An aphorism springs to mind: "Never take no, from somebody who can't say yes."
These bureaucrats have no ability to enable space travel, no idea of what it entails in terms of engineering. But they have put themselves in charge of blocking it. Right.
Get the fuck out of the way, bureaucrat, and let the people who can, get on with it.
It's a classy move by Blizzard. It's not often a major game company admits a mistake and reverses a stupid decision. While the original RMAH/always online decision was stupid, at least they have the decency to realise that and backtrack. I can only assume that the reception of the 'fixed' D3 console release helped drive this decision.
I recall reading that player activity in D3 dropped by 80% within two months of the PC release, so there's your RMAH audience. The other 80% (plus those who didn't buy) prefer the game without that.
If D3 comes without the always online requirement they will have two sales from me.
The notion that venture capitalists are somehow "in the way" here is highly specious.
The simple fact is that no one on Kickstarter is there for any reason other than "we want your money because no one else would give us any."
This can be new start-ups with more dreams than schemes, venture capital won't touch them because they have zero experience in doing what they are doing. The idea that "I've never done it, but how hard could it be?" should -and does- raise alarm bells among the sensible.
The second group of Kickstarter money seekers can be classified as the "glorified pre-order" group. These are the established companies that use Kickstarter to fund their normal course of business. The return on investment is too low to justify VC funds, so companies come to crowdfunding as a way of avoiding negotiations with their bank, that is all.
Somewhere in Kickstarter are some interesting little projects (usually local arts projects) that genuinely benefit from this model.
Any VC who would put his clients' money into some of the high risk, high profile Kickstarter projects (I'm looking at you, Ouya) deserves to be fired - which is why they don't. There are no projects on Kickstarter that operate in the VC sphere. None.
"Teachers Fight Back" should have read "Founder of Company Trying To Sell Content Khan Gives Out For Free Strikes Back"
and a poor hatchet job it was too.
It's more likely a change in the rules and/or a change in their definition of 'misuse'. The rules for this change all the time and the same site can be blocked or unblocked (like Slashdot!) depending on the whim of the IT Director. But certainly, it's not due to a change in behaviour.
Fuck, YES. I read the original story, about the school introducing this moronic system, and could only shake my head.
Attempts at total control are generally the solution proffered by lazy bureaucrats as an alternative to them doing their jobs. Here’s an idea - instead of working out ways of forcing the kids into school and keeping them there - why not work to make it compelling for them to come to school in the first place. I know, hard, right? Idiots.
However, the creative (dare I say scientific) solution employed, and so quickly makes me remotely proud of our clever children. It’s nice to see the kids are far more intelligent and creative than their so-called teachers.
I will have somewhat less pride when they remotely drain my bank account and I am forced to live on cast off gummi bears, but hey.
"The end of DRM?" Nice spin. In fact it's the proposed end of anything other than DRM. If Valve have their way, the only way to play a PC game (which you bought and paid for, and should actualy own) will be to connect to Valve servers.
You know, because you should have to repeatedly prove you did not steal the product you paid for in order to keep using it. At Valve's discretion they will eventually discontinue the "service", leaving you with nothing. Have fun with that.
Mars has a similar axial tilt to Earth's. The fact that one hemisphere of Mars is lower than the other points to a significant impact in the early days of the solar system. Mars and Earth have very similar early histories.
Before this surprise methane discovery, Pluto was thought to be more like an icy version of our moon - something like the asteroid Ceres or Neptune's moon Triton. Now, it may be that Pluto has more in common with Saturn's moon Titan, which has a thick atmosphere of methane with a distinct orange hue. If Pluto were closer to the sun it might have a thicker atmosphere, it may even have a 'summer atompshere' as that methane goes from liquid to gas as it gets closer to the sun.
Pluto Express, due to arrive in 2015, is a flyby, and will only give us a 'snapshot' of Pluto. It would be nice to have something to observe Pluto's changing seasons over the next 200-odd years.
To be fair, the ground is exactly where those paleontologists found the mass extinction evidence. That ground-based evidence pointed to an extraterrestrial origin that had not previously been considered, but no one worked out the reason by looking up with a telescope.
I won't pretend the hypothesis was accepted immediately but once the Yucatan crater was identified (by a satellite looking down, but that's more engineering than astronomy surely?) that was pretty much the clincher.
However it is good science where so-called 'separate' disciplines start working together, though it's pretty common. The Victorian-era divisions across science become more irrelevant daily, and only persist due to government and university funding models that still use them to determine grants allocation.
Not really. The detection methods currently used to find exoplanets mean that the larger and closer the planet is to its parent star, the easier it is for us to find.
As our techniques become more sophisticated, we will be able to find more planets of a comparable size to our own. Those 335 can be thought of as the 'first wave' of discovered exoplanets. Large bodies close to their parent stars. These planets are interesting for what they can tell us about how solar systems can form.
The next wave of discovered exoplanets will be smaller, say between the sizes of Venus and Neptune, and therefore far more interesting from the perspective of extrasolar life.
Sort of. The goal of such convoluted hiring practises is not to hire the 'best' candidate for the position but instead to protect the person making the decision of who to hire. This will crop up frequently in large, bureaucratic organisations, where following a process is valued above all else. HR people love them.
Fielding would have no power or say here if Stephen Conroy (Communications Minister*) weren't pushing for this filter to happen. Fielding is a known quantity and can be counted on to vote for any paternalistic legislation that comes through. It's better to place your ire in the direction of the organ grinder. Don't waste time on the monkey.
