I did layout for a local newspaper for a couple of years, and used a trackball at that job. I wasn't too impressed - I got used to it eventually, but it didn't seem any better than the mouse. In fact, I found it harder to make tiny, precise movements with the trackball than with a mouse. I felt like I had to tense up my whole hand to make sure the ball didn't move too far. The mouse, I just grip it a little tighter and move it within my hand instead of moving my hand. Maybe if the ball were bigger (this one was about 1"-1.5") it would be easier to do that.
Videotaping films is just as illegal in the US - and supposedly the Canadian law was passed due to "US pressure" - and yet, I've never been roughly searched while entering a theater. The most I've ever had to do was open my bag and let the usher glance into it, and I think they're more on the lookout for food than videocameras, honestly, so you don't cut into their popcorn sales. And many theaters don't even do that.
The legislation, as far as I can tell, only outlines punishment for the pirates. It doesn't seem to make it the theater's responsibility to catch them or punish the theater if piracy takes place there. You can't blame the law for this theater's overzealous approach.
Oooh, then you reeeeeally don't want to see the addiction studies with cocaine feeds going directly into monkeys' brains... Actually, you also probably don't want to see what happens in most factory farms. Aside from some memory problems, these mice probably live quite a cushy life, for a mouse, and will probably die a quick and painless death. And because of them, hopefully life will get better for millions of people.
I completely agree. I doubt they'll ever be appropriate in formal writing (but then, neither are contractions), but when it comes to informal communications anything that makes your meaning clearer is a good thing. Now, if you overuse them or don't use them well, then they can get in the way of clarity, and that defeats the purpose. But used properly, I think they're a step in the right direction in terms of evolution of our (written) language.
To be fair, the Ivies are making efforts in this department. When I was in college, I knew a guy who knew that the reason he didn't get into Harvard (via a friend in the admissions dept) was that they couldn't give him the amount of financial aid he'd need. Harvard, along with most (if not all) the other Ivies, have since moved to need-blind admissions and worked to up their need-based financial aid.
(Of course, they're all way behind my alma mater, MIT. My family made about the same as tuition; I had a need-based family contribution of $0 and most of my need was met through grants. MIT has always prided itself on having lots of first-generation college students and students from blue-collar families. I've also heard that the main advantage being a legacy gets you in admissions is that if you're going to be deferred or rejected, they give your application a second look and notify your parents by personal phone call to break the news.)
I love that every single reply overlooks the *30,000* employees that I included in my figures. Yes, half the students are off-campus. But I'm betting most of the iPhones belong to medical, business, or law professors, not students. And the rest probably belong to grad students of one flavor or another (especially MBA students) who are taking summer classes. You're all acting like they all must belong to undergrads.
Heck, US radio stations do the same thing. I remember I first noticed in in junior high, when I still listened only to Top 40 because I didn't really know that anything else was out there (the classic rock station my dad listened to was "old people music" to me back then). And one day, I realized that in listening to the radio for 3 or 4 hours there were not one, but several songs I'd heard more than once. And I wondered why they couldn't have played some other songs I really liked instead. And then just last year, I caught a station playing the same song less than 2 hours apart - I just happened to tune my car to the station at the right time to catch it both times.
While I agree that overall, Duke is worse than many top schools as far as being full of rich preppy kids (though they do have need-blind undergrad admissions now, but that doesn't mean they're truly fulfilling everyone's need), the article states there are 150 iPhones there. At a school of over 12,000 students plus well over 30,000 employees and faculty, I'm not sure you can say that 150 fancy phones (one for every 280 people on campus) are a sign of excess.
That foodstamp challenge is living on $21 a week - seriously? That's my average grocery bill for myself. When I get up to $30 it's usually b/c I'm buying nonedibles like laundry detergent and shampoo. And I live in urban Chicago, not the most expensive city but FAR from the cheapest. Sure, I do have a store of basics like flour, sugar, etc in my pantry, and my bill does get a little higher when I need to stock up on those things. But the only way it would be truly difficult to eat decent meals on that budget is if you don't shop around at ALL to find the best prices and pay no attention to sales, etc. If I went to the nearest major-chain supermarket, I could barely get three days of food for $21. Instead, I go to a combination of cheapo-supermarket and a local ethnic store for produce, and this week my grocery bill was $17.
I've discovered that it helps a LOT to shop around. I usually shop at the cheapest grocery store that's not an Aldi - Food 4 Less. Their produce is for crap, but I assumed it was the cheapest I'd find. I discovered, though, that a local ethnic grocery store has amazing produce often for dirt cheap - now I make two stops when I grocery stop, and I get terrific produce and rarely pay more than $1/pound. Sure, I can't get red bell peppers every week, but about 3 weeks out of 5 I can get them for $1.20/pound or less, and if I buy whatever's on sale it's always a bargain. And this is in Chicago, which may not be San Francisco but it's not a cheap area either.
