I also couldn't get past the fact that Oblivion was accessed by diving into giant flaming vaginas, which took you to a place you knew was evil because there was blood everywhere. Was the game designed entirely by gay men? They should have had an evil demoness called Menses to finish it off.
No... didn't see that at all. Maybe this says more about you than it does about the game's designers?
Sounds like we have similar tastes. I really got drawn into Oblivion's world despite the ho-hum storyline, while Dragon Age failed to grab me at all. Perhaps it's the open sandbox-style gameplay of Oblivion that appeals to me... Dragon age felt like I was on rails, like one of those Disneyland rides, which is why I gave it up after a few hours.
A good programmer needs both formal education to learn theoretical background, and solid on-the-job training to learn what good software development means in practice (version control, code reviews, etc, etc). Formal education will not turn you into a good programmer any more than it will turn you into a good manager (are you listening, you damn MBAs?), nor will an apprenticeship teach you what you need to know to be an efficient one in all situations.
More accurately, the wisdom of crowds needs to be aggregated to become wisdom. I think Curtis does not understand what the wisdom of crowds is. It is not a bunch of anonymous cowards flaming away on a political forum. It is not even democracy where the crowd votes in a winner takes all election. The wisdom of the crowd can be discovered when individual preferences, collections and votes are aggregated over a sufficiently large group of individuals, to make possible things like Delicious or Genius.
I think that remote anything should be opt-in by the user, or, in an enterprise setting, should be added on by the enterprise before distributing the units
Remote install will be a great help in managing corporate applications; if you leave installing updates to the users, you'll have a nightmare on your hands if you want/have to keep all versions the same.
Opt-in is a good idea, though. I like how that works on the iPhone; we get access to our corporate email and calendar on private iPhones by means of a certificate, which enforces a few things like requiring a pin lock on the phone. Removing the certificate or the pin lock is still possible, but you'll lose access to the corporate server when you do (and locally stored company emails are deleted). In the same way you could allow the company to install or update apps on your phone... even when it's a privately owned one.
Noisy? Unless you have an overclocked gaming rig, desktops can be made very very quiet. My work machine, a cheap off-the-shelf HP minitower, is nearly silent. In contrast most laptops, even the expensive business ones, have issues getting rid of excess heat. Tax them hard and they will be rather noisy.
The same goes for mentioning Hitler. In fact, "Think of the children", or the more modern variant "child pr0n, ohnoes!" should be made into a political Godwin. Any proposal for a law that does not specifically and narrowly targets child abuse, yet mentions children in the law or the proposal, will be automatically thrown out and the submitter of the proposal shall be summarily defenestrated.
I have an apostrophe in my surname, and you'd be surprised at how many systems break when I try to enter it... even in this day and age where character escaping and scrubbing for SQL are readily available in most languages, often even in the standard libraries. And you'd be surprised at how many systems return a response that hints at something like that cartoon being possible...
Even worse are the systems that seem to accept the response, then break down internally. I've had some bitter arguments over reservations at car rental and airline check in counters.
How easy is it to fool this thing? For instance, will holding a picture of the laptop's owner in front of the camera unlock the machine?
To make face recognition more secure, perhaps they should use two camera's and get a 3d scan of the face (can be fooled as well but less easy), or require that the face is moving. Perhaps even ask the user to read a randomly chosen word and lip-read the response.
What I read in that article is that the Greens would love to get their hands on that budget to spend it on their own pet projects. All of which have so far failed to produce sustainable results that we can apply on a large scale, I might add.
That doesn't mean we shouldn't do those Green projects, since we are leanring from them. The same goes for ITER or laser confinement. ITER seems terribly expensive so asking hard questions is ok, but in this case I do call the Greens' motives into question as well.
Go for it! I've left LOTRO for the somewhat darker fantasy of AoC, but LOTRO is a hell of a good game. One thing that they do particularly well is publishing; I've never seen an MMO with such smooth patches and major releases. And they do regular fun seasonal events too.
