That is precisely why we need two-stage feedback. It *is* unfair that a paying buyer does not receive feedback immediately on payment. Should the buyer do something awful *after* the transaction is completed from his end, there needs to be a recourse on the part of the seller.
As it stands, the current system is "fair" in that it is unfair to everyone.
"On Hold" simply shouldn't exist. *Every* system should offer to call you back with an estimated wait time. There is simply no reason for me to tie up a phone line just to sit in a queue-- the queue will get along swimmingly without me holding the line.
I can see your point, but I don't think it makes sense for the buyer to wait on feedback until the end of the auction.
Maybe two-stage feedback for buyers? The first stage could even be automatic if they use paypal-- it's positive the second you've paid. The second stage is for after the whole thing is over, and is mandatory for both sides. (ie, no new buying/selling from your account until you've left it.)
I just don't think it's fair to ask a buyer to wait for feedback when their obligation is completed at payment, and using buyer feedback as "ransom" to ensure positive feedback for sellers completely breaks the intent of the system. Operating like that, everybody gives positive feedback even when undeserved just to make sure they don't get any negatives. It leaves the door open for unscrupulous sellers to use feedback as retaliation.
As amazing as this thing is, and as remarkably fast as it stops the blade-- it's not going to eliminate injury. It will turn a finger loss into a nasty cut, though. And that, I suspect, is why the sales staff isn't karate-chopping the rotating blade during demos. The hotdog is always cut, just not cut in half.
I would think the leading failure point would be the ultra-fragile fuse wire that keeps the whole thing from jamming a huge metal block directly into the blade to stop it dead.
You're more likely to wake up and find that you need a new sawblade, fuse, and blade-stopping assembly than you are to have it fail in some sort of finger-mangling way.
I have to travel for work sometimes. I have a work-issued laptop I have to bring.
Taking Northwest as an example-- the maximum luggage reimbursement allowance (what they'll pay you if they lose or break your stuff) is $2800. That's not enough to cover the laptop, let alone a suit or two and my precious, precious t-shirts. You can buy extra coverage for $1 per $100 of extra value, but even that has a maximum value cap at $5000.
A new laptop, a decent camera or PDA, and a couple of suits put you over that mark. The average business traveller is suddenly unable to even GET enough coverage for the luggage they're required to check. And heaven help you if you're like my coworkers who sometimes have to bring a pair of laptops with them-- you'll lose thousands if they lose or damage your luggage.
Given how they treat checked luggage, I'd be backing up important files onto the biggest SD card you can afford, and cramming it in your wallet.
And there is at least one good study showing a net energy gain. What this *should* be saying to you is that whether corn-based ethanol production is a net energy gain is slightly more complicated than an easy black-and-white answer.
It's clear that there are several ways to do it that are not net positive, as the studies you cite suggest, and it's also clear that there's at least one way to do it right, although the gain is not (in my opinion) terribly large. Smart folks should be looking at the differences between the production methods used in the net gain and net loss studies.
There are probably better crops to use, and there are certainly methodology improvements to be made, as the differing answers from different studies suggest. And ethanol will certainly never be a full gasoline replacement-- but like everything else, it will most likely end up playing *some* role. No single alternative is going to end up being "the" alternative. We're gonna have everything from thermal depolymerization to biodiesel, with coal gasification, ethanol, butanol, and any other crazy thing you can think of in the mix.
I'm not, but I can see how you might read the post that way. Yes, procedural generation with deterministic algorithms could create identical stuff each time-- but I believe I read specifically that Oblivion does not procedurally generate the trees. They were generated up-front.
I could still be wrong-- I haven't been able to find the article I read. If you find something that says otherwise, post away!
I'm pretty sure SpeedTree generates the LoD models up front, already set up for proper animation. The piece of their software that runs during the game is just an engine for efficient rendering of tree models.
Of course, I've been wrong before. Anybody know for sure?
