well if they succeed better for us, and if they fail, we 'compromise' on more realistic terms that are really what we wanted all along." -- This tactic is not relegated strictly to business, though, as witnessed currently by the 527's/political parties in the US election.)
Absolutely! And of course, there are those of us in the US who would like to know more than the blurb that we hear in the US news, if it even makes it that far. Even our best news sources often don't have time to cover politics abroad unless they have major international implications.
(For example, I'm a regular listerner to public radio, follow the AP wire etc. but nowhere did I see any mention of Blair sending Berlosconi to the hospital with a busted up knee save on a public radio quiz show. [Wait! Wait! Don't tell me! for those who are interested. It's quite good (both well done and amusing) and manages to catch you up on a week's worth of headlines, should you have missed anything.])
This is particularly relevant given that the web site indicates its part of their "VIP" club. Though at the same time, there is some security in that if you elect to get the chip and are truly a "VIP" (with your own private table according to the website), they're likely going to recognize you and would also quickly respond to allegations that someone's chip ID had been hijacked.
Of course the system breaks down when they go from simply being trendsetter to being one more bar accepting the RFID tag as ID and you're back at the same point as we are now with stolen credit cards.
After much searching, I've found these guys seem to have the best prices on rackmount cases. Particularly nice is the included riser card and the option for an AGP card for those who (for whatever reason) need AGP capability -- few places I've found offer that. Note, though, that the prices are noticeably better on eBay than through their online store.
PartsExpress has good prices on rails, for those who just want rails. Their customer service was quite good as well: one of my pairs of rails managed to fall out in transit and they were quite good (prompt and friendly) about sending me another pair. Their selection and prices on other basic rack equipment was quite good as well (blank plates, shelves, that sort of thing).
For those doing home wiring and wanting any range of supplies (including rack-mount hardware), I would highly recommendTri-State Electronic. I had a several page order which they got right the first time and shipped out the next day. Their prices are quite good as is their selection. Also delivery was reasonable ($50 or so via UPS Ground for over 100 lbs in 3 boxes) and fast since they're in the middle of the country (= no more than a few days away from most everywhere). I've since ordered some things I forgot the first time and the service was just as good the second time.
But you can't just blame the person using the gun
on
PowerPoint Makes You Dumb
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
While your post is dead on, you are failing to miss the point of many who cry foul of powerpoint: too many people who use it don't know better. For the same reason the folks in the trenches like to snipe at management as "pointy-haired" it's really easy for those who know how to make a good presentation to say "oh, they're just incompetent; it's not the fault of Powerpoint".
While I agree that there is some validity to the argument blaming the person and not the gun, to draw the line there is also short-sighted. Too many people either haven't ever been tought how to make a good presentation or just don't care and are happy to use Powerpoint to effortlessly produce crap.
Either way, Powerpoint clearly enables such poor presentations by making people focus on only one way to present information (a large-fonted bulleted list) and gives way too many options for transitions that only distract from the substance.
(Of course this doesn't remove the blame from corporate execs/govt officials who are not willing to listen to more than 30s of a presentation, nor those who willingly oblige them. And of course a higher education system which actively promotes the blind use of Powerpoint rather than spending time making people learn how to make a good presentation is also to blame! [Hint: the slides are purely a visual aid; they are not supposed to be your presentation, merely assist you in getting your point across -- nor are they a substitute for a good technical memo!]) </rant>
You're absolutely correct. This is the same reason an oral contract is as legally binding as a written one. Obviously the terms of an oral contract are much harder to prove than a written one so to reduce bickering over the exact form of the contract we favor written ones.
It is for this reason that she SHOULD NOT CHARGE anything to the card. Doing so implies acceptance of the card and terms & conditions. (Most of the card agreements even say as much.)
Unfortunately, as many earlier posters have pointed out, there doesn't seem to be much remedy as essentially all of that information is "public information" (especially if you throw the application in the trash right next to the booth without even tearing it up!). The most you'll get is, if you have a really compassionate judge, some sort of minor penalty against the company/booth person for submitting your application without your approval.
As a side note, I believe that the folks that staff those booths are paid by the number of applications they get. So obviously if you start to fill one out and decide against it, you better take it with you and tear it up and throw it out far away from their booth!
I think this is a great post and obviously a great way to put old hardware to good use.
