I'm surprised that no one has tried to turn Detroit into the next SV. You've got a decent sized city that's on the rebound (although it still needs A LOT of work), a large and affluent suburban ring around the city, and tons of well educated people already in tech with the car industry. Not to mention you have the uber liberal Ann Arbor and U of M a half hour away. The only major thing holding Detroit back is the lack of good infrastructure, but that could be remedied if someone was willing to pay for it. Land is beyond cheap in Detroit, in fact a savvy tech investor could probably buy what's leftover from Dan Gilbert's shopping spree and split the city with him. True the weather isn't the best here (although it's not the worst) but is is right next to Canada and all they have to offer. Maybe it's just easier to move into a sparsely populated area and build it up rather than tear down and rebuild?
I'm still using the same Core i7 desktop I built 10 years ago as my main computer and it works just fine. I don't game on my PC, just web surfing, email, and streaming. Other than upgrading the RAM from 6GB to 12GB and putting in a new (well old, but newer than what I was using (GTX 260 to Radeon 7770)) graphics card that I was given for free a few years back I haven't done anything with it. I remember when you had to upgrade your computer ever 3-4 years just to run all the latest programs (mostly games, but productivity as well) but now you can hang onto your old PC until it dies and still be alright. I can't think of anything that won't run on my PC at the moment other than maybe some of the newest games. The days of constant upgrades are over.
I'll admit that I didn't read the article (just watched the video), but I'm assuming that they're not running this on a real Atari 2600. This looks more like a bug in their emulation than in the game code. Most of us have played the 2600 version of Q*Bert to death and have never seen anything like this before.
Actually there is a major bug in the 2600 version of Q*Bert that I'm surprised the AI didn't take advantage of. If you time it right and jump towards an enemy right as they're jumping towards you, you'll pass right through each other. This is because in the 2600 version you don't actually jump between cubes, you just 'teleport' between them due to system limitations. Once you get the timing down it's actually pretty hard to die.
They might start moving here. Keep your nuttiness over on the coast where it belongs.;)
Seriously though, the Midwest has always been a hub of technological innovation, it's just not the sexy kind that makes news. SE Michigan (where I am) has a large amount of talented engineers because of all the automotive companies and suppliers. We also have a lot of biotech and high tech manufacturing communities. It just seems that unless it's related to one of the major west coast tech companies no one cares. Personally I love it out here, the people are friendly and way more welcoming (my wife is from CA and seemed surprised by this when she moved here), the cost of living is low, and while we're not as trendy as the coasts, we do have a lot of trendy areas (check out Ann Arbor sometime). The only thing that sucks here is the weather, but it's not as bad as it's made out to be. There really is more to the US than the coasts.
I can't believe enough people are throwing that amount of money at them year after year. At least Amazon has a viable business plan that isn't threatened near daily by lawsuits and regulations. A fool and their money I suppose...
I have a degree in Computer Science and yes, I had to take an ethics in technology class. I found it rather interesting too. This was long before Facebook and Social Media though so I imagine the class has changed quite a bit.
You'd be surprised. No it's not like being a movie star or famous singer, but they get some notoriety that can be translated into cash (sort of like a youtube celeb). I think mostly it's about ego. You're the best (in the world!) at something and for some people that's all they have going for them.
There are tons of fireflies here in SE Michigan. They're more plentiful in wetter years, but there are always some in the beginning and middle of summer. They seem to like the damp so if you're in a drier area or an area that has had some drought that might explain things.
I'm still using Office 2013 and my wife is using 2010 and they both work just fine. In fact the newer versions (such as 2016 we use at work) have more bloated crap glued to the already cluttered interface. Is there anything in these newer versions that makes for a compelling reason to update?
I ended up trading some old computer equipment for a practically new Wii-U that someone got bored with and I love it. I wouldn't want it as my main console (I have a PS4 for that) but I like it for all the exclusive games it had. Towards the end of its life I picked up a ton of exclusives cheap and I've been slowly playing through them all (Tokyo Mirage Sessions FE is my current favorite). I see that some of the better exclusives have been ported to switch (Bayonetta 2 for example) but there are still tons of Wii-U exclusive games that make it worth owning like Xenoblade Chronicles X and Super Mario 3D World.
