I'm not sure I'd call it "simple." It could kill the game by making it impossible to enjoy - the guys that can spend 16 hours a day grinding for gear would now also be able to safely spend real money (that they don't have to spend on rent because they're living in mom's basement) to buy even better gear and make things like battlegrounds even less fun for casual gamers.
Then again, maybe they're already doing that via the gold/item/level farmers. Maybe a legitimate exchange system for real-world money would make it more fun; as I understand it, replacing a black market with a legitimate market usually results in lower prices. Perhaps lower prices would allow me to spend $5 for that epic item instead of suffering through a 40-man raid experience 10 times hoping for a drop.
But that's all just a bunch of maybes, and some people (like me) probably aren't gonna spend even more money on something that's just entertainment, so the hard-core people are always going to do better than I am - they're willing to invest more time/money/whatever to maintain their uber-leet status in a *fictional game world*. So I guess I'm leaning towards, "legitimate gold/item purchases will kill the game for me." I'll just play until it isn't fun any more, and then I'll find something else to do for entertainment.
I was really glad to see the "overpoweredness" of the gear that I got in Outland, because (for a little while, at least) it significantly reduced the gap between me and the people that can spend 20 hours a day grinding in the game for uber-gear. It was nice to go into a level 70 battleground and have a realistic chance of winning because nobody had an outrageous gear advantage. Sure, that gap will reappear shortly, but it's nice while it lasts. Hopefully there will be more expansions in the future...
Anyway, I've really kinda gotten over the treadmill thing. I may log on and do a quest or two, or go farm for something I need for a little bit, and then log off and do something else. Sometimes that's a nice break from work/homework/housework/yardwork, and I'm glad the game isn't so important to me that I feel the need to treat it like a job. It's just entertainment.
For what it's worth, snopes.com says the legend of the boiling frog is false. But I do wonder sometimes if we should just get it over with and start fucking things up ASAP.:)
[Tinfoil Hat] Increases the chance that the wearer will resist Mind Control, but at the expense of having intellect reduced by 100 and chance to resist Fear reduced by 75%. Doubles the effect of Paranoia against stealthed black helicopters.
It's fucking annoying to hear it announced like it's a bad thing. If it inadvertently entered this state, it could be bad a suppose, but as long as the hafnium rods where avaialable to be shoved back down in there to stem the reaction this wouldn't be a problem?
I know what you mean about the misuse of the term "critical," but I think in this case it is the proper term to describe a bad thing. In the first situation a reactor (presumably shut down for maintenance, probably with no systems to come to the rescue with lots of negative reactivity) becomes critical without anybody knowing about it for 15 minutes. Remember that there's not a lot of margin between critical and prompt critical (which I'm sure you probably remember as very bad), and sometimes it might not be hard to go from one to the other. Ask the guy that got pinned to the ceiling at SL-1 if having a reactor enter a critical state while you're not looking can be bad.
In the second situation some poor schlub is pouring a solution containing some fissile material into a bucket and it goes critical on him. Personally, I'd find an up-close-and-personal dose of neutrons from a bucket at arm's length to be a bad start to the day.
IMHO a critical assembly is nothing to worry about as long as (1) it's got instruments (and alert people) watching it that can trigger some rapid negative reactivity and (2) there's lots of shielding between me and and the assembly.
Please note that TFA says they're only reducing homework to near zero for elementary school students:
The changes have come as a University of Missouri study found high school students benefit tremendously from homework. In middle school, the results were not as strong, but homework was still found to be beneficial. But on the elementary school level, the same study found homework had no effect on students.
So if there's really no measurable benefit to doing homework in elementary school, why give them homework just because "that's the way it's always been done?" Of course, I'm hoping that the study was conducted correctly and that its conclusions are actually valid.
5400 rpm drives are constantly seeking even for the most mundane tasks in Vista.
As if that's new....I wish I had a nickle for every time I sat there wondering what the hell Win2000 or XP was doing with all my CPU cycles and disk I/O when all I did was right-click on something in Explorer or try to copy a 2kB file.
Honestly, what does Vista offer that should make me want to buy a new machine with >= 2GB of RAM just to run the damn OS?
You know, if it turns out that this firm really is doing something illegal, and Google is still using them, maybe I will find another search engine to use. It's not like web search is a critical part of my life, or that it can only be done using Google's products.
