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User: Reapy

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  1. Re:that wasn't 'no rules' on New Zealand Schools Find Less Structure Improves Children's Behavior · · Score: 1

    That was our big playground upgrade in a small western MA town in the 80's, 2 giant spools with a bridge connecting and a few tires. I think a kid fell off the bridge thing though so they eventually closed it down and got a more modern plastic set up that you see now a days.

  2. Re:The article makes this an intriguing issue on Anti-Polygraph Instructor Who Was Targeted By Feds Goes Public · · Score: 1

    Not to mention that washing your fruit will result in roughly the same amount of pesticides remaining on your food.

    If anything you miss out on specifically engineered and probably more effective pesticides with less environmental impact by choosing to only use natural poisons that may target and harm more than the is intended.

  3. Re:consoles are going to kill PCs this round on Valve's Steam Machines Are More About Safeguarding PCs Than Killing Consoles · · Score: 1

    PC will continue to dominate for me due to the amount of game sales available now a days. It is still a new thing, but I have such a huge backlog of games to play through that were purchased 10 dollars that it will be a long time before I run out of things to play. Couple this with several alpha funded projects that proved entertainment periodically as they are updated, PC gaming has never been better imho.

    Meanwhile on the console, as game complexity increases, they suffer similar bug problems, are harder to patch due to certification issues, and provide less options to fix or work around them than on a PC. In addition console releases do get ported over to PC more and more, usually their controllers work with a PC easily, and things like steamOS's streaming feature can get you easily on a couch with a console like experience, playing 60 dollar games that you got for 7.50 in a steam sale on your couch.

    And you don't have to pay for multiplayer.

    I'm hoping to avoid a console this generation and stick to the PC.

  4. Re:Cumulative? on Brain Function "Boosted For Days After Reading a Novel" · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Totally anecdotal, but when I get the bug to read a book and really get into it, it sort of reactivates my my imagination. I start writing a few more random things and will pull out a pencil and doodle in my 'design' book, or I just have much more clearly defined thoughts about stories to write or things to make. I've always just associated this with any kind of excitement, but thinking about it, reading definitely gives a different kind of 'awake' feeling than a good game or movie would.

    Coding doesn't really jolt my imagination, i typically feel good when a section is done and everything works well and is neatly organized, but have expended most of my energy in doing that, there isn't much left. When I read a book it is more coasting through someone elses work, so I feel awake mentally, ready to do something, rather than needing to randomly mash buttons in a game or something post coding.

  5. Re:Apparently Pac-Man is confusing... on Ask Slashdot: Will You Start Your Kids On Classic Games Or Newer Games? · · Score: 1

    Man half way down the page before we can get past all the judgement and hate of video games and technology. I thought I was on slashdot for a second.

    I think good games are good games. Teenage mutant ninja turtles emulated was something they loved playing, but skipped over a lot of other games. My oldest is 4, and he's been playing a lot of mario kart 64 on an emulator. It is not that I am holding him back, my pc doesn't quite handle emulating double dash, and I never had it when i had my gamecube. We tried the SNES version but he wanted to go back to the n64 one, though after a bit he wanted to try the SNES one again, which he did for about 30 minutes before sticking with the n64.

    He's played and seen AAA newish games with great graphics, but it is just that great art and gameplay is eternal. Still, I would try to get them the best versions of everything, and pull out the old stuff as a novelty. The best part though is emulators can run on anything, so if they like an older game you can pretty much get it anywhere to play instead of having to sacrifice a main PC or TV or whatever else.

    I have loved games my whole life, board games, video games, outdoor games, they are all great and all have merit, and I really want nothing more than to share of that with my sons. We read books all the time, but I only really am seeing interest and confirmation in his reading/writing when we play gams and he has to pick the correct menu option, or even playing scribblenaughts, he wants to know how to type and spell out words so he can spawn them in.

    But yeah on topic, I'd say just hold each game up for its merits, some old ones do have a certain magic that holds up beyond nostalgia and are worth looking at, but really, just get em the new fun stuff, no sense messing with their realities unnecessarily to recreate your own childhood for them.