But most people never look beyond whatever major chain is closest to home - I tried that for the first month I lived here, but I couldn't even find a box of cereal for under $3. You have to grocery shop pretty much every week of your life. It's worth a little time to investigate everything nearby and figure out where things are cheapest, and I've found that it's honestly not that hard to make two stops instead of one when the savings are good.
I think you have one thing wrong: I don't think most casual gamers are likely to buy multiple consoles. Once they've spent $250 on a Wii, they are unlikely to drop another few hundred on a console for at least a few years, as long as there are plenty of games they like on the Wii. Now, if MS and Sony catch up on the casual-games thing, then in a year or two people who don't already own a Wii might be likely to buy a 360 or a PS3 instead of a Wii, but Nintendo is working on getting the early install base so that that's not a big problem.
If you only play video games a couple hours a week, buying a new $300 console when there are plenty of games for the one you've got just doesn't look like a good investment. I'm a bit more than a casual player, but still only moderate, and I still don't like to pay more than $100 for a console. There are still more than enough games for my GC and DS for me to get through (and I didn't get those til I'd exhausted my SNES) since I go through them pretty slowly; I'd love a Wii but I doubt I'll get one til Christmas 2008.
Of course not. Ignore the fact that of the three Wiis I've actually seen in people's homes, two of those were in the homes of childless couples in their mid-twenties...
Oh wait, by "young adult" you may have meant "single male under 35 who still survives on pizza and ramen and spends all weekend blowing shit up while connected online to his single male friends," forgetting that some of us, despite still being young adults, have careers and relationships to maintain.
Having helped design a large puzzle hunt, I can tell you that the puzzles that were SO unintuitive that the majority of players needed "walkthroughs" to make it were definitely the WORST ones, no matter how clever they seemed once you knew how they worked. A puzzle with an "aha" step that is a complete nonsequitur and not a standard "thing to try when you're solving a puzzle," with no information on how to get there, that relies entirely on reading the constructor's mind, is a BADLY WRITTEN PUZZLE. The puzzles that people enjoy the most are consistently the ones that are challenging but give you at least some clue of how to get from one piece to the next without making it too obvious.
Uh, did you read my post? My problem is that the light from "soft white" bulbs is too yellow already. And actually, I only have one regular lampshade in my whole house, thanks for asking. And it doesn't make the light any more yellow, thank goodness.
I agree. They come in three color temperatures; I usually get the middle one, I always hated "soft white" bulbs, they make everything yellow. The coolest ones make everything look blue, though - the middle ones give the truest color I've seen in indoor lighting, at least to my eyes. Of the several we've installed, only one takes a while to warm up, and luckily it's just in the bathroom. We've replaced most of our bulbs with them. I just wish the soft white ones weren't so popular so they'd stock more of the cooler ones.
It certainly seems like it should be. Heck, they could even start selling upgrade packs on the VC - $1 here for ten new noses, $1 there for ten new hair styles...
Yeah, but those aren't the current "pre-eminent form of leisure entertainment" - compare the number of hours Americans spend on those activities to the number of hours they spend sitting in front of the TV. That's what Nintendo wants a share of, not rock climbing and sex.
Although, they WOULD like your party scenario to come true - and heck, so would I, Karaoke Revolution totally made the New Year's party I went to this year, blew away the Pictionary from earlier in the night easily. Having a video game in the room doesn't reduce socialization, it's just one more fun thing to do with your friends.
But remember that 100 million PS2s means that there was a PS2 in each of 100 million households... but not necessarily everyone in the household was playing it. In many cases, the resident teenager may have been the only person to ever touch it - and thus, the only person to drive game sales. Nintendo will be doing just fine if they can get consoles into a similar number of households (fewer, even), but have three people in the house playing it, each buying their own games - and heck, maybe even a second console because Mom wants to work out without Billy whining that he wants to play Metroid...
Although I agree that they could give more variation, I've seen Miis that were scary-similar to the person. Specifically, I was actually startled when I saw my brother's because it looked so much like him (yes, the penis-shaped nose actually works for some people, apparently). Neither my husband nor I could get our looking as much like us, but the one I made for my mom was also pretty similar, and my uncle's looked good, too. They do need more options, but for people who happen to fit the options they have it can be very recognizable.
I don't understand how a "long-time moderate gamer" who has owned every Nintendo console (a description that nearly fits me) could say that a company that's releasing Twilight Princess; Mario Galaxy, Party, Paper, and Kart; Super Smash Brothers; and Wii Sports (have you actually played it?) is "ignoring you." What exactly do you WANT?
I think the gp is referring to the decision that the government can force you to sell them your land so that they can then sell it to Wal-Mart, rather than only so that they can use it for public purposes. That one the dems were all for and the republicans were against.
