The make-it-simpler strategy fails to account for competition. If you make a game too much like others, and throw it into a pool of a hundred thousand games, your game will get lost in the crowd.
Games must be different to succeed. They have to find a niche market, and hope that the niche becomes larger.
Angry Birds is probably an exception to that rule. It got famous through a lot of luck. There are several games out there like it, but it was just in the right place at the right time and somehow caught on. I wonder how many game developers thought their simplistic game could become the next Angry Birds, and flushed tons of money down the drain.
The meter was originally tied to the distance between the north pole and the equator, with a meter being one ten-millionth that distance, as measured at the meridian through Paris. Later, this distance was found to be imprecise and changing, so a more precise (and more seemingly arbitrary) number was used.
Most SI units are somehow tied to the meter. Temperature is tied to the freezing/boiling point of water. Time was originally tied to the length of the day (and is an SI unit for historical reasons; the divisions are not based on the number 10, but time was already an international standard and no competing system would have likely stood the test of... hmm... time).
Imperial lengths work in a similarly awkward way, and are countable in powers of 3. For example, 12 inches to a foot, 3 feet to a yard, 1780 yards to a mile.
Ah, so close. There are 1760 yards in a mile, which is not divisible by 3.
Mass appears to go into powers of 14.
Huh? Not at all! Check out Wikipedia to see that only one conversion, pound to stone (which is rarely used), uses a multiplier of 14.
In fact, that entire Wikipedia entry is incorrect. Those are units of force, not mass. The Imperial unit of mass is the slug, which is practically never used.
I suppose the only thing going for the Imperial system is that it uses whole number multipliers between unit steps.
It's possible that most people don't like Imperial, but they don't switch because everyone else still uses Imperial. Chicken-and-egg.
The government is in a position to help make this move, if they would back it and put forth a true effort.
Highway markers are probably the most visible of Imperial units of measure, and their change would probably be the largest possible catalyst to a full switch. The interstate highway system is regulated at a federal level, and it should not cause too much issue to require that mile markers be replaced with metric whenever they are next replaced. They can coexist for a lengthy period of time.
Not likely. At 1 meter distance, it could attract pebble-sized debris in around 8 hours. But at 10 meters, it would take a year to collect the same debris, and at 1 km, it would take ten thousand centuries. (All based on my primitive physics skills; YkmMV).
Sorry, I already patented a method by which an individual analyzes manual physical processes to ascertain any potential conflict with applicable licenseable material.
I'm not sure what "comprehensive solution" is being called for. Antivirus is an undecidable problem; the best we can ever do is check for what we know to date, and add some guesswork for finding future malware. But we will never have a perfect antivirus program.
The better solution has proven to be OS security locks. Like it or not, the walled-garden approach implemented by Apple in iOS--and more recently by Microsoft--has made it much more difficult for malware to actually do anything harmful to your data and device. (Then again, it has also made it much more difficult for goodware to actually do anything useful with your data and device.)
Even a good set of file permissions like in Linux, or in Windows Vista and 7, have been nearly as effective at blocking malware as what the antivirus industry has produced (and by that statement, I include the fact that many antivirus programs make the computer so unusable that people turn parts of them off). Of course, permissions tend to leave vulnerable anyone who is susceptible to social engineering.
This is what generally happens: Microsoft produces major new features in one version. It's fresh and new, but there are definitely quirks. But the point is that everyone gets used to it. Then Microsoft produces a followup version, and that one fixes the bugs and adds a couple of things that are truly useful. It's mostly the same, but better. That's the flagship version.
This happened with Vista and 7, Me and XP (sort of), 95 and 98, 3.0 and 3.1.
Windows codename Blue will likely be the flagship to the Windows 8 newness. The best thing Microsoft could do for itself is to release it early, before all the business and government departments holding out on XP decide that Windows 7 is the way to go.
I wonder if maglev trains could decrease the effectiveness of terrorist bombings.
Unlike conventional trains that have a car dedicated as an engine, my understanding is that the maglev rail provides propulsion. So then, there is no need for the cars to be linked together and linked to an engine car... each could run independently along the track.
Then a terrorist couldn't take out thousands of people with one bomb. And as a result, perhaps it wouldn't be deemed a large enough target to attempt at all.
(Another plus: using individual cars, each could be sent off as soon as it is filled... there would be less waiting for the entire train to fill, and the schedules could run constantly.)
There are many situations that two parties may agree upon, to the detriment of others or society.
I believe in fiscal conservatism, but keep this point in mind. The willingness of two parties to submit to a contract is not a free check to do whatever they want.
(That's a general thought. In this case, the only "detriment" is to a person taking advantage of a free service, a person who is free to stop using the service. So I agree with you.)
That's why we need the research. I'm certain that you can't make any weapon that can't kill or seriously injure, but surely weapons can be made that are both more effective and less lethal than current technology, for a price similar to a handgun.
