I'm glad someone insightful mentioned caramelization. It makes me sound slightly less goofy when I talk about body heat and glucose turning us into walking toffee factories. It's the stuff sci-fi is made of.
<darth>Wonka was right...about me.... he was riiiiiggghhhtt.....</darth>
While Tom Baker is my personal favourite, for someone new to the series many of the episodes (especially with Romana II) could be impenetrable. And if you don't warm to K9 immediately he doesn't get any more charming.
For "classic" Who, always bet on Pertwee. More Brigadier for your buck, too. And you'll get to see when the show got colour.
The USPTO is hiring. If you think you can make a difference...
I sincerely doubt they are hiring people who think they can make a difference. More like people willing to cope with the backlog for 10-15 years. Perks include: "Meet Our Customers" Junkets, Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays. And Taco Tuesdays.
I keep dreaming of a day when things like this will not be described at a grade 6 reading level. (Full blame on TFA in this case.) - Chips were not stolen. A number in a database was forged. - He did not "make off" with anything. Probably didn't leave his chair.
I like Tron and Ocean's Eleven too, but using these metaphors for real crime is just as goofy.
And how exactly does a normal person hand someone new an 'e-business card' without spelling out your email address to them...?
If by "normal person" you mean someone who isn't techy enough to own a mobile device more complicated than a cell phone with 14 buttons, then I can't answer that.
If you mean one of the 80M+ people who own an iPhone and a huge number beyond that with smartphones or mobile devices, then the answer is contact swapping over bluetooth, IR, or wifi. Whether you have a "business card app" or a money app, the current trend is to run it and then "bump" phones to pair them. Info transferred when the accelerometers register the movement at the same time (not proximity).
These apps show there is still value and charm in the motions of exchanging information, and in the aesthetics of such information. Those people that only value the raw data are a little too techy for my tastes. But then I like designing cards.:)
My brother is there in Tokyo with his Japanese wife, and true to our British heritage has a very "keep calm and carry on" mentality, bordering on an ostrich impression. He and our mum actually got into a shouting phone call. She is watching the devastation and death toll rise, photos of bare grocery store shelves. And he absolutely refuses to accept any attempts at us helping. They are fine, power is on, food is in the freezer, work continues, pets are edible in a pinch but plenty of salad to fatten them up with (his usual joke). When you live somewhere that has weathered multiple disasters (and I'm including bombings in that assessment), the emotion is different. You want things to continue as normal, and sometimes that means keeping calm and carrying on. 90 million people can't drive over to Sendai and start rebuilding houses, but they can go out shopping and reduce their energy consumption until the disaster relief experts have the worst under control.
It is a horrendous disaster, and the nuclear / fuel depot issues are a real danger. It is nothing short of incredible that the worst damage was in, by Japan's standards, a low population area. Had the epicenter been a mere 200km farther south, Tokyo and the larger cities probably would have been far worse off, and had it been southeast then Narita (int'l airport) and the surrounding Chiba area would have definitely been hit by tsunami, which is the main cause of the high death count compared to only quake damage. Japan knows how to deal with quakes, but nothing can stop the ocean.
The word from GDC that I heard from the industry people I follow is that "Minecraft" was something of a buzzword across genres, beyond just sweeping the indie awards. And that is the anti-example of graphics being necessary to a game's enjoyment, so once again I call bullshit on the pixel pushers. If graphics cards ceased to exist tomorrow (as is the case with most dedicated sound cards), developers would still find ways to make new games fun.
Minecraft needs a bit of graphical horsepower for its shaders and alpha not because it is terribly taxing on a system, but that Java is senile old hog. And despite my fandom for Markus and the Mojang team, one of the things made abundantly clear from his open air policy on development is that most major breakthroughs to the code come from fixing daft and bush league mistakes and old hacks, by his own admission.
This is the same reason Gears of War 3 and Gears of War 1 can be released on the same hardware with the same 512MB of memory. Code better with experience. Being able to upgrade the base hardware to be faster has been making software developers (such as Microsoft) lazy for DECADES!!!
To me the only advantage of a console is that I can go out and buy a game for it and it is guaranteed to work the same on my console as on everyone else's. I didn't have to sit there reading the SMB3 box to find out if my hardware was compatible. I had a Nintendo. It was compatible.
Unfortunately this is no longer true for any console currently on the market. -Xbox360 SKUs still come without a hard drive, and a few blockbuster games require one for a fully featured experience. So there is a necessary upgrade path. -Nintendo products have required peripheral add-ons since the NES, especially in Japan. The major games that require them most often included things as a pack in, like the memory upgrade in Donkey Kong 64, or the Wii Motion Plus in Red Steel 2. That's the only sure fire way to make upgrades mandatory on a console. -If you bought a PS3 at launch you have every hardware feature they offered. If you buy a Slim PS3 now you are missing out on a long list of features and ports. Nothing has been done to make PS3 games impaired, but the notion that console hardware is static and reliable stopped being valid more than 6 years ago.
