*does a double take* When was that ever a good thing? Seems to me the best software comes out of companies with long dev/QA cycles (Blizzard, id, Valve to name a few).
I really can't buy this. Given that companies have no loyalty to workers these days, I believe workers should treat companies the same way. I'm sure in your current role you'd *like* people to be committed and all that. But the reality is that we go to work for money, not out of the goodness of our hearts. Workers need to protect themselves, including by jumping from a sinking ship if necessary, because they have no guarantee that the employer would take care of *them* if situations were reversed (i.e. when the employee is in trouble).
I've noticed a lot of @gmail spam hitting me when I post an ad on craigslist. I think they do it because Gmail has a high "trust rating" (or whatever it's called) among ISPs and mail providers, so it's like an easy entry point for spammers to use an @gmail address.
Exactly what I plan to do to keep my movies/photos/music safe from single hard drive failure: buy two 1 TB external drives, then schedule a robocopy batch file to run once every 24 or 48 hours or so. Rather than mirror stuff in real time, this will allow me to avoid the "oh, shit, I deleted X and it's deleted from the 'backup' drive now too!"
"Trust is inherently illogical and irrational and yet it works."
It's irrational individually. But it is rational at a societal or species level, as you point out. The kind of creatures that stuck around (us) are the *type* of creatures that trust. Those societies and creatures where mistrust and cheating were rampant are the ones that weren't selected for. You're seeing a biased sample, basically: the survivor species, who "learned" (via natural selection) that trust is the only way to go if we want to stick around.
I bought Fallout 3 a couple weeks ago and can't agree more. And the fast travel won't let you do it while there are enemies around either, so it's not too easy on the gamer. Absolute perfect blend of on foot travel and insta-travel. Good job, Fallout 3 devs.
(Not to say I don't have other problems with the GUI in Fallout 3. I can't hit Esc to quickly exit a conversation. I hate tabbing between Items/Data/whatever. Basically not enough keyboard shortcuts. I hate games that force you to use the mouse so much.)
how to preserve man's scientific knowledge so that we're not doomed to rediscover electricity (or whatever) again and again?
Easy. It's distributed. There are thousands of copies of scientific works in libraries, book stores, people's personal collections, and college dorms scattered around the world. Even a globe-wide nuclear war couldn't wipe out our basic knowledge. The only stuff at serious risk of being lost is the uber high level scientific work in progress that only lives physically in one lab, say, super secret bio weapons research or something.
You're right, of course. In terms of sheer volume, physical libraries still win. BUT, put it this way instead: there's more searchable, easily accessible information on the Internet. I can sit at home, or call it up on my smart phone. I don't have to physically go to a library, or, when I'm there, look through the stacks hoping that the librarians re-filed the books correctly or that the book I wanted isn't checked out. The Internet is awesome because it's on 24/7, (basically) worldwide, fast, and easy to query. Physical libraries just can't compete on convenience.
Someone really needs to put up a website, say, firefoxmemoryhog.com, and having people submit *exact* details from their machines when this happens. Which extensions are being used, which OS the person has, which version of FF. You hear these anecdotal reports about insane FF memory usage, but they're useless without hard config data.
It's gotta be particular add-ons and plug-ins causing the problem. Just need to identify which ones, and shame them into fixing their issues.
I wouldn't be so sure. If they were at least as smart as us, they could use a communications medium to con us into doing things against our best interests. Think Contact, except instead of having us build a ship, we build a bomb that they claim is a ship.
I recently bought a laptop from NewEgg that came with a $50 rebate. I was all set to redeem it ASAP when I read the fine print: claiming the rebate nullifies your ability to RMA the laptop with NewEgg. I was already suspicious of mail-in rebates, now I'm doubly so.
Now when I scan prices on a site, I ignore the mail-in rebate price. In this way, I'm voting with my dollar by at least not favoring the mail-in rebate priced items automatically.
Consoles lately have been looking a lot like PCs. A broadband connection is practically required for them now, and they even download patches and downloadable content. Some of them support USB keyboard and mice (I've heard).
On the PC side, I can't remember the last good RTS or RPG that came out that played exclusively/best on PC.
We're seeing a fusion of console and PC.
I've been playing Survival mode exclusively for the past couple weeks. In that vein:
1: In survival maps, there are multiple areas you can hide out / make a stand, and usually one best area.
2: number one above is partially determined by how close you are to ammo/health/bomb stashes
3: this is definitely a weakness of L4D; I agree there are too few weapons
4: you haven't played the game.:-) Witches are scary as hell. Tanks are nerve wracking.
5: ??? The game is all about cooperative, human multiplayer
Gives structure to unstructured games like GTA
on
The Best Achievements
·
· Score: 1
For example, in Left 4 Dead, there's no deep plotline or character development, but there are loads of achievements to master. When I hopped on the server last night, I looked through which bronze medals I had yet to achieve in the 16 Survival mode maps. Achievements are nice -- they give direction and structure to games that otherwise would lack direction.
They both have geek-cred, but Chrome people say Firefox is unstable, while Firefox people complain Chrome has no extensions. So it's a race between the two browsers: will Firefox get tab isolation before Chrome, or will Chrome get extension support before Firefox? Either way, we users win.
Amen. I gave up caffeine (for the Nth time) a couple months back, and it's one of the best things I've ever done. Stable energy levels, no more extreme morning grogginess, less anxiety, more calm. Besides, caffeine isn't necessarily the boost people think it is. Once you've tolerated it, you're just staving off withdrawal symptoms: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6422279.stm
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*does a double take* When was that ever a good thing? Seems to me the best software comes out of companies with long dev/QA cycles (Blizzard, id, Valve to name a few).