I was rather surprised by the move to go free-to-play, but perhaps it's not the sign of a dying game... perhaps they've had good experience with DDO.
I wonder what exactly is in that data. Because if it's anything good, they'll use it for sure. Remember, the German government is the same one that bought data which was stolen from a Swiss bank, to go after tax evaders with offshore savings accounts... They then sold the stolen data to the Dutch internal revenue service. The Dutch courts (this went all the way to the supreme court IIRC) had no issue whatsoever with this data being used to track down tax evaders.
Funny, evidence in criminal court needs to meet certain standards, and there are rules for intel that doesn't get used as evidence as well. But when it comes to tax evasion, apparently it's fine to traffic in stolen goods. No, I do not trust my government with the Google data, and I hope they will not get it.
I don't know about blinking, but for me there is a huge difference in eyestrain caused by e-ink or LCDs. When I got my iPad I was ready to put my e-reader up on eBay, but I thought better of it.
The iPad is great for reading reference material: fast and easy search, quick flipping through the book, images and diagrams come out great... However the iPad sucks for prolonged reading of text. This is where the e-readers really shine, I can read with an e-reader for hours on end without any eye strain, and I can do so sitting outside in the sun as well. Try that with an iPad or laptop...
In fact, the e-reader comes so close to reading a proper book that after a while I often find myself trying to turn a physical page when using the e-reader.
Their intentions are irrelevant. The government has no business banning porn, period. It is reasonable to limit access of minors to porn, or to ensure porn models are of age and participate voluntarily. And most countries have reasonably effective laws to accomplish that. To use a (bad) car analogy, banning porn to prevent abuse and exploitation is like banning cars to prevent driveby shootings.
About the morality issue I have two words for political and religious leaders who seek to ban porn or other activities that are victimless and harmless: "fuck off". Seriously. And do not presume to take responsibility for my soul, or my mental well being. They are in very good hands thanks. If anyone is going to answer for any transgressions I might have committed, it'll be me.
I think you would be complaining about gas prices if you'd go abroad (*) and found out you had to pay $8 a gallon, just because you were "roaming". And if you compare charges for data roaming to gas prices, it'd be more like $400 a gallon.
*) By "abroad" I exclude certain countries in Europe like mine, where gas will be $8 a gallon regardless of the nationality of the motorist...
If Apple really have this much clout, how about doing something for their loyal customers? Something that has been lacking from iPhone subscription plans from the start... How about making all carriers who got exclusivity for the iPhone and iPad give users of those products free data roaming, regardless of what country they are from? Or charge a nominal fee, whatever. Maybe a $10/week charge. Just so that using Google maps in a foreign city won't bankrupt me.
A scramjet needs to get to about mach 25 within the atmosphere at the Earth's surface to get to orbit. At altitude it'll be less... though how much less I don't know.
At what altitude will these engines still work, and what will be the escape velocity there?
How? Make registration optional. I notice that a lot of websites these days do just that: you can register login and customise the site to your taste, or you can post as a guest (not anonymously).
Proprietary in-house solutions aren't even always the more expensive choice. It's too bad these decisions are often made poorly.
Outsourcing is good, focus on core business, buy-not-build, standardise, 80-20 solutions... all of these make sense, but I am dealing too often with the mess made by people turning these good pieces of advise into thoughtless mantras and moronic MBA one-liners, as a replacement for thoughtful and informed decision making. A lot of todays leadership doesn't want to make decisions; they look for rules to make their decisions for them.
Sure, and I don't think these iPads are set to displace netbooks or laptops anytime soon. But they have their uses.
For example: I think my (reasonably techy) parents will get one, precisely so they can sit on the couch and surf... they currently have an aging Macbook for that, which gets a lot of use. They like the Macbook because of its ease of use and the fact that it starts up quickly and trouble-free when you open the lid. They were going to replace it with another Macbook, but I think they'll be getting an iPad instead. It does a better job, has a better form factor... and it's cheaper, too.