They negotiated a levy on all blank CDs long ago, for this same reason.
This is double-dipping.
Better idea - why not make it a levy on iPods and other music players. Why should I have to pay a royalty when I don't download music?
They also negotiated a levy on iPods and other music players long ago. Then got rid of it in 2004-5, and some are trying to bring it back now.* The same counter argument applies. Just as blank CD-Rs can hold not-music, audio players can play not-music. My mother's iPod puts public library branches to shame with its collection of purchased audiobooks and spoken word podcasts.
I got in on the refunds after buying my iPod Mini. And even that tax didn't stop them from double dipping. Unless the government mandates the removal of a preexisting levy, no way in hell is the industry going to give one up. "That's okay, we're getting enough money over here now." Ain't gonna happen.
This is where I start to object to the overuse of "whore". You can't be a "control whore", because then you would be selling your authority to whomever would pay. Also, please show more respect to whores by not comparing them to Apple's business practices.
I have an honest question: How is an author going to be paid for their time writing the books if we allow one person to purchase the book, and then lend it to an infinite number of people at once?
Your question rings like the questions that led to the Statute of Anne, in 1709. I don't think there's been a good answer yet. The principle at the time was that to encourage the sharing of knowledge, authors and artists should be compensated fairly. Speaking from my experience in design and publishing, I find there is one truth now: the printer always gets paid.
I won't even install steam because I can't stand ads on a piece of software I own. I find the practice repugnant and because I stand on my principles I can't^H^H^H^Hwon't play some games.
Wow, do people still believe that they own software they didn't write? When they download it for free and blithely accept the clickwrap? That's so 2006. You're conveniently ignoring the features Steam has beyond being a sales platform: an IM and friends list client, quick links to support forums, community groups, cloud saves, distributed downloader/preloader/autopatcher, all of which are huge conveniences compared to 10-15 years ago. Much of the last 60 years of civilization is predicated around paying for conveniences. Besides, you're confusing the launcher with applications, which you don't need the launcher to run and sorry, you also don't own. I mean, you can sell your license keys to anyone you want I suppose. But that buck stops shorter and shorter these days, through no fault of Valve's.
Regardless of your principles, which BTW I do applaud even though I disagree, the PC gaming market would be a smoking crater of piracy without Steam and other (some even DRM free) sites like Direct2Drive, GoG, etc. making it EASY and oftentimes cheap to purchase games. The vast majority of PC gamers do want game developers to get a paycheque. We just hate how complicated everything has to be, so the more publishers fight pirates by harming consumers, the more they ultimately harm themselves. But that's hardly Valve's fault.
The Steam launcher has always been far, far, less intrusive and ad filled than going to a website like Gamershell or FilePlanet that wants you to pony up for faster download servers. I trust that you rail equally hard on the Mac App Store, iOS Store, Android market, iTunes store, Games for Windows LIVE store... etc. etc. Or do you just distill it down to those that require a launcher application? Is that the principle? What about when Opera had in-browser ads, is that the same thing?
Verification is after-the-fact. Prior to that, the vendor could still do something dishonest like fail to deliver on its promises. You're trusting them not to do that as indicated by your willingness to do business with them in the first place. Verification is an attempt to check against not only dishonesty on their part but also well-intentioned mistakes that wouldn't strictly be issues of trustworthiness.
And vendors absolutely do fail to deliver. As you say, sometimes they are mistakes rather than malice, but the result is simply a difference in severity of the complaint, not a reduction in damage to the company trying to properly dispose of the records. In my work, local and national records vendors alike have seen lawsuits. One had a vendor deliberately reselling paper records as recycling instead of incinerating. There is no such thing as paying someone enough money to trust them.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm glad someone insightful mentioned caramelization. It makes me sound slightly less goofy when I talk about body heat and glucose turning us into walking toffee factories. It's the stuff sci-fi is made of.
<darth>Wonka was right...about me.... he was riiiiiggghhhtt.....</darth>
Hey now, I stopped knocking back packets of Equal at the table when I was a teenager.
Damn they were good though...
What the hell does that even mean?
Also, eat your vegetables kid. Your colon will thank you when you're 60.
I'd have a hard time following an edict by someone who won't follow it themselves.
You look thirsty, here, have some more kool-aid. I'll have mine later.
While Tom Baker is my personal favourite, for someone new to the series many of the episodes (especially with Romana II) could be impenetrable. And if you don't warm to K9 immediately he doesn't get any more charming.
For "classic" Who, always bet on Pertwee. More Brigadier for your buck, too. And you'll get to see when the show got colour.
"Babylon 5" was poorly written and acted,
If you are going to say that about the professionals involved in that show, I insist you justify it, compared to what?
