I've heard from colleagues how they struggle with getting their kids off Fortnite to engage in normal social activities, corroborating the article.
I'm torn, because it looks like good fun. And I believe I have a good enough relationship with my children that I could get them to stop without the level of tantrums the article presents. But, it might be one of those "thin end of the wedge" things, so we think it's safest all round to avoid it completely.
Are they missing out on a social aspect where everyone else is talking about it? Probably - but I don't think that's a big enough loss given the reported level of addiction it can generate.
Of course the article presents the worst cases, because the balanced ones (playing for a few hours a week) aren't interesting for an article. It would be useful to see a distribution of time spent in game per week, perhaps for each age demographic, to get a better idea of what's really going on.
"Inside are a pair of batteries that add up to 4,500mAh of power"
I'm trying to unpick this without being facetious, but it's hard; this sentence is just a technical disaster.
A pair of batteries is still a battery. A pair of cells is a battery.
4,500mAh could be more simply expressed as 4.5Ah, but lets skip past that to the declaration that it's 4,500mAh of power. Which it isn't - power is a factor of current and voltage, the latter of which isn't specified - and returns us to the "pair of batteries" part.
I suspect this is just marketing getting in the way of facts.
And not really discovered, as such. "Plastic pyrolysis" has been about for years, but no-one has made it economical on a scale suitable for handling the volumes of waste we produce.
No tech company can truly know, for sure, that their product is secure. Shouting this from the rooftops (in this case, pretty much literally) was only ever going to end one way.
I want to know where the hundreds of people who used to post here about how Bitcoin had no limits, that every last Bitcoin would soon be worth a million bucks went to. They've been embarrassingly silent lately.
Come back! We want to say "told you so!".
Seriously, where are they now?
Maybe the smart ones were selling at the time (after bigging up how valuable they would be) and are now too far off shore in their yachts to read slashdot
Or in their basements, crying into their tea (the second brew using that tea bag), unable to afford internet any more. One of the two.
"while the public's love affair with blockchain is showing signs of dissipating"
Love affair maybe - if the get-rich-quick speculative investors give it a rest, the practical uses may get a chance to emerge. Venezuela's massive adoption of DASH for trading is showing no signs of slowing, and there it provides a positive social impact at least.
This isn't any tree-falling-in-the-forest philosophical puzzle. Someone said it. Someone heard it. It's valid.
Even if the trees begged before the lumberjack's saw sliced into their tender woody flesh?
Sorry for triggering your empathy neural pathways like that, but if stories can manipulate human emotion, I'm sure one day sufficiently intelligent machines will have no problem doing it as well.
China is also very well known for lying about things and faking stats to appear better than everyone else. It goes all the way from the local level with fake recycling bins that go straight to trash pickup to faking national statistics.
It's easier to focus on that reassurance rather than the decline in U.S. healthy life expectancy since 2014.
Be the first is to lead the market, which requires huge investment, is risky, but can lead to lots of cash in the bank.
The second is to follow the leader, making products that fit the newly exposed demand - not cutting edge, but fit for purpose at a reasonable cost with reduced risk.
Add into the mix that cars are notoriously hard to get right (Tesla reportedly has lots of niggles that established car manufacturers have already solved) and now that vehicles like Volvo's Polestar and the ilk are on the horizon, from a brand reputed for reliability (albeit manufactured in China), and that Germany are building their own battery gigafactory -
Musk should be worried. The only way he'll make money is cashing in on that first wave, and it's already being spread out.
The 1% of Linux users among the 1% of gamers currently playing VR. I think that's about 7 people tops.
As a proponent of both Linux and VR, I am sadly going to have to say that I'll be staying away from that unholy combo.
VR is fledgling technology that struggles to be quite what everyone wants it to be, supported by an established platform with carefully optimised drivers.
Linux is an established technology in everything but mainstream gaming, with graphics drivers that struggle to perform as well as their windows counterparts.
Jamming the two together? Why yes, I do like chilli powder in my eyes. It'll hurt a lot less than all the googling needed to get it working properly.
My first taste of "proper" VR was on a mate's Rift DK1. I think that was great because it was the novelty. What I took away from that was the genuine fear of falling off of high things, which I don't get gaming normally. The 2D screen is a safe level of isolation from the world of the game.
Nowadays, I'm playing VR on a budget - an old business i5 machine with a second hand GTX 970 and PSU slapped into it, plus an eBay Rift DK2 which didn't cost a lot. The DK2 has worked with everything I've tried on Steam VR, to give me a feel as to whether to fork out for a "proper" expensive headset.