Slashdot Mirror
With Firefly it was the setting, mostly. It was too western-y for my taste.
No... didn't see that at all. Maybe this says more about you than it does about the game's designers?
Sounds like we have similar tastes. I really got drawn into Oblivion's world despite the ho-hum storyline, while Dragon Age failed to grab me at all. Perhaps it's the open sandbox-style gameplay of Oblivion that appeals to me... Dragon age felt like I was on rails, like one of those Disneyland rides, which is why I gave it up after a few hours.
By the way, I'm the same with SciFi and Firefly.
A good programmer needs both formal education to learn theoretical background, and solid on-the-job training to learn what good software development means in practice (version control, code reviews, etc, etc). Formal education will not turn you into a good programmer any more than it will turn you into a good manager (are you listening, you damn MBAs?), nor will an apprenticeship teach you what you need to know to be an efficient one in all situations.
More accurately, the wisdom of crowds needs to be aggregated to become wisdom. I think Curtis does not understand what the wisdom of crowds is. It is not a bunch of anonymous cowards flaming away on a political forum. It is not even democracy where the crowd votes in a winner takes all election. The wisdom of the crowd can be discovered when individual preferences, collections and votes are aggregated over a sufficiently large group of individuals, to make possible things like Delicious or Genius.
Remote install will be a great help in managing corporate applications; if you leave installing updates to the users, you'll have a nightmare on your hands if you want/have to keep all versions the same.
Opt-in is a good idea, though. I like how that works on the iPhone; we get access to our corporate email and calendar on private iPhones by means of a certificate, which enforces a few things like requiring a pin lock on the phone. Removing the certificate or the pin lock is still possible, but you'll lose access to the corporate server when you do (and locally stored company emails are deleted). In the same way you could allow the company to install or update apps on your phone... even when it's a privately owned one.
Exactly, and he did so first!
Noisy? Unless you have an overclocked gaming rig, desktops can be made very very quiet. My work machine, a cheap off-the-shelf HP minitower, is nearly silent. In contrast most laptops, even the expensive business ones, have issues getting rid of excess heat. Tax them hard and they will be rather noisy.
The same goes for mentioning Hitler. In fact, "Think of the children", or the more modern variant "child pr0n, ohnoes!" should be made into a political Godwin. Any proposal for a law that does not specifically and narrowly targets child abuse, yet mentions children in the law or the proposal, will be automatically thrown out and the submitter of the proposal shall be summarily defenestrated.
Who complained? The parents? If so, the only proper response would have been: "Well, what did you expect, numbnuts?"
I have an apostrophe in my surname, and you'd be surprised at how many systems break when I try to enter it... even in this day and age where character escaping and scrubbing for SQL are readily available in most languages, often even in the standard libraries. And you'd be surprised at how many systems return a response that hints at something like that cartoon being possible...
Even worse are the systems that seem to accept the response, then break down internally. I've had some bitter arguments over reservations at car rental and airline check in counters.
How easy is it to fool this thing? For instance, will holding a picture of the laptop's owner in front of the camera unlock the machine?
To make face recognition more secure, perhaps they should use two camera's and get a 3d scan of the face (can be fooled as well but less easy), or require that the face is moving. Perhaps even ask the user to read a randomly chosen word and lip-read the response.
What I read in that article is that the Greens would love to get their hands on that budget to spend it on their own pet projects. All of which have so far failed to produce sustainable results that we can apply on a large scale, I might add.
That doesn't mean we shouldn't do those Green projects, since we are leanring from them. The same goes for ITER or laser confinement. ITER seems terribly expensive so asking hard questions is ok, but in this case I do call the Greens' motives into question as well.
Understanding the limits of your own knowledge is the furst step on the path to +3 insightfulness.
Go for it! I've left LOTRO for the somewhat darker fantasy of AoC, but LOTRO is a hell of a good game. One thing that they do particularly well is publishing; I've never seen an MMO with such smooth patches and major releases. And they do regular fun seasonal events too.