I'll end up getting a Switch eventually, but right now I'm not seeing much worth playing other than Mario Odyssey and Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (BotW is on Wii U as well). I'm sure this will change but for right now the Switch isn't particularly compelling.
That's the weird part. Either it was a mistake on Activision's part (maybe a 7 looked like a 1), or maybe Todd said he got 5.51 and made the photo extra blurry so you couldn't tell, or it's even possible that there was no photo and Todd just said he got the score and Activision believed him (this was all new territory back then). Either way Todd ran with the lie and claimed that 5.51 from then on. I don't think we'll ever know as that photo (assuming it ever existed) is long gone. There are many who doubt the photo ever existed.
>>Occam's razor in me says - crappy TV in 1980 and a 7 looked like a 1:)
That was one explanation for it, but he said that he got the same score at least two other times. So even if the first score was just a typo, he ran with the lie.
>>They spent a lot of time covering up this one and similar submissions from this player.
Pretty much. Somehow he became the 'golden boy' of classic gaming high scores and they decided it was in their best interests to keep his cheating a secret. People knew, but either they were pressured to keep their mouths shut or were friends of his and just looked the other way. Unfortunately for them, people kept digging and finding more and more evidence of irregularities and eventually they couldn't keep the lie up without looking totally ridiculous.
Basically he said he did it back in the day and sent a photo to Activision (which is how it was done back then). Activision published it in their newsletter so everyone assumed it was legit. He also claimed to do it publicly a few times but no one could say they witnessed it. Fast forward 30+ years later and people started digging into the code because they suspected his score wasn't possible. They determined that the game code doesn't allow for anything less than 5.57 so he must have lied. He tried to avoid the question and I think at one point he was supposed to do a new live event to prove his score was legit but obviously none of that happened. So basically it was just old school lying and less than adequate fact checking back in the day.
Many of his other scores were under suspicion too because they were either outrageously high (like 1,110,500 in Fathom where the next highest score was 152 and the game ends after 7 rounds so you can't cheese it for points) or outright impossible (his Barnstorm score was proven bogus when someone removed all the obstacles in the game and they still couldn't come close to the score he claimed). He also submitted a lot of scores that ended with the wrong digit (like ending in 50 when the game only awarded points by 100's). So after a lot of reviews they determined that he cheated once too often and banned him for life. I'm sure some of his scores were actually legitimate (he's a good player from what I've read) but when you cheat once then all your scores have to go.
Native Detroiter here, and I'm glad we didn't make the cut. At first I was somewhat excited that we might possibly land the second HQ (our biggest strength was being close to Canada, make of that what you will), but the more I read about what cities who try and land these mega factories or HQs have to give up in return the more I thought it was a bad idea. Not only do you have to bend over backwards in tax breaks, but the jobs created never make up for what had to be given up. It's true that Amazon is far less likely to close up shop in 20 years than say the FoxConn factory that WI sold their souls for, but I honestly don't think the jobs brought in would have covered the additional costs. I also don't think Amazon would have been a good 'cultural fit' with the area. My money is on Austin or possibly Denver as the ultimate winners.
Unless you're doing gaming or some serious design work, even a PC from 10+ years ago is still good enough. I'm still using my Core i7 920 based PC that I built 8 years ago as my main PC (Linux/Win 10 dual boot). The only things I've added were more memory (bumped it up to 12GB from 6GB) and a SSHD because they were cheap and added some decent speed up. I'll probably continue using it until it dies as I haven't seen any reason to upgrade. Hell, I finally just got my wife to replace her ancient HP Celeron desktop PC with a new one. She had that PC from long before we even met (10+ years).
Personally I can't stand laptops or tablets, I've never liked them. I have one just because I'm required to for work and I never use it other than for work. Anything other than killing time on my iPhone is done on my PC. I have no idea how anyone gets anything beyond basic email and web surfing done on a phone, but I guess they do. To each their own I guess.
>>Apparently he lacks the spine to justify himself before the group of individuals his decisions affect most.
I'm guessing it's more like he fears for his life at this point. Never underestimate what a group of angry people will do. If society can justify punching out people they disagree with then they can just as easily justify beating the crap out of Pai.