*Yes 1984 fans, Australia's Communications Minister is the one responsible for interfering with everybody's communication.
Fuck the lawyers, make a sound Financial Education part and parcel of the education system, as people need that more than they need to memorize state capitals or what not. Stop the problem before it starts. Again.
Actually the smart students will be enrolling in Finance now the better to take advantage of the upturn when it kicks in as they graduate in 2-3 years' time.
They won't have much competition as people graduating now are not entering the industry, and won't have any industry experience over the next few years. They should do quite well.
Slashdot Mirror
These bureaucrats have no ability to enable space travel, no idea of what it entails in terms of engineering. But they have put themselves in charge of blocking it. Right.
Get the fuck out of the way, bureaucrat, and let the people who can, get on with it.
I recall reading that player activity in D3 dropped by 80% within two months of the PC release, so there's your RMAH audience. The other 80% (plus those who didn't buy) prefer the game without that.
If D3 comes without the always online requirement they will have two sales from me.
The simple fact is that no one on Kickstarter is there for any reason other than "we want your money because no one else would give us any."
This can be new start-ups with more dreams than schemes, venture capital won't touch them because they have zero experience in doing what they are doing. The idea that "I've never done it, but how hard could it be?" should -and does- raise alarm bells among the sensible.
The second group of Kickstarter money seekers can be classified as the "glorified pre-order" group. These are the established companies that use Kickstarter to fund their normal course of business. The return on investment is too low to justify VC funds, so companies come to crowdfunding as a way of avoiding negotiations with their bank, that is all.
Somewhere in Kickstarter are some interesting little projects (usually local arts projects) that genuinely benefit from this model.
Any VC who would put his clients' money into some of the high risk, high profile Kickstarter projects (I'm looking at you, Ouya) deserves to be fired - which is why they don't. There are no projects on Kickstarter that operate in the VC sphere. None.
"Teachers Fight Back" should have read "Founder of Company Trying To Sell Content Khan Gives Out For Free Strikes Back" and a poor hatchet job it was too.
..it is that those in positions of leadership absolutely need someone else on hand to pull their wieners from the fire at need.
I think it's sad that when it comes to the manned exploration of our solar system, NASA are part of the past, not the present.
Yes, I can imagine doing that. This is why I have never done it.
Yes but they would be replaced by people who are actually knowledgeable as opposed to merely opinionated.
It's more likely a change in the rules and/or a change in their definition of 'misuse'. The rules for this change all the time and the same site can be blocked or unblocked (like Slashdot!) depending on the whim of the IT Director. But certainly, it's not due to a change in behaviour.
Fuck, YES. I read the original story, about the school introducing this moronic system, and could only shake my head. Attempts at total control are generally the solution proffered by lazy bureaucrats as an alternative to them doing their jobs. Here’s an idea - instead of working out ways of forcing the kids into school and keeping them there - why not work to make it compelling for them to come to school in the first place. I know, hard, right? Idiots. However, the creative (dare I say scientific) solution employed, and so quickly makes me remotely proud of our clever children. It’s nice to see the kids are far more intelligent and creative than their so-called teachers. I will have somewhat less pride when they remotely drain my bank account and I am forced to live on cast off gummi bears, but hey.
They mostly work in marketing. I believe it's a pre-requesite there.
No, it isn't.
You know, because you should have to repeatedly prove you did not steal the product you paid for in order to keep using it. At Valve's discretion they will eventually discontinue the "service", leaving you with nothing. Have fun with that.
Holy shit, I'm a bat!
Mars has a similar axial tilt to Earth's. The fact that one hemisphere of Mars is lower than the other points to a significant impact in the early days of the solar system. Mars and Earth have very similar early histories.
Pluto Express, due to arrive in 2015, is a flyby, and will only give us a 'snapshot' of Pluto. It would be nice to have something to observe Pluto's changing seasons over the next 200-odd years.
I won't pretend the hypothesis was accepted immediately but once the Yucatan crater was identified (by a satellite looking down, but that's more engineering than astronomy surely?) that was pretty much the clincher.
However it is good science where so-called 'separate' disciplines start working together, though it's pretty common. The Victorian-era divisions across science become more irrelevant daily, and only persist due to government and university funding models that still use them to determine grants allocation.
You're right, sorry I was reading size rather than mass. The Moon is about 25% earth's diameter, but made of lighter material.
10% of the parent's mass as a threshhold would mean that our Moon is no longer a moon...
I thought the ending to the original Italian Job was pretty good, actually.
As our techniques become more sophisticated, we will be able to find more planets of a comparable size to our own. Those 335 can be thought of as the 'first wave' of discovered exoplanets. Large bodies close to their parent stars. These planets are interesting for what they can tell us about how solar systems can form.
The next wave of discovered exoplanets will be smaller, say between the sizes of Venus and Neptune, and therefore far more interesting from the perspective of extrasolar life.
Sort of. The goal of such convoluted hiring practises is not to hire the 'best' candidate for the position but instead to protect the person making the decision of who to hire. This will crop up frequently in large, bureaucratic organisations, where following a process is valued above all else. HR people love them.
*Yes 1984 fans, Australia's Communications Minister is the one responsible for interfering with everybody's communication.
Fuck the lawyers, make a sound Financial Education part and parcel of the education system, as people need that more than they need to memorize state capitals or what not. Stop the problem before it starts. Again.
They won't have much competition as people graduating now are not entering the industry, and won't have any industry experience over the next few years. They should do quite well.