Some of the top selling games are ones that have a good deal of complexity to them (the Sims being a great example),
It's hilarious that you mention The Sims in your post, as you can get The Sims 3 for iPhone. You obviously didn't even bother to glance at the iPhone game offerings before writing your post.
I idly wonder what would happen if you educated poor people on the basics of cooking. I've made some pretty good dinners with nothing but a cast-iron pot and a campfire. Cheap, easy, tasty meals are entirely possible. How much does education play into that?
I think, as another poster hints at, that it's habitual and cyclical. If you want to see some of the psychology and socio-economic factors at work, I recommend watching the Jamie Oliver series "Ministry of Food" where he tries to educate people in a working class/high unemployment town how to cook good food and make ends meet. It's quite eye-opening in parts, some of the people just don't know what non-fast-food is, and literally have no idea what to do with a vegetable or piece of meat.
So now users can call tech support with their mouse plugged into their monitor and say that their "computer doesn't work".
Why would that be a problem? That's where I currently plug my mouse in... there's no reason why they wouldn't continue to use monitors as connective hubs with this new standard.
I love it how you claim that a test by an organization with 5 decades of experience doing this is "bogus" just because of your uninformed "intuition" about old cars.
You don't "deter" normal people from doing things with excessive punishments (well, you can, but you need to go to ludicrous extremes - eg: overbearing surveillance, crippling fines, life imprisonment, capital punishment, etc - to achieve it). The whole line of thought behind that principle is broken.
Well, obviously something is working. Why is road rule compliance so much higher in Australia than the US, if such things don't work?
Strange, then, that the posted limits (not to mention ambient speed) on most freeways is notably lower than in other countries with similar, if not worse, roads (eg: Germany's unrestricted and 130km/h Autobahns, France's 130km/h Autoroutes, Italy's 130km/h Autostradas, etc). In fact, 120-130km/h seems to be the typical motorway speed in most of Europe. Can you think of a reason why "scientists and engineers" in Australia come to such different conclusions than their overseas peers ?
Well, setting speed limits is not an exact science. What makes you think that the Australians got it wrong, and the Europeans got it right?
I believe that there are also laws in many of those European countries that mandate better performance or condition of vehicles than in Australia, where you can drive pretty much an old banger than meets rather lax roadworthy requirements.
According to physics, slower is safer, so wouldn't that mean that Australia's slower limits are the more scientific option? Of course, people still need to get places, so that needs to be balanced with absolute safety. The way I see it, if you're going at 100km/h you're still going to get where you're going pretty quickly. Why the need for the extra 30km/h? Besides, 100km/h is more fuel efficient than 130.
Finally, I'm not sure why you bring red light cameras into the discussion. In Australia (and all the parts of Europe I've been to, with the exception of Italy) they don't have any of the gross implementation corruption that is rampant throughout the US (primarily, the shortening of amber phases). Red light cameras are not (yet) used as a revenue-generation device in Australia.
I bring it up as a comparison of the cultures and legislatures. Having lived in both countries, Australia simply does not have the same corrupt meddling in safety laws as the USA does. It's a country with a tradition of civil service and respect for boffins (CSIRO, etc). Since you're arguing it's political, then I need to see some evidence that politicians directly meddle with speed limits.
If you drive in both Australia and the USA, it's not difficult to come to the conclusion that the US has a lot more insane behavior on the roads. Maybe this is just a cultural difference - but I suspect the enforcement of laws (and particularly the attitudes of law enforcement) has something to do with it.
My personal opinion is that geek has moved far beyond the 1980's definition of pocket protectors, glasses, and a calculator. Geeks come in all flavours now, from classical computing and math geeks all the way into sports and automotive geeks.
My personal opinion is that geek still means carnival folk who bite the heads off chickens. "Nerd" or "boffin" are my preferred terms for people who are excited or obsessive about technical things. "Geek" has too many connotations of falsity, they remind me of the web-bubble MBA types who wouldn't like being called nerds, and think that "geek" has cooler connotations. But there's nothing cool about biting the heads off chickens.
