I don't feel I should have to pay extra for such basic functionality... I know USB Overdrive has a free option but little things I have to put up with daily will annoy me greatly. Also, it doesn't yet support the magic mouse I use with my MacBook Pro.
It broke at zoom level 33 for me. Everything just disappeared, window went white (controls were still there and working) no matter what part of the fractal I zoom in on.
I use a wireless mouse for convenience with my laptop (that I don't use for gaming) and I use wireless peripherals at work. While in general I'd agree that latency isn't a problem anymore I have had times where some background process kicks in (antivirus, system updates etc...) and the wireless connection to the mouse, or keyboard, hangs for a few seconds. To the gamers I know that wouldn't be acceptable. I've never experienced that problem with wired peripherals.
Actually, I would completely include people playing single player games, try any of the UT games on godlike and see how much split second reactions count. Equally, any multiplayer game can be played over LAN.
I certainly don't count MMO only players among my definition of "real gamers" although they may qualify through other avenues...
I didn't exclude console gamers, I did specifically say "at least on PC." I'm not a console gamer, I have never owned a console and on the odd occasion I do play a console game, I'll be the first person to say I suck. As far as I've seen though, most console gamers these days have wireless controllers so it's a pretty level playing field as opposed to PC gamers where everyone I know uses wired peripherals.
...but I don't know any real gamers (at least on PC) that use wireless keyboards or mice. They're all good and well for playing facebook games but I wouldn't want to be using wireless peripherals in an online game of Call of Duty or anything that requires split second reactions.
I believe it was Sony that tried pitching PC gamers against consoles (although I could be wrong... it could have been MS). The result was that the power of a keyboard and mouse over a console controller sent the console gamers home with their tails between their legs. In short, PCs pwned consoles!
Everyone seems to be slating this in their comments. I can see a use for it. There are some keyboard shortcuts that I use frequently but are uncomfortable to hit one handed. On a laptop it's not so much of an issue, both your hands are close to the keyboard but it frustrates me on my desktop or when I'm using an external mouse. Now yes, I could reassign my shortcuts but I've tried that in the past and 2 things happen, I end up with system vs. application shortcut conflicts and I run out of shortcuts reachable comfortably with just my left hand. If the price isn't silly, I may well get one of these as I can see it as a useful tool. 18 buttons, minus the 3 standard mouse buttons, essentially makes the right hand side of the keyboard available for shortcuts without having to take your hand off the mouse.
OK, I still don't get your line of reasoning but I've come up with a model that explains it in a very physical way that I can follow (and agrees with the published solution). Imagine 2 coins, one gold, one silver, and both of them have G for girl printed on one side and B for boy printed on the other. We can flip these coins in any order but the order we flip them in denotes the order in which the two children are born.
That gives us the following possibilities:
gold + B and silver + B
gold + G and silver + G
silver + B and gold + B
silver + G and gold + G
gold + B and silver + G
gold + G and silver + B
silver + B and gold + G
silver + G and gold + B
As we can see, there are 8 possibilities. By being told one of the children is a boy, we can remove the (G, G) results from or problem space. That leaves only 2 (B, B) results in a problem space of 6 possibilities.
In fact, by your definition that the children are simply selected as a pair, only one of "Boy, Girl" and "Girl, Boy" as these pairs are identical. If order of birth is an issue for our Girl, Boy pairs then it must also be an issue for our Boy, Boy pairs.
I don't know how I am selecting some pairs twice. Children can only be born in one order, one is always older, one always younger. In the definition of the problem we don't know if the child that is known to be male is the older or younger of the two. As we have made it significant whether the male child is older or younger than the female child, then it must in general be significant whether the child of known sex is older or younger than the child of unknown sex. Therefore we must consider the 2 cases of both children being boys but in one case, the known child being the older and in the other case, the known child being younger. This doesn't select the same pairs twice, just because the pair might be two boys doesn't change the fact that one is older and one is younger.
OK, so I'm not a mathematician but I have done a lot of maths and logic in my time and I believe the description of the Two Birthdays problem is wrong but maybe a mathematician here can correct me. In that simpler problem, Devlin and therefore I assume Gardner, make an issue of the order in which the children were born, creating the possibilities:
Boy, Girl
Boy, Boy
Girl, Boy
If I annotate this it may become more clear why I think they are wrong.