Despite what the article says, everyone sees the same trees in Oblivion. The trees were generated using procedural synthesis (SpeedTree) *once*, and then the whole shebang was saved as a huge map and put on the disk. It's an example of the opposite of something like kkrieger, which puts the math on the disk and lets the end-user's machine to the generation, rather than the developers' machines.
The grass, on the other hand, is randomly placed and might qualify. About all that could happen on better hardware in the future is "more grass," though.
You can do a google image search for "Belgian Blue." These cattle have some sort of crazy genetic quirk that makes them grow muscles like mad. And trust me, you do NOT want to see them when they're angry.
It's not just the chickens that are developing superpowers. This breed is clearly the start of some sort of Bovine X-Men. Throw in flying squirrels, bat sonar, electric eels, chameleons, shape-and-color changing squid, etc... and you'll quickly realize we don't have long before today's modern superanimals will rise up and destroy us.
Although the older methodology was to do your training at high altitude, this is no longer accepted as the "best" way to take advantage of this. The current training wisdom says that the best thing to do is to live at high altitude (or live/sleep in a low-oxygen house or tent) and do your training at sea level.
You get all the physical adaptions you get at altitude, but by doing your training at sea level, you can train harder.
And again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.
What he appears to be saying is "Trucks, unlike the internet, have infinite capacity. You can continue to dump things into them forever, and everything will still arrive on time."
Which, of course, we have all known since the usenet days. "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of backup tapes."
Insurance wouldn't be the first industry that charged high because it could.
If, as you say, they're ignoring the math and just trying to maximize profit-- why wouldn't they charge middle-aged people more money as well? You could use equally valid-seeming but invalid logic like "People with families are likely to have more expensive and frequent accidents due to having more people (more distractions, more people to be injured) in their cars and making more frequent short trips to drop kids off, and everybody knows that short trips near home are where most accidents occur."
Awww, there you go ruining my fun. Had he mentioned it didn't apply to the loops, I would have let him go. But that "really long interesection" is an interesting way to skirt the rules...
While I'm picking nits, though:
The "only one intersection rule" doesn't apply to even-leader 3-digit highways, because they are loops/bypasses, and so must have two intersections.
That's not true either. I-465 only has one intersection with I-69, although they've been talking about sending it south for years.
2) There is only one allowed intersection between any two Interstates. The intersection of I-69 and I-94 is unique.
That's not true, or at least not true anymore. In Indianapolis alone, I can think of multiple examples to the contrary-- I-465 intersects I-65 and I-70 twice each, and I-65 and I-70 have two intersections with eachother.
I'm sure it would. Fortunately, it's a pretty low-risk procedure. I dug up a few papers beforehand, and the risk of infection is lower than that for a tooth extraction, and they give you preventative antibiotics anyway.
It doesn't take long to heal up, and after that, there's no more risk than there was before the implant, except now you have a tooth. The alternative is a bridge, which involves grinding down the two neighboring healthy teeth so they can serve as "mounting posts" for the bridge, which is effectively three fake teeth. No thanks, I'd like to keep the good teeth.
Funny you should mention that-- I just got a titanium screw stuck in my jaw for a "Dental Implant" (fake tooth). It's like a drywall anchor. Later, I go back, and they'll screw the fake tooth into the anchor.
While I agree with you, you should see the amount of bitching about the "quest arrow" in Oblivion. Some gamers would rather wander about in the woods like in real life-- which is fine. But they're apparently incapable of resisting the temptation to use the arrow (it can be deactivated easily by changing your active quest). So they bitch about how they'd like the helpful arrow removed so that they can stop being helped, even though they already have that option.
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That is precisely why we need two-stage feedback. It *is* unfair that a paying buyer does not receive feedback immediately on payment. Should the buyer do something awful *after* the transaction is completed from his end, there needs to be a recourse on the part of the seller.
As it stands, the current system is "fair" in that it is unfair to everyone.
"On Hold" simply shouldn't exist. *Every* system should offer to call you back with an estimated wait time. There is simply no reason for me to tie up a phone line just to sit in a queue-- the queue will get along swimmingly without me holding the line.