That's the most useful information I've seen in all the posts under this article...time for some letters/emails informing their clients that I will be terminating my business with them if they can't tell me they won't be using this advertising firm any more. Whether it will hurt them or not I don't know, but it seems that I can't count on my government to do anything about people like this.
In the past, myths were used to explain the unexplainable at he time: stars, weather, seasons, etc. Today, I believe myths have a different use. Despite the fact that we know they are made up, fantasy worlds such as star trek, star wars, lotr, help us to escape what amounts to the daily grind. We get up, go to work, go home, make dinner for most of our lives, with a week or two of real vacation worked in per year. I think people enjoy these fantasy worlds so that they can place themselves in the world, and escape this one.
I expect that anybody living a couple hundred years in the past (or in the third world today, for that matter) would have quite a chuckle at the idea that we need escape from our "daily grind" more than they needed escape from their world. I think if I found myself in a life where I had to spend most of my time and energy just to keep myself fed, I'd need an escape far more than any first-world cubicle monkey needs it to relieve the stress of having 8 bosses.:)
I am curious to know why you think that setting off big nukes or making observations of EM, nuclear forces, etc. would necessarily have turned up some evidence that dark matter exists....maybe those things just don't involve dark matter. Is QM a modern aether because dropping cannon balls from a tower didn't turn up any evidence for the Uncertainty Principle?
As far as I know, dark matter is something proposed to explain observed behavior at the galaxy scale and larger, not nuclear bombs, EM, or nuclear forces. Many people have formed various hypotheses, made some observations, tried to explain those observations in terms of the available models, and voila: in this research the predictions based on the dark matter hypothesis seem to match up with observations. Sounds kinda like science to me, but what do I know?
It looks like modern aether, and it looks as though anyone buying it will be upset when someone working right along on the regular investigations into quantum physics and spacetime and so on puts it together and says, "oh, here's why that galaxy moves that way. We didn't need dark matter after all..."
If the idea of dark matter turns out to be entirely wrong, then we'll figure it out, and I'll be happy even though I "buy" the dark matter explanation for the moment. Something tells me the folks that did this research would be happy about it, too, because we'd have made progress by ruling out a candidate hypothesis. In the meantime, you're more than welcome to make observations or hypotheses of your own, since you seem to know enough to peg dark matter as a "modern aether."
Oh, please. This machine only uses 300kW - that's maybe the equivalent of 150 American homes. These folks are building a specialized (as in not "more of the same") machine to support a particular bit of science (molecular dynamics simulations) that isn't gonna make for flashy headlines, and I say more power to them. I'd rather there were more scientists out there doing basic research that may actually be useful, than have them chasing after stuff for headlines that will make you happy.
And if you're trolling, yeah, you got me, so congratulations.
Well, in the case of SETI@Home, it wouldn't be cheaper to run on the supercomputer - SETI isn't paying for the power to run all those CPUs out there in people's homes and offices.
If the resources are available to crack rc5, to do distributed based work on a cure for cancer, and crunch data captured from radio antennas in search of little green men from mars, then I think we have the know-how necessary get some thing like this up and running.
Well the examples that you mention are not really the same as "attempting to break software and search for problems long before release." If I understand these issues correctly: (1) (with apologies to crypto specialists) RC5 cracking required lots of CPU time to factor a big-ass number, (2) projects like Folding@Home aren't "looking for a cure for cancer," they're running (I think) quantum chemistry simulations to find out how certain molecules can act in certain situations, and (3) SETI@Home is looking for specific patterns in signal data. In all three of these cases, there's a few common (maybe not so simple) operations that need to be applied to a large set of data or initial conditions, and that's why they need lots of machines, or fast machines.
Figuring out how clever people will take advantage of a particular implementation of a web browser or TCP/IP stack is a completely different class of problem IMHO. Yeah, maybe there's some clever AI techniques that may simulate attack attempts, and maybe they could come up with attacks that nobody has thought of yet, but a really fast computer will not somehow magically solve these kinds of problems for us. There's a lot of hard science and software engineering that needs to be done first.
I always found it curious that such a smart man could also have such a lousy private life.
Funny...I recall reading about quite a few "smart people" with lousy private lives, but not that many with good ones (maybe my memory is somewhat selective, though). Some obsessed over their work too much, some lacked other skills needed to support a good private life (like money management, interpersonal skills, etc.). Just because somebody is really, really good in a particular field doesn't mean that they can handle everyday life.
