There are large stretches of Africa that are so busy with civil war and other issues that it would be days before an outbreak is even noticed, and something like two or three weeks before it's internationally reported... There are areas in Asia that are remote and close to inaccessible. Afghanistan mountains, jungles in Cambodia, northern India, western China, stuff like that. Similar scenario here, with the zombies potentially being able to overrun initial troop deployments because you simply can't airlift them in quickly enough.
My zombie thought experiments have always brought me to the opposite conclusion. Considering how remote and sparsely populated many of those regions are, I would think they should be in a good position to survive a zombie outbreak. If a region is as inaccessible as you describe, they shouldn't receive more than a slow trickle of the shambling undead.
Especially Africa, considering the only thing they have more of than guns is a burning desire to kill outsiders, I think would handle such an outbreak really well. Much of the population is already surviving independently (though at subsistence levels). And most regions are so sparsely populated that unless the infection spread really rapidly (e.g. 28 Days Later) I think most villages would be able to organize to keep a constant watch and handle the small number of zombies they'll face at a time.
If SIM's get down to the size of MicroSD (or smaller) they will be out of the range of sizes that average users will be able to handle themselves. To me this sounds a lot like Apple trying to create some kind of lock-in, where users are completely free to replace their SIM but not realistically able to.
Furthermore, with pacemaker tech improving every year, do you really want to keep trusting your heart to something 15 years old?
Obviously that kind of depends on the dependability of the tech itself. I think I would prefer to stick with an utterly reliable piece of old equipment than rather than having to open me back up every couple of years for an upgrade.
PR spin isn't cheap, nor is replacing GPS devices that keep 'falling' off the car (rip the wires, leave parts of it on the car) at some point it becomes cheaper to either follow you with Agents, or stop following you.
Based on what I read in Wired's breakdown, the devices themselves are pretty cheap. Mostly decade old COTS parts with a little custom assembly. The expense would come, as you say, with the cost of sending Agents out to stick another one to your vehicle.
But certainly if I found one of these under my car my first call would be to the police, describing exactly what it is I'm looking at. It might be a GPS tracker, it might be a bomb. I don't know what it is other than it is black, has antennas, and I have no idea why it's been attached to my vehicle. I know how my local police would respond to a call like that, and the news cameras won't be far behind.
Religious education in schools is a good thing, given the important condition that it does not teach that any one religion is actually true.
I think that's true so long as the religious content is taught from a historical/mythological perspective, the same way we study the ancient Greek gods. Once the teacher begins to cross from a historical perspective to "this is how you should live your life" I think it becomes no longer appropriate in schools.
I never have understood why game publishers historically shoot for a Christmas release date. When I was growing up my parents, friends, nor extended family ever bought me a single video game. It's too complicated to shop for games for someone else, especially when it's a PC game
As a kid I usually took a handful of my Christmas money out the day after Christmas and bought myself a game or two. It is hard to buy games for someone else, but game purchases still increase around the holidays.
WoW's plot exists and for the solo leveling it is important, but there are other draws as well. PvP and daily quests keep the game interesting and playable without belaboring the story.
WoW has great balance between plot based and non-plot based content. That balance is critical. And unfortunately, keeping teams of writers and developers on staff to maintain that balance is expensive.
I've had the same experience, my voicemail transcripts are garbage.
When I speak into my phone to write a text or run a search I make a point to speak slowly and enunciate very clearly. I suspect most people don't make the same kind of effort in voicemails.
(love knife rushing with commando pro, that's when I started getting decent scores).
I was about to start posting a long series of the most heinous insults I could conjure, but then I saw your sig. Figures. I personally a good round of noob tubing once in a while just to hear people whine.
In all seriousness though, I never bought Black Ops either. I had a chance to play it recently, and it was nothing special. Just some new maps and crappier guns. I still play MW2 and never have trouble finding games.
I also played the shit out of all the WWII COD games from the very beginning. They have a history of being awesome. I was a little confused about the article/summary's implication that COD was not yet an entrenched franchise. I think it's already there.