Boy (known, older), Girl (unknown, younger)
Boy (known, older), Boy (unknown, younger)
Girl (unknown, older), Boy (known, younger)
Now, where is the situation where the known male child is the younger child, i.e. the Boy (unknown, older), Boy (known, younger) scenario. Does the order somehow become unimportant just because they are both boys? It we add this 4th possibility then the possibility of the "other" child being a boy returns to a half and sanity is preserved.
If I've missed something completely here I'd love to hear why, these problems fascinate me. To really understand variable change I had to write myself a little simulator and it wasn't until I was putting it into code that I understood it properly:-P
And I've had just as much trouble with USB devices on my desktops over the years. Difference is, I never unplug anything on my desktop. For some reason things don't always work when I've plugged them back in on laptops. Had a mouse a couple of years ago, worked the first time I plugged it into my laptop, never worked any subsequent time. Tried it on other computers and it was fine. Tried re-installing drivers etc... never got it to work again. That's not the only time or laptop I've had something like that happen with. Never had a similar problem with a desktop.
Oh and I'm guessing you don't have to deal with plugging in a load of peripherals every time you sit down with your laptop. If you did you might have noticed how often something doesn't work right and you lose half an hour sorting it out... And before you should M$ and Windoze, it happens on Linux and Mac as well, I should know, I use all 3. In fact, in the last year I haven't had Windoze go wrong once but Mac and Linux have taken me to hell and back.
If you want to be an ass you obviously can be, I can't stop you. Maybe you work out of a cafe but I work in the office for pay and at home for myself. My company pays for my desktop in the office and I bought my desktop at home. I can live without being connected every minute of my life and feel no need to carry my computer around with me so I feel no need to spend the extra on a laptop that I will leave sitting in one place in my home. If you feel the need to have your computer with you everywhere you go maybe you need to live a little more... My computer is no use to me when I'm windsurfing:-)
What about power? Not mobile power but computing and graphics power? Some people do need a big CPU box. Most laptops don't have a docking solution like the Thinkpad X series where you can plonk it down and all your peripherals are connected, you have to plug everything in and unplug it when you leave, no a major hassle but do it every day and it's a pain. Also, virtual desktops aren't enough. I don't know what you work in but I'm a developer and I like having 2 physical screens, preferably of the exact same size. Virtual desktops slow down productivity, especially on Mac where applications you're not using sometimes randomly get lifted to the top on switching virtual desktops. I normally, even when I'm not working, have more applications open that it is practical to have virtual desktops (think like a dozen or so which goes up to over 20 when I'm working). Finally, I know my productivity is much better when I have a real mouse and not a laptop trackpad. At the end of the day, you can get a more powerful desktop for the same price as a laptop and if you're looking at a top of the line laptop, you can get a couple of desktops to put in whatever locations you'll be working assuming that's a possibility.
On top of all this, laptops simply don't have the right form factor to support good posture while working so if I'm going to be at a computer for hours a day, I'll take a desktop thank you. I also prefer the fact that my desktop doesn't try and burn a hole in my leg, desk, the fabric of reality when I ask it to run something CPU or graphics intensive like say, a flash video.
I don't think we're talking about any of your concerns here. We're talking about the real crazies, re chipmunk poop. If somebody came along and told me they had an emoticon as part of their name I'd tell them to go get a life, not modify my system to handle emoticons in the name field. There are always going to be people who create difficulties just because they can and imo they need to grow up and stop being a pain in the ass... "Issues" you're talking about like capitals, unicode and length are really non-issues that any programmer with half a brain cell should be covering.
It doesn't strike me that somebody who can understand the CodeIgniter user guide would benefit at all from this book and I'm assuming that's what the target is given it has "Professional Development" in the title. The CodeIgniter user guide is some of the best documentation I've seen for any framework in any language.
There is at least one ISP I read about recently that is planning to do exactly this without charging users. It was to get around the 3 strikes rule in Ireland I believe. Once a user was given 2 strikes, the company silently moved them to their sister company. The law did not require that the 2 existing strikes followed the user so they were essentially clean again, even if they were eventually moved back to the original company. Apparently the law permitted a service provider to move customers to another provider as long as there was no charge and no change in price or service. I'm sure you can find the story somewhere on/.
I think you mean rouge. As in French for red.