Noone has any obligation to read one's email every f***ing day !!!
I agree with your general point, but this isn't strictly true. Many workplaces oblige their employees to check their email every day, it's part of the contract.
Personally, I don't see this as being a problem. The account holder refused to respond to the bank, which, had they done so, something could have been done to avert their account being deactivated
Would you respond to an email from some bank you've never heard of talking about highly important account details, rather than just deleting the email immediately? Furthermore, what modern spam filter wouldn't automatically filter out an email claiming to be from "Rocky Mountain Bank" and talking about account details? This is exactly the kind of email that security-conscious users should be avoiding like the plague.
You think I don't want to? It's those TV networks, Marge... they won't let me. One quality show after another, each one fresher and more brilliant than the last. If they only stumbled once, just gave us thirty minutes to ourselves, but they won't! They won't let me live!
I see you've never had a conversation with an audiophile.
Has anyone ever had a conversation with an audiophile? I imagine it would be pretty difficult, what with the constant drooling and the brain damage and all. Assuming they are capable of verbal speech.
Speed limits keep people from going 100 km/h in residential areas? I have friends who used to/still do drag race down a 2 mile stretch of road in a residential area and no one in the area even thinks of reporting it to the police.
Well, that's your problem. Not all societies are like that. Road safety is taken much more seriously in some countries than others.
If your friends are engaging in that kind of juvenile behavior, why don't you talk to them and try to persuade them not to?
If someone is prepared to do 100km/h down a residential street, then a number printed on a sign is in no way going to deter them.
No, but the massive fine or loss of driver's license for being that far over the limit will deter it.
There is a large body of research and well understood science behind setting speed limits. Even though it is typically ignored and/or improperly used by politicians who see it as an easy source of revenue,
To the best of my knowledge, Australian speed limits (and red light timing) are set by guidelines established by scientists and engineers, not by politicians.
It's amazing how quickly Slashdotters will rush to defend Google over anything. I notice you've made many other comments in this story defending Google. If this was Microsoft, they'd be portrayed as the greedy corporation exploiting software licenses to shut down freedom. When it's Google, we're supposed to shut our eyes and cover our ears. "Case closed."
It's amazing how quickly slashdotters rush to bring out this tired trope whenever they read a comment they don't agree with, saying if it was [Company X] instead of [Company Y] then they'd be [outraged/gushing/the epitome of evil].
Here's a tip: slashdot commenters don't have a hive mind, they are individuals with varying opinions.
When you have a blacksmith who cares more about money than his craft, you have a poor blacksmith indeed.
Yeah right. What Blacksmith goes into business because he enjoys working in hot, dangerous conditions that require lots of physical effort and hardship? The only blacksmith who would become a blacksmith "for the craft" is an insane blacksmith. And I don't think you want to buy the wares of an insane person. A good blacksmith does it for the money.
An example of what? Presumably that "Ubuntu is not ready for prime time" going by your post. How is a feature that almost nobody uses, an example that it's not ready for widespread use?
The other AC never said the kernel wasn't a part of the OS, just that it's not the reason people use Mac OS X. A pretty reasonable statement, I would have thought.
Slashdot Mirror
...that's all you had to say! If we can't trust the judgment, decency, and foresight of George Michael, who can we trust?
Maebe. Maebe not.
Anybody else here grow up during the 70s? 80s? 90s? Anybody else find the idea of Apple being any kind of force in gaming utterly bizarre?
Hey! Choplifter on the Apple ][ was awesome!!
Some of the top selling games are ones that have a good deal of complexity to them (the Sims being a great example),
It's hilarious that you mention The Sims in your post, as you can get The Sims 3 for iPhone. You obviously didn't even bother to glance at the iPhone game offerings before writing your post.
