Those are called 'proxies' and their use is restricted in official tournaments, unlike genuine cards. Also, it undermines 'ante' (putting down a random card that you lose, if you lose the match) which was originally supposed to be an important part of the game.
Even if duplicates are forbidden, it's still a blind box. If someone REALLY wants one specific thing, and there's a 0.1% chance of getting it, it's still gambling. Of course they'd get it eventually (after they buy out the whole store) but it's simple to stock the store with hundreds/thousands of things, making it impractical to get that rare desired thing by process of elimination. If it exploits gambling psychology, it's morally equivalent to gambling, regardless of specific mechanics.
Ya never know. AAA VR games could easily break that $60 price point and people would still buy them. Recall that the move to $60 games happened with the HD generation, where game production (art) costs rose pretty dramatically. DLC and preorders were probably the main reasons base game costs didn't go up again this console generation. Also now, even among console gamers, there's a growing problem of huge game backlogs driving down demand for new games, made worse by so many titles being huge open worlds with 60-100 hours of gameplay. It requires a pretty damn amazing game for me to put it in front of all the games in my backlog I could buy for $20 (or own but haven't opened the shrink-wrap for yet) and this problem gets worse as the back catalog increases on Steam and other digital marketplaces.
I agree. Luckily, some packages say 'calories for this package'. That's also useful for, say, estimating how many people can be fed by a box of spaghetti. While I'm griping, rounding to the nearest half-gram in the US makes nutrition facts for small portions useless; being able to round down to 0 in any circumstance makes them doubly useless. Most of the nutrients listed aren't particularly meaningful; if someone REALLY cares how much Niacin they eat, they'd take a Niacin pill. One exception: iron content, to avoid iron overdosing in infants. While we're at it, kill imperial measurements on food labels. I like how EU packaging bolds or underlines allergens in the ingredients list. Given what portion of people in the world are lactose intolerant, I really wish lactose content were listed as well.
I love those '100 calorie packs'. It makes it easy for me to know I'm eating 500 calories when I eat 5 of them at once, because they're tinier than an infant's hand and fill me up less than a cup of water. I particularly love bags of popcorn, where it's "only 60 calories per serving!" and each serving is 1 tablespoon. Who eats 1 tablespoon of popcorn in a sitting? How do you even measure pre-popped popcorn in tablespoons? Europe does this right, food has 'calories per 100g' on every package. On-topic, restaurant meal quantities vary by cook, with eye-balling of usage of cooking oil and sauce. Also, if you order a dish that comes with rice, chances are you will be given lots of rice and only end up using half of it for that dish, yet the 'total calories' will include the entire container of rice.
Coming soon: an option to outsource these messages to BeautifulHandWrittenLetters.com Yes I'm aware such services already exist (for mailed letters at least).
iPhones already need to be unlocked before a new connected device will be authorized to access data from the phone, so that's not what this feature is for. Presumably, this new feature will prevent exploitation of flaws in the USB driver, which is presumably the exploit utilized by Cellebrite and/or Grayshift. The better long-term solution is to fix those flaws. The real issue is that the 7-day limitation makes it nearly useless. It's taking a bet that whatever attacker seized your phone won't use the unlocking device within 7 days. Sure, if there's a huge backlog of devices, or lots of red tape, then it might take more than 7 days. But chances are that if the police bust in your door, they will already have a search warrant that includes your phone, which they will probably find within 1 minute of entry. So long as they're aware of the 7 day limit, they will make sure to access it by then. Now, if the lockout was say 5 minutes, then they'd need the unlocking device on hand, and hope/check that the phone was unlocked at the time they kick in your door.
I think a better solution would be to require authorization to enable USB data transfer whenever a device is connected that can transfer data, and this authorization persists until the device is unplugged, rather than an amount of time after the phone locks.
PowerPC G3 processor clocked at 233MHz, 15-inch display with 1,024x768 resolution, two USB ports and Ethernet with a built-in software modem, 4GB hard drive, 32MB of RAM (expandable to 128MB), 24x CD-ROM drive,
I recall my bargain-basement box I bought out of a catalog had far better specs, purchased 6 months after the iMac came out, for half the price. 400MHz AMD CPU, 20GB hard drive, 128MB RAM, DVD drive (and a video decoder card necessary to play back DVD videos at full speed). Ok, it didn't come with a monitor, but still.