I don't feel I should have to pay extra for such basic functionality... I know USB Overdrive has a free option but little things I have to put up with daily will annoy me greatly. Also, it doesn't yet support the magic mouse I use with my MacBook Pro.
So are Mac users going to get the ability to change the mouse acceleration back?
It broke at zoom level 33 for me. Everything just disappeared, window went white (controls were still there and working) no matter what part of the fractal I zoom in on.
Oh, and a "top tier boss" in WoW doesn't require split second reactions, they're called macros.
I use a wireless mouse for convenience with my laptop (that I don't use for gaming) and I use wireless peripherals at work. While in general I'd agree that latency isn't a problem anymore I have had times where some background process kicks in (antivirus, system updates etc...) and the wireless connection to the mouse, or keyboard, hangs for a few seconds. To the gamers I know that wouldn't be acceptable. I've never experienced that problem with wired peripherals.
Actually, I would completely include people playing single player games, try any of the UT games on godlike and see how much split second reactions count. Equally, any multiplayer game can be played over LAN. I certainly don't count MMO only players among my definition of "real gamers" although they may qualify through other avenues... I didn't exclude console gamers, I did specifically say "at least on PC." I'm not a console gamer, I have never owned a console and on the odd occasion I do play a console game, I'll be the first person to say I suck. As far as I've seen though, most console gamers these days have wireless controllers so it's a pretty level playing field as opposed to PC gamers where everyone I know uses wired peripherals.
...but I don't know any real gamers (at least on PC) that use wireless keyboards or mice. They're all good and well for playing facebook games but I wouldn't want to be using wireless peripherals in an online game of Call of Duty or anything that requires split second reactions.
I believe it was Sony that tried pitching PC gamers against consoles (although I could be wrong... it could have been MS). The result was that the power of a keyboard and mouse over a console controller sent the console gamers home with their tails between their legs. In short, PCs pwned consoles!
Uber Micro!
Although this makes me wonder whether 2 partitions with different filesystems would have any effect on the performance of the drive...
particularly liked 1799 :-)
Everyone seems to be slating this in their comments. I can see a use for it. There are some keyboard shortcuts that I use frequently but are uncomfortable to hit one handed. On a laptop it's not so much of an issue, both your hands are close to the keyboard but it frustrates me on my desktop or when I'm using an external mouse. Now yes, I could reassign my shortcuts but I've tried that in the past and 2 things happen, I end up with system vs. application shortcut conflicts and I run out of shortcuts reachable comfortably with just my left hand. If the price isn't silly, I may well get one of these as I can see it as a useful tool. 18 buttons, minus the 3 standard mouse buttons, essentially makes the right hand side of the keyboard available for shortcuts without having to take your hand off the mouse.
OK, I still don't get your line of reasoning but I've come up with a model that explains it in a very physical way that I can follow (and agrees with the published solution). Imagine 2 coins, one gold, one silver, and both of them have G for girl printed on one side and B for boy printed on the other. We can flip these coins in any order but the order we flip them in denotes the order in which the two children are born.
That gives us the following possibilities:
As we can see, there are 8 possibilities. By being told one of the children is a boy, we can remove the (G, G) results from or problem space. That leaves only 2 (B, B) results in a problem space of 6 possibilities.
Right! Now I've got it! :-D
In fact, by your definition that the children are simply selected as a pair, only one of "Boy, Girl" and "Girl, Boy" as these pairs are identical. If order of birth is an issue for our Girl, Boy pairs then it must also be an issue for our Boy, Boy pairs.
I don't know how I am selecting some pairs twice. Children can only be born in one order, one is always older, one always younger. In the definition of the problem we don't know if the child that is known to be male is the older or younger of the two. As we have made it significant whether the male child is older or younger than the female child, then it must in general be significant whether the child of known sex is older or younger than the child of unknown sex. Therefore we must consider the 2 cases of both children being boys but in one case, the known child being the older and in the other case, the known child being younger. This doesn't select the same pairs twice, just because the pair might be two boys doesn't change the fact that one is older and one is younger.
OK, so I'm not a mathematician but I have done a lot of maths and logic in my time and I believe the description of the Two Birthdays problem is wrong but maybe a mathematician here can correct me. In that simpler problem, Devlin and therefore I assume Gardner, make an issue of the order in which the children were born, creating the possibilities:
If I annotate this it may become more clear why I think they are wrong.