I really can't buy this. Given that companies have no loyalty to workers these days, I believe workers should treat companies the same way. I'm sure in your current role you'd *like* people to be committed and all that. But the reality is that we go to work for money, not out of the goodness of our hearts. Workers need to protect themselves, including by jumping from a sinking ship if necessary, because they have no guarantee that the employer would take care of *them* if situations were reversed (i.e. when the employee is in trouble).
I've noticed a lot of @gmail spam hitting me when I post an ad on craigslist. I think they do it because Gmail has a high "trust rating" (or whatever it's called) among ISPs and mail providers, so it's like an easy entry point for spammers to use an @gmail address.
Exactly what I plan to do to keep my movies/photos/music safe from single hard drive failure: buy two 1 TB external drives, then schedule a robocopy batch file to run once every 24 or 48 hours or so. Rather than mirror stuff in real time, this will allow me to avoid the "oh, shit, I deleted X and it's deleted from the 'backup' drive now too!"
Married with children not a punishment? Come on, now...
Or, uh, what jollyreaper said. Oops.
"Trust is inherently illogical and irrational and yet it works."
It's irrational individually. But it is rational at a societal or species level, as you point out. The kind of creatures that stuck around (us) are the *type* of creatures that trust. Those societies and creatures where mistrust and cheating were rampant are the ones that weren't selected for. You're seeing a biased sample, basically: the survivor species, who "learned" (via natural selection) that trust is the only way to go if we want to stick around.
Answer: both. They are ripping BDs, then encoding into a file that ends up being smaller than the BD but higher quality than the DVD version.
I bought Fallout 3 a couple weeks ago and can't agree more. And the fast travel won't let you do it while there are enemies around either, so it's not too easy on the gamer. Absolute perfect blend of on foot travel and insta-travel. Good job, Fallout 3 devs. (Not to say I don't have other problems with the GUI in Fallout 3. I can't hit Esc to quickly exit a conversation. I hate tabbing between Items/Data/whatever. Basically not enough keyboard shortcuts. I hate games that force you to use the mouse so much.)
Your "den"? What are you, a wolf?
UU hehe. I've heard it described as, "Unitarianism is a feather bed to catch falling Christians."
how to preserve man's scientific knowledge so that we're not doomed to rediscover electricity (or whatever) again and again?
Easy. It's distributed. There are thousands of copies of scientific works in libraries, book stores, people's personal collections, and college dorms scattered around the world. Even a globe-wide nuclear war couldn't wipe out our basic knowledge. The only stuff at serious risk of being lost is the uber high level scientific work in progress that only lives physically in one lab, say, super secret bio weapons research or something.
You're right, of course. In terms of sheer volume, physical libraries still win. BUT, put it this way instead: there's more searchable, easily accessible information on the Internet. I can sit at home, or call it up on my smart phone. I don't have to physically go to a library, or, when I'm there, look through the stacks hoping that the librarians re-filed the books correctly or that the book I wanted isn't checked out. The Internet is awesome because it's on 24/7, (basically) worldwide, fast, and easy to query. Physical libraries just can't compete on convenience.
Someone really needs to put up a website, say, firefoxmemoryhog.com, and having people submit *exact* details from their machines when this happens. Which extensions are being used, which OS the person has, which version of FF. You hear these anecdotal reports about insane FF memory usage, but they're useless without hard config data. It's gotta be particular add-ons and plug-ins causing the problem. Just need to identify which ones, and shame them into fixing their issues.
I wouldn't be so sure. If they were at least as smart as us, they could use a communications medium to con us into doing things against our best interests. Think Contact, except instead of having us build a ship, we build a bomb that they claim is a ship.
...and they also came out with Chrome, which set off the current JavaScript speed wars (and which was likely their whole point in releasing Chrome).
I recently bought a laptop from NewEgg that came with a $50 rebate. I was all set to redeem it ASAP when I read the fine print: claiming the rebate nullifies your ability to RMA the laptop with NewEgg. I was already suspicious of mail-in rebates, now I'm doubly so.
Now when I scan prices on a site, I ignore the mail-in rebate price. In this way, I'm voting with my dollar by at least not favoring the mail-in rebate priced items automatically.
Consoles lately have been looking a lot like PCs. A broadband connection is practically required for them now, and they even download patches and downloadable content. Some of them support USB keyboard and mice (I've heard). On the PC side, I can't remember the last good RTS or RPG that came out that played exclusively/best on PC. We're seeing a fusion of console and PC.
For example, in Left 4 Dead, there's no deep plotline or character development, but there are loads of achievements to master. When I hopped on the server last night, I looked through which bronze medals I had yet to achieve in the 16 Survival mode maps. Achievements are nice -- they give direction and structure to games that otherwise would lack direction.
They both have geek-cred, but Chrome people say Firefox is unstable, while Firefox people complain Chrome has no extensions. So it's a race between the two browsers: will Firefox get tab isolation before Chrome, or will Chrome get extension support before Firefox? Either way, we users win.
while allowing publishers to save millions on the cost of printing and distributing their publications
How much you wanna bet that those savings are NOT passed on to the reader?
Amen. I gave up caffeine (for the Nth time) a couple months back, and it's one of the best things I've ever done. Stable energy levels, no more extreme morning grogginess, less anxiety, more calm. Besides, caffeine isn't necessarily the boost people think it is. Once you've tolerated it, you're just staving off withdrawal symptoms: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6422279.stm
...the better!
I'm running Vista at home. I don't buy into the whole "Vista sucks!" anti-Microsoft campaign.