The thrill of "being in" a game world doesn't wear off. Subnautica and Obduction are such examples. In Obduction there are paths to walk along alongside a mountain with a huge drop to one side. It looks pretty on a monitor, but it's awe-inspiring in VR. The same with standing and looking up at structures that tower above you - much more immersive in VR. Subnautica is just beautiful to swim around.
But, it is a bit tiring on the eyes. The screen door effect is completely annoying - sometimes I can get submerged in the game enough to ignore it but not for long because it's right there in my face. I understand the CV1 and Vive are better in that regard than the DK2, but it's still there to an extent. The technology needs to move on at least another generation to really make it properly viable in my opinion (caveat - I've not tried the CV1 or Vive yet - but I read reviews that grumble to an extent about the screen door effect).
So I play both 2D and VR - the former usually if I am sitting with someone and want to talk and share the experience. VR when I want to feel what the world is like around me.
When I'm playing 2D, I feel like I'm missing out on the immersion. When I'm playing in VR, I feel like I'm missing out on a nice detailed screen without obvious pixels and that annoying screen door effect.
VR is where gaming will end up, I don't doubt it. I really want it to be good enough to use all the time. For me the DK2 isn't quite up to it, but I still can't resist strapping it on for a couple of hours to get the feel of a place that can't be captured in 2D.
And there is still the huge entertainment factor of having guests over and watching them try to stand up while on a VR rollercoaster. It was worth the expense just for those laughs.
3DTV I don't care for at all. Tried it, it was OK. But VR is something else.
That's a very short term view. One day, without a doubt, intelligence will emerge from something we create. It's only a matter of time. In the first few instances it may only be lower level intelligence, but when we create something at least as clever as us, that may very well be the end of our era.
Or course. I've got a 3D printer and the kids love it. You don't have to look far to find models of popular toys, and they can be envy of the other kids at school if they're the only ones with glow-in-the-dark Minecraft Creepers (glow in the dark filament is pretty cool!)
Just another case of technology running ahead of the existing rules.
What's there to compare? Everything else is just Notepad.
It's a bit like comparing comments between people that have and haven't RTFA. In that respect, you're Notepad. Lacking in substance. Unlikable. Liked by no one. A bitter, unlikable loner, whose passing shall not be mourned.
No, no, no! This is Slashdot, we need a car analogy:
Does relying on pre-made rubber tires make you a bad driver?
That's a terrible analogy.
A better one would be saying something like "Don't use ECU diagnostic interfaces to find out what's wrong with your engine - that's cheating - a real mechanic would just take it apart to see what's wrong!"
In a similar way to the ECU telling you what is up, you still need an underlying knowledge of engine mechanics in order to use the information it provides effectively. Sometimes it will be misleading. The same goes with IDEs and coding. Sure you can write everything in vi/emacs if that takes your fancy, but you won't be as efficient as if you use a decent IDE, but that's not to say you should trust the IDE entirely.
IDEs with any form of wizard for "creating stuff" potentially take away the underlying understanding that a programmer might use to come up with something better.
But, for code navigation, a good IDE is totally indispensable, particularly with large codebases of someone else's code. What could be more useful than hovering your mouse pointer over a structure variable and having a little window show you how it was declared and what members it has? Or telling you all the places the current function is called from?
A good IDE shouldn't get in the way of coding, but nor should it take over the coding for you.
It's a moon, not a planet, but since we're talking on your level... if you look on the other side there is a huge "MADE IN CHINA" sign and a big array of bitcoin ASICs that they used for their 51% attack. More hashing power than Uruguay. That's how they bought the fake landing sets off NASA!
Slashdot Mirror
I've heard from colleagues how they struggle with getting their kids off Fortnite to engage in normal social activities, corroborating the article.
I'm torn, because it looks like good fun. And I believe I have a good enough relationship with my children that I could get them to stop without the level of tantrums the article presents. But, it might be one of those "thin end of the wedge" things, so we think it's safest all round to avoid it completely.
Are they missing out on a social aspect where everyone else is talking about it? Probably - but I don't think that's a big enough loss given the reported level of addiction it can generate.
Of course the article presents the worst cases, because the balanced ones (playing for a few hours a week) aren't interesting for an article. It would be useful to see a distribution of time spent in game per week, perhaps for each age demographic, to get a better idea of what's really going on.