I don't think you're far off. What sets us apart (based on my read of the literature) is our capacity for abstract mental representation. We have this capacity to understand the link between an otherwise arbitrary verbal utterance and an actual physical item. Most animals have the ability to communicate, but for many species it is that they have a common understanding of the noises make when they are hungry, scared, or want sex. We have the ability to use arbitrary references to items, actions, or concepts when we are not able to actually perceive them. That allows us to use language and be imaginative.
There's (obviously) not a lot if literature on those kinds of kids. And one thing to consider are the obvious confounds of the probably severe emotional trauma they experienced. Those people generally pick up very very limited language ability, but never develop fluency anything like a human raised child would.
But, from the questionable case studies of kids raised by wolfpacks, there is some evidence that the kids do learn communication meaningful to the animals that raised them, both verbal and non-verbal. I always found that very interesting.
With a Use Tax you technically pay the difference between your states tax and what you actually paid in the other state taxes. If you buy a tax free good then you owe whatever your own states tax rate is as a Use Tax. If you, for example, paid 4% but your state collects 6.5%, you owe the additional 2.5% as a use tax. If you bought goods in a state with a higher tax rate than your own, you owe nothing nor get anything back.
Decentralization works when communication and travel is impractical. Back in the 1770's, having to conduct a national debate via horseback and sailing ship was wildly impractical. Hence strong individual but loosely confederated States.
I'm not sure where you are physically located SuperKendall, but thanks to the wonderful work of the internet I can have a conversation with you while sitting in an office in Cambridge MA (ironically near a location called Kendall Square). The barriers to communication are much less, so there is less need for my government to be within horse distance.
Take a tech example, for example. Personal computing began with terminals connected to a central computer. As computer power increased faster than bandwidth it became more practical to decentralize and keep our computers local. As bandwidth begins to catch up we are moving back to very thin clients connected to remote servers. Centralization/decentralization aren't inherently good or bad, so long as our level of centralization is appropriate for the political/technical/interpersonal environment.
I think people like yourself are effectively working to homogenize the US. As a guy who has predominantly lived in a single area (ironically never having lived outside of New England), I personally do see huge cultural differences.
But what is nice about the US is that for the most part we share a language, and share a basic framework of Government. This makes travel and relocation between the states easy. But as a guy that grew up in rural Maine and currently lives in Boston, there are definitely major cultural differences between regions. The cultural differences might firmly manifest along state lines as they might in EU nations, but IMO/IME they exist.
This of course means a marked increase of profit or reduced cost of development
Does it? And are you prepared with the numbers to support that claim?
Managerial types don't ultimately care about how many lines of code per hour are produced. They care about the cost of the end product delivered. Increased productivity certainly implies increased efficiency, but that is by no means guaranteed. Does the increased output offset the cost of the new monitors (probably) or a super ergonomic office chair?
At the very least without some statistics to back up the claim, the manager isn't able to properly advocate for the change and won't be able to differentiate legitimate upgrade requests from the people that just want the new shinys.
People are surprised to hear that a guy who was relying on donations to pay his legal fees took the opportunity to settle before going to trial. Film at 11.
It's not that dissimilar from the ads you see in the back pages of the trashy sci-fi paperbacks. The ads are there, most people ignore them (most don't even realize they're there) but occasionally someone spots a title they might be interested in.
The Kindle ad isn't like a TV ad that you have to sit through to continue watching your show. The ad is displayed on the screen when you're not using it and disappears as soon as you turn the device on. As a current Kindle user I would be interested in getting this so Amazon can offer me their recommendations. I'm not required to buy anything they advertise.
I think you are right on. That $100 mark is a weirdly magic number for a lot of electronic devices. If Amazon can get a Kindle in for $99 or less, that thing could kick babies and people would still think they're getting a good deal on it.