  6. Re:More importantly on Playstation 4 Vs Xbox One: Which Shares Better? · · Score: 1

    I almost wonder if a PC ends up being cheaper in the long run. You can get a lot of games on sale for really cheap now, while buying for a console is still going to run you 60 dollars, even if the game is old, the price will hardly drop, while you can grab best of the year games at the end of the year for 7 - 15 dollars on the PC. If you couple this with free to play games that are done well where you are having fun without spending any extra in them, you have way, way more gaming available to you for way less.

    Also don't get me started on mod availability for added gameplay length, and not having to pay more than your ISP costs to play the game online, and generally you can run your own servers for things as well.

    I could see easily spending 1500 on games over the year for the 360, while being able to get about the same ~200 on the PC just a bit later after their release. After a year or two you probably have made up the cost of a 1500 gaming PC on the game prices alone.

    Still, the ease of a console is there. The other day I was trying to play lego marvel with my son on a HTPC I had set up, which granted has onboard video, but I had to drop the graphics and had some issues doing that as the framerate tanked when we hit the open city level for the first time. I have little time with him between their bedtime and me coming home for work, and I thought I had it all set up ahead of time, but that was based on smaller levels early in the game. So about 45 minutes into the game crashing and doing some sort of slow 'rebuilding shaders' and hanging on menus for 15 minutes at a time, we got it going, but a part of me was thinking I should have gotten it on the 360 so it was pre calibrated and tweaked to work immediately.

    Either way, going to try to skip the consoles this time around if I can, though I have a feeling as my son's get older they will probably 'need' to get on xbox live or the sony thing to play with their friends.

  7. Re:You readers are lame on Oculus Raises $75 Million To Make VR Headset · · Score: 1

    It's funny because HL2 made my puke all by itself when it came out. It wasn't until I could hit about 80+ FPS on it years later that I could get through the air boat levels. I can imagine combining it with an OR would be some sort of nightmare induced vomiting for me.

    Am still super excited about the device and will attempt to train myself through disorientation. Strangely I was ok with the 3ds, took a touch of finding the right angle but overall ended up liking it.

    But yeah I'm basically picturing the next IL-2 game with this on, should be pretty damn awesome. So much potential for many things with this device.

  8. Re:Slow news day? on Wikipedia's Lamest Edit Wars · · Score: 1

    Should be deleted for 'non notable'. They have deleted much more informative articles than this monument to their pedantry.

  9. Well, all very true points.

    I guess when being a third party standing in judgement, with the cash falling into one's lap from another of a greater scale of income, it would be hard for me to fault the morals of the one in need, or at least standing where what they hold is of little comparison to the sum of what the original owner lost.

    Personally I probably would have returned the extra tablets, mostly for fear of the cost should the company of vast wealth turn it against me in any capacity, and also while I could understand keeping the extra, the two additional ones via mail are stretching it a bit. Overall though it feels like small potatoes in scope of the wrongness that could be done.

    As an example, growing up with software piracy aplenty I don't have too much of thought against people who do it, but I haven't pirated in many years since having a job, especially with all the great sales now. I do feel particularly angry at people who pirate small indies trying to make it, but don't feel thus against someone grabbing the latest call of duty as the harm I feel is less due to the scale of their sales.

    I guess I strongly feel that the particulars of the situation lesson the 'crime' per say, where both are wrong, but the severity is lacking due to the scale of harm done to the 'victim'.

  10. I get what you are saying, but your analogy is flawed. The scale of income difference is why you are so far off, it is not their money a property of how much more they have than you, it is their ability to generate it and the quantity of it.

    Example randomly from googles, in 2008 walmart was making $42,754,109 per HOUR... HOUR. If I were making that an hour, I could easily say that 100 dollars holds little value to them, because in 59 minutes they will have made more than I will probably ever see in my lifetime. THAT is the scale of difference we are talking here, not a 'he has more money than me', it is, they have a disgusting, obscene, amount of money and resources, more value get's thrown out in the trash than this guy's entire ereader collection he got.

    A proper analogy that is scaled is that I accidentally dropped a fraction of a penny into the begger's cup, and you are damn right, I would give it up for loss as that fraction of a penny holds no value to me and the beggar is 'lucky' to have a bit extra.

  11. Re:Jackpot on UK Retailer Mistakenly Sends PS Vitas, Threatens Legal Action To Get Them Back · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Look what your honor has gotten you, Ned Stark.

