How do they apply coupons? How does the store manage returns? What happens when a customer puts an item back on the shelf in the wrong place? What digital security measures are they taking? (not just on the database side, but criminals with RFID scanners would surely target a place like this)
It keeps current users engaged and interacting with Facebook-sponsored items; and if they are sticking longer to play a game they might be more likely to click one of Facebook's advertisers. In particular, this is well-aimed at the nostalgia of 30-45 year old demographic which tend to be very heavy consumers. As usual, follow the money and you'll find your answer.
Do you really think they haven't thought of that? Also, how is this magical air getting into the tanks? They are sealed, AND gasoline has a vapor pressure higher than atmospheric, so it will always want to evaporate before air wants to sneak in.
Your ignorance is showing. Tanks are not as sealed as you might think. All modern tanks have vent pipes, fill ports, ports for monitoring level probes, and a 3-foot wide manhole for workers to enter the tank. Of course tank manufacturers have various gaskets, fittings, and threaded connections at these points, but they are not perfect and tank systems need regular maintenance. Anyone who owns or works around tanks will tell you that tank systems need more maintenance now because of the corrosiveness and hydroscopic abilities of ethanol.
FWIW, I am an environmental consultant of ~16 years experience and have worked around many tank systems. I'm done arguing after this post.
Stepping back some I am not saying concerns about tanks are the only reason we should be against ethanol blended gas. It's just one of many, but most people are not aware of the tank issues.
You're right about the double-wall tanks and I glossed over some details in my post above. The problem isn't so much the tank but the parts connected to the tank. Leaks will most likely occur in places like fuel pumps connections or fill ports/spill buckets (which you also point out); and ethanol exacerbates those problem points requiring different parts and maintenance than non-ethanol gas. Ethanol can also cause in-tank fuel inventory monitoring systems to corrode and give bad readings that might not be immediately obvious to the operator, which is important, because fuel monitoring is one way tank owners indirectly detect potential leaks. I'm not making this up... Even the US EPA says tank systems are being corroded by ethanol and low-sulfur diesel : https://www.epa.gov/ust/altern... (ironically, while they mandate more ethanol be added to gasoline)
And yes... ethanol's hydroscopic properties (i.e. pulls water our of the air) is another problem tank owners wrestle with.
Outboard boat motors, Chainsaws, String trimmers, Lawn Mowers, ATVs, Jet Skis, Snowmobiles, Motorcycles, etc.... None of them were designed to run on ethanol.
You can also add storage tanks the list.... like those big underground tanks at your local gas station that can leak gas into soils and groundwater when a seal corrodes from the high ethanol content. To be fair, today's tank systems have leak detection systems that usually identify a leak quickly, so they get fixed/remediated quickly, but since new ethanol [and low-sulfur diesel] requirements the number of incidents with tanks has gone up dramatically nation-wide. Tank owners have been too slow to adapt to the new maintenance requirements, seals, filters, etc. needed to safely hold ethanol blended gas in tanks.
The electronics industry has established a complete manufacturing infrastructure and supply chain in Asia that is not going to uproot itself just because Trump gives one US company, Apple, tax incentives and unspecified deregulation. Even if US policy could change this reality, China, Korea, Vietnam and other countries will counter with their own incentives in a race to the bottom the US cannot win. The reality is the US lost the electronics industry ~20 years ago, and it's not it's not coming back overnight or in a 4-year presidential term. If you [or Trump] need a second opinion just ask the US's last TV manufacturer, Zenith, who sold to Korea's LG in 1995! http://www.nytimes.com/1995/07...
Our capability to understand our entire planet is FAR greater today than it was in 1016 A.D....yes, I do believe we can have meaningful predictions.....
Every generation thinks they are much smarter and more enlightened than their ancestors and in a snapshot in time they are; but time and science marches on eventually revealing their ignorance. To believe that today we have advanced beyond our ignorance is the incredibly foolish. The further out you try to predict the more variables and unknowns are introduced and at some point [much less than 1000 years in my humble opinion] predictions become irrelevant. FWIW, for my original post I considered asking if anyone in 1816 could foresee today's world and decided to stick with Hawking's 1000 year period, but 1016 or 1816 I think the answer would be same and shows how foolish predictions over even a century, much less a millennium.
I don't think anyone [even Stephen Hawking] can say anything meaningful about where we'll be 1000 years from now. Did anyone in the year 1016 A.D. foresee conditions today?