"Inside are a pair of batteries that add up to 4,500mAh of power"
I'm trying to unpick this without being facetious, but it's hard; this sentence is just a technical disaster.
A pair of batteries is still a battery. A pair of cells is a battery.
4,500mAh could be more simply expressed as 4.5Ah, but lets skip past that to the declaration that it's 4,500mAh of power. Which it isn't - power is a factor of current and voltage, the latter of which isn't specified - and returns us to the "pair of batteries" part.
I suspect this is just marketing getting in the way of facts.
And not really discovered, as such. "Plastic pyrolysis" has been about for years, but no-one has made it economical on a scale suitable for handling the volumes of waste we produce.
But, astonishingly convenient.
No tech company can truly know, for sure, that their product is secure. Shouting this from the rooftops (in this case, pretty much literally) was only ever going to end one way.
https://www.independent.co.uk/...
Pride comes before a fall and all that!
Do these tech industry insiders work for Reynholm Industries? Google, Apple and Facebook are not "the internet".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
The Elders of the Internet would never stand for this nonsense.
At least with the tulip bubble, after the crash you still had pretty tulips.
Some numbers in a shared ledger - less impressive.
I want to know where the hundreds of people who used to post here about how Bitcoin had no limits, that every last Bitcoin would soon be worth a million bucks went to. They've been embarrassingly silent lately.
Come back! We want to say "told you so!".
Seriously, where are they now?
Maybe the smart ones were selling at the time (after bigging up how valuable they would be) and are now too far off shore in their yachts to read slashdot
Or in their basements, crying into their tea (the second brew using that tea bag), unable to afford internet any more. One of the two.
"I think really, China, Chinese, I think they really have a long history of civilization, rich culture, and cat memes." -- Dalai Lama
Possibly not quite word for word.
"while the public's love affair with blockchain is showing signs of dissipating"
Love affair maybe - if the get-rich-quick speculative investors give it a rest, the practical uses may get a chance to emerge. Venezuela's massive adoption of DASH for trading is showing no signs of slowing, and there it provides a positive social impact at least.
This isn't any tree-falling-in-the-forest philosophical puzzle. Someone said it. Someone heard it. It's valid.
Even if the trees begged before the lumberjack's saw sliced into their tender woody flesh?
Sorry for triggering your empathy neural pathways like that, but if stories can manipulate human emotion, I'm sure one day sufficiently intelligent machines will have no problem doing it as well.
Facebook already experimented with just that https://www.theguardian.com/te...
Scary stuff.
China is also very well known for lying about things and faking stats to appear better than everyone else. It goes all the way from the local level with fake recycling bins that go straight to trash pickup to faking national statistics.
It's easier to focus on that reassurance rather than the decline in U.S. healthy life expectancy since 2014.
https://www.scientificamerican...
"These experiments show that when people's beliefs are threatened, they often take flight to a land where facts do not matter."
Sadly, this may be a case of just having to accept some unpalatable news.
What would be interesting is the "why?" which sadly the article is a little thin on. Perhaps there will be more analysis to follow.
The BBC couldn't wait two more years?
It blew a hole through the space time continuum and dropped through like a stone through a wet paper bag.
“There’s a general concern in the tech community of somehow the military-industrial complex using their stuff to kill people incorrectly”
If there's ever a sentence where one word changes the entire context of a statement, it's that one - and the last word.
That word is redundant from the perspective of the tech community, but extraordinarily menacing when tacked on to the statement like that.
Don't be evil. Incorrectly.
Be the first is to lead the market, which requires huge investment, is risky, but can lead to lots of cash in the bank.
The second is to follow the leader, making products that fit the newly exposed demand - not cutting edge, but fit for purpose at a reasonable cost with reduced risk.
Add into the mix that cars are notoriously hard to get right (Tesla reportedly has lots of niggles that established car manufacturers have already solved) and now that vehicles like Volvo's Polestar and the ilk are on the horizon, from a brand reputed for reliability (albeit manufactured in China), and that Germany are building their own battery gigafactory -
Musk should be worried. The only way he'll make money is cashing in on that first wave, and it's already being spread out.
The 1% of Linux users among the 1% of gamers currently playing VR. I think that's about 7 people tops.
As a proponent of both Linux and VR, I am sadly going to have to say that I'll be staying away from that unholy combo.
VR is fledgling technology that struggles to be quite what everyone wants it to be, supported by an established platform with carefully optimised drivers.
Linux is an established technology in everything but mainstream gaming, with graphics drivers that struggle to perform as well as their windows counterparts.
