Actually, I didn't even bother with binders. My secret requires reading the text before attending class. Better yet, read it twice. Go to class with a couple of highlighters and a couple of pencils.
Pay attention while Prof lectures, instead of blindly copying down everything verbatim. If he seems to be spending an inordinate amount of time on a particular part of the text, whip out your handy highlighter and mark the appropriate part of the text.
If he covers something that's not in the book... well, every college text I ever saw has acres of white space. Fat margins, lots of space at the top and bottom of each page, tons of useless illustrations.... just find a spot that seems appropriate and make your notes right in the textbook.
Advantages: More time spent in class listening and learning, instead of blindly taking notes. When it's time to study for exams, all your study materials are in one place, hopefully well organized.
Disadvantages: You've got to read the text beforehand so that you know whats in the book and what isn't. For this reason, probably 98% of students won't be able to use this method.
Exactly. It can be cool as shit, reduce RSI risk to nil, but if I can only type 20 WPM with it, it's not worth it. We need a group of independent testers to try these devices out, report how long it took to switch over and how their productivity was affected once they maxed out. Thats the only way we can decide whether something like this is worth it.
Sheesh... back when I was going to school (mid 80's), the outfit I worked for had a couple hundred of these stored in a back room. They were unopened... the company was using the computers for some sort of hotel management software system, and didn't need the keyboards. They gave me a couple of them when I asked, but I often wonder what happened to the rest of 'em. They probably got thrown out.
I bought 3 baby toys... the little wooden posts and colored wooden stackign rings. Tossed the rings, stacked all my CDs on the posts.
No, they're not at all organized. I don't need them to be. 98% of my CDs are programs or archives I've burned or something else that I need to keep, but rarely if ever use. The once every month I need one of them, it's not that big a deal to shuffle through the stack. It certainly takes less time to do that then it would to label and file and catalog and remember to replace everything.
The 5 or so CD's I use regularly are always at the top of the stack, so I have no problem finding them. It's not organized, but it is effecient.
I wonder why this driver cheat was discovered by Extremetech? If you're a video card manufacturer, wouldn't you have your engineers go over every one of the competitions driver releases with a fine-toothed comb, just hoping to find some kind of cheat? You'd think ATI has better testing facilities are resources then ET.
Certainly any negative publicity for NVidia is good for ATI and vice versa.
I think it's pretty obvious that nV has joined the long, proud list of video card manufacturers that have fudged on their drivers to make their card look better then it is. The question I've got is... why?
I mean I understand best-case. You cook the benchmarks, you don't get caught... profit! But I'd think that getting caught cheating at benchmarks would really screw sales, not to mention a companies reputation. Is the risk worth the possible payoff?
If it is, then I can only figure the either A) companies cheat at benchmarks all the time, and rarely get caught, or B) Companies don't really notice any sort of backlash when they do get caught. If getting caught cheating won't hurt sales, there's really no reason (from a business standpoint, anyway) not to do it.
The only other reason I can come up with is that nV feels the market slipping away from them. If they feel that they can't compete fairly, they might decide that it's either fudge on a few benchmarks, or go out of business.
I'm imagining that you can probably pause your game to take any phone calls that come in. God forbid you should screw up your quest for the high score.
And frankly, I feel that the fewer gadgets I've got to tote around, keep track of, remember to recharge, etc... the better. As long as the few gadgets perform all their functions as well or better then the many, I'll be happy to ditch the extraneous ones.
Actually, it affects people who live in CA and buy from any merchant who has "representatives" in California. Which means if your business has an authorized repair center or representative in California, owns part of business in California, etc.
Which means it looks like just about any internet purchase a California resident makes is going to be taxed, no matter where they order it from.
I think those ads will work if they're targeted at the right audience. You're right about the Internet being an interactive experience, but for some people it's a lot less interactive then others. I usually have about 5 zilla tabs and Email and some other apps going simultaneously. Somthing bogs down for half-a-second, I'm off to the next window.
But I visited my parents a couple of weekends ago, and helped Mom look for some stuff on Ebay. I was amazed at how she sat there placidly watching each page drip slowwwwwly through their 56K connection. No impatience, no irritation... that was the way it was, and that was the way she took it.
Someone mentioned seeing these ads on msn.com, and that's the perfect audience. The folks who still have MSN as their home page because they don't know how to change it WILL sit there and placidly chew their cud and watch the pretty ads.