Now, where is the situation where the known male child is the younger child, i.e. the Boy (unknown, older), Boy (known, younger) scenario. Does the order somehow become unimportant just because they are both boys? It we add this 4th possibility then the possibility of the "other" child being a boy returns to a half and sanity is preserved.
If I've missed something completely here I'd love to hear why, these problems fascinate me. To really understand variable change I had to write myself a little simulator and it wasn't until I was putting it into code that I understood it properly :-P
I should probably make it clear. I've had problems with USB stuff just not working on desktops but never with it working one time and not another.
And I've had just as much trouble with USB devices on my desktops over the years. Difference is, I never unplug anything on my desktop. For some reason things don't always work when I've plugged them back in on laptops. Had a mouse a couple of years ago, worked the first time I plugged it into my laptop, never worked any subsequent time. Tried it on other computers and it was fine. Tried re-installing drivers etc... never got it to work again. That's not the only time or laptop I've had something like that happen with. Never had a similar problem with a desktop.
Oh and I'm guessing you don't have to deal with plugging in a load of peripherals every time you sit down with your laptop. If you did you might have noticed how often something doesn't work right and you lose half an hour sorting it out... And before you should M$ and Windoze, it happens on Linux and Mac as well, I should know, I use all 3. In fact, in the last year I haven't had Windoze go wrong once but Mac and Linux have taken me to hell and back.
If you want to be an ass you obviously can be, I can't stop you. Maybe you work out of a cafe but I work in the office for pay and at home for myself. My company pays for my desktop in the office and I bought my desktop at home. I can live without being connected every minute of my life and feel no need to carry my computer around with me so I feel no need to spend the extra on a laptop that I will leave sitting in one place in my home. If you feel the need to have your computer with you everywhere you go maybe you need to live a little more... My computer is no use to me when I'm windsurfing :-)
What about power? Not mobile power but computing and graphics power? Some people do need a big CPU box. Most laptops don't have a docking solution like the Thinkpad X series where you can plonk it down and all your peripherals are connected, you have to plug everything in and unplug it when you leave, no a major hassle but do it every day and it's a pain. Also, virtual desktops aren't enough. I don't know what you work in but I'm a developer and I like having 2 physical screens, preferably of the exact same size. Virtual desktops slow down productivity, especially on Mac where applications you're not using sometimes randomly get lifted to the top on switching virtual desktops. I normally, even when I'm not working, have more applications open that it is practical to have virtual desktops (think like a dozen or so which goes up to over 20 when I'm working). Finally, I know my productivity is much better when I have a real mouse and not a laptop trackpad. At the end of the day, you can get a more powerful desktop for the same price as a laptop and if you're looking at a top of the line laptop, you can get a couple of desktops to put in whatever locations you'll be working assuming that's a possibility.
On top of all this, laptops simply don't have the right form factor to support good posture while working so if I'm going to be at a computer for hours a day, I'll take a desktop thank you. I also prefer the fact that my desktop doesn't try and burn a hole in my leg, desk, the fabric of reality when I ask it to run something CPU or graphics intensive like say, a flash video.
I don't think we're talking about any of your concerns here. We're talking about the real crazies, re chipmunk poop. If somebody came along and told me they had an emoticon as part of their name I'd tell them to go get a life, not modify my system to handle emoticons in the name field. There are always going to be people who create difficulties just because they can and imo they need to grow up and stop being a pain in the ass... "Issues" you're talking about like capitals, unicode and length are really non-issues that any programmer with half a brain cell should be covering.
It doesn't strike me that somebody who can understand the CodeIgniter user guide would benefit at all from this book and I'm assuming that's what the target is given it has "Professional Development" in the title. The CodeIgniter user guide is some of the best documentation I've seen for any framework in any language.
There is at least one ISP I read about recently that is planning to do exactly this without charging users. It was to get around the 3 strikes rule in Ireland I believe. Once a user was given 2 strikes, the company silently moved them to their sister company. The law did not require that the 2 existing strikes followed the user so they were essentially clean again, even if they were eventually moved back to the original company. Apparently the law permitted a service provider to move customers to another provider as long as there was no charge and no change in price or service. I'm sure you can find the story somewhere on /.