It seems to me, though, that many people have ignored a very important point: what do you do with the all the boxes? At least in many people's houses, placing a computer where it's readily accessible for multimedia control makes it a bit of an eyesore. Alternatively, you can hide it in a corner or behind some furniture, but then is there not much difference in cable lengths than running it from some central location. And either way you're still stuck with powered speakers unless you invest more space (and $$) in an amp for each room.
These things are what point me (and presumably the original poster) to centralized systems. It seems to me that the bigger challenge (than audio) is to provide a high-quality UI using a centralized media system. Obviously there are high-end custom systems and some other custom options (such as the Slimp3 for mp3 playback).
So has anyone found a good solution to the interface problem? While buying PocketPCs works, it seems a bit expensive. And there's a whole other host of problems when attempting to power several monitors from one server.
Just my two cents, but this is the problem I've been wrestling with in my contemplation of a home-multimedia system.
Another site that I enjoy is the APOD. Some of the stuff may be a bit over the heads of kids that age (I know lots of it is over mine and I've had some college-level astronomy!), but it's really well linked to a bunch of good sites. And of course the pretty pictures will hopefully only help in getting them interested in science from an early age!
Of course if they're interested in other space types of things there are a bunch of other interactive things at spaceflight.nasa.gov, including the ISS tracker, etc.
Actually, IIRC, the article doesn't quite state the facts clearly. The supreme court was split in that it supported one case and returned the other to the lower court. It ruled that the two men who got drunk and burned a cross on their [black] neighbor's lawn did so for the purposes of intimidation and that this was not a protected form a speech. (see for example their recent ruling on the illegality of the anti-abortion websites posting "wanted" ads of abortion doctors.).
They did, however, uphold the right of the KKK to burn the large 30' cross as a form of protected speech (i.e. political, without an immediate threat of harm or intimidation). It was for this reason that Thomas dissented - his comments indicated that the history of cross-burning is such that there is never a time when cross-burning is not meant to intimidate.
So to return to the question at hand, the Supreme Court has clearly, multiple times, made a distinction between types of speech and that some are protected and others aren't. Regardless of the first amendment, you can't make threats on the life of the president (no matter how much of a ditz he is). Similarly, you can't give away state secrets. No matter how inane or ludicrous the DMCA is, there is a long precedent for restricting certain types of speech. (So the question of its constitutionality is not one that is easily answered.)
While data manipulation will always occur, that doesn't mean that all science is fraud. And of course the amount of scrutiny with which the data is examined should be proportional to the importance of the result.
With regards to the question at hand, I can personally vouch that there is (at least most of the time) a thorough checking of the data. I spent a summer in high school poring over thousands of pages of detector data from the LLNL experiment producing element 110. All to confirm that there was but one atom created.
So far I've seen a bunch of generalizations (though not all) which, at least for me, wouldn't be very helpful (particularly the (unfortunately) everpresent ill-informed statements). Really, you have to look at the opportunities and decide what you want to do and whether the public or private sector better meets your needs. At least in the case of professional positions, there's usually a (substantial) difference in your job duties between public and private sector positions. Of course these duties often vary depending on where you live as the division of public/private tasks will vary. Really it will be unique depending on your situation. (I'm currently looking at both public and private sector jobs trying to figure out which would better suit my professional desires).
[Of course if you want to make generalizations, probably, in my experience, the biggest difference is that, by the simple fact that we have a public/private split, the public sector tends to require employees to be a bit more of "generalists": because they can't easily change staffing so they try to make due with what the employees that they have (particularly in these times of budget shortfalls). Private sector on the other hand, usually fills a particular market niche. So while you may work on a wide range of projects, each one different from the last, your business will likely have its area of expertise thus tend to attract similar work from one job to the next.]
Of course, as others have pointed out, there are other factors that go into the mix, such as salary, benefits, stability, etc. which depend a lot on your field, geography, point in your life, etc.
I agree with Taco that the graphics, textures, etc. were truly impressive. Things have certainly come a long way towards looking more realistic and at times even approach looking lifelike (the intro sequence for instance). But I thought the character animation itself was rather poor. The movements are quite choppy and blocky. Not nearly as good as TS2, for example. In that regard I was a little disappointed, since I figure that getting the textures to look right just takes time, but the animation and character movements is where the true "art" comes in and I was disappointed to see that they skimped on it.