I don't think you'll seen them on/. anytime soon, though...
Its not the companies fault if her gun gets stolen from her car. If she's so obsessed with her handgun that she can't leave the house without it, she needs to go back to a career where carrying a sidearm is a requirement.
Hell, maybe she wears the gun around the house, too. Just in case, you know...
I've got a strong feeling that a lot of Netflix' heaviest users are suffering from AYCE syndrome anyway.
That's "All You Can Eat". Some people will go to one of those places, and they'll gorge themselves until they're miserable. They feel like they already paid, so by god they're going to get their moneys worth. You can watch them actually forcing another mouthful in, even though they're stuffed already. Fascinating and disturbing.
Netflix could well be the same way. Some people feel like they paid their money, and they're going to rent their DVD's. They don't care what they rent, they don't really care if they even get to watch it. They just want to feel like they're getting their moneys worth.
If thats the case, making those people wait longer isn't going to harm Netflix. They don't care what they rent or how long they have to wait, so long as the get a package in the mail every other day or so and feel like they're beating the system.
Actually, those heavy renters probably cost Netflix money, since Netflix has to pick up processing and postage fees. They probably wouldn't be too sad if some of them got tired of the wait times and quit.
I would say that two customers who pay the same amount for their Netflix account are equally "loyal", regardless of how many movies they rent.
At first blush, this seemed to be the classic net biz strategy. Offer new customers the moon and the stars to start a new account, then ignore them as soon as they do. Result is established customers are constantly leaving to chase a better offer somewhere else. Companies feel like they have to offer even more luctrative sign-up offers to offset the customers they're losing. There never seems to be an effort to hang on to the existing customer.
The Netflix situation is different, though. I makes good business sense for Netflix to try to hang on to the customers who only occasionally use their service. For one thing, they would seem a lot more likely to cancel their service if they're dissatisfied. Also, occasional renters are much more profitable... same monthly fee, much less cost in the way of order processing, postage, etc.
Here's what I'd do if I was Netflix. Give every account a couple of priority tokens per month. Use your token on a DVD rental, and you're automatically bumped up to the very top of the allocation stack (under all the other people who used their priority tokens, at least). Occasional renters could use their priority tokens every time they requested a movie, and be assured that they'd get it fairly quickly. Frequent renters could still get the one or two movies they really, REALLY wanted quickly, but would have to wait for the rest. They would at least have some control over the situation, and would understand why they had to wait longer for the rest of their movies.
I thought that device looked pretty interesting. Steep learning curve, but I'm really curious about what kind of speed a user could achieve if they got really proficient with it.
It looks small enought to be tucked into a laptop bag, and I would imagine it's fairly quiet as well. Could be very useful for taking notes at meetings or lectures, where you want to keep distracting noises to a minimum.
Of course, at $1295, I'll never get a chance to find out.
Trollish is obviously his first language, so I think he's doing remarkably well.
Re:Is this strickly legal?
on
GTA3 Multiplayer
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· Score: 2, Insightful
As other posters have said, a lot of todays games are designed to be easily modified, or to have maps/weapons/models added. Game companies realize that a vibrant mod community is very helplful to continued sales of a game.... see "Life, Half".
Generally, there is something in the License agreement (or there's a seperate agreement altogether) stating what can be modded and the legal status therof. I remember an Id agreement from a few years back that you could mod anything you wanted and release it for free. If you wanted to charge money for it, you needed to contact the Id Biz department and work out royalty arrangements.
I'm not sure what the legal status of GTA mods is. I've seen instructions for adding a new car model to the game, and they're fairly complex. The game doesn't seem to have been designed to be easily modded. In that case, the legal status of said mods may be in doubt.
OTOH, Rockstar seems to be fairly cool company. There was a story here a few weeks ago (post link for cheap Karma) about how they'd released GTA2 as a free download. I would imagine that as long as a GTA3 mod didn't impact any of their commercial plans, they wouldn't have a problem with it.
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Actually, I didn't even bother with binders. My secret requires reading the text before attending class. Better yet, read it twice. Go to class with a couple of highlighters and a couple of pencils.
Pay attention while Prof lectures, instead of blindly copying down everything verbatim. If he seems to be spending an inordinate amount of time on a particular part of the text, whip out your handy highlighter and mark the appropriate part of the text.