Actually 40ms is terrible for fast-paced games (Mortal Kombat, racing games, FPS)...
You missed the context and examples in the summary/article. What the article is describing is more like "the internet of things" gaming potential particularly for the casual gamer market, for which 40ms latency is plenty fast to integrate game mechanics into people's daily lives.
FWIW, I am a gamer and agree that for PC/console gaming 40ms is slow, but that's a very different type of gaming than what the article is talking about. I doubt we'll be playing a life-integrated Mortal Kombat game where we walk down street and suddenly [in less than 40ms] need to yell "C'mere!" and hit someone [hopefully virtually] with a grappling hook...but maybe I'm wrong?
This AC's angry hyperbolic reply misses the point completely. When a company thinks their product or brand is being damaged they can act to protect it. Individual right to free speech is secondary. If individuals think the company overreacted, it's a free market and they are free to take their activities elsewhere to avoid that product/service. It's a two-way street.
You don't have the right to pretty much anything on twitter, a private service offered for free use. They can decide on their policy for the use of their service.
Hit the nail on the head! A company cannot and should not sit idly by if they think their product, brand, and core business is being damaged by something they could prevent or reduce the impact of.
The electoral college is there for a reason and serves a purpose.
....The voting set up in the college, gives more equal proportional voice to all states based on population. If this were only the popular vote nationally, we'd forever have policy and presidents dictated based on 3 or so states, most on either coast with more extreme views and vast different needs from those other states between them.....
In a two party political system you are correct that without the electoral college politics would be decided by a only a few populous states. However the fundamental flaw in this logic is the assumption that our two-party system will continue forever. The electoral college's winner-take-all rules makes it almost impossible for a third party to gain significant support, as demonstrated by over a century with virtually no representation in Washington apart from Democrats and Republicans. The system has reduced the public's choices to only two polar opposite options, which stone-wall each other until the political pendulum swings back in their favor. I would argue this mostly dysfunctional two-party system propped up by the electoral college is more devastating to American democracy than the risks of a popular vote. A popular vote would give third parties and independents a real chance, more choices for voters to elect representatives that actually hold their same values, and force parties in Washington to compromise.
...but again, I like the principal of the EC, maybe just tweak the rules a little.
Glad we have some agreement. I would like more states to split their electoral votes like Maine and Minnesota do, but it's a really hard sell to the states with large pools of electoral votes and the political clout they give. I usually favor states-rights in most governing questions, but I feel like significant reforms to the EC would have to be imposed from the federal level down.
There's no will to reform the EC from either party though, because neither party wants to split their political power with a third party. All the political leaders are very content with maintaining 45-55% of their political power for the long-term.
And, where do most people live? In the cities. Why would any would-be POTUS care about rural America if he was elected by popular vote if he can win a majority in a few cities?
So, certain people [rural Americans in this case] need more power than one vote per person in a democracy. They need an electoral handout, right?
Justifying the current electoral college requires twisting oneself into a political pretzel of double-think, but people do have the ability to untwist themselves if they allow it.
However your counter-points are a little beside the point of the article/summary, which is it doesn't make sense to bar US companies from using Indian launches. As you stated, Indian rocket costs are roughly on par with other nations. They have demonstrated numerous times they can successfully complete launches, including to Mars. The US has no problem with using cheaper labor and regulations in other countries for other industries. Also as US and Russia relations get more and more icy lately, it would seem reasonable to at least give US companies another launch option from a US-friendly nation like India. Maybe there are more security risks in India but isn't that one of many things a company must consider before choosing a launch provider?
That's literally how it was. Everything just worked through Steam. And then Ubi and EA decided they needed to have their own ignorant-ass Uplay and Origin bullshit.
I agree and I like Steam. However, Steam is just a middle-man service that makes ungodly amounts of money for Valve, with relatively little effort or risk on their part compared to making actual games. You have to expect that others in the industry would try to get a piece of that market, especially when the Steam's user base was forcing them to sell on Steam and fork over transactions fees to their competitor.
On screen controllers typically. The merits of different game platforms is irrelevant though, because the millions of casual gamers who play games like FarmVille, Candy Crush, Mobile Strike, etc. show with their actions and money spent that they vastly prefer mobile phone/tablets to other mediums. They do not want their gaming tethered to a another device and Facebook's Gameroom is not changing that fundamental fact. The "hardcore" gamers are already on Steam, Xbox, or Playstation networks, and Gameroom is not giving them incentive to switch, and the connection to one's Facebook friends is a disincentive for many.
