The Portugese system goes further and makes other drivers angry with you for speeding.
I think the Portuguese system is the future. Note that it shames you in front of other drivers, but that it also slows you as a penalty for speeding. People will naturally adopt the behavior that gets them where they are going fastest. If you make 'speeding' the slower option, people will just naturally drive safer.
As a former employee of an international road transportation company, we studied the exact same thing.
Interesting fact. When someone is driving in a place they don't know, they drive slower. You can duplicate the effect by making changes to a known environment, like this study does by adding cars to the roadside. Second interesting fact? Once the changes become 'known', speeds return to what they were previously. I notice this part is somehow absent in the claims that "the lower speeds make things safer."
If I was from the University of Connecticut, I'd be embarrassed to be releasing this study.
I never realized how intercoupled the songs on Pink Floyd albums were until I happened to listen to the songs on my mp3 device while set to 'random song'. It was jumping all over my music collection, and all the Pink Floyd songs were either jarring to come into or ended abruptly. I can see why they didn't want them split up. They really are parts of a whole with a few exceptions.
But c'mon, what balls on EMI. Because they signed a contract that said EMI could only sell the records if they were intact, EMI tried to weasel out by saying they weren't selling records. But then I remember this is one of the labels behind the RIAA extortion scheme, so I shouldn't be surprised.
I'm with the crew that says this doesn't add up. 1) Stepfather goes out of his way to buy obscure Wii controller that looks like the handgun he owns 2) Stepfather leaves loaded gun on coffee table in the living room, presumably where the Wii controllers sit. (Not in the bedroom, not on a shelf, etc. Even if he's lazy, you would probably leave a loaded gun somewhere other than your living room.) 3) Stepfather leaves the gun on the coffee table with a round in the chamber and the hammer cocked. (This is important because a 3 year old probably wouldn't have the strength to overcome the hammer action and pull the trigger otherwise.)
Too many "coincidences" here. That's all I'm saying.
I had money set aside for AC2. (I played AC1, liked it, but I'm not a console gamer so buying it on the PC is my only option.) But once I heard about the DRM they had planned, I knew I couldn't buy it. I work at a job where I travel, sometimes going to remote places in South America with spotty or expensive internet. At those times, my gaming laptop is my friend.
So now I have that money earmarked for Stardock. I've always been happy with their products and service and hey, I can count on their products. So I'll be buying Elemental: War of Magic when it releases.
P: "It would be a shame if something happened to your store... But for only 20% of your gross, we could protect it."
SO: "But, I have no crime in my store. I have state of the art security cameras, proximity alarms, private security guards. I've spared no expense and made sure my store is secure"
P: "True, but you see there's another shop down the street and it gets broken into every week. Someone has to pay for that."
While there are many other wtf videos that could be used as prank material, it has what few other videos have: recognition as a prank video.
Bingo. If you use this video, the response is... "I've been rickrolled! Ha ha ha, they got me!" If you use some other video, the repsonse is "Hmm. This link must be going to the wrong video. This isn't what I expected. Probably a typo in the link. Oh well, let's see what's new on/."
I'm from the mid-Atlantic and the hockey teams I've heard about only play 82 games in a season, not the 365 that you considered.
As a Canadian, I can verify that the hockey teams you've heard about play 82 games a season. Do you suppose they ever practice? Do you suppose there might be other levels of hockey? The average facility around here is in use 365. (Yes, there are even games on Christmas) You're only thinking about top-level hockey. You're completely forgetting Senior, Club, City league, Junior (Major, A, B, C, D), Women's, etc. Just ask the parents of young hockey players who have been up at 5 am for the child's game because that's the only ice time available.
So it's not just me... I returned to school after graduating a decade previous in order to brush up on newer technologies. (Working while taking classes part-time). Luckily, as it was a computer class, the lecturer would put up his presentations before the class so we could download them to our laptops and follow along. The need to draw diagrams was removed, and I could just edit the documents with details of in-class discussions, so the need to hand write was not an issue. Since it was a project class, there was no mid-term.
HOWEVER, when I went to write the final, my hand quickly became the claw about 30 minutes in. I had not only avoided handwriting in class, I haven't hand written more than a sketch in 10 years. (I type 100+ wpm and actually type faster than I can write. Why would I?) I finished the exam in so much pain.