If he covers something that's not in the book... well, every college text I ever saw has acres of white space. Fat margins, lots of space at the top and bottom of each page, tons of useless illustrations.... just find a spot that seems appropriate and make your notes right in the textbook.
Advantages: More time spent in class listening and learning, instead of blindly taking notes. When it's time to study for exams, all your study materials are in one place, hopefully well organized.
Disadvantages: You've got to read the text beforehand so that you know whats in the book and what isn't. For this reason, probably 98% of students won't be able to use this method.
Exactly. It can be cool as shit, reduce RSI risk to nil, but if I can only type 20 WPM with it, it's not worth it. We need a group of independent testers to try these devices out, report how long it took to switch over and how their productivity was affected once they maxed out. Thats the only way we can decide whether something like this is worth it.
Sheesh... back when I was going to school (mid 80's), the outfit I worked for had a couple hundred of these stored in a back room. They were unopened... the company was using the computers for some sort of hotel management software system, and didn't need the keyboards. They gave me a couple of them when I asked, but I often wonder what happened to the rest of 'em. They probably got thrown out.
You don't actually buy CD-R's on spindles, do you?
The cheap ones I buy just come in a shrink-wrapped pack of 100, with no spindle. Hency my thrift store runs.
I bought 3 baby toys... the little wooden posts and colored wooden stackign rings. Tossed the rings, stacked all my CDs on the posts.
No, they're not at all organized. I don't need them to be. 98% of my CDs are programs or archives I've burned or something else that I need to keep, but rarely if ever use. The once every month I need one of them, it's not that big a deal to shuffle through the stack. It certainly takes less time to do that then it would to label and file and catalog and remember to replace everything.
The 5 or so CD's I use regularly are always at the top of the stack, so I have no problem finding them. It's not organized, but it is effecient.
Te
I wonder why this driver cheat was discovered by Extremetech? If you're a video card manufacturer, wouldn't you have your engineers go over every one of the competitions driver releases with a fine-toothed comb, just hoping to find some kind of cheat? You'd think ATI has better testing facilities are resources then ET.
Certainly any negative publicity for NVidia is good for ATI and vice versa.
It took them an hour and a half to compose a warning EMail to their customers that didn't have the letter P in in anywhere.
I think it's pretty obvious that nV has joined the long, proud list of video card manufacturers that have fudged on their drivers to make their card look better then it is. The question I've got is... why?
I mean I understand best-case. You cook the benchmarks, you don't get caught... profit! But I'd think that getting caught cheating at benchmarks would really screw sales, not to mention a companies reputation. Is the risk worth the possible payoff?
If it is, then I can only figure the either A) companies cheat at benchmarks all the time, and rarely get caught, or B) Companies don't really notice any sort of backlash when they do get caught. If getting caught cheating won't hurt sales, there's really no reason (from a business standpoint, anyway) not to do it.
The only other reason I can come up with is that nV feels the market slipping away from them. If they feel that they can't compete fairly, they might decide that it's either fudge on a few benchmarks, or go out of business.
Oh, that ad was aimed at *you*? Damn, and here all this time he was making fun of *me*.
I forgive ya, John! Um... is it too late to buy Daikatana now?
I'm imagining that you can probably pause your game to take any phone calls that come in. God forbid you should screw up your quest for the high score.
And frankly, I feel that the fewer gadgets I've got to tote around, keep track of, remember to recharge, etc... the better. As long as the few gadgets perform all their functions as well or better then the many, I'll be happy to ditch the extraneous ones.
You forgot to mention whether or not it runs Linux. With all those other advantages, I'll just go ahead and assume that it does.
Actually, it affects people who live in CA and buy from any merchant who has "representatives" in California. Which means if your business has an authorized repair center or representative in California, owns part of business in California, etc.
Which means it looks like just about any internet purchase a California resident makes is going to be taxed, no matter where they order it from.
..but with my accent, I'll never be mistaken as a native. I wonder if that disqualifies me for the position?
That would lead to a wife who is smarter and has a better memory then me.
I'm not sure that's quite what I want.
Can't we have a victory for perversion?
I think those ads will work if they're targeted at the right audience. You're right about the Internet being an interactive experience, but for some people it's a lot less interactive then others. I usually have about 5 zilla tabs and Email and some other apps going simultaneously. Somthing bogs down for half-a-second, I'm off to the next window.
/. anytime soon, though...