I did eHarmony back when it was newish. While I did get a lot of dates out of it, I never really met anyone I wanted to 'take it to the next level' with. New friends maybe, but not wife material. IIRC the questions they asked you were interesting (although they still sounded a lot like something you'd get asked on a 70's dating show) and probably filtered out the 'really wrong for you' people, but they really didn't help as much as they seem to imply. I still met plenty of people I knew weren't going to work within 5 min of meeting them. Later on I went with a smaller site and met the woman of my dreams almost instantly. We've been married for 8 years now and we couldn't be happier.
Honestly, if you can find a smaller 'themed' dating site that suits your interests then you'll probably have better luck on those even if they have a smaller pool of people. It helps to have a common starting point that you both feel very strongly about (religion in my case). These larger sites may have more people, but those extra people are probably not going to be what you want anyway.
That phrase scares me. Not only is it vague but it's ripe for misuse. For example, say I were to post a message saying "Gods blessings on everyone". Can that be considered hateful to gays and atheists? What about "Obama is the worst president we've ever had"? Is that hateful to Democrats and Liberals? This is a can of worms that should not be opened IMHO but I suppose it's their technology and they do what they want.
An I would want this why? Even if I was a fan of the celebrity I can't think of anything more annoying than to sit though a video rather than read the answer in a quarter of the time.
I was about to say this. Complaining about anything, even anonymously, leads to trouble. Either management will ignore the complaint and try and track down the 'troublemakers' (there's really no such thing as anonymous feedback folks) or they'll go the exact opposite and bend over backwards to fix the issue only going overboard and causing new issues in return. It never works out the way you think it will.
An example: Someone complained that there were never enough meeting rooms open and they couldn't discuss needed issues with their co-workers. Management's response? An open floor plan so everyone can talk to the person next to them non-stop (as long as you shout that is). Now everyone in that department is miserable as hell and they still have communication problems because it's too loud to hold meetings. The manager who put that open floor plan in is long gone (golden retirement parachute for his moronic dickery) and they all suffer.
I'm sure they do. It's kind of unnerving that they could get the info that way though. I'm starting to think investing in tinfoil hats might not be that crazy after all.:P
Slashdot Mirror
I'm surprised that no one has tried to turn Detroit into the next SV. You've got a decent sized city that's on the rebound (although it still needs A LOT of work), a large and affluent suburban ring around the city, and tons of well educated people already in tech with the car industry. Not to mention you have the uber liberal Ann Arbor and U of M a half hour away. The only major thing holding Detroit back is the lack of good infrastructure, but that could be remedied if someone was willing to pay for it. Land is beyond cheap in Detroit, in fact a savvy tech investor could probably buy what's leftover from Dan Gilbert's shopping spree and split the city with him. True the weather isn't the best here (although it's not the worst) but is is right next to Canada and all they have to offer. Maybe it's just easier to move into a sparsely populated area and build it up rather than tear down and rebuild?
I'm still using the same Core i7 desktop I built 10 years ago as my main computer and it works just fine. I don't game on my PC, just web surfing, email, and streaming. Other than upgrading the RAM from 6GB to 12GB and putting in a new (well old, but newer than what I was using (GTX 260 to Radeon 7770)) graphics card that I was given for free a few years back I haven't done anything with it. I remember when you had to upgrade your computer ever 3-4 years just to run all the latest programs (mostly games, but productivity as well) but now you can hang onto your old PC until it dies and still be alright. I can't think of anything that won't run on my PC at the moment other than maybe some of the newest games. The days of constant upgrades are over.
My comment got a bit garbled there. What I meant was that the enemies 'teleport' in this version, Q*Bert actually does jump between cubes.
I'll admit that I didn't read the article (just watched the video), but I'm assuming that they're not running this on a real Atari 2600. This looks more like a bug in their emulation than in the game code. Most of us have played the 2600 version of Q*Bert to death and have never seen anything like this before.
Actually there is a major bug in the 2600 version of Q*Bert that I'm surprised the AI didn't take advantage of. If you time it right and jump towards an enemy right as they're jumping towards you, you'll pass right through each other. This is because in the 2600 version you don't actually jump between cubes, you just 'teleport' between them due to system limitations. Once you get the timing down it's actually pretty hard to die.