I was rather surprised by the move to go free-to-play, but perhaps it's not the sign of a dying game... perhaps they've had good experience with DDO.
The big screwup is getting caught at collecting it.
I wonder what exactly is in that data. Because if it's anything good, they'll use it for sure. Remember, the German government is the same one that bought data which was stolen from a Swiss bank, to go after tax evaders with offshore savings accounts... They then sold the stolen data to the Dutch internal revenue service. The Dutch courts (this went all the way to the supreme court IIRC) had no issue whatsoever with this data being used to track down tax evaders.
Funny, evidence in criminal court needs to meet certain standards, and there are rules for intel that doesn't get used as evidence as well. But when it comes to tax evasion, apparently it's fine to traffic in stolen goods. No, I do not trust my government with the Google data, and I hope they will not get it.
I don't know about blinking, but for me there is a huge difference in eyestrain caused by e-ink or LCDs. When I got my iPad I was ready to put my e-reader up on eBay, but I thought better of it.
The iPad is great for reading reference material: fast and easy search, quick flipping through the book, images and diagrams come out great... However the iPad sucks for prolonged reading of text. This is where the e-readers really shine, I can read with an e-reader for hours on end without any eye strain, and I can do so sitting outside in the sun as well. Try that with an iPad or laptop...
In fact, the e-reader comes so close to reading a proper book that after a while I often find myself trying to turn a physical page when using the e-reader.
Their intentions are irrelevant. The government has no business banning porn, period. It is reasonable to limit access of minors to porn, or to ensure porn models are of age and participate voluntarily. And most countries have reasonably effective laws to accomplish that. To use a (bad) car analogy, banning porn to prevent abuse and exploitation is like banning cars to prevent driveby shootings.
About the morality issue I have two words for political and religious leaders who seek to ban porn or other activities that are victimless and harmless: "fuck off". Seriously. And do not presume to take responsibility for my soul, or my mental well being. They are in very good hands thanks. If anyone is going to answer for any transgressions I might have committed, it'll be me.
I think you would be complaining about gas prices if you'd go abroad (*) and found out you had to pay $8 a gallon, just because you were "roaming". And if you compare charges for data roaming to gas prices, it'd be more like $400 a gallon.
*) By "abroad" I exclude certain countries in Europe like mine, where gas will be $8 a gallon regardless of the nationality of the motorist...
If Apple really have this much clout, how about doing something for their loyal customers? Something that has been lacking from iPhone subscription plans from the start... How about making all carriers who got exclusivity for the iPhone and iPad give users of those products free data roaming, regardless of what country they are from? Or charge a nominal fee, whatever. Maybe a $10/week charge. Just so that using Google maps in a foreign city won't bankrupt me.
A scramjet needs to get to about mach 25 within the atmosphere at the Earth's surface to get to orbit. At altitude it'll be less... though how much less I don't know.
At what altitude will these engines still work, and what will be the escape velocity there?
How? Make registration optional. I notice that a lot of websites these days do just that: you can register login and customise the site to your taste, or you can post as a guest (not anonymously).
Proprietary in-house solutions aren't even always the more expensive choice. It's too bad these decisions are often made poorly.
Outsourcing is good, focus on core business, buy-not-build, standardise, 80-20 solutions... all of these make sense, but I am dealing too often with the mess made by people turning these good pieces of advise into thoughtless mantras and moronic MBA one-liners, as a replacement for thoughtful and informed decision making. A lot of todays leadership doesn't want to make decisions; they look for rules to make their decisions for them.
Sure, and I don't think these iPads are set to displace netbooks or laptops anytime soon. But they have their uses.
For example: I think my (reasonably techy) parents will get one, precisely so they can sit on the couch and surf... they currently have an aging Macbook for that, which gets a lot of use. They like the Macbook because of its ease of use and the fact that it starts up quickly and trouble-free when you open the lid. They were going to replace it with another Macbook, but I think they'll be getting an iPad instead. It does a better job, has a better form factor... and it's cheaper, too.