I can see your point, but I don't think it makes sense for the buyer to wait on feedback until the end of the auction.
Maybe two-stage feedback for buyers? The first stage could even be automatic if they use paypal-- it's positive the second you've paid. The second stage is for after the whole thing is over, and is mandatory for both sides. (ie, no new buying/selling from your account until you've left it.)
I just don't think it's fair to ask a buyer to wait for feedback when their obligation is completed at payment, and using buyer feedback as "ransom" to ensure positive feedback for sellers completely breaks the intent of the system. Operating like that, everybody gives positive feedback even when undeserved just to make sure they don't get any negatives. It leaves the door open for unscrupulous sellers to use feedback as retaliation.
As amazing as this thing is, and as remarkably fast as it stops the blade-- it's not going to eliminate injury. It will turn a finger loss into a nasty cut, though. And that, I suspect, is why the sales staff isn't karate-chopping the rotating blade during demos. The hotdog is always cut, just not cut in half.
Dunno about wet wood.
I would think the leading failure point would be the ultra-fragile fuse wire that keeps the whole thing from jamming a huge metal block directly into the blade to stop it dead.
You're more likely to wake up and find that you need a new sawblade, fuse, and blade-stopping assembly than you are to have it fail in some sort of finger-mangling way.
I have to travel for work sometimes. I have a work-issued laptop I have to bring.
Taking Northwest as an example-- the maximum luggage reimbursement allowance (what they'll pay you if they lose or break your stuff) is $2800. That's not enough to cover the laptop, let alone a suit or two and my precious, precious t-shirts. You can buy extra coverage for $1 per $100 of extra value, but even that has a maximum value cap at $5000.
A new laptop, a decent camera or PDA, and a couple of suits put you over that mark. The average business traveller is suddenly unable to even GET enough coverage for the luggage they're required to check. And heaven help you if you're like my coworkers who sometimes have to bring a pair of laptops with them-- you'll lose thousands if they lose or damage your luggage.
Given how they treat checked luggage, I'd be backing up important files onto the biggest SD card you can afford, and cramming it in your wallet.
I don't know how prevalent this is overall, but it apparently does actually happen.
Samoan tribal healers getting paid for their help finding an AIDS drug
Wacky. AIDS isn't a disease you'd think to look for in traditional tribal knowledge, but truth is sometimes stranger than fiction.
That's pretty cool. My wife's residency program has a similar rule to not accept freebies or favors from drug reps. I'm hoping this becomes the norm.
And there is at least one good study showing a net energy gain. What this *should* be saying to you is that whether corn-based ethanol production is a net energy gain is slightly more complicated than an easy black-and-white answer.
It's clear that there are several ways to do it that are not net positive, as the studies you cite suggest, and it's also clear that there's at least one way to do it right, although the gain is not (in my opinion) terribly large. Smart folks should be looking at the differences between the production methods used in the net gain and net loss studies.
There are probably better crops to use, and there are certainly methodology improvements to be made, as the differing answers from different studies suggest. And ethanol will certainly never be a full gasoline replacement-- but like everything else, it will most likely end up playing *some* role. No single alternative is going to end up being "the" alternative. We're gonna have everything from thermal depolymerization to biodiesel, with coal gasification, ethanol, butanol, and any other crazy thing you can think of in the mix.
I'm not, but I can see how you might read the post that way. Yes, procedural generation with deterministic algorithms could create identical stuff each time-- but I believe I read specifically that Oblivion does not procedurally generate the trees. They were generated up-front.
I could still be wrong-- I haven't been able to find the article I read. If you find something that says otherwise, post away!
I'm pretty sure SpeedTree generates the LoD models up front, already set up for proper animation. The piece of their software that runs during the game is just an engine for efficient rendering of tree models.
Of course, I've been wrong before. Anybody know for sure?
Despite what the article says, everyone sees the same trees in Oblivion. The trees were generated using procedural synthesis (SpeedTree) *once*, and then the whole shebang was saved as a huge map and put on the disk. It's an example of the opposite of something like kkrieger, which puts the math on the disk and lets the end-user's machine to the generation, rather than the developers' machines.