Nintendos handhelds sell very well. The Wii U flopped...The console previous was one of the best selling consoles ever.
You really are a moron, you know that? Delete your account.
Wii and DS sales from 10 years ago have no bearing on the realities of today's game market. The Wii and DS hit a sweet spot in the growth of technology just before mobile phones took over, but those days are long over. Nintendo stock has fallen over the years because investors know this. Nintendo's CEO has publicly discussed the strong competition from mobile phone games. Nintendo even invested in mobile phone game maker Niantic and give them rights to the Pokemon franchise to make Pokemon Go! Nintendo doesn't give their franchises to others lightly, but they know their company isn't positioned to compete directly in the mobile game markets.
This is dead on arrival, as Facebook is poisoned brand with gamers. They might attract casual Facebook gamers, Farmville and the like, but they already have these.
Yup. Even with the casual gamers Facebook is missing that casual gamers don't want to be tied to another device... just ask Nintendo! Casual gamers won't take the extra effort to find a PC when they can just turn on a phone or tablet anywhere and immediately be playing Farmville [or alternative knock-off].
Also most gamers whether casual or hardcore don't necessarily want their gaming connected to their Facebook network of friends, associates, extended family, maybe even co-workers, so that connection would be a deterrent not benefit. I am a gamer with friends on Facebook and Steam, some of which overlap, but I prefer to keep those worlds separate.
And no exclusive titles or Oculus support that Facebook paid millions for?
Seems like a half-baked roll-out to sell to shareholders who don't understand the gamer market at all.
Seriously, this stuff isn't free. It costs real money to run a VPN service and you get a whole day's worth of browsing for the cost of viewing one ad. You can still use the Opera browser without nagware if you don't use the VPN.
When useless mobile apps, like Candy Crush, force users to watch an ad every 2 minutes no one cares. When an optional service with real value shows users an ad once every 12 hours it's nagware./internet logic
Slashdot Mirror
Good questions and I'll add to them..
How do they apply coupons?
How does the store manage returns?
What happens when a customer puts an item back on the shelf in the wrong place?
What digital security measures are they taking? (not just on the database side, but criminals with RFID scanners would surely target a place like this)
I'm not against the idea, but I'm skeptical.
It keeps current users engaged and interacting with Facebook-sponsored items; and if they are sticking longer to play a game they might be more likely to click one of Facebook's advertisers. In particular, this is well-aimed at the nostalgia of 30-45 year old demographic which tend to be very heavy consumers. As usual, follow the money and you'll find your answer.
Do you really think they haven't thought of that? Also, how is this magical air getting into the tanks? They are sealed, AND gasoline has a vapor pressure higher than atmospheric, so it will always want to evaporate before air wants to sneak in.
Your ignorance is showing. Tanks are not as sealed as you might think. All modern tanks have vent pipes, fill ports, ports for monitoring level probes, and a 3-foot wide manhole for workers to enter the tank. Of course tank manufacturers have various gaskets, fittings, and threaded connections at these points, but they are not perfect and tank systems need regular maintenance. Anyone who owns or works around tanks will tell you that tank systems need more maintenance now because of the corrosiveness and hydroscopic abilities of ethanol.
FWIW, I am an environmental consultant of ~16 years experience and have worked around many tank systems. I'm done arguing after this post.
Stepping back some I am not saying concerns about tanks are the only reason we should be against ethanol blended gas. It's just one of many, but most people are not aware of the tank issues.
You're right about the double-wall tanks and I glossed over some details in my post above. The problem isn't so much the tank but the parts connected to the tank. Leaks will most likely occur in places like fuel pumps connections or fill ports/spill buckets (which you also point out); and ethanol exacerbates those problem points requiring different parts and maintenance than non-ethanol gas. Ethanol can also cause in-tank fuel inventory monitoring systems to corrode and give bad readings that might not be immediately obvious to the operator, which is important, because fuel monitoring is one way tank owners indirectly detect potential leaks. I'm not making this up... Even the US EPA says tank systems are being corroded by ethanol and low-sulfur diesel : https://www.epa.gov/ust/altern... (ironically, while they mandate more ethanol be added to gasoline)
And yes... ethanol's hydroscopic properties (i.e. pulls water our of the air) is another problem tank owners wrestle with.
This guy gets it.
.... and food prices go up if the ethanol supply is coming from a crop (e.g. corn, soybeans, sugar cane, etc.).