I got 100% on the part of the exam I completed. However, I was only able to complete 80% of the exam due to severe pain in my writing hand, resulting in a mark that was not a fair representation of my knowledge. It's frustrating knowing that if I had been able to type or orally provide my answers, I would've easily been in the top percentile. (10 years of industry experience being very helpful)
"Hey, we're gonna watch The Texas Chainsaw Massacre tonight and talk about it tomorrow. Oh, you can't come tonight? No problem, I'll just put the movie up on the class website." It's not exactly shocking that someone objected to that.
WAITAMINUTE.
Copyright was created to protect the rights and ownership of the author and insure they were compensated for their work for a limited time in return for the work becoming publicly available to enrich the community later. However, there are exceptions. Specifically... "In the United States, the fair use doctrine, permits copying and distribution without permission of the copyright holder or payment to same. Fair dealing uses are research and study; review and critique; parody and satire; news reportage and the giving of professional advice (i.e. legal advice)."
Which use of this material by this class DOES NOT fall into research, study, review or critique? The method the information is transmitted is utterly irrelevant. On what basis could you object?
I still remember the first Far Side comic I saw, of the truck smashed into a single palm tree in the middle of a desert. It was so bizarre, so absurd that I laughed out loud.
Isn't Far Side strange that way. I still remember the first one I ever saw too. It was the one where a beggar was on the street asking "Spare Armadillo?" and the panel picture has a man in a suit walking by with an armadillo under each arm, and thinking "What do I do, What do I do?"
That just blew my mind at the time. It was so surreal, and yet it's look at the real issue of resource distribution.
Finished it... Good game, but horrid planet scan
on
Review: Mass Effect 2
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I finished the game on Sunday. It is a very different game than ME as far as game mechanics, but they kept what made ME great, the sense of controlling a riveting story. The story in ME2 is just as good.
My one flaw with the game is the obvious planet scanning time sink. For those of you not playing the game, when you come to a new planet, you need to scan it for usable minerals, minerals needed to progress in the game. The scanning consists of holding down your right mouse button, then slowly waving the mouse back and forth over a picture of a planet from orbit. You slowly move back and forth until a graph on the right side spikes. Then you click the left mouse button to extract the mineral you 'found', and then you do it again.
Even explaining that, I'm almost falling asleep. It was so jarring to find this obvious time waster in a game that was so tightly scripted and enjoyable. All I can think is they completed the game, and said "Hey, we need to add another 5-10 hours onto the gameplay." "Ok, so instead of just pushing a button that says 'Extract all usable minerals from planet", why don't we make them mouse over every square inch of the planet? That's gotta add 5-10 hours! IN FACT, even if it only adds 5 hours, it'll make the game seem much longer because it's so boring!"
Nobody in advertising cares if 500,000,000 people watch a show if no ads were seen.
Yes, but advertising cares if Heroes has 1 million watching the regular broadcast... But 5 million watching on a website that servers a single ad right before the broadcast commences.
Because then Nielson could put together a ratings list that shows ratings based on the amount of advertising. I won't lie, like most people one of the reasons I prefer watching TV through alternate means is to avoid the advertising. Yet I don't require zero advertising. There is a level of advertising that's more acceptable.
With this information, networks could find out how LESS advertising could generate more views. As a result, they could offer scaled advertising rates to advertisers based on the number of views. Which is exactly what the Nielson ratings are supposed to be doing now, except they totally ignore the big black hole of online content. This change, only measuring apples to apples comparisons and completely ignoring the oranges, just makes that big black hole slightly smaller. It doesn't serve the advertisers, it doesn't serve the viewers and it doesn't accept that there are new entertainment models.
Federation: This game is so cool! I can fly through the universe! Hey, there's another ship. I'll see if I can hail him... Klingon: *BLAST* *BLAST* *BLASTBLASTBLAST* Federation: Hey, why aren't you responding to hails? Shouldn't we discuss this Captain to Captain? I have so many witty things to... *BOOM* Klingon: (Proceeds to begin looting debris)
Which one do you think is going to evoke the Star Trek spirit/sell more subscriptions?
The Israeli system mostly works because of one thing... Racial/cultural profiling. Oh, they'll tell you they look in people's eyes for signs of evasion or shiftiness, but if you watch for a short while, you'll notice that the 'random' people they pull out for further screening have certain things in common...