Jamming the two together? Why yes, I do like chilli powder in my eyes. It'll hurt a lot less than all the googling needed to get it working properly.
My first taste of "proper" VR was on a mate's Rift DK1. I think that was great because it was the novelty. What I took away from that was the genuine fear of falling off of high things, which I don't get gaming normally. The 2D screen is a safe level of isolation from the world of the game.
Nowadays, I'm playing VR on a budget - an old business i5 machine with a second hand GTX 970 and PSU slapped into it, plus an eBay Rift DK2 which didn't cost a lot. The DK2 has worked with everything I've tried on Steam VR, to give me a feel as to whether to fork out for a "proper" expensive headset.
The thrill of "being in" a game world doesn't wear off. Subnautica and Obduction are such examples. In Obduction there are paths to walk along alongside a mountain with a huge drop to one side. It looks pretty on a monitor, but it's awe-inspiring in VR. The same with standing and looking up at structures that tower above you - much more immersive in VR. Subnautica is just beautiful to swim around.
But, it is a bit tiring on the eyes. The screen door effect is completely annoying - sometimes I can get submerged in the game enough to ignore it but not for long because it's right there in my face. I understand the CV1 and Vive are better in that regard than the DK2, but it's still there to an extent. The technology needs to move on at least another generation to really make it properly viable in my opinion (caveat - I've not tried the CV1 or Vive yet - but I read reviews that grumble to an extent about the screen door effect).
So I play both 2D and VR - the former usually if I am sitting with someone and want to talk and share the experience. VR when I want to feel what the world is like around me.
When I'm playing 2D, I feel like I'm missing out on the immersion.
When I'm playing in VR, I feel like I'm missing out on a nice detailed screen without obvious pixels and that annoying screen door effect.
VR is where gaming will end up, I don't doubt it. I really want it to be good enough to use all the time. For me the DK2 isn't quite up to it, but I still can't resist strapping it on for a couple of hours to get the feel of a place that can't be captured in 2D.
And there is still the huge entertainment factor of having guests over and watching them try to stand up while on a VR rollercoaster. It was worth the expense just for those laughs.
3DTV I don't care for at all. Tried it, it was OK. But VR is something else.
Excellent video. Wish I had mod points.
I assume this is focused stateside? The articles doesn't provide much in the way of clues.
That's a very short term view. One day, without a doubt, intelligence will emerge from something we create. It's only a matter of time. In the first few instances it may only be lower level intelligence, but when we create something at least as clever as us, that may very well be the end of our era.
Or course. I've got a 3D printer and the kids love it. You don't have to look far to find models of popular toys, and they can be envy of the other kids at school if they're the only ones with glow-in-the-dark Minecraft Creepers (glow in the dark filament is pretty cool!)
Just another case of technology running ahead of the existing rules.
none of which are named Emacs or Vim
What's there to compare? Everything else is just Notepad.
It's a bit like comparing comments between people that have and haven't RTFA. In that respect, you're Notepad. Lacking in substance. Unlikable. Liked by no one. A bitter, unlikable loner, whose passing shall not be mourned.
No, no, no! This is Slashdot, we need a car analogy:
Does relying on pre-made rubber tires make you a bad driver?
That's a terrible analogy.
A better one would be saying something like "Don't use ECU diagnostic interfaces to find out what's wrong with your engine - that's cheating - a real mechanic would just take it apart to see what's wrong!"
In a similar way to the ECU telling you what is up, you still need an underlying knowledge of engine mechanics in order to use the information it provides effectively. Sometimes it will be misleading. The same goes with IDEs and coding. Sure you can write everything in vi/emacs if that takes your fancy, but you won't be as efficient as if you use a decent IDE, but that's not to say you should trust the IDE entirely.
IDEs with any form of wizard for "creating stuff" potentially take away the underlying understanding that a programmer might use to come up with something better.
But, for code navigation, a good IDE is totally indispensable, particularly with large codebases of someone else's code. What could be more useful than hovering your mouse pointer over a structure variable and having a little window show you how it was declared and what members it has? Or telling you all the places the current function is called from?
A good IDE shouldn't get in the way of coding, but nor should it take over the coding for you.
Not even the Chinese can claim a planet.
It's a moon, not a planet, but since we're talking on your level... if you look on the other side there is a huge "MADE IN CHINA" sign and a big array of bitcoin ASICs that they used for their 51% attack. More hashing power than Uruguay. That's how they bought the fake landing sets off NASA!