You're insane. Xel'lotath is all.
The USPTO is hiring. If you think you can make a difference...
I sincerely doubt they are hiring people who think they can make a difference. More like people willing to cope with the backlog for 10-15 years.
Perks include: "Meet Our Customers" Junkets, Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays. And Taco Tuesdays.
I keep dreaming of a day when things like this will not be described at a grade 6 reading level. (Full blame on TFA in this case.)
- Chips were not stolen. A number in a database was forged.
- He did not "make off" with anything. Probably didn't leave his chair.
I like Tron and Ocean's Eleven too, but using these metaphors for real crime is just as goofy.
it's your loss if you cannot work out what that is.
God dammit honey, I said I was SORRY, now are you going to tell me what the hell you're mad about?
And how exactly does a normal person hand someone new an 'e-business card' without spelling out your email address to them...?
If by "normal person" you mean someone who isn't techy enough to own a mobile device more complicated than a cell phone with 14 buttons, then I can't answer that.
If you mean one of the 80M+ people who own an iPhone and a huge number beyond that with smartphones or mobile devices, then the answer is contact swapping over bluetooth, IR, or wifi. Whether you have a "business card app" or a money app, the current trend is to run it and then "bump" phones to pair them. Info transferred when the accelerometers register the movement at the same time (not proximity).
These apps show there is still value and charm in the motions of exchanging information, and in the aesthetics of such information. Those people that only value the raw data are a little too techy for my tastes. But then I like designing cards. :)
It's right there under the tags:
You may also like to read,
News: Upgrading From Windows 1.0 To Windows 7
Submission: Man upgrades Internet Explorer 1.0 to 9.0 [video]
The link is in the original submission.
And people say the editors don't do anything. Pshaw!
My brother is there in Tokyo with his Japanese wife, and true to our British heritage has a very "keep calm and carry on" mentality, bordering on an ostrich impression. He and our mum actually got into a shouting phone call. She is watching the devastation and death toll rise, photos of bare grocery store shelves. And he absolutely refuses to accept any attempts at us helping. They are fine, power is on, food is in the freezer, work continues, pets are edible in a pinch but plenty of salad to fatten them up with (his usual joke). When you live somewhere that has weathered multiple disasters (and I'm including bombings in that assessment), the emotion is different. You want things to continue as normal, and sometimes that means keeping calm and carrying on. 90 million people can't drive over to Sendai and start rebuilding houses, but they can go out shopping and reduce their energy consumption until the disaster relief experts have the worst under control.
It is a horrendous disaster, and the nuclear / fuel depot issues are a real danger. It is nothing short of incredible that the worst damage was in, by Japan's standards, a low population area. Had the epicenter been a mere 200km farther south, Tokyo and the larger cities probably would have been far worse off, and had it been southeast then Narita (int'l airport) and the surrounding Chiba area would have definitely been hit by tsunami, which is the main cause of the high death count compared to only quake damage. Japan knows how to deal with quakes, but nothing can stop the ocean.
Related:
http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/Latest-News-Wires/2011/0314/Japan-earthquake-How-Tokyo-got-an-80-second-head-start
You'd have to be on crack to make that kind of mistake.
British Geological Survey is reporting up to 13 ft. to the east. Revisions will probably settle down and start agreeing in a couple of weeks.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12732335
http://www.slate.com/id/2288382/
Remember folks, the piece of earth that moved can be larger than the country sitting on top of it. In the case of Japan it almost is. When you jog a table it doesn't break your dinner plates in half.
http://crack.seismo.unr.edu/ftp/pub/updates/louie/kobe/kobe-sci.html
The word from GDC that I heard from the industry people I follow is that "Minecraft" was something of a buzzword across genres, beyond just sweeping the indie awards. And that is the anti-example of graphics being necessary to a game's enjoyment, so once again I call bullshit on the pixel pushers. If graphics cards ceased to exist tomorrow (as is the case with most dedicated sound cards), developers would still find ways to make new games fun.
Minecraft needs a bit of graphical horsepower for its shaders and alpha not because it is terribly taxing on a system, but that Java is senile old hog. And despite my fandom for Markus and the Mojang team, one of the things made abundantly clear from his open air policy on development is that most major breakthroughs to the code come from fixing daft and bush league mistakes and old hacks, by his own admission.
This is the same reason Gears of War 3 and Gears of War 1 can be released on the same hardware with the same 512MB of memory. Code better with experience. Being able to upgrade the base hardware to be faster has been making software developers (such as Microsoft) lazy for DECADES!!!
Code. Better.
To me the only advantage of a console is that I can go out and buy a game for it and it is guaranteed to work the same on my console as on everyone else's. I didn't have to sit there reading the SMB3 box to find out if my hardware was compatible. I had a Nintendo. It was compatible.