And you know what. I'm not sure it's a bad thing. Let's be blunt, for all our political correctness, the vast majority of bombers do have certain cultural commonalities. No system is perfect, but if you can focus more attention to the highest risks, you get a more efficient system. That's why their system works. Speaking for myself, as someone who is pretty much the opposite of what they are looking for, I walked through security in minutes. Is it fair? Well, no, but it's hard to argue with the results. A location that is FAR more likely to suffer from terrorist attack is safer and much more efficient at protecting themselves than those of us in North America.
You are aware that "avatar+keygen" gives no meaningful results, aren't you, because it's just link spam from fishy sites?
I wasn't aware the results weren't meaningful. I'm not a pirate, so I didn't actually verify them.
However, YOU are aware that it's already possible to download the 3D versions of the movie Avatar from certain pirate locations? Which would tell me that, even if I have not found them, yes, the keys are readily available or they have been bypassed by pirates. Which was exactly my point.
,,,isn't this an issue with the company not purchasing the proper licenses in the appropriate amount of time rather than an issue with DRM?
The issue with most DRM is that it a) Does not actually stop pirates (at best it slows them down) and b) Does impair the ability for legitimate owners to use their purchase as intended.
This is a perfect example. The DRM was broken so quickly, keys were available online http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=avatar+keygen so pirates were not inconvenienced, but the legitimate customers (the theatre who was showing the movie) were unable to use the item they had purchased in a timely manner.
So I would disagree, this issue is indeed with DRM
Thank you! I was wondering if anyone would recognize the "Car of Theseus". I do find it quite amusing how people think these are new concepts, when in fact they've been debated by ancient Greek philosophers.:)
A few years ago, I build myself a homemade PVR with off the shelf equipment and some open source software. Combine that with starting to buy a season of a show I liked on DVD instead of watching the broadcasts. I stopped watching regular TV. Interestingly I found code that already existed to identify probable commercials, and then would auto-skip. At the same time, I started using ad-blocker software on my browser. Long story short, recently I had an invitation to go over to a friends place, and we watched a live show he enjoyed and wanted to share with me. THE COMMERCIALS WERE UNBEARABLE. They were long, they were loud, they completely destroyed the narrative. Eventually, I had to tell him I couldn't do it. I would record the show on my PVR, then I invited him over to my place at a future date to watch future episodes. (We did, and I enjoyed the show so much, I now watch it regularly)
The point is that, only a few years ago, I was easily able to watch broadcast TV. But after viewing content ad-free for the last couple years, I now find ads incredibly intrusive, enough that they render shows unwatchable. If you said "You can only watch this show if you watch the ads", I would have to say I would stop watching the show. I imagine if I had to browse without ad-blocking, I'd feel the same way about the internet.
Slashdot and car analogies...
I buy a car. You ask if you can borrow the car to use, and I say "Sure". Shortly after you find the tires have poor traction, and you have them replaced with better tires. A while after, you see the bumper is dented, so you replace it with a better one. Continue this process until, over the course of years, every single part of the car has been been replaced. (Yes, even the frame was damaged, so you bought a new frame and had all the parts moved to the new frame.)
At what point did I cease to have any right to the car? When I come up and say "Hey, how is my car doing", do you really think it's correct to respond "I replaced all the parts, it's my car now. You don't own anything."
Great. So now when us real Canadians visit, we'll be utterly detested for our "rude and pushy behaviour"
Reminds me of when I visited Brazil. At one stop the front desk said "There are several Canadians staying at the hotel". After several months away from home, I was quite excited to have someone from home to talk to. I easily spotted them in the hotel restaurant with their prominent maple leafs and... They were speaking in a distinct Texas twang. I did introduce myself but I was so disappointed. I was even more disappointed when, a few minutes later, they were yelling at their server for some perceived mistake.
I made sure to let the hotel staff know they were not Canadian. The front desk manager just winked and said something like "After we met you, and then we met them, we knew they were American".
Slashdot Mirror
The Portugese system goes further and makes other drivers angry with you for speeding.
I think the Portuguese system is the future. Note that it shames you in front of other drivers, but that it also slows you as a penalty for speeding. People will naturally adopt the behavior that gets them where they are going fastest. If you make 'speeding' the slower option, people will just naturally drive safer.