Slashdot Mirror
It's more than just anecdotal. There is a large body of research that our first opinions of capabilities of people we meet are based almost entirely upon (first) appearance/impression. And not just the first meeting, but as little as the first 15 seconds. I don't remember the article (my wife was telling me about it from a doctoral discussion group she's in) where they compared class evaluations of professors between those who had taken a course for an entire semester and those who watched a video of the professor giving the course. They were able to shorten the video clip they saw down to 15 seconds and the overall rating of the professor's ability, approachableness, efficacy, etc. was statistically identical to those who had taken the class for the entire year. Like it or not, people have preconceived notions and are more than happy to use them. It can take weeks, months, or even years of personal interaction to reverse those initial impressions. And in many cases you won't have the opportunity to reverse that initial impression.
(As an aside, this article was part of a women in academia discussion group and, unfortunately, being female was one of those things that tended to count against perceived ability, meaning that for women in that environment, the first impression is all that more critical.)
Just remember that what may earn you "street cred" from your friends, may cause you to suffer later in life. (And if you think tatoos are expensive, just look at the cost of tatoo removal!)
The above is very comprehensive!
p frame=yes&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.tftpanel.hu%2Findex .php%3Ftopic%3Dmonitortablazat&from=hun&to=eng
For those having trouble figuring out the columns, the following is a decent automated translation: http://www.tranexp.com:2000/InterTran?type=url&to
Note, though, that it screws up the contrast ratios (250:1 becomes 2501: and the light measurement is Candelas (Cd)/m2 not Compact Discs per m2.
Correct: the S/PDIF connection can be optical or coaxial. You connect the equipment with either TOSLINK (fiber) or "coaxial digital" cables. Really any 75 ohm cable will work. (and in reality most any cable will work if your equipment is flexible enough).
The one thing to know, though, is that the PCM data can be sent at any number of frequencies. While most amps can read at 44.1kHz and 48 (and usually lower frequencies as well), not all can. Additionally, some sound cards (particularly the more generic or on-board ones, including the nForce) will resample everything to a fixed frequency, usually 48kHz. This can be problematic if the two don't speak the same frequency. You also have to be careful about coax to optical converters (most sound cards nowadays have coax S/PDIF outputs, but many amps have no or very few coax inputs). Many can only translate sources at 44.1 kHz so you're SOL if your sound card outputs at 48kHz (yes, I'm speaking from bitter experience).
I'm just glad I saw this come across the wire yesterday afternoon and looked at the presentation then!
/.er will click on that link and sit and wait while it loads...)
/. it seems like they're all hitting the homepage just about now!]
I can hear the whooshing sound of bandwidth rushing across the ocean floor. Unfortunately I'm headed _to_ an oceanfront cabin in an hour. Maybe the waves will have subsided by then. (Though given it's Friday, I'm sure just about every
[And judging by the responsiveness of
While the technical issues may be complex, it already has an Achilles Heel: The system is designed to automatically let through any email sent to the "official" address (in the article this is joe;lucky@domain.com). Should you have this harvested (either from the web or some unscrupulous business/organization which sells your address), you'll get a slow but steady stream of spam.
Presumably emails beyond the first will bounce, but as long as spammers can continue to generate unique addresses, this won't be much of a problem. And while you can change your "primary" pseudonym again, this will get old quickly (and inconvenience anyone who gets a bounce when they try to send to your old new email address).
As long as there are ISPs who don't care (or find it not worth their while to care) about spam coming out of their network, we'll have spam. These systems only escalate the arms race.
Well if you look at the results, you see that either the questionaire was worded really poorly or the person at MIT who answered it is a dope, because MIT does proved web space for students and you can register online (admittedly, there's still some paper work involved as you and your advisor have to sign your reg form and submit that , something I don't think will change for some time as it forces the student-advisor interaction).
So I'd take the rankings with a large chunk of salt.
Also the outcome of the criteria don't always mesh with the sense of the survey: while requiring everyone to have a computer does mean everyone has access to a computer, that isn't necessarily a good thing (IMO). ("Yes we're connected, and yes we provide a tremendous number of public workstations, but you also have to shell out to buy a computer to attend here!")
Just wanted to remind you that while it's easy to lump all record companies into the RIAA, movie studios into the MPAA, etc, there is a difference.
In the case of your post, the RIAA is not the copyright holder. Either the labels or (in a few rare cases) the artists hold the copyright to the music. The RIAA is just the trade group of which many but not all labels are a member. Some of those who aren't were discussed here. (I also recall a discussion regarding labels listed as members who actually weren't, but can't seem to find the link.)