This is why former Japanese heavyweights like Konami are exiting the console games business and focusing on mobile; if you can slap a new coat of paint on the same game design, you can save tons of money. Oh and then you can fire your designers like Kojima. If it weren't for sequels, Square-Enix and Capcom would've gotten out of the console games business as well. Look at how few new IPs they've created in the last 15 years, it's depressing. It seems like Platinum Games is the only AAA-ish Japanese developer taking risks with new IPs. Suda 51 and Team ICO keep being given money, somehow, despite bleeding cash (boutique exclusives?).
Fear not, AR virtual keyboards are on the way soon. Once phones ditch screens, and just have an AR interface, mobile game interaction will improve (make a throwing motion with your arm to aim that pokeball, etc.).
Amazon reinvests nearly all its profits into the company, to minimize taxes and maximize growth. It's done pretty well for them so far. Investors probably expect this to end once Bezos is out, just like Apple implemented dividends and stock buybacks after Cook took over.
Coming soon: Precog Dating Wear these clothes (Amazon link included), with this hairstyle (barber-bot configuration link included), stand at this spot (Google Maps link included) at this time (alarm setting link included), looking in this direction (Google Earth link included), and say to this person (Facebook link included) this phrase in this tone with this body language (Youtube link included). First date guaranteed.
This could end up reducing average time spent on facebook. People dating are generally not spending time on facebook at the same time. If your date IS spending lots of time on facebook during your date, there probably won't be another date.
No more than underage users of dating sites who claim to be over 18. So long as facebook disallows under-18 profiles from opting into this, they can say it's a good-faith effort. Lawsuit averted.
The firehose has been full of spam for years. Simple solution: only accounts with Excellent karma can post submissions to firehose. Gameable, but probably good enough.
Good points regarding socializing and team dynamics. However, there are better ways for schools to achieve that than homework, which is usually intended to be (and actually) done in isolation. For example, in-class group projects, where your group gets together each class session to continue work on a project; if the group doesn't get the task done on time is comparable to if your team at your job doesn't get a project done on time.
Slashdot Mirror
Those are called 'proxies' and their use is restricted in official tournaments, unlike genuine cards. Also, it undermines 'ante' (putting down a random card that you lose, if you lose the match) which was originally supposed to be an important part of the game.
It would be silly for lawmen to enforce particular views on fairness in games.
Pay to win mechanics = your cubicle getting flashbanged by a SWAT team.
Even if duplicates are forbidden, it's still a blind box. If someone REALLY wants one specific thing, and there's a 0.1% chance of getting it, it's still gambling. Of course they'd get it eventually (after they buy out the whole store) but it's simple to stock the store with hundreds/thousands of things, making it impractical to get that rare desired thing by process of elimination.
If it exploits gambling psychology, it's morally equivalent to gambling, regardless of specific mechanics.
Ya never know. AAA VR games could easily break that $60 price point and people would still buy them. Recall that the move to $60 games happened with the HD generation, where game production (art) costs rose pretty dramatically. DLC and preorders were probably the main reasons base game costs didn't go up again this console generation. Also now, even among console gamers, there's a growing problem of huge game backlogs driving down demand for new games, made worse by so many titles being huge open worlds with 60-100 hours of gameplay. It requires a pretty damn amazing game for me to put it in front of all the games in my backlog I could buy for $20 (or own but haven't opened the shrink-wrap for yet) and this problem gets worse as the back catalog increases on Steam and other digital marketplaces.
I agree. Luckily, some packages say 'calories for this package'. That's also useful for, say, estimating how many people can be fed by a box of spaghetti.
While I'm griping, rounding to the nearest half-gram in the US makes nutrition facts for small portions useless; being able to round down to 0 in any circumstance makes them doubly useless. Most of the nutrients listed aren't particularly meaningful; if someone REALLY cares how much Niacin they eat, they'd take a Niacin pill. One exception: iron content, to avoid iron overdosing in infants. While we're at it, kill imperial measurements on food labels.
I like how EU packaging bolds or underlines allergens in the ingredients list. Given what portion of people in the world are lactose intolerant, I really wish lactose content were listed as well.
I love those '100 calorie packs'. It makes it easy for me to know I'm eating 500 calories when I eat 5 of them at once, because they're tinier than an infant's hand and fill me up less than a cup of water.
I particularly love bags of popcorn, where it's "only 60 calories per serving!" and each serving is 1 tablespoon. Who eats 1 tablespoon of popcorn in a sitting? How do you even measure pre-popped popcorn in tablespoons?
Europe does this right, food has 'calories per 100g' on every package.
On-topic, restaurant meal quantities vary by cook, with eye-balling of usage of cooking oil and sauce. Also, if you order a dish that comes with rice, chances are you will be given lots of rice and only end up using half of it for that dish, yet the 'total calories' will include the entire container of rice.