I idly wonder what would happen if you educated poor people on the basics of cooking. I've made some pretty good dinners with nothing but a cast-iron pot and a campfire. Cheap, easy, tasty meals are entirely possible. How much does education play into that?
I think, as another poster hints at, that it's habitual and cyclical. If you want to see some of the psychology and socio-economic factors at work, I recommend watching the Jamie Oliver series "Ministry of Food" where he tries to educate people in a working class/high unemployment town how to cook good food and make ends meet. It's quite eye-opening in parts, some of the people just don't know what non-fast-food is, and literally have no idea what to do with a vegetable or piece of meat.
So now users can call tech support with their mouse plugged into their monitor and say that their "computer doesn't work".
Why would that be a problem? That's where I currently plug my mouse in... there's no reason why they wouldn't continue to use monitors as connective hubs with this new standard.
While I agree with your post, I'd like to point out that you mean kmph
Kilo-miles-per-hour? That's fast.
I love it how you claim that a test by an organization with 5 decades of experience doing this is "bogus" just because of your uninformed "intuition" about old cars.
You don't "deter" normal people from doing things with excessive punishments (well, you can, but you need to go to ludicrous extremes - eg: overbearing surveillance, crippling fines, life imprisonment, capital punishment, etc - to achieve it). The whole line of thought behind that principle is broken.
Well, obviously something is working. Why is road rule compliance so much higher in Australia than the US, if such things don't work?
Strange, then, that the posted limits (not to mention ambient speed) on most freeways is notably lower than in other countries with similar, if not worse, roads (eg: Germany's unrestricted and 130km/h Autobahns, France's 130km/h Autoroutes, Italy's 130km/h Autostradas, etc). In fact, 120-130km/h seems to be the typical motorway speed in most of Europe. Can you think of a reason why "scientists and engineers" in Australia come to such different conclusions than their overseas peers ?
Well, setting speed limits is not an exact science. What makes you think that the Australians got it wrong, and the Europeans got it right?
I believe that there are also laws in many of those European countries that mandate better performance or condition of vehicles than in Australia, where you can drive pretty much an old banger than meets rather lax roadworthy requirements.
According to physics, slower is safer, so wouldn't that mean that Australia's slower limits are the more scientific option? Of course, people still need to get places, so that needs to be balanced with absolute safety. The way I see it, if you're going at 100km/h you're still going to get where you're going pretty quickly. Why the need for the extra 30km/h? Besides, 100km/h is more fuel efficient than 130.
Finally, I'm not sure why you bring red light cameras into the discussion. In Australia (and all the parts of Europe I've been to, with the exception of Italy) they don't have any of the gross implementation corruption that is rampant throughout the US (primarily, the shortening of amber phases). Red light cameras are not (yet) used as a revenue-generation device in Australia.
I bring it up as a comparison of the cultures and legislatures. Having lived in both countries, Australia simply does not have the same corrupt meddling in safety laws as the USA does. It's a country with a tradition of civil service and respect for boffins (CSIRO, etc). Since you're arguing it's political, then I need to see some evidence that politicians directly meddle with speed limits.
If you drive in both Australia and the USA, it's not difficult to come to the conclusion that the US has a lot more insane behavior on the roads. Maybe this is just a cultural difference - but I suspect the enforcement of laws (and particularly the attitudes of law enforcement) has something to do with it.
My personal opinion is that geek has moved far beyond the 1980's definition of pocket protectors, glasses, and a calculator. Geeks come in all flavours now, from classical computing and math geeks all the way into sports and automotive geeks.
My personal opinion is that geek still means carnival folk who bite the heads off chickens. "Nerd" or "boffin" are my preferred terms for people who are excited or obsessive about technical things. "Geek" has too many connotations of falsity, they remind me of the web-bubble MBA types who wouldn't like being called nerds, and think that "geek" has cooler connotations. But there's nothing cool about biting the heads off chickens.
Noone has any obligation to read one's email every f***ing day !!!