Unfortunately this is no longer true for any console currently on the market.
-Xbox360 SKUs still come without a hard drive, and a few blockbuster games require one for a fully featured experience. So there is a necessary upgrade path.
-Nintendo products have required peripheral add-ons since the NES, especially in Japan. The major games that require them most often included things as a pack in, like the memory upgrade in Donkey Kong 64, or the Wii Motion Plus in Red Steel 2. That's the only sure fire way to make upgrades mandatory on a console.
-If you bought a PS3 at launch you have every hardware feature they offered. If you buy a Slim PS3 now you are missing out on a long list of features and ports. Nothing has been done to make PS3 games impaired, but the notion that console hardware is static and reliable stopped being valid more than 6 years ago.
As soon as I see you, you are dead.
But with a wave of my arm, I can smite you, and even make the little head squishing noise.
They negotiated a levy on all blank CDs long ago, for this same reason.
This is double-dipping.
Better idea - why not make it a levy on iPods and other music players. Why should I have to pay a royalty when I don't download music?
They also negotiated a levy on iPods and other music players long ago. Then got rid of it in 2004-5, and some are trying to bring it back now.*
The same counter argument applies. Just as blank CD-Rs can hold not-music, audio players can play not-music. My mother's iPod puts public library branches to shame with its collection of purchased audiobooks and spoken word podcasts.
I got in on the refunds after buying my iPod Mini. And even that tax didn't stop them from double dipping. Unless the government mandates the removal of a preexisting levy, no way in hell is the industry going to give one up. "That's okay, we're getting enough money over here now." Ain't gonna happen.
*Don't feel like inline linking, so here:
http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/news/comments/apple-canada-begins-claims-process-for-ipod-levy-refunds/
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/03/canadas-75-ipod-levy-returns.ars
This is where I start to object to the overuse of "whore". You can't be a "control whore", because then you would be selling your authority to whomever would pay.
Also, please show more respect to whores by not comparing them to Apple's business practices.
I suggest that Slashdot have a day of awareness by using "Anonymous Hoosier" for all AC comments.
I have an honest question: How is an author going to be paid for their time writing the books if we allow one person to purchase the book, and then lend it to an infinite number of people at once?
Your question rings like the questions that led to the Statute of Anne, in 1709. I don't think there's been a good answer yet.
The principle at the time was that to encourage the sharing of knowledge, authors and artists should be compensated fairly.
Speaking from my experience in design and publishing, I find there is one truth now: the printer always gets paid.
I won't even install steam because I can't stand ads on a piece of software I own. I find the practice repugnant and because I stand on my principles I can't^H^H^H^Hwon't play some games.
Wow, do people still believe that they own software they didn't write? When they download it for free and blithely accept the clickwrap? That's so 2006.
You're conveniently ignoring the features Steam has beyond being a sales platform: an IM and friends list client, quick links to support forums, community groups, cloud saves, distributed downloader/preloader/autopatcher, all of which are huge conveniences compared to 10-15 years ago. Much of the last 60 years of civilization is predicated around paying for conveniences.
Besides, you're confusing the launcher with applications, which you don't need the launcher to run and sorry, you also don't own. I mean, you can sell your license keys to anyone you want I suppose. But that buck stops shorter and shorter these days, through no fault of Valve's.
Regardless of your principles, which BTW I do applaud even though I disagree, the PC gaming market would be a smoking crater of piracy without Steam and other (some even DRM free) sites like Direct2Drive, GoG, etc. making it EASY and oftentimes cheap to purchase games. The vast majority of PC gamers do want game developers to get a paycheque. We just hate how complicated everything has to be, so the more publishers fight pirates by harming consumers, the more they ultimately harm themselves. But that's hardly Valve's fault.
The Steam launcher has always been far, far, less intrusive and ad filled than going to a website like Gamershell or FilePlanet that wants you to pony up for faster download servers. I trust that you rail equally hard on the Mac App Store, iOS Store, Android market, iTunes store, Games for Windows LIVE store... etc. etc. Or do you just distill it down to those that require a launcher application? Is that the principle? What about when Opera had in-browser ads, is that the same thing?
Verification is after-the-fact. Prior to that, the vendor could still do something dishonest like fail to deliver on its promises. You're trusting them not to do that as indicated by your willingness to do business with them in the first place. Verification is an attempt to check against not only dishonesty on their part but also well-intentioned mistakes that wouldn't strictly be issues of trustworthiness.
And vendors absolutely do fail to deliver. As you say, sometimes they are mistakes rather than malice, but the result is simply a difference in severity of the complaint, not a reduction in damage to the company trying to properly dispose of the records.
In my work, local and national records vendors alike have seen lawsuits. One had a vendor deliberately reselling paper records as recycling instead of incinerating. There is no such thing as paying someone enough money to trust them.