Insightful? Cutesy-kind-of-funny, maybe, but not insightful. Sorry to be a cynical adult, but there are many 6-year-olds in this world who have real problems that make their life hell. They have adults or older children in their lives that beat them or abuse them sexually, or they don't have enough to eat, or there's a war going on around them.
This sentiment of, "I want to be 6 again," only makes sense if you were fortunate enough to grow up with a good family in a decent place. Some people would rather die than go back to their childhood. While I'm at it, the laundry list of "adult problems" above is pretty fucking weak too. If mountains of paperwork and gossip are among your biggest problems, then your life isn't all that bad.
Seems to me that this chain letter^H^H^H^H^H^H^post is the sort of thing one would expect to hear from an immature adult that thinks the world owes them a cushy life.
Well it's not "grinding," unless the meaning of the word "grind" has changed recently, but there is at least one laser procedure available to civilians that doesn't cut a flap.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not sure I'd call it "simple." It could kill the game by making it impossible to enjoy - the guys that can spend 16 hours a day grinding for gear would now also be able to safely spend real money (that they don't have to spend on rent because they're living in mom's basement) to buy even better gear and make things like battlegrounds even less fun for casual gamers.
Then again, maybe they're already doing that via the gold/item/level farmers. Maybe a legitimate exchange system for real-world money would make it more fun; as I understand it, replacing a black market with a legitimate market usually results in lower prices. Perhaps lower prices would allow me to spend $5 for that epic item instead of suffering through a 40-man raid experience 10 times hoping for a drop.
But that's all just a bunch of maybes, and some people (like me) probably aren't gonna spend even more money on something that's just entertainment, so the hard-core people are always going to do better than I am - they're willing to invest more time/money/whatever to maintain their uber-leet status in a *fictional game world*. So I guess I'm leaning towards, "legitimate gold/item purchases will kill the game for me." I'll just play until it isn't fun any more, and then I'll find something else to do for entertainment.
I was really glad to see the "overpoweredness" of the gear that I got in Outland, because (for a little while, at least) it significantly reduced the gap between me and the people that can spend 20 hours a day grinding in the game for uber-gear. It was nice to go into a level 70 battleground and have a realistic chance of winning because nobody had an outrageous gear advantage. Sure, that gap will reappear shortly, but it's nice while it lasts. Hopefully there will be more expansions in the future...
Anyway, I've really kinda gotten over the treadmill thing. I may log on and do a quest or two, or go farm for something I need for a little bit, and then log off and do something else. Sometimes that's a nice break from work/homework/housework/yardwork, and I'm glad the game isn't so important to me that I feel the need to treat it like a job. It's just entertainment.
For what it's worth, snopes.com says the legend of the boiling frog is false. But I do wonder sometimes if we should just get it over with and start fucking things up ASAP. :)
[Tinfoil Hat] Increases the chance that the wearer will resist Mind Control, but at the expense of having intellect reduced by 100 and chance to resist Fear reduced by 75%. Doubles the effect of Paranoia against stealthed black helicopters.
I know what you mean about the misuse of the term "critical," but I think in this case it is the proper term to describe a bad thing. In the first situation a reactor (presumably shut down for maintenance, probably with no systems to come to the rescue with lots of negative reactivity) becomes critical without anybody knowing about it for 15 minutes. Remember that there's not a lot of margin between critical and prompt critical (which I'm sure you probably remember as very bad), and sometimes it might not be hard to go from one to the other. Ask the guy that got pinned to the ceiling at SL-1 if having a reactor enter a critical state while you're not looking can be bad.
In the second situation some poor schlub is pouring a solution containing some fissile material into a bucket and it goes critical on him. Personally, I'd find an up-close-and-personal dose of neutrons from a bucket at arm's length to be a bad start to the day.
IMHO a critical assembly is nothing to worry about as long as (1) it's got instruments (and alert people) watching it that can trigger some rapid negative reactivity and (2) there's lots of shielding between me and and the assembly.
Please note that TFA says they're only reducing homework to near zero for elementary school students:
So if there's really no measurable benefit to doing homework in elementary school, why give them homework just because "that's the way it's always been done?" Of course, I'm hoping that the study was conducted correctly and that its conclusions are actually valid.
What is inappropriate prosthetising? Is that like having three artificial legs or something?