Some states already have this. Take a look at any pop can and check out which states have 5c or 10c deposits. Of course, you have to pay the deposit before you get it back in the recycling, but if the consumer doesn't pay for the refund directly they'd just wind up paying it indirectly through higher prices; better to separate it out so you know what you're paying for. Of course, right now it's almost exclusively containers holding carbonated beverages - no clue why it's more desirable to recycle those than, say, water and juice bottles.
Re:products did not end with a whimper
on
All Things iPhone
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· Score: 1
Hey, go back and read articles and comments from when ROKR was introduced. That was a very common sentiment, but the other side kept saying "No, Apple will never release their own phone"...
Given everything I've read since the iPhone was announced about the stranglehold providers have on what goes into current phones, etc, it doesn't seem completely impossible that when they went the first round talking to execs they were turned down across the board because the execs would rather stick with companies that normally make phones and phones that work the way phones normally work.
If they didn't want the ROKR to flop, it's hard to explain many of their actions surrounding it.
Nah, that's the first time I've ever heard anyone list the iMac as a failure. I guess the list isn't long enough if you don't want to go back to the Lisa...
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I did layout for a local newspaper for a couple of years, and used a trackball at that job. I wasn't too impressed - I got used to it eventually, but it didn't seem any better than the mouse. In fact, I found it harder to make tiny, precise movements with the trackball than with a mouse. I felt like I had to tense up my whole hand to make sure the ball didn't move too far. The mouse, I just grip it a little tighter and move it within my hand instead of moving my hand. Maybe if the ball were bigger (this one was about 1"-1.5") it would be easier to do that.
The legislation, as far as I can tell, only outlines punishment for the pirates. It doesn't seem to make it the theater's responsibility to catch them or punish the theater if piracy takes place there. You can't blame the law for this theater's overzealous approach.
Oooh, then you reeeeeally don't want to see the addiction studies with cocaine feeds going directly into monkeys' brains... Actually, you also probably don't want to see what happens in most factory farms. Aside from some memory problems, these mice probably live quite a cushy life, for a mouse, and will probably die a quick and painless death. And because of them, hopefully life will get better for millions of people.
I completely agree. I doubt they'll ever be appropriate in formal writing (but then, neither are contractions), but when it comes to informal communications anything that makes your meaning clearer is a good thing. Now, if you overuse them or don't use them well, then they can get in the way of clarity, and that defeats the purpose. But used properly, I think they're a step in the right direction in terms of evolution of our (written) language.
(Of course, they're all way behind my alma mater, MIT. My family made about the same as tuition; I had a need-based family contribution of $0 and most of my need was met through grants. MIT has always prided itself on having lots of first-generation college students and students from blue-collar families. I've also heard that the main advantage being a legacy gets you in admissions is that if you're going to be deferred or rejected, they give your application a second look and notify your parents by personal phone call to break the news.)
I love that every single reply overlooks the *30,000* employees that I included in my figures. Yes, half the students are off-campus. But I'm betting most of the iPhones belong to medical, business, or law professors, not students. And the rest probably belong to grad students of one flavor or another (especially MBA students) who are taking summer classes. You're all acting like they all must belong to undergrads.
Heck, US radio stations do the same thing. I remember I first noticed in in junior high, when I still listened only to Top 40 because I didn't really know that anything else was out there (the classic rock station my dad listened to was "old people music" to me back then). And one day, I realized that in listening to the radio for 3 or 4 hours there were not one, but several songs I'd heard more than once. And I wondered why they couldn't have played some other songs I really liked instead. And then just last year, I caught a station playing the same song less than 2 hours apart - I just happened to tune my car to the station at the right time to catch it both times.
While I agree that overall, Duke is worse than many top schools as far as being full of rich preppy kids (though they do have need-blind undergrad admissions now, but that doesn't mean they're truly fulfilling everyone's need), the article states there are 150 iPhones there. At a school of over 12,000 students plus well over 30,000 employees and faculty, I'm not sure you can say that 150 fancy phones (one for every 280 people on campus) are a sign of excess.
That foodstamp challenge is living on $21 a week - seriously? That's my average grocery bill for myself. When I get up to $30 it's usually b/c I'm buying nonedibles like laundry detergent and shampoo. And I live in urban Chicago, not the most expensive city but FAR from the cheapest. Sure, I do have a store of basics like flour, sugar, etc in my pantry, and my bill does get a little higher when I need to stock up on those things. But the only way it would be truly difficult to eat decent meals on that budget is if you don't shop around at ALL to find the best prices and pay no attention to sales, etc. If I went to the nearest major-chain supermarket, I could barely get three days of food for $21. Instead, I go to a combination of cheapo-supermarket and a local ethnic store for produce, and this week my grocery bill was $17.