A question that your post just raised for me is if Amazon will require periodic connections in order to push those ads. For the 3G users that's not so much of a problem, they can just turn on the 3G radio for a minute until the notification goes away. But as a Wi-Fi only Kindle user I might be a little peeved to find out that Amazon expects me to find a wireless network every 2-3 weeks to check in.
The way these ads are delivered is just about the least intrusive advertising vector I can think of. The ads will be displayed on the hibernation screen that appears when the Kindle is off. On current Kindles what is displayed is a rotating selection of portraits of authors or literary illustrations. Replacing those images with ads will literally cost the user absolutely nothing in terms of cost, time, or attention.
Quite the opposite, because Amazon's recommendation system is so robust, as a current Kindle owner I would be interested in getting this on my current Kindle. Amazon does a great job of offering recommendations for e-book purchases based on what I've read in the past. We're supposed to be living in the future, it would be nice if my e-book reader is smart enough to make intelligent recommendations on what I might like to read next.
So we should just give up on the prospect of a "clean" gaming community and accept the intrusion of exploiters as inevitable? Hell no. That's like saying "Goatse's are inevitable so I might as well just make that my Christmas card".
A perfectly walled garden is unattainable. But if in the pursuit of perfection we happen to maintain a fairly well manicured garden with a minimum of intrusions, I'd accept that. And considering how much I pay for the console and game, It's not unreasonable for me to expect it.
I saw someone else post this point elsewhere on the thread.
Gamers want a smooth gaming experience. Most gamers expect that to entail an online network free from hackers exploiting games and not being required to sit through 20-30 minute updates every two weeks. The majority of gamers see Hotz as opening doors for hackers/exploiters and as being responsible for Sony's prevention measures.
Outside of the pro-Linux "software should be free" crowds, most people just want to see Hotz go away.
Slashdot Mirror
I like that you were modded Funny for that. Having experienced two Xbox failures, that is just about exactly what happened.
MS left me with a sour perception of their testing/manufacturing standards, but their customer service is pretty darn good.
There are large stretches of Africa that are so busy with civil war and other issues that it would be days before an outbreak is even noticed, and something like two or three weeks before it's internationally reported... There are areas in Asia that are remote and close to inaccessible. Afghanistan mountains, jungles in Cambodia, northern India, western China, stuff like that. Similar scenario here, with the zombies potentially being able to overrun initial troop deployments because you simply can't airlift them in quickly enough.
My zombie thought experiments have always brought me to the opposite conclusion. Considering how remote and sparsely populated many of those regions are, I would think they should be in a good position to survive a zombie outbreak. If a region is as inaccessible as you describe, they shouldn't receive more than a slow trickle of the shambling undead.
Especially Africa, considering the only thing they have more of than guns is a burning desire to kill outsiders, I think would handle such an outbreak really well. Much of the population is already surviving independently (though at subsistence levels). And most regions are so sparsely populated that unless the infection spread really rapidly (e.g. 28 Days Later) I think most villages would be able to organize to keep a constant watch and handle the small number of zombies they'll face at a time.
If SIM's get down to the size of MicroSD (or smaller) they will be out of the range of sizes that average users will be able to handle themselves. To me this sounds a lot like Apple trying to create some kind of lock-in, where users are completely free to replace their SIM but not realistically able to.
Furthermore, with pacemaker tech improving every year, do you really want to keep trusting your heart to something 15 years old?
Obviously that kind of depends on the dependability of the tech itself. I think I would prefer to stick with an utterly reliable piece of old equipment than rather than having to open me back up every couple of years for an upgrade.
PR spin isn't cheap, nor is replacing GPS devices that keep 'falling' off the car (rip the wires, leave parts of it on the car) at some point it becomes cheaper to either follow you with Agents, or stop following you.
Based on what I read in Wired's breakdown, the devices themselves are pretty cheap. Mostly decade old COTS parts with a little custom assembly. The expense would come, as you say, with the cost of sending Agents out to stick another one to your vehicle.