They might start moving here. Keep your nuttiness over on the coast where it belongs. ;)
Seriously though, the Midwest has always been a hub of technological innovation, it's just not the sexy kind that makes news. SE Michigan (where I am) has a large amount of talented engineers because of all the automotive companies and suppliers. We also have a lot of biotech and high tech manufacturing communities. It just seems that unless it's related to one of the major west coast tech companies no one cares. Personally I love it out here, the people are friendly and way more welcoming (my wife is from CA and seemed surprised by this when she moved here), the cost of living is low, and while we're not as trendy as the coasts, we do have a lot of trendy areas (check out Ann Arbor sometime). The only thing that sucks here is the weather, but it's not as bad as it's made out to be. There really is more to the US than the coasts.
I can't believe enough people are throwing that amount of money at them year after year. At least Amazon has a viable business plan that isn't threatened near daily by lawsuits and regulations. A fool and their money I suppose...
Serious question here, how does a company lose 4.5 BILLION dollars and survive? That's just mind boggling.
I have a degree in Computer Science and yes, I had to take an ethics in technology class. I found it rather interesting too. This was long before Facebook and Social Media though so I imagine the class has changed quite a bit.
You'd be surprised. No it's not like being a movie star or famous singer, but they get some notoriety that can be translated into cash (sort of like a youtube celeb). I think mostly it's about ego. You're the best (in the world!) at something and for some people that's all they have going for them.
There are tons of fireflies here in SE Michigan. They're more plentiful in wetter years, but there are always some in the beginning and middle of summer. They seem to like the damp so if you're in a drier area or an area that has had some drought that might explain things.
I'm still using Office 2013 and my wife is using 2010 and they both work just fine. In fact the newer versions (such as 2016 we use at work) have more bloated crap glued to the already cluttered interface. Is there anything in these newer versions that makes for a compelling reason to update?
I ended up trading some old computer equipment for a practically new Wii-U that someone got bored with and I love it. I wouldn't want it as my main console (I have a PS4 for that) but I like it for all the exclusive games it had. Towards the end of its life I picked up a ton of exclusives cheap and I've been slowly playing through them all (Tokyo Mirage Sessions FE is my current favorite). I see that some of the better exclusives have been ported to switch (Bayonetta 2 for example) but there are still tons of Wii-U exclusive games that make it worth owning like Xenoblade Chronicles X and Super Mario 3D World.
I'll end up getting a Switch eventually, but right now I'm not seeing much worth playing other than Mario Odyssey and Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (BotW is on Wii U as well). I'm sure this will change but for right now the Switch isn't particularly compelling.
That's the weird part. Either it was a mistake on Activision's part (maybe a 7 looked like a 1), or maybe Todd said he got 5.51 and made the photo extra blurry so you couldn't tell, or it's even possible that there was no photo and Todd just said he got the score and Activision believed him (this was all new territory back then). Either way Todd ran with the lie and claimed that 5.51 from then on. I don't think we'll ever know as that photo (assuming it ever existed) is long gone. There are many who doubt the photo ever existed.
>>Occam's razor in me says - crappy TV in 1980 and a 7 looked like a 1 :)
That was one explanation for it, but he said that he got the same score at least two other times. So even if the first score was just a typo, he ran with the lie.
>>They spent a lot of time covering up this one and similar submissions from this player.
Pretty much. Somehow he became the 'golden boy' of classic gaming high scores and they decided it was in their best interests to keep his cheating a secret. People knew, but either they were pressured to keep their mouths shut or were friends of his and just looked the other way. Unfortunately for them, people kept digging and finding more and more evidence of irregularities and eventually they couldn't keep the lie up without looking totally ridiculous.
Basically he said he did it back in the day and sent a photo to Activision (which is how it was done back then). Activision published it in their newsletter so everyone assumed it was legit. He also claimed to do it publicly a few times but no one could say they witnessed it. Fast forward 30+ years later and people started digging into the code because they suspected his score wasn't possible. They determined that the game code doesn't allow for anything less than 5.57 so he must have lied. He tried to avoid the question and I think at one point he was supposed to do a new live event to prove his score was legit but obviously none of that happened. So basically it was just old school lying and less than adequate fact checking back in the day.
Many of his other scores were under suspicion too because they were either outrageously high (like 1,110,500 in Fathom where the next highest score was 152 and the game ends after 7 rounds so you can't cheese it for points) or outright impossible (his Barnstorm score was proven bogus when someone removed all the obstacles in the game and they still couldn't come close to the score he claimed). He also submitted a lot of scores that ended with the wrong digit (like ending in 50 when the game only awarded points by 100's). So after a lot of reviews they determined that he cheated once too often and banned him for life. I'm sure some of his scores were actually legitimate (he's a good player from what I've read) but when you cheat once then all your scores have to go.