But I visited my parents a couple of weekends ago, and helped Mom look for some stuff on Ebay. I was amazed at how she sat there placidly watching each page drip slowwwwwly through their 56K connection. No impatience, no irritation... that was the way it was, and that was the way she took it.
Someone mentioned seeing these ads on msn.com, and that's the perfect audience. The folks who still have MSN as their home page because they don't know how to change it WILL sit there and placidly chew their cud and watch the pretty ads.
I don't think you'll seen them on
Its not the companies fault if her gun gets stolen from her car. If she's so obsessed with her handgun that she can't leave the house without it, she needs to go back to a career where carrying a sidearm is a requirement.
Hell, maybe she wears the gun around the house, too. Just in case, you know...
I'm just anticipating problems when I try to board a commercial flight carrying one of those.
Jeff Bezos shot INTO space.
And then I thought "'bout damn time!".
I read that last sentence as:
Without a serious lobbying group in DC, piracy will continue to be eroded!
I've got a strong feeling that a lot of Netflix' heaviest users are suffering from AYCE syndrome anyway.
That's "All You Can Eat". Some people will go to one of those places, and they'll gorge themselves until they're miserable. They feel like they already paid, so by god they're going to get their moneys worth. You can watch them actually forcing another mouthful in, even though they're stuffed already. Fascinating and disturbing.
Netflix could well be the same way. Some people feel like they paid their money, and they're going to rent their DVD's. They don't care what they rent, they don't really care if they even get to watch it. They just want to feel like they're getting their moneys worth.
If thats the case, making those people wait longer isn't going to harm Netflix. They don't care what they rent or how long they have to wait, so long as the get a package in the mail every other day or so and feel like they're beating the system.
Actually, those heavy renters probably cost Netflix money, since Netflix has to pick up processing and postage fees. They probably wouldn't be too sad if some of them got tired of the wait times and quit.
I would say that two customers who pay the same amount for their Netflix account are equally "loyal", regardless of how many movies they rent.
At first blush, this seemed to be the classic net biz strategy. Offer new customers the moon and the stars to start a new account, then ignore them as soon as they do. Result is established customers are constantly leaving to chase a better offer somewhere else. Companies feel like they have to offer even more luctrative sign-up offers to offset the customers they're losing. There never seems to be an effort to hang on to the existing customer.
The Netflix situation is different, though. I makes good business sense for Netflix to try to hang on to the customers who only occasionally use their service. For one thing, they would seem a lot more likely to cancel their service if they're dissatisfied. Also, occasional renters are much more profitable... same monthly fee, much less cost in the way of order processing, postage, etc.
Here's what I'd do if I was Netflix. Give every account a couple of priority tokens per month. Use your token on a DVD rental, and you're automatically bumped up to the very top of the allocation stack (under all the other people who used their priority tokens, at least). Occasional renters could use their priority tokens every time they requested a movie, and be assured that they'd get it fairly quickly. Frequent renters could still get the one or two movies they really, REALLY wanted quickly, but would have to wait for the rest. They would at least have some control over the situation, and would understand why they had to wait longer for the rest of their movies.
I thought that device looked pretty interesting. Steep learning curve, but I'm really curious about what kind of speed a user could achieve if they got really proficient with it.
It looks small enought to be tucked into a laptop bag, and I would imagine it's fairly quiet as well. Could be very useful for taking notes at meetings or lectures, where you want to keep distracting noises to a minimum.
Of course, at $1295, I'll never get a chance to find out.
Give the guy a break.
Trollish is obviously his first language, so I think he's doing remarkably well.
As other posters have said, a lot of todays games are designed to be easily modified, or to have maps/weapons/models added. Game companies realize that a vibrant mod community is very helplful to continued sales of a game.... see "Life, Half".
Generally, there is something in the License agreement (or there's a seperate agreement altogether) stating what can be modded and the legal status therof. I remember an Id agreement from a few years back that you could mod anything you wanted and release it for free. If you wanted to charge money for it, you needed to contact the Id Biz department and work out royalty arrangements.
I'm not sure what the legal status of GTA mods is. I've seen instructions for adding a new car model to the game, and they're fairly complex. The game doesn't seem to have been designed to be easily modded. In that case, the legal status of said mods may be in doubt.
OTOH, Rockstar seems to be fairly cool company. There was a story here a few weeks ago (post link for cheap Karma) about how they'd released GTA2 as a free download. I would imagine that as long as a GTA3 mod didn't impact any of their commercial plans, they wouldn't have a problem with it.