Outboard boat motors, Chainsaws, String trimmers, Lawn Mowers, ATVs, Jet Skis, Snowmobiles, Motorcycles, etc.... None of them were designed to run on ethanol.
You can also add storage tanks the list.... like those big underground tanks at your local gas station that can leak gas into soils and groundwater when a seal corrodes from the high ethanol content. To be fair, today's tank systems have leak detection systems that usually identify a leak quickly, so they get fixed/remediated quickly, but since new ethanol [and low-sulfur diesel] requirements the number of incidents with tanks has gone up dramatically nation-wide. Tank owners have been too slow to adapt to the new maintenance requirements, seals, filters, etc. needed to safely hold ethanol blended gas in tanks.
What proof do we have that any of this is real?
The article provides links where you can download the mod to try it yourself. HTC Vive, not included.
The electronics industry has established a complete manufacturing infrastructure and supply chain in Asia that is not going to uproot itself just because Trump gives one US company, Apple, tax incentives and unspecified deregulation. Even if US policy could change this reality, China, Korea, Vietnam and other countries will counter with their own incentives in a race to the bottom the US cannot win. The reality is the US lost the electronics industry ~20 years ago, and it's not it's not coming back overnight or in a 4-year presidential term. If you [or Trump] need a second opinion just ask the US's last TV manufacturer, Zenith, who sold to Korea's LG in 1995! http://www.nytimes.com/1995/07...
Our capability to understand our entire planet is FAR greater today than it was in 1016 A.D....yes, I do believe we can have meaningful predictions.....
Every generation thinks they are much smarter and more enlightened than their ancestors and in a snapshot in time they are; but time and science marches on eventually revealing their ignorance. To believe that today we have advanced beyond our ignorance is the incredibly foolish. The further out you try to predict the more variables and unknowns are introduced and at some point [much less than 1000 years in my humble opinion] predictions become irrelevant. FWIW, for my original post I considered asking if anyone in 1816 could foresee today's world and decided to stick with Hawking's 1000 year period, but 1016 or 1816 I think the answer would be same and shows how foolish predictions over even a century, much less a millennium.
I don't think anyone [even Stephen Hawking] can say anything meaningful about where we'll be 1000 years from now. Did anyone in the year 1016 A.D. foresee conditions today?
Actually 40ms is terrible for fast-paced games (Mortal Kombat, racing games, FPS)...
You missed the context and examples in the summary/article. What the article is describing is more like "the internet of things" gaming potential particularly for the casual gamer market, for which 40ms latency is plenty fast to integrate game mechanics into people's daily lives.
FWIW, I am a gamer and agree that for PC/console gaming 40ms is slow, but that's a very different type of gaming than what the article is talking about. I doubt we'll be playing a life-integrated Mortal Kombat game where we walk down street and suddenly [in less than 40ms] need to yell "C'mere!" and hit someone [hopefully virtually] with a grappling hook...but maybe I'm wrong?
And many people will still buy it. smh...
Pfft...I'm waiting for next year's Apple Book S, it will be thinner and lighter and will have some of it's pages courageously removed.
If you are waiting to buy an Apple product, you are doing it wrong.
This AC's angry hyperbolic reply misses the point completely. When a company thinks their product or brand is being damaged they can act to protect it. Individual right to free speech is secondary. If individuals think the company overreacted, it's a free market and they are free to take their activities elsewhere to avoid that product/service. It's a two-way street.
You don't have the right to pretty much anything on twitter, a private service offered for free use. They can decide on their policy for the use of their service.
Hit the nail on the head! A company cannot and should not sit idly by if they think their product, brand, and core business is being damaged by something they could prevent or reduce the impact of.
Slashdot should take note.
...split their electoral votes like Maine and Minnesota do...
OOPS... Nebraska, not Minnesota.
No, they should not.
The electoral college is there for a reason and serves a purpose.
In a two party political system you are correct that without the electoral college politics would be decided by a only a few populous states. However the fundamental flaw in this logic is the assumption that our two-party system will continue forever. The electoral college's winner-take-all rules makes it almost impossible for a third party to gain significant support, as demonstrated by over a century with virtually no representation in Washington apart from Democrats and Republicans. The system has reduced the public's choices to only two polar opposite options, which stone-wall each other until the political pendulum swings back in their favor. I would argue this mostly dysfunctional two-party system propped up by the electoral college is more devastating to American democracy than the risks of a popular vote. A popular vote would give third parties and independents a real chance, more choices for voters to elect representatives that actually hold their same values, and force parties in Washington to compromise.