Native Detroiter here, and I'm glad we didn't make the cut. At first I was somewhat excited that we might possibly land the second HQ (our biggest strength was being close to Canada, make of that what you will), but the more I read about what cities who try and land these mega factories or HQs have to give up in return the more I thought it was a bad idea. Not only do you have to bend over backwards in tax breaks, but the jobs created never make up for what had to be given up. It's true that Amazon is far less likely to close up shop in 20 years than say the FoxConn factory that WI sold their souls for, but I honestly don't think the jobs brought in would have covered the additional costs. I also don't think Amazon would have been a good 'cultural fit' with the area. My money is on Austin or possibly Denver as the ultimate winners.
When I wear your granddad's clothes I look incredible. Now what do I do?
Unless you're doing gaming or some serious design work, even a PC from 10+ years ago is still good enough. I'm still using my Core i7 920 based PC that I built 8 years ago as my main PC (Linux/Win 10 dual boot). The only things I've added were more memory (bumped it up to 12GB from 6GB) and a SSHD because they were cheap and added some decent speed up. I'll probably continue using it until it dies as I haven't seen any reason to upgrade. Hell, I finally just got my wife to replace her ancient HP Celeron desktop PC with a new one. She had that PC from long before we even met (10+ years).
Personally I can't stand laptops or tablets, I've never liked them. I have one just because I'm required to for work and I never use it other than for work. Anything other than killing time on my iPhone is done on my PC. I have no idea how anyone gets anything beyond basic email and web surfing done on a phone, but I guess they do. To each their own I guess.
>>Apparently he lacks the spine to justify himself before the group of individuals his decisions affect most.
I'm guessing it's more like he fears for his life at this point. Never underestimate what a group of angry people will do. If society can justify punching out people they disagree with then they can just as easily justify beating the crap out of Pai.
I did eHarmony back when it was newish. While I did get a lot of dates out of it, I never really met anyone I wanted to 'take it to the next level' with. New friends maybe, but not wife material. IIRC the questions they asked you were interesting (although they still sounded a lot like something you'd get asked on a 70's dating show) and probably filtered out the 'really wrong for you' people, but they really didn't help as much as they seem to imply. I still met plenty of people I knew weren't going to work within 5 min of meeting them. Later on I went with a smaller site and met the woman of my dreams almost instantly. We've been married for 8 years now and we couldn't be happier.
Honestly, if you can find a smaller 'themed' dating site that suits your interests then you'll probably have better luck on those even if they have a smaller pool of people. It helps to have a common starting point that you both feel very strongly about (religion in my case). These larger sites may have more people, but those extra people are probably not going to be what you want anyway.
>>that might be considered hateful
That phrase scares me. Not only is it vague but it's ripe for misuse. For example, say I were to post a message saying "Gods blessings on everyone". Can that be considered hateful to gays and atheists? What about "Obama is the worst president we've ever had"? Is that hateful to Democrats and Liberals? This is a can of worms that should not be opened IMHO but I suppose it's their technology and they do what they want.
An I would want this why? Even if I was a fan of the celebrity I can't think of anything more annoying than to sit though a video rather than read the answer in a quarter of the time.
I was about to say this. Complaining about anything, even anonymously, leads to trouble. Either management will ignore the complaint and try and track down the 'troublemakers' (there's really no such thing as anonymous feedback folks) or they'll go the exact opposite and bend over backwards to fix the issue only going overboard and causing new issues in return. It never works out the way you think it will.
An example: Someone complained that there were never enough meeting rooms open and they couldn't discuss needed issues with their co-workers. Management's response? An open floor plan so everyone can talk to the person next to them non-stop (as long as you shout that is). Now everyone in that department is miserable as hell and they still have communication problems because it's too loud to hold meetings. The manager who put that open floor plan in is long gone (golden retirement parachute for his moronic dickery) and they all suffer.
I'm sure they do. It's kind of unnerving that they could get the info that way though. I'm starting to think investing in tinfoil hats might not be that crazy after all. :P