The grass, on the other hand, is randomly placed and might qualify. About all that could happen on better hardware in the future is "more grass," though.
http://fig.cox.miami.edu/~cmallery/150/neuro/belg
You can do a google image search for "Belgian Blue." These cattle have some sort of crazy genetic quirk that makes them grow muscles like mad. And trust me, you do NOT want to see them when they're angry.
It's not just the chickens that are developing superpowers. This breed is clearly the start of some sort of Bovine X-Men. Throw in flying squirrels, bat sonar, electric eels, chameleons, shape-and-color changing squid, etc... and you'll quickly realize we don't have long before today's modern superanimals will rise up and destroy us.
Although the older methodology was to do your training at high altitude, this is no longer accepted as the "best" way to take advantage of this. The current training wisdom says that the best thing to do is to live at high altitude (or live/sleep in a low-oxygen house or tent) and do your training at sea level.
You get all the physical adaptions you get at altitude, but by doing your training at sea level, you can train harder.
http://sportsci.org/traintech/altitude/wgh.html
What he appears to be saying is "Trucks, unlike the internet, have infinite capacity. You can continue to dump things into them forever, and everything will still arrive on time."
Which, of course, we have all known since the usenet days. "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of backup tapes."
Insurance wouldn't be the first industry that charged high because it could.
If, as you say, they're ignoring the math and just trying to maximize profit-- why wouldn't they charge middle-aged people more money as well? You could use equally valid-seeming but invalid logic like "People with families are likely to have more expensive and frequent accidents due to having more people (more distractions, more people to be injured) in their cars and making more frequent short trips to drop kids off, and everybody knows that short trips near home are where most accidents occur."
Awww, there you go ruining my fun. Had he mentioned it didn't apply to the loops, I would have let him go. But that "really long interesection" is an interesting way to skirt the rules...
While I'm picking nits, though:
The "only one intersection rule" doesn't apply to even-leader 3-digit highways, because they are loops/bypasses, and so must have two intersections.
That's not true either. I-465 only has one intersection with I-69, although they've been talking about sending it south for years.
2) There is only one allowed intersection between any two Interstates. The intersection of I-69 and I-94 is unique.
That's not true, or at least not true anymore. In Indianapolis alone, I can think of multiple examples to the contrary-- I-465 intersects I-65 and I-70 twice each, and I-65 and I-70 have two intersections with eachother.
In an amusing twist, malnourished skinny people will be the only ones who can afford the immense cost per pound to ship themselves to the moon.
Slashdot readers: It's a Trap!
I'm sure it would. Fortunately, it's a pretty low-risk procedure. I dug up a few papers beforehand, and the risk of infection is lower than that for a tooth extraction, and they give you preventative antibiotics anyway.
It doesn't take long to heal up, and after that, there's no more risk than there was before the implant, except now you have a tooth. The alternative is a bridge, which involves grinding down the two neighboring healthy teeth so they can serve as "mounting posts" for the bridge, which is effectively three fake teeth. No thanks, I'd like to keep the good teeth.
Funny you should mention that-- I just got a titanium screw stuck in my jaw for a "Dental Implant" (fake tooth). It's like a drywall anchor. Later, I go back, and they'll screw the fake tooth into the anchor.
Verified with my ER-doctor fiancee, who ran it past the orthopedics guys as well to make sure they can cut them too. Titanium rings aren't a problem.
3. Those who work at a desk at client sites, but are required by company policy to take their machines home at night.
I'd LOVE a monitor that size-- but I'm stuck with a puny laptop screen as long as I'm working outside our main office.
While I agree with you, you should see the amount of bitching about the "quest arrow" in Oblivion. Some gamers would rather wander about in the woods like in real life-- which is fine. But they're apparently incapable of resisting the temptation to use the arrow (it can be deactivated easily by changing your active quest). So they bitch about how they'd like the helpful arrow removed so that they can stop being helped, even though they already have that option.