As a former employee of an international road transportation company, we studied the exact same thing.
Interesting fact. When someone is driving in a place they don't know, they drive slower. You can duplicate the effect by making changes to a known environment, like this study does by adding cars to the roadside. Second interesting fact? Once the changes become 'known', speeds return to what they were previously. I notice this part is somehow absent in the claims that "the lower speeds make things safer."
If I was from the University of Connecticut, I'd be embarrassed to be releasing this study.
I never realized how intercoupled the songs on Pink Floyd albums were until I happened to listen to the songs on my mp3 device while set to 'random song'. It was jumping all over my music collection, and all the Pink Floyd songs were either jarring to come into or ended abruptly. I can see why they didn't want them split up. They really are parts of a whole with a few exceptions.
But c'mon, what balls on EMI. Because they signed a contract that said EMI could only sell the records if they were intact, EMI tried to weasel out by saying they weren't selling records. But then I remember this is one of the labels behind the RIAA extortion scheme, so I shouldn't be surprised.
I'm with the crew that says this doesn't add up.
1) Stepfather goes out of his way to buy obscure Wii controller that looks like the handgun he owns
2) Stepfather leaves loaded gun on coffee table in the living room, presumably where the Wii controllers sit. (Not in the bedroom, not on a shelf, etc. Even if he's lazy, you would probably leave a loaded gun somewhere other than your living room.)
3) Stepfather leaves the gun on the coffee table with a round in the chamber and the hammer cocked. (This is important because a 3 year old probably wouldn't have the strength to overcome the hammer action and pull the trigger otherwise.)
Too many "coincidences" here. That's all I'm saying.
I had money set aside for AC2. (I played AC1, liked it, but I'm not a console gamer so buying it on the PC is my only option.) But once I heard about the DRM they had planned, I knew I couldn't buy it. I work at a job where I travel, sometimes going to remote places in South America with spotty or expensive internet. At those times, my gaming laptop is my friend.
So now I have that money earmarked for Stardock. I've always been happy with their products and service and hey, I can count on their products. So I'll be buying Elemental: War of Magic when it releases.
Police: "This is a fine store you have here"
Shop Owner: "Yes, I'm quite proud of it."
P: "It would be a shame if something happened to your store... But for only 20% of your gross, we could protect it."
SO: "But, I have no crime in my store. I have state of the art security cameras, proximity alarms, private security guards. I've spared no expense and made sure my store is secure"
P: "True, but you see there's another shop down the street and it gets broken into every week. Someone has to pay for that."
While there are many other wtf videos that could be used as prank material, it has what few other videos have: recognition as a prank video.
Bingo. If you use this video, the response is... "I've been rickrolled! Ha ha ha, they got me!" /."
If you use some other video, the repsonse is "Hmm. This link must be going to the wrong video. This isn't what I expected. Probably a typo in the link. Oh well, let's see what's new on
Well, that's my response anyway.
You're also from FREAKING CANADA.
Last I checked, we were talking about ice resurfacers purchased for the winter Olympics in Vancouver. Vancouver would be in Canada.
I'm from the mid-Atlantic and the hockey teams I've heard about only play 82 games in a season, not the 365 that you considered.
As a Canadian, I can verify that the hockey teams you've heard about play 82 games a season. Do you suppose they ever practice? Do you suppose there might be other levels of hockey? The average facility around here is in use 365. (Yes, there are even games on Christmas) You're only thinking about top-level hockey. You're completely forgetting Senior, Club, City league, Junior (Major, A, B, C, D), Women's, etc. Just ask the parents of young hockey players who have been up at 5 am for the child's game because that's the only ice time available.
Yes. Hockey games every day.
So it's not just me... I returned to school after graduating a decade previous in order to brush up on newer technologies. (Working while taking classes part-time). Luckily, as it was a computer class, the lecturer would put up his presentations before the class so we could download them to our laptops and follow along. The need to draw diagrams was removed, and I could just edit the documents with details of in-class discussions, so the need to hand write was not an issue. Since it was a project class, there was no mid-term.
HOWEVER, when I went to write the final, my hand quickly became the claw about 30 minutes in. I had not only avoided handwriting in class, I haven't hand written more than a sketch in 10 years. (I type 100+ wpm and actually type faster than I can write. Why would I?) I finished the exam in so much pain.