...but again, I like the principal of the EC, maybe just tweak the rules a little.
Glad we have some agreement. I would like more states to split their electoral votes like Maine and Minnesota do, but it's a really hard sell to the states with large pools of electoral votes and the political clout they give. I usually favor states-rights in most governing questions, but I feel like significant reforms to the EC would have to be imposed from the federal level down.
There's no will to reform the EC from either party though, because neither party wants to split their political power with a third party. All the political leaders are very content with maintaining 45-55% of their political power for the long-term.
And, where do most people live? In the cities. Why would any would-be POTUS care about rural America if he was elected by popular vote if he can win a majority in a few cities?
So, certain people [rural Americans in this case] need more power than one vote per person in a democracy. They need an electoral handout, right?
Justifying the current electoral college requires twisting oneself into a political pretzel of double-think, but people do have the ability to untwist themselves if they allow it.
Great points. No arguments here.
However your counter-points are a little beside the point of the article/summary, which is it doesn't make sense to bar US companies from using Indian launches. As you stated, Indian rocket costs are roughly on par with other nations. They have demonstrated numerous times they can successfully complete launches, including to Mars. The US has no problem with using cheaper labor and regulations in other countries for other industries. Also as US and Russia relations get more and more icy lately, it would seem reasonable to at least give US companies another launch option from a US-friendly nation like India. Maybe there are more security risks in India but isn't that one of many things a company must consider before choosing a launch provider?
That's literally how it was. Everything just worked through Steam. And then Ubi and EA decided they needed to have their own ignorant-ass Uplay and Origin bullshit.
I agree and I like Steam. However, Steam is just a middle-man service that makes ungodly amounts of money for Valve, with relatively little effort or risk on their part compared to making actual games. You have to expect that others in the industry would try to get a piece of that market, especially when the Steam's user base was forcing them to sell on Steam and fork over transactions fees to their competitor.
On screen controllers typically. The merits of different game platforms is irrelevant though, because the millions of casual gamers who play games like FarmVille, Candy Crush, Mobile Strike, etc. show with their actions and money spent that they vastly prefer mobile phone/tablets to other mediums. They do not want their gaming tethered to a another device and Facebook's Gameroom is not changing that fundamental fact. The "hardcore" gamers are already on Steam, Xbox, or Playstation networks, and Gameroom is not giving them incentive to switch, and the connection to one's Facebook friends is a disincentive for many.
Nintendos handhelds sell very well. The Wii U flopped...The console previous was one of the best selling consoles ever.
You really are a moron, you know that? Delete your account.
Wii and DS sales from 10 years ago have no bearing on the realities of today's game market. The Wii and DS hit a sweet spot in the growth of technology just before mobile phones took over, but those days are long over. Nintendo stock has fallen over the years because investors know this. Nintendo's CEO has publicly discussed the strong competition from mobile phone games. Nintendo even invested in mobile phone game maker Niantic and give them rights to the Pokemon franchise to make Pokemon Go! Nintendo doesn't give their franchises to others lightly, but they know their company isn't positioned to compete directly in the mobile game markets.
This is dead on arrival, as Facebook is poisoned brand with gamers. They might attract casual Facebook gamers, Farmville and the like, but they already have these.
Yup. Even with the casual gamers Facebook is missing that casual gamers don't want to be tied to another device... just ask Nintendo! Casual gamers won't take the extra effort to find a PC when they can just turn on a phone or tablet anywhere and immediately be playing Farmville [or alternative knock-off].
Also most gamers whether casual or hardcore don't necessarily want their gaming connected to their Facebook network of friends, associates, extended family, maybe even co-workers, so that connection would be a deterrent not benefit. I am a gamer with friends on Facebook and Steam, some of which overlap, but I prefer to keep those worlds separate.
And no exclusive titles or Oculus support that Facebook paid millions for?
Seems like a half-baked roll-out to sell to shareholders who don't understand the gamer market at all.
Seriously, this stuff isn't free. It costs real money to run a VPN service and you get a whole day's worth of browsing for the cost of viewing one ad. You can still use the Opera browser without nagware if you don't use the VPN.
When useless mobile apps, like Candy Crush, force users to watch an ad every 2 minutes no one cares. When an optional service with real value shows users an ad once every 12 hours it's nagware. /internet logic
You don't know what the term means yet you called it marketing bullshit....
I deserve that... but when a company puts out a press release about an unspecified product they aren't even making, what do you call that?