I agree with your general point, but this isn't strictly true. Many workplaces oblige their employees to check their email every day, it's part of the contract.
Personally, I don't see this as being a problem. The account holder refused to respond to the bank, which, had they done so, something could have been done to avert their account being deactivated
Would you respond to an email from some bank you've never heard of talking about highly important account details, rather than just deleting the email immediately? Furthermore, what modern spam filter wouldn't automatically filter out an email claiming to be from "Rocky Mountain Bank" and talking about account details? This is exactly the kind of email that security-conscious users should be avoiding like the plague.
You think I don't want to? It's those TV networks, Marge ... they won't let me. One quality show after another, each one fresher and more brilliant than the last. If they only stumbled once, just gave us thirty minutes to ourselves, but they won't! They won't let me live!
Since then, I have resolved to be careful during the day, and to download the Internet every frickin' night from 2am till 8am.
You might want to have a little chat with Ted Stevens, and help resolve his problem with receiving internets from his staff.
I see you've never had a conversation with an audiophile.
Has anyone ever had a conversation with an audiophile? I imagine it would be pretty difficult, what with the constant drooling and the brain damage and all. Assuming they are capable of verbal speech.
Speed limits keep people from going 100 km/h in residential areas? I have friends who used to/still do drag race down a 2 mile stretch of road in a residential area and no one in the area even thinks of reporting it to the police.
Well, that's your problem. Not all societies are like that. Road safety is taken much more seriously in some countries than others.
If your friends are engaging in that kind of juvenile behavior, why don't you talk to them and try to persuade them not to?
If someone is prepared to do 100km/h down a residential street, then a number printed on a sign is in no way going to deter them.
No, but the massive fine or loss of driver's license for being that far over the limit will deter it.
There is a large body of research and well understood science behind setting speed limits. Even though it is typically ignored and/or improperly used by politicians who see it as an easy source of revenue,
To the best of my knowledge, Australian speed limits (and red light timing) are set by guidelines established by scientists and engineers, not by politicians.
Oh, yeah, what are you gonna do? Release the falcons? Or the dragons? Or the falcons with the dragons in their mouth, that shoot dragons at you?
service providers USE the series of tubs
Does that mean the internet is actually a series of tubgirls?
Did he just get stuck in a loop? Kids, this is why you don't use GOTO!
...is an app that disables the Android kill switch.
That sounds pretty dangerous to me. When my androids go bezerk, I want to know there is a kill switch available.
FREEDOM!
Sure, for our new robotic overlords, but what about us puny humans?
It's amazing how quickly Slashdotters will rush to defend Google over anything. I notice you've made many other comments in this story defending Google. If this was Microsoft, they'd be portrayed as the greedy corporation exploiting software licenses to shut down freedom. When it's Google, we're supposed to shut our eyes and cover our ears. "Case closed."
It's amazing how quickly slashdotters rush to bring out this tired trope whenever they read a comment they don't agree with, saying if it was [Company X] instead of [Company Y] then they'd be [outraged/gushing/the epitome of evil].
Here's a tip: slashdot commenters don't have a hive mind, they are individuals with varying opinions.
WTF? How do they pronounce it in other English speaking countries? I've heard plenty of British people say those words, and they still rhyme.
When you have a blacksmith who cares more about money than his craft, you have a poor blacksmith indeed.
Yeah right. What Blacksmith goes into business because he enjoys working in hot, dangerous conditions that require lots of physical effort and hardship? The only blacksmith who would become a blacksmith "for the craft" is an insane blacksmith. And I don't think you want to buy the wares of an insane person. A good blacksmith does it for the money.
An example of what? Presumably that "Ubuntu is not ready for prime time" going by your post. How is a feature that almost nobody uses, an example that it's not ready for widespread use?
The other AC never said the kernel wasn't a part of the OS, just that it's not the reason people use Mac OS X. A pretty reasonable statement, I would have thought.