I got 100% on the part of the exam I completed. However, I was only able to complete 80% of the exam due to severe pain in my writing hand, resulting in a mark that was not a fair representation of my knowledge. It's frustrating knowing that if I had been able to type or orally provide my answers, I would've easily been in the top percentile. (10 years of industry experience being very helpful)
"Hey, we're gonna watch The Texas Chainsaw Massacre tonight and talk about it tomorrow. Oh, you can't come tonight? No problem, I'll just put the movie up on the class website." It's not exactly shocking that someone objected to that.
WAITAMINUTE.
Copyright was created to protect the rights and ownership of the author and insure they were compensated for their work for a limited time in return for the work becoming publicly available to enrich the community later. However, there are exceptions. Specifically...
"In the United States, the fair use doctrine, permits copying and distribution without permission of the copyright holder or payment to same. Fair dealing uses are research and study; review and critique; parody and satire; news reportage and the giving of professional advice (i.e. legal advice)."
Which use of this material by this class DOES NOT fall into research, study, review or critique? The method the information is transmitted is utterly irrelevant. On what basis could you object?
I still remember the first Far Side comic I saw, of the truck smashed into a single palm tree in the middle of a desert. It was so bizarre, so absurd that I laughed out loud.
Isn't Far Side strange that way. I still remember the first one I ever saw too. It was the one where a beggar was on the street asking "Spare Armadillo?" and the panel picture has a man in a suit walking by with an armadillo under each arm, and thinking "What do I do, What do I do?"
That just blew my mind at the time. It was so surreal, and yet it's look at the real issue of resource distribution.
I finished the game on Sunday. It is a very different game than ME as far as game mechanics, but they kept what made ME great, the sense of controlling a riveting story. The story in ME2 is just as good.
My one flaw with the game is the obvious planet scanning time sink. For those of you not playing the game, when you come to a new planet, you need to scan it for usable minerals, minerals needed to progress in the game. The scanning consists of holding down your right mouse button, then slowly waving the mouse back and forth over a picture of a planet from orbit. You slowly move back and forth until a graph on the right side spikes. Then you click the left mouse button to extract the mineral you 'found', and then you do it again.
Even explaining that, I'm almost falling asleep. It was so jarring to find this obvious time waster in a game that was so tightly scripted and enjoyable. All I can think is they completed the game, and said "Hey, we need to add another 5-10 hours onto the gameplay." "Ok, so instead of just pushing a button that says 'Extract all usable minerals from planet", why don't we make them mouse over every square inch of the planet? That's gotta add 5-10 hours! IN FACT, even if it only adds 5 hours, it'll make the game seem much longer because it's so boring!"
And that's why this game is good and not great.
Nobody in advertising cares if 500,000,000 people watch a show if no ads were seen.
Yes, but advertising cares if Heroes has 1 million watching the regular broadcast... But 5 million watching on a website that servers a single ad right before the broadcast commences.
Because then Nielson could put together a ratings list that shows ratings based on the amount of advertising. I won't lie, like most people one of the reasons I prefer watching TV through alternate means is to avoid the advertising. Yet I don't require zero advertising. There is a level of advertising that's more acceptable.
With this information, networks could find out how LESS advertising could generate more views. As a result, they could offer scaled advertising rates to advertisers based on the number of views. Which is exactly what the Nielson ratings are supposed to be doing now, except they totally ignore the big black hole of online content. This change, only measuring apples to apples comparisons and completely ignoring the oranges, just makes that big black hole slightly smaller. It doesn't serve the advertisers, it doesn't serve the viewers and it doesn't accept that there are new entertainment models.
Way to go, Nielsons!
It's nice to finally see that technology developed to remotely set off terrorist bombs finally being used for something productive...
It's that or...
Federation: This game is so cool! I can fly through the universe! Hey, there's another ship. I'll see if I can hail him...
Klingon: *BLAST* *BLAST* *BLASTBLASTBLAST*
Federation: Hey, why aren't you responding to hails? Shouldn't we discuss this Captain to Captain? I have so many witty things to... *BOOM*
Klingon: (Proceeds to begin looting debris)
Which one do you think is going to evoke the Star Trek spirit/sell more subscriptions?