  12. Re:England on EU Plastic Bag Debate Highlights a Wider Global Problem · · Score: 1

    Worked at a grocery store when younger, I recall sticking my hand into a reusable bag to open it up and finding what would have basically been a smashed egg in there from a week ago. It smelled rotten and was goopy disgusting. The customer still told me to go ahead and put her food in there.

    The best is that before I worked there I had no knowledge of reusable bags, so the first time I saw them as a bagger, I thought they had been purchased from the store and put them in a plastic bag, then started putting their other groceries in plastic bags. Whoops.

  13. Re:There is no "shortfall". on Code.org: More Money For CS Instructors Who Teach More Girls · · Score: 1

    It really has to do with being a lazy coder mentally in your planning and execution ends up costing a lot more than in some other fields. Obviously there is a tradeoff in speed vs design, but some people just leave obvious bugs or oddities in there that means they didn't think for too long beyond making something just work.

    That is the stuff that makes 3 round trips through 8 departments because they didn't pause a moment to think of a few more real obvious use cases, I mean, yeah, there is always weird stuff, but some of it is mind boggling that they use a PC to write the code but don't even notice the reasons why programs they use behave much better than their program in the same context.

    Some people are just disorganized thinkers, they don't have long range planning, and can't follow a consistent process to save their life. Their code often works but is a god damn disaster zone, and even worse is when that code becomes 'blessed, untouchable', leaving competent coders shackled by underlying flaws.

    Long range planning is one of those things few people seem to grasp out in the world, often people bull ahead with blinders on, making smart short term choices, but hardly step back to check if their path has a dead end later on, and when coding this type of behavior can lead down some really bad roads.

  14. Re:Such a waste of material and technology on A Makerbot In Every Classroom · · Score: 1

    Replace "google" with "encyclopedia" and you take me back to my middle school days. Teachers say the same thing, fact is kids don't take certain things seriously till they get older, cause they are kids. I didn't, but do now that I'm older, yet I don't expect my perceived wisdom to suddenly transpose onto the generation behind me. They will be saying the same things about the generations behind them though.

    I do agree with you though, if there is one constant it is a teacher's inability to handle technology. If they couldn't get the film projectors or overheads to work, they certainly aren't getting a 3d printer going. Though I guess they could be a good addition to any wood/metal shop a school might have.

  15. Re:As a mechanical engineer... on A Makerbot In Every Classroom · · Score: 1

    Nah. I've heard this argument since I was a kid. Sure we are consumers, we are also producers. It is easier than ever to make things. There is a guide or place to ask how to make ANYTHING on the internet. If I am motivated to make or fix something on my own, I have the guidance to start at it immediately.

    And in terms of building this online on our computers, there are more tools than ever out there. With unity I can make a game quite easily, and if I don't want that much detail I can get things like gamemaker, or make a mod, or any number of frameworks that exist out there to assist.

    I enjoy making miniature terrain from time to time, and I'm only really into this because of finding some great websites with instructions on what materials to use and tips for building things.

    Look, people are lazy, we have always been lazy, very few people are doing productive things with their time 24x7 outside of their jobs, if that. That is nothing new. To boot, if we aren't being lazy and consuming, then the incentive for production is gone as well. The two things work in tandem with one another and just because companies are trying to entice us with advertising doesn't mean we have guns to our head and have no choice in the matter.

  16. Re:What could possibly go wrong? on Demo of Prototype Virtual Retinal Head Mounted Display · · Score: 1

    Stop trying to speak sense to the technophobe. Them thar LAZER BEAMS FROM TEH SCARRRY MACHINE IS GOWNA BLOW MY EYEBALLS UP! He is probably out telling someone to get off his lawn anyway.

  17. Re:IMO, it is not going to work on Why Project Flare Might Just End the Console War · · Score: 1

    Square cares a lot about japan though, everyone walking around with portal devices up the wazoo. Imagine you could get your 'core gamer' games to penetrate the mobile space, tech like this would do it.

  18. Re:Bring on the wearable interfaces. on 20-Somethings Think It's OK To Text and Answer Calls In Business Meetings · · Score: 1

    You are being silly. Things may seem different to you now, but thanks to the internet you are much more aware of what millions more are doing today than you were even 15 years ago. Before your snapshot of the world was limited to what your neighbors were doing and what the newspapers and television decided to show you. Chances are poorer quality creations were filtered out by cost of distribution, you would only see the best of the best.