Already happened. Google "autocorrect ruins relationships".
To be fair, the PSU and HDD died 3 years later. So probably not the highest-quality components.
Coming soon: an option to outsource these messages to BeautifulHandWrittenLetters.com
Yes I'm aware such services already exist (for mailed letters at least).
iPhones already need to be unlocked before a new connected device will be authorized to access data from the phone, so that's not what this feature is for. Presumably, this new feature will prevent exploitation of flaws in the USB driver, which is presumably the exploit utilized by Cellebrite and/or Grayshift. The better long-term solution is to fix those flaws.
The real issue is that the 7-day limitation makes it nearly useless. It's taking a bet that whatever attacker seized your phone won't use the unlocking device within 7 days. Sure, if there's a huge backlog of devices, or lots of red tape, then it might take more than 7 days. But chances are that if the police bust in your door, they will already have a search warrant that includes your phone, which they will probably find within 1 minute of entry. So long as they're aware of the 7 day limit, they will make sure to access it by then. Now, if the lockout was say 5 minutes, then they'd need the unlocking device on hand, and hope/check that the phone was unlocked at the time they kick in your door.
I think a better solution would be to require authorization to enable USB data transfer whenever a device is connected that can transfer data, and this authorization persists until the device is unplugged, rather than an amount of time after the phone locks.
While slamming a Mountain Dew. I can imagine the commercial now...
So the money spent on fighting confidence scams should instead be spent on curing dementia? I'm cool with that.
PowerPC G3 processor clocked at 233MHz, 15-inch display with 1,024x768 resolution, two USB ports and Ethernet with a built-in software modem, 4GB hard drive, 32MB of RAM (expandable to 128MB), 24x CD-ROM drive,
I recall my bargain-basement box I bought out of a catalog had far better specs, purchased 6 months after the iMac came out, for half the price. 400MHz AMD CPU, 20GB hard drive, 128MB RAM, DVD drive (and a video decoder card necessary to play back DVD videos at full speed). Ok, it didn't come with a monitor, but still.
Some sixty-four 64% percent out of a hundred said they used Facebook at least once a day
FTFY
Anything with graphene has to be measured in space elevators per cargo bay (Earth Federation regulation size, unlubricated).
Marketer Gary Thuerk composed an email selling his company's newest computers and sent it to 400 users on ARPANET
Marketers, just like Lawyers, giant radioactive lizards, and Old Ones, are best left deep in the ocean, unless you really need them.
This is why former Japanese heavyweights like Konami are exiting the console games business and focusing on mobile; if you can slap a new coat of paint on the same game design, you can save tons of money. Oh and then you can fire your designers like Kojima.
If it weren't for sequels, Square-Enix and Capcom would've gotten out of the console games business as well. Look at how few new IPs they've created in the last 15 years, it's depressing.
It seems like Platinum Games is the only AAA-ish Japanese developer taking risks with new IPs. Suda 51 and Team ICO keep being given money, somehow, despite bleeding cash (boutique exclusives?).
Fear not, AR virtual keyboards are on the way soon. Once phones ditch screens, and just have an AR interface, mobile game interaction will improve (make a throwing motion with your arm to aim that pokeball, etc.).
Amazon reinvests nearly all its profits into the company, to minimize taxes and maximize growth. It's done pretty well for them so far. Investors probably expect this to end once Bezos is out, just like Apple implemented dividends and stock buybacks after Cook took over.
Coming soon: Precog Dating
Wear these clothes (Amazon link included), with this hairstyle (barber-bot configuration link included), stand at this spot (Google Maps link included) at this time (alarm setting link included), looking in this direction (Google Earth link included), and say to this person (Facebook link included) this phrase in this tone with this body language (Youtube link included).
First date guaranteed.
This could end up reducing average time spent on facebook. People dating are generally not spending time on facebook at the same time. If your date IS spending lots of time on facebook during your date, there probably won't be another date.
No more than underage users of dating sites who claim to be over 18. So long as facebook disallows under-18 profiles from opting into this, they can say it's a good-faith effort. Lawsuit averted.
The firehose has been full of spam for years. Simple solution: only accounts with Excellent karma can post submissions to firehose. Gameable, but probably good enough.
Good points regarding socializing and team dynamics. However, there are better ways for schools to achieve that than homework, which is usually intended to be (and actually) done in isolation. For example, in-class group projects, where your group gets together each class session to continue work on a project; if the group doesn't get the task done on time is comparable to if your team at your job doesn't get a project done on time.
It's in amount of staff, not dollars.