But most people never look beyond whatever major chain is closest to home - I tried that for the first month I lived here, but I couldn't even find a box of cereal for under $3. You have to grocery shop pretty much every week of your life. It's worth a little time to investigate everything nearby and figure out where things are cheapest, and I've found that it's honestly not that hard to make two stops instead of one when the savings are good.
Yes, because if you play video games, it must be your only hobby.
If you only play video games a couple hours a week, buying a new $300 console when there are plenty of games for the one you've got just doesn't look like a good investment. I'm a bit more than a casual player, but still only moderate, and I still don't like to pay more than $100 for a console. There are still more than enough games for my GC and DS for me to get through (and I didn't get those til I'd exhausted my SNES) since I go through them pretty slowly; I'd love a Wii but I doubt I'll get one til Christmas 2008.
Oh wait, by "young adult" you may have meant "single male under 35 who still survives on pizza and ramen and spends all weekend blowing shit up while connected online to his single male friends," forgetting that some of us, despite still being young adults, have careers and relationships to maintain.
Having helped design a large puzzle hunt, I can tell you that the puzzles that were SO unintuitive that the majority of players needed "walkthroughs" to make it were definitely the WORST ones, no matter how clever they seemed once you knew how they worked. A puzzle with an "aha" step that is a complete nonsequitur and not a standard "thing to try when you're solving a puzzle," with no information on how to get there, that relies entirely on reading the constructor's mind, is a BADLY WRITTEN PUZZLE. The puzzles that people enjoy the most are consistently the ones that are challenging but give you at least some clue of how to get from one piece to the next without making it too obvious.
Uh, did you read my post? My problem is that the light from "soft white" bulbs is too yellow already. And actually, I only have one regular lampshade in my whole house, thanks for asking. And it doesn't make the light any more yellow, thank goodness.
I agree. They come in three color temperatures; I usually get the middle one, I always hated "soft white" bulbs, they make everything yellow. The coolest ones make everything look blue, though - the middle ones give the truest color I've seen in indoor lighting, at least to my eyes. Of the several we've installed, only one takes a while to warm up, and luckily it's just in the bathroom. We've replaced most of our bulbs with them. I just wish the soft white ones weren't so popular so they'd stock more of the cooler ones.
It certainly seems like it should be. Heck, they could even start selling upgrade packs on the VC - $1 here for ten new noses, $1 there for ten new hair styles...
Although, they WOULD like your party scenario to come true - and heck, so would I, Karaoke Revolution totally made the New Year's party I went to this year, blew away the Pictionary from earlier in the night easily. Having a video game in the room doesn't reduce socialization, it's just one more fun thing to do with your friends.
But remember that 100 million PS2s means that there was a PS2 in each of 100 million households... but not necessarily everyone in the household was playing it. In many cases, the resident teenager may have been the only person to ever touch it - and thus, the only person to drive game sales. Nintendo will be doing just fine if they can get consoles into a similar number of households (fewer, even), but have three people in the house playing it, each buying their own games - and heck, maybe even a second console because Mom wants to work out without Billy whining that he wants to play Metroid...
Although I agree that they could give more variation, I've seen Miis that were scary-similar to the person. Specifically, I was actually startled when I saw my brother's because it looked so much like him (yes, the penis-shaped nose actually works for some people, apparently). Neither my husband nor I could get our looking as much like us, but the one I made for my mom was also pretty similar, and my uncle's looked good, too. They do need more options, but for people who happen to fit the options they have it can be very recognizable.
I don't understand how a "long-time moderate gamer" who has owned every Nintendo console (a description that nearly fits me) could say that a company that's releasing Twilight Princess; Mario Galaxy, Party, Paper, and Kart; Super Smash Brothers; and Wii Sports (have you actually played it?) is "ignoring you." What exactly do you WANT?
I think the gp is referring to the decision that the government can force you to sell them your land so that they can then sell it to Wal-Mart, rather than only so that they can use it for public purposes. That one the dems were all for and the republicans were against.
Some states already have this. Take a look at any pop can and check out which states have 5c or 10c deposits. Of course, you have to pay the deposit before you get it back in the recycling, but if the consumer doesn't pay for the refund directly they'd just wind up paying it indirectly through higher prices; better to separate it out so you know what you're paying for. Of course, right now it's almost exclusively containers holding carbonated beverages - no clue why it's more desirable to recycle those than, say, water and juice bottles.
Given everything I've read since the iPhone was announced about the stranglehold providers have on what goes into current phones, etc, it doesn't seem completely impossible that when they went the first round talking to execs they were turned down across the board because the execs would rather stick with companies that normally make phones and phones that work the way phones normally work.
If they didn't want the ROKR to flop, it's hard to explain many of their actions surrounding it.
Nah, that's the first time I've ever heard anyone list the iMac as a failure. I guess the list isn't long enough if you don't want to go back to the Lisa...