    The best of the best is still out there, it is just surround by a lot more stuff, giving the appearance of everything being crap, but in reality that crap just couldn't reach you, but thanks to the internet, it can.

    Also don't forget to factor in your growing age and experience, priorities change and the amount of content you have been exposed to has certainly raised your expectations for what is good. I recently dug up some high school papers and recall them being 'really good' in my head, then rereading them seeing how crap they really were. Same with going back and playing older games, at the time some were quite amazing, but in hindsight the design of them has many flaws I just didn't see.

    I am just kinda amazed that so many people think the world is going to crap when I think it pretty much has the same type of distribution it always had.

    As for my brief opinion on my not RTFA, most meetings are largely pointless, they should just be for quick overview and status if the team is all working on the same thing. Not only that, it depends on the business, it might be that fielding calls and texts are a priority over the meetings and thus answering during the meeting is encouraged. I could very see that immediate response to a customer as a number one thing.

  19. Re:brace yourself on Telegraph Contributor Says Coding Is For Exceptionally Dull Weirdos · · Score: 1

    I think this may be a factor of the huge increase of computer / phone users in general, followed by all the unappreciated power high level api's give them now a days, it is easy to be visible and vocal about tech without knowing anything about it.

  20. Re:Speaking of classic literature... on All Your Child's Data Are Belong To InBloom · · Score: 1

    I mean I mostly agree, but if you think about it we're already ranked on an arbitrary stat, charasima. I mean, I hate the thought of weird stats getting put into a machine and ranking you based on that, and having your teacher and parent's perceptions of you altered by a 'bad' stat. But, in some cases, it might be nice to have another avenue to excel at rather than base genetics, clothing, fitness, voice tone, body language and number of 'smiles per minute' you can put out, that we use now.

  21. Re:I can only say one thing... on Valve Announces Steam Controller · · Score: 1

    I never got used to using my thumb for simultaneous presses. On the NES i'd flip my right hand over and use my index and middle finger to play, it always felt much more precise. I appreciate them trying some buttons on the underside of it, but it does leave you with 1 less button on the right than an analog.

    Though the fact that the 5th button is the analog pad, it can be much more than a one press. First is the obvious turn it into 4 buttons depending on the quadrant pressed, which would work for action games perhaps.

    But even more you could do gesture then press moves to make it even more functional. There is a lot of potential for new here. It might suck, it might not, but I have a feeling we'll see some new ways to control things if the controller takes off.

  22. Re:Can't view it at work... on Valve Announces Steam Controller · · Score: 2

    He has upper management written all over him.

  23. Re:This actually looks really unusable on Valve Announces Steam Controller · · Score: 2

    EA games have made a push (haven't played one in a few years so not sure if still doing this) for having more controls on the right stick. In the sports games you could flick in a direction for 'skill moves' that worked sort of well. The best use of it was in fight night for throwing punches, still probably the best boxing implementation I've ever played. They also had the Skate game that I never played, but made use of the right stick in the same way.

    It might open up some new stuff, I could see some cool say arrow shooting or throwing game where you do an angry birds like motion to chuck things at people maybe.

  24. Re:Microsoft is in trouble on Gabe Newell Talks Linux As the Future of Games at LinuxCon NA · · Score: 1

    I don't think you can simply extrapolate from past data. One of the big issues is that there's a self-reinforcing cycle at work-- a sort of catch-22. Developers won't develop for Linux because people won't buy for Linux. On the other hand, people won't install Linux on their game machine because developers aren't developing for Linux. It seems inescapable, but there may be some tipping point at which the cycle reverses itself.

    Hey, is that a nash equilibrium problem? We are all getting along ok with the current system which reinforces itself, we still get games, companies still get money, but if we all just swapped to linux pretty much everyone would benefit more with the platform openness, but we are held in check since everyone has to move together.

  25. Re:The continuity adviser is not doing his job on Meet the Guy Who Fact-Checks Stephen King On Stephen King · · Score: 3, Informative

    I honestly thought wizards and glass , something like that, the 3rd book... was the best one. This one really set the tone for the gunslinger, and took place when he was younger and you basically had knights with guns mixed in with a western, I liked it a lot. The others were kinda sorta ok, page turners and some few good select scenes but felt a bit on the wondering side. Book 3 was the one that really stood out to me.