This is not to say that the many of the labels don't agree 100% with what the RIAA is saying/doing, nor that most of the RIAA's funds come from membership dues from these same companies. Rather that there is a difference between the two and that many of these companies have much to gain by maintaining the distinction. ("We can let the RIAA take the most draconian position possible and well if they succeed better for us, and if they fail, we 'compromise' on more realistic terms that are really what we wanted all along." -- This tactic is not relegated strictly to business, though, as witnessed currently by the 527's/political parties in the US election.)
Absolutely! And of course, there are those of us in the US who would like to know more than the blurb that we hear in the US news, if it even makes it that far. Even our best news sources often don't have time to cover politics abroad unless they have major international implications.
(For example, I'm a regular listerner to public radio, follow the AP wire etc. but nowhere did I see any mention of Blair sending Berlosconi to the hospital with a busted up knee save on a public radio quiz show. [Wait! Wait! Don't tell me! for those who are interested. It's quite good (both well done and amusing) and manages to catch you up on a week's worth of headlines, should you have missed anything.])
Of course at only 1.4 cm thin, maybe you can wrap it around you and wear it like a cape!
Of course the system breaks down when they go from simply being trendsetter to being one more bar accepting the RFID tag as ID and you're back at the same point as we are now with stolen credit cards.
After much searching, I've found these guys seem to have the best prices on rackmount cases. Particularly nice is the included riser card and the option for an AGP card for those who (for whatever reason) need AGP capability -- few places I've found offer that. Note, though, that the prices are noticeably better on eBay than through their online store.
PartsExpress has good prices on rails, for those who just want rails. Their customer service was quite good as well: one of my pairs of rails managed to fall out in transit and they were quite good (prompt and friendly) about sending me another pair. Their selection and prices on other basic rack equipment was quite good as well (blank plates, shelves, that sort of thing).
For those doing home wiring and wanting any range of supplies (including rack-mount hardware), I would highly recommend Tri-State Electronic. I had a several page order which they got right the first time and shipped out the next day. Their prices are quite good as is their selection. Also delivery was reasonable ($50 or so via UPS Ground for over 100 lbs in 3 boxes) and fast since they're in the middle of the country (= no more than a few days away from most everywhere). I've since ordered some things I forgot the first time and the service was just as good the second time.
While your post is dead on, you are failing to miss the point of many who cry foul of powerpoint: too many people who use it don't know better. For the same reason the folks in the trenches like to snipe at management as "pointy-haired" it's really easy for those who know how to make a good presentation to say "oh, they're just incompetent; it's not the fault of Powerpoint".
While I agree that there is some validity to the argument blaming the person and not the gun, to draw the line there is also short-sighted. Too many people either haven't ever been tought how to make a good presentation or just don't care and are happy to use Powerpoint to effortlessly produce crap.
Either way, Powerpoint clearly enables such poor presentations by making people focus on only one way to present information (a large-fonted bulleted list) and gives way too many options for transitions that only distract from the substance.
(Of course this doesn't remove the blame from corporate execs/govt officials who are not willing to listen to more than 30s of a presentation, nor those who willingly oblige them. And of course a higher education system which actively promotes the blind use of Powerpoint rather than spending time making people learn how to make a good presentation is also to blame! [Hint: the slides are purely a visual aid; they are not supposed to be your presentation, merely assist you in getting your point across -- nor are they a substitute for a good technical memo!]) </rant>
You're absolutely correct. This is the same reason an oral contract is as legally binding as a written one. Obviously the terms of an oral contract are much harder to prove than a written one so to reduce bickering over the exact form of the contract we favor written ones.
It is for this reason that she SHOULD NOT CHARGE anything to the card. Doing so implies acceptance of the card and terms & conditions. (Most of the card agreements even say as much.)
Unfortunately, as many earlier posters have pointed out, there doesn't seem to be much remedy as essentially all of that information is "public information" (especially if you throw the application in the trash right next to the booth without even tearing it up!). The most you'll get is, if you have a really compassionate judge, some sort of minor penalty against the company/booth person for submitting your application without your approval.
As a side note, I believe that the folks that staff those booths are paid by the number of applications they get. So obviously if you start to fill one out and decide against it, you better take it with you and tear it up and throw it out far away from their booth!