But certainly if I found one of these under my car my first call would be to the police, describing exactly what it is I'm looking at. It might be a GPS tracker, it might be a bomb. I don't know what it is other than it is black, has antennas, and I have no idea why it's been attached to my vehicle. I know how my local police would respond to a call like that, and the news cameras won't be far behind.
Religious education in schools is a good thing, given the important condition that it does not teach that any one religion is actually true.
I think that's true so long as the religious content is taught from a historical/mythological perspective, the same way we study the ancient Greek gods. Once the teacher begins to cross from a historical perspective to "this is how you should live your life" I think it becomes no longer appropriate in schools.
Just my opinion.
I never have understood why game publishers historically shoot for a Christmas release date. When I was growing up my parents, friends, nor extended family ever bought me a single video game. It's too complicated to shop for games for someone else, especially when it's a PC game
As a kid I usually took a handful of my Christmas money out the day after Christmas and bought myself a game or two. It is hard to buy games for someone else, but game purchases still increase around the holidays.
WoW's plot exists and for the solo leveling it is important, but there are other draws as well. PvP and daily quests keep the game interesting and playable without belaboring the story.
WoW has great balance between plot based and non-plot based content. That balance is critical. And unfortunately, keeping teams of writers and developers on staff to maintain that balance is expensive.
* It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in.
Infinite amount of space for worlds sure, but only a finite amount of matter to constitute them.
I've had the same experience, my voicemail transcripts are garbage.
When I speak into my phone to write a text or run a search I make a point to speak slowly and enunciate very clearly. I suspect most people don't make the same kind of effort in voicemails.
(love knife rushing with commando pro, that's when I started getting decent scores).
I was about to start posting a long series of the most heinous insults I could conjure, but then I saw your sig. Figures. I personally a good round of noob tubing once in a while just to hear people whine.
In all seriousness though, I never bought Black Ops either. I had a chance to play it recently, and it was nothing special. Just some new maps and crappier guns. I still play MW2 and never have trouble finding games.
I also played the shit out of all the WWII COD games from the very beginning. They have a history of being awesome. I was a little confused about the article/summary's implication that COD was not yet an entrenched franchise. I think it's already there.
I don't think you're far off. What sets us apart (based on my read of the literature) is our capacity for abstract mental representation. We have this capacity to understand the link between an otherwise arbitrary verbal utterance and an actual physical item. Most animals have the ability to communicate, but for many species it is that they have a common understanding of the noises make when they are hungry, scared, or want sex. We have the ability to use arbitrary references to items, actions, or concepts when we are not able to actually perceive them. That allows us to use language and be imaginative.
There's (obviously) not a lot if literature on those kinds of kids. And one thing to consider are the obvious confounds of the probably severe emotional trauma they experienced. Those people generally pick up very very limited language ability, but never develop fluency anything like a human raised child would.
But, from the questionable case studies of kids raised by wolfpacks, there is some evidence that the kids do learn communication meaningful to the animals that raised them, both verbal and non-verbal. I always found that very interesting.
With a Use Tax you technically pay the difference between your states tax and what you actually paid in the other state taxes. If you buy a tax free good then you owe whatever your own states tax rate is as a Use Tax. If you, for example, paid 4% but your state collects 6.5%, you owe the additional 2.5% as a use tax. If you bought goods in a state with a higher tax rate than your own, you owe nothing nor get anything back.
The whole "eat local" movement disagrees with you
But that doesn't mean they're right. :)
Decentralization works when communication and travel is impractical. Back in the 1770's, having to conduct a national debate via horseback and sailing ship was wildly impractical. Hence strong individual but loosely confederated States.
I'm not sure where you are physically located SuperKendall, but thanks to the wonderful work of the internet I can have a conversation with you while sitting in an office in Cambridge MA (ironically near a location called Kendall Square). The barriers to communication are much less, so there is less need for my government to be within horse distance.
Take a tech example, for example. Personal computing began with terminals connected to a central computer. As computer power increased faster than bandwidth it became more practical to decentralize and keep our computers local. As bandwidth begins to catch up we are moving back to very thin clients connected to remote servers. Centralization/decentralization aren't inherently good or bad, so long as our level of centralization is appropriate for the political/technical/interpersonal environment.