The Israeli system mostly works because of one thing... Racial/cultural profiling. Oh, they'll tell you they look in people's eyes for signs of evasion or shiftiness, but if you watch for a short while, you'll notice that the 'random' people they pull out for further screening have certain things in common...
And you know what. I'm not sure it's a bad thing. Let's be blunt, for all our political correctness, the vast majority of bombers do have certain cultural commonalities. No system is perfect, but if you can focus more attention to the highest risks, you get a more efficient system. That's why their system works. Speaking for myself, as someone who is pretty much the opposite of what they are looking for, I walked through security in minutes. Is it fair? Well, no, but it's hard to argue with the results. A location that is FAR more likely to suffer from terrorist attack is safer and much more efficient at protecting themselves than those of us in North America.
You are aware that "avatar+keygen" gives no meaningful results, aren't you, because it's just link spam from fishy sites?
I wasn't aware the results weren't meaningful. I'm not a pirate, so I didn't actually verify them.
However, YOU are aware that it's already possible to download the 3D versions of the movie Avatar from certain pirate locations? Which would tell me that, even if I have not found them, yes, the keys are readily available or they have been bypassed by pirates. Which was exactly my point.
,,,isn't this an issue with the company not purchasing the proper licenses in the appropriate amount of time rather than an issue with DRM?
The issue with most DRM is that it a) Does not actually stop pirates (at best it slows them down) and b) Does impair the ability for legitimate owners to use their purchase as intended.
This is a perfect example. The DRM was broken so quickly, keys were available online http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=avatar+keygen so pirates were not inconvenienced, but the legitimate customers (the theatre who was showing the movie) were unable to use the item they had purchased in a timely manner.
So I would disagree, this issue is indeed with DRM
The car was replaced, like the Ship of Theseus.
Thank you! I was wondering if anyone would recognize the "Car of Theseus". I do find it quite amusing how people think these are new concepts, when in fact they've been debated by ancient Greek philosophers. :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus
A few years ago, I build myself a homemade PVR with off the shelf equipment and some open source software. Combine that with starting to buy a season of a show I liked on DVD instead of watching the broadcasts. I stopped watching regular TV. Interestingly I found code that already existed to identify probable commercials, and then would auto-skip. At the same time, I started using ad-blocker software on my browser. Long story short, recently I had an invitation to go over to a friends place, and we watched a live show he enjoyed and wanted to share with me. THE COMMERCIALS WERE UNBEARABLE. They were long, they were loud, they completely destroyed the narrative. Eventually, I had to tell him I couldn't do it. I would record the show on my PVR, then I invited him over to my place at a future date to watch future episodes. (We did, and I enjoyed the show so much, I now watch it regularly)
The point is that, only a few years ago, I was easily able to watch broadcast TV. But after viewing content ad-free for the last couple years, I now find ads incredibly intrusive, enough that they render shows unwatchable. If you said "You can only watch this show if you watch the ads", I would have to say I would stop watching the show. I imagine if I had to browse without ad-blocking, I'd feel the same way about the internet.
Slashdot and car analogies... I buy a car. You ask if you can borrow the car to use, and I say "Sure". Shortly after you find the tires have poor traction, and you have them replaced with better tires. A while after, you see the bumper is dented, so you replace it with a better one. Continue this process until, over the course of years, every single part of the car has been been replaced. (Yes, even the frame was damaged, so you bought a new frame and had all the parts moved to the new frame.) At what point did I cease to have any right to the car? When I come up and say "Hey, how is my car doing", do you really think it's correct to respond "I replaced all the parts, it's my car now. You don't own anything."
Wonder if it's a Canada thing? I live in a Canadian city that has pretty similar stats to Edmonton. And likewise, Kijiji > Craigslist.
Great. So now when us real Canadians visit, we'll be utterly detested for our "rude and pushy behaviour"
Reminds me of when I visited Brazil. At one stop the front desk said "There are several Canadians staying at the hotel". After several months away from home, I was quite excited to have someone from home to talk to. I easily spotted them in the hotel restaurant with their prominent maple leafs and... They were speaking in a distinct Texas twang. I did introduce myself but I was so disappointed. I was even more disappointed when, a few minutes later, they were yelling at their server for some perceived mistake.
I made sure to let the hotel staff know they were not Canadian. The front desk manager just winked and said something like "After we met you, and then we met them, we knew they were American".