Honestly, what does Vista offer that should make me want to buy a new machine with >= 2GB of RAM just to run the damn OS?
You know, if it turns out that this firm really is doing something illegal, and Google is still using them, maybe I will find another search engine to use. It's not like web search is a critical part of my life, or that it can only be done using Google's products.
That's the most useful information I've seen in all the posts under this article...time for some letters/emails informing their clients that I will be terminating my business with them if they can't tell me they won't be using this advertising firm any more. Whether it will hurt them or not I don't know, but it seems that I can't count on my government to do anything about people like this.
Worst Star Trek ever!!! I will only be fleeced three more times.....today.
I am curious to know why you think that setting off big nukes or making observations of EM, nuclear forces, etc. would necessarily have turned up some evidence that dark matter exists....maybe those things just don't involve dark matter. Is QM a modern aether because dropping cannon balls from a tower didn't turn up any evidence for the Uncertainty Principle?
As far as I know, dark matter is something proposed to explain observed behavior at the galaxy scale and larger, not nuclear bombs, EM, or nuclear forces. Many people have formed various hypotheses, made some observations, tried to explain those observations in terms of the available models, and voila: in this research the predictions based on the dark matter hypothesis seem to match up with observations. Sounds kinda like science to me, but what do I know?
If the idea of dark matter turns out to be entirely wrong, then we'll figure it out, and I'll be happy even though I "buy" the dark matter explanation for the moment. Something tells me the folks that did this research would be happy about it, too, because we'd have made progress by ruling out a candidate hypothesis. In the meantime, you're more than welcome to make observations or hypotheses of your own, since you seem to know enough to peg dark matter as a "modern aether."
I don't need to imagine the /. comments...I get enough V1AGR4 and Ci@LI5 spam already, thank you very much.
Oh, wait....you meant ED == "Elephant's Dream"....never mind..
Oh, please. This machine only uses 300kW - that's maybe the equivalent of 150 American homes. These folks are building a specialized (as in not "more of the same") machine to support a particular bit of science (molecular dynamics simulations) that isn't gonna make for flashy headlines, and I say more power to them. I'd rather there were more scientists out there doing basic research that may actually be useful, than have them chasing after stuff for headlines that will make you happy.
And if you're trolling, yeah, you got me, so congratulations.
Well, in the case of SETI@Home, it wouldn't be cheaper to run on the supercomputer - SETI isn't paying for the power to run all those CPUs out there in people's homes and offices.
Well the examples that you mention are not really the same as "attempting to break software and search for problems long before release." If I understand these issues correctly: (1) (with apologies to crypto specialists) RC5 cracking required lots of CPU time to factor a big-ass number, (2) projects like Folding@Home aren't "looking for a cure for cancer," they're running (I think) quantum chemistry simulations to find out how certain molecules can act in certain situations, and (3) SETI@Home is looking for specific patterns in signal data. In all three of these cases, there's a few common (maybe not so simple) operations that need to be applied to a large set of data or initial conditions, and that's why they need lots of machines, or fast machines.
Figuring out how clever people will take advantage of a particular implementation of a web browser or TCP/IP stack is a completely different class of problem IMHO. Yeah, maybe there's some clever AI techniques that may simulate attack attempts, and maybe they could come up with attacks that nobody has thought of yet, but a really fast computer will not somehow magically solve these kinds of problems for us. There's a lot of hard science and software engineering that needs to be done first.
There's more than you can buy.
Do you mean philote, or am I just missing something? Either way, physicists might object to your use of the word "we." :)
Insightful? Cutesy-kind-of-funny, maybe, but not insightful. Sorry to be a cynical adult, but there are many 6-year-olds in this world who have real problems that make their life hell. They have adults or older children in their lives that beat them or abuse them sexually, or they don't have enough to eat, or there's a war going on around them.
This sentiment of, "I want to be 6 again," only makes sense if you were fortunate enough to grow up with a good family in a decent place. Some people would rather die than go back to their childhood. While I'm at it, the laundry list of "adult problems" above is pretty fucking weak too. If mountains of paperwork and gossip are among your biggest problems, then your life isn't all that bad.
Seems to me that this chain letter^H^H^H^H^H^H^post is the sort of thing one would expect to hear from an immature adult that thinks the world owes them a cushy life.
Well it's not "grinding," unless the meaning of the word "grind" has changed recently, but there is at least one laser procedure available to civilians that doesn't cut a flap.