I think people like yourself are effectively working to homogenize the US. As a guy who has predominantly lived in a single area (ironically never having lived outside of New England), I personally do see huge cultural differences.
But what is nice about the US is that for the most part we share a language, and share a basic framework of Government. This makes travel and relocation between the states easy. But as a guy that grew up in rural Maine and currently lives in Boston, there are definitely major cultural differences between regions. The cultural differences might firmly manifest along state lines as they might in EU nations, but IMO/IME they exist.
Computers don't get slower with age. Something changes, the question is should something be chanting?
If your older computers have begun chanting, I think it's fair to say that the machine war is about to begin.
This of course means a marked increase of profit or reduced cost of development
Does it? And are you prepared with the numbers to support that claim?
Managerial types don't ultimately care about how many lines of code per hour are produced. They care about the cost of the end product delivered. Increased productivity certainly implies increased efficiency, but that is by no means guaranteed. Does the increased output offset the cost of the new monitors (probably) or a super ergonomic office chair?
At the very least without some statistics to back up the claim, the manager isn't able to properly advocate for the change and won't be able to differentiate legitimate upgrade requests from the people that just want the new shinys.
Seriously.
People are surprised to hear that a guy who was relying on donations to pay his legal fees took the opportunity to settle before going to trial. Film at 11.
It's not that dissimilar from the ads you see in the back pages of the trashy sci-fi paperbacks. The ads are there, most people ignore them (most don't even realize they're there) but occasionally someone spots a title they might be interested in.
The Kindle ad isn't like a TV ad that you have to sit through to continue watching your show. The ad is displayed on the screen when you're not using it and disappears as soon as you turn the device on. As a current Kindle user I would be interested in getting this so Amazon can offer me their recommendations. I'm not required to buy anything they advertise.
I think you are right on. That $100 mark is a weirdly magic number for a lot of electronic devices. If Amazon can get a Kindle in for $99 or less, that thing could kick babies and people would still think they're getting a good deal on it.
A question that your post just raised for me is if Amazon will require periodic connections in order to push those ads. For the 3G users that's not so much of a problem, they can just turn on the 3G radio for a minute until the notification goes away. But as a Wi-Fi only Kindle user I might be a little peeved to find out that Amazon expects me to find a wireless network every 2-3 weeks to check in.
Prescription, do you own/have you used a Kindle?
The way these ads are delivered is just about the least intrusive advertising vector I can think of. The ads will be displayed on the hibernation screen that appears when the Kindle is off. On current Kindles what is displayed is a rotating selection of portraits of authors or literary illustrations. Replacing those images with ads will literally cost the user absolutely nothing in terms of cost, time, or attention.
Quite the opposite, because Amazon's recommendation system is so robust, as a current Kindle owner I would be interested in getting this on my current Kindle. Amazon does a great job of offering recommendations for e-book purchases based on what I've read in the past. We're supposed to be living in the future, it would be nice if my e-book reader is smart enough to make intelligent recommendations on what I might like to read next.
So we should just give up on the prospect of a "clean" gaming community and accept the intrusion of exploiters as inevitable? Hell no. That's like saying "Goatse's are inevitable so I might as well just make that my Christmas card".
A perfectly walled garden is unattainable. But if in the pursuit of perfection we happen to maintain a fairly well manicured garden with a minimum of intrusions, I'd accept that. And considering how much I pay for the console and game, It's not unreasonable for me to expect it.
I saw someone else post this point elsewhere on the thread.
Gamers want a smooth gaming experience. Most gamers expect that to entail an online network free from hackers exploiting games and not being required to sit through 20-30 minute updates every two weeks. The majority of gamers see Hotz as opening doors for hackers/exploiters and as being responsible for Sony's prevention measures.
Outside of the pro-Linux "software should be free" crowds, most people just want to see Hotz go away.