I think this is a great post and obviously a great way to put old hardware to good use.
It seems to me, though, that many people have ignored a very important point: what do you do with the all the boxes? At least in many people's houses, placing a computer where it's readily accessible for multimedia control makes it a bit of an eyesore. Alternatively, you can hide it in a corner or behind some furniture, but then is there not much difference in cable lengths than running it from some central location. And either way you're still stuck with powered speakers unless you invest more space (and $$) in an amp for each room.
These things are what point me (and presumably the original poster) to centralized systems. It seems to me that the bigger challenge (than audio) is to provide a high-quality UI using a centralized media system. Obviously there are high-end custom systems and some other custom options (such as the Slimp3 for mp3 playback).
So has anyone found a good solution to the interface problem? While buying PocketPCs works, it seems a bit expensive. And there's a whole other host of problems when attempting to power several monitors from one server.
Just my two cents, but this is the problem I've been wrestling with in my contemplation of a home-multimedia system.
Another site that I enjoy is the APOD. Some of the stuff may be a bit over the heads of kids that age (I know lots of it is over mine and I've had some college-level astronomy!), but it's really well linked to a bunch of good sites. And of course the pretty pictures will hopefully only help in getting them interested in science from an early age!
Of course if they're interested in other space types of things there are a bunch of other interactive things at spaceflight.nasa.gov, including the ISS tracker, etc.
Actually, IIRC, the article doesn't quite state the facts clearly. The supreme court was split in that it supported one case and returned the other to the lower court. It ruled that the two men who got drunk and burned a cross on their [black] neighbor's lawn did so for the purposes of intimidation and that this was not a protected form a speech. (see for example their recent ruling on the illegality of the anti-abortion websites posting "wanted" ads of abortion doctors.).
They did, however, uphold the right of the KKK to burn the large 30' cross as a form of protected speech (i.e. political, without an immediate threat of harm or intimidation). It was for this reason that Thomas dissented - his comments indicated that the history of cross-burning is such that there is never a time when cross-burning is not meant to intimidate.
So to return to the question at hand, the Supreme Court has clearly, multiple times, made a distinction between types of speech and that some are protected and others aren't. Regardless of the first amendment, you can't make threats on the life of the president (no matter how much of a ditz he is). Similarly, you can't give away state secrets. No matter how inane or ludicrous the DMCA is, there is a long precedent for restricting certain types of speech. (So the question of its constitutionality is not one that is easily answered.)
While data manipulation will always occur, that doesn't mean that all science is fraud. And of course the amount of scrutiny with which the data is examined should be proportional to the importance of the result.
With regards to the question at hand, I can personally vouch that there is (at least most of the time) a thorough checking of the data. I spent a summer in high school poring over thousands of pages of detector data from the LLNL experiment producing element 110. All to confirm that there was but one atom created.
So far I've seen a bunch of generalizations (though not all) which, at least for me, wouldn't be very helpful (particularly the (unfortunately) everpresent ill-informed statements). Really, you have to look at the opportunities and decide what you want to do and whether the public or private sector better meets your needs. At least in the case of professional positions, there's usually a (substantial) difference in your job duties between public and private sector positions. Of course these duties often vary depending on where you live as the division of public/private tasks will vary. Really it will be unique depending on your situation. (I'm currently looking at both public and private sector jobs trying to figure out which would better suit my professional desires).
[Of course if you want to make generalizations, probably, in my experience, the biggest difference is that, by the simple fact that we have a public/private split, the public sector tends to require employees to be a bit more of "generalists": because they can't easily change staffing so they try to make due with what the employees that they have (particularly in these times of budget shortfalls). Private sector on the other hand, usually fills a particular market niche. So while you may work on a wide range of projects, each one different from the last, your business will likely have its area of expertise thus tend to attract similar work from one job to the next.]
Of course, as others have pointed out, there are other factors that go into the mix, such as salary, benefits, stability, etc. which depend a lot on your field, geography, point in your life, etc.
I agree with Taco that the graphics, textures, etc. were truly impressive. Things have certainly come a long way towards looking more realistic and at times even approach looking lifelike (the intro sequence for instance). But I thought the character animation itself was rather poor. The movements are quite choppy and blocky. Not nearly as good as TS2, for example. In that regard I was a little disappointed, since I figure that getting the textures to look right just takes time, but the animation and character movements is where the true "art" comes in and I was disappointed to see that they skimped on it.