Gun accident rates were at 0.2 per 100,000 population in the U.S. (according to this article, based on 2006 data). If we can arm 10 times as many people while pushing the accidental death rate farther down, I call that a win for the good guys (people who aren't gunning down people in schools and theaters and the workplace and religious institutions).
Even so, I wish that research into reliable non-lethal disabling weapons would increase tenfold.
We could give reliable stun guns to every teacher, and train them, without fear that students would get killed due to negligence.
We could enact gun control legislation without reducing personal defense. This in turn could cause more criminals to choose the available non-lethal weapons when committing crimes.
Surely, there will be some freeloaders, but so what?
Your country must be more civilized. Where I live, the freeloaders are everywhere.
One major problem is that the "system" is beyond the ability to control. The government provides assistance in all forms, but somehow that is never enough. Our government provides food, shelter, clothing, and emergency health care to the freeloaders. That's never enough though... now they need cell phones and laundry service and food/care for their pets and transportation and better living conditions. (Did I mention that despite the government assistance, they don't take care of themselves or their kids, so now there are more health care costs, etc.?)
If you do work, you don't get much or any of that for free. You start at $0.00, and work for your money. Then you pay taxes, and buy those things I listed. By the time you pay for health insurance and everything else that puts you on the same level as a typical freeloader, you are left with little money to spend as you want. You work 40 hours per week, yet barely live any better than those who work 0 hours per week.
So why slave away at a thankless job, away from my family during the day? I could be spending more quality time with my family, being lazy or doing whatever I can do without paying money for it... all while having all my needs and many of my wants provided for by the government check.
Many brilliant people do not recognize their full potential. Most of us know people who have had great ideas, as good or better than Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg.
Success involves risk. It takes more than hard work and great ideas to succeed; sometimes, it just takes a good bit of luck. Many of us who are smart enough to come up with such ideas, are smart enough not to risk our livelihoods (and that of their families) on an idea that has a small chance of taking off. Others tried and failed, and despite having more potentially great ideas, they may no longer be in a position to take another risk, or they have been burned too badly.
This is where the safety net makes sense: from the beginning, a social contract is made with those who take risks so that if their ideas succeed, they support those whose ideas didn't pan out. More people would accept this arrangement, and more good ideas would be tried. Other ideas will fail, and our society will benefit from the experience.
To your point: I would gladly accept a system where those who don't participate in the risk-taking do not benefit from the social safety net.
Giving everyone a basic income would provide them a safety net, encouraging risk-taking and innovation. Whoever does succeed contributes more back to the societal safety net.
But some people don't try. They don't want to try. If given a choice between a free shack and a nice home they can work to afford, they will choose the shack. How do we get them to contribute something positive to society, and to take the risks that the safety net is intended to promote?
Suffice to say, there is plenty of evidence (including some linked below in the comments) correlating armed societies with reduced murder and crime rates.
Slashdot Mirror
The make-it-simpler strategy fails to account for competition. If you make a game too much like others, and throw it into a pool of a hundred thousand games, your game will get lost in the crowd.
Games must be different to succeed. They have to find a niche market, and hope that the niche becomes larger.
Angry Birds is probably an exception to that rule. It got famous through a lot of luck. There are several games out there like it, but it was just in the right place at the right time and somehow caught on. I wonder how many game developers thought their simplistic game could become the next Angry Birds, and flushed tons of money down the drain.
The meter was originally tied to the distance between the north pole and the equator, with a meter being one ten-millionth that distance, as measured at the meridian through Paris. Later, this distance was found to be imprecise and changing, so a more precise (and more seemingly arbitrary) number was used.
Most SI units are somehow tied to the meter. Temperature is tied to the freezing/boiling point of water. Time was originally tied to the length of the day (and is an SI unit for historical reasons; the divisions are not based on the number 10, but time was already an international standard and no competing system would have likely stood the test of... hmm... time).
Imperial lengths work in a similarly awkward way, and are countable in powers of 3. For example, 12 inches to a foot, 3 feet to a yard, 1780 yards to a mile.
Ah, so close. There are 1760 yards in a mile, which is not divisible by 3.
Mass appears to go into powers of 14.
Huh? Not at all! Check out Wikipedia to see that only one conversion, pound to stone (which is rarely used), uses a multiplier of 14.
In fact, that entire Wikipedia entry is incorrect. Those are units of force, not mass. The Imperial unit of mass is the slug, which is practically never used.
I suppose the only thing going for the Imperial system is that it uses whole number multipliers between unit steps.
It's possible that most people don't like Imperial, but they don't switch because everyone else still uses Imperial. Chicken-and-egg.
The government is in a position to help make this move, if they would back it and put forth a true effort.
Highway markers are probably the most visible of Imperial units of measure, and their change would probably be the largest possible catalyst to a full switch. The interstate highway system is regulated at a federal level, and it should not cause too much issue to require that mile markers be replaced with metric whenever they are next replaced. They can coexist for a lengthy period of time.
Not likely. At 1 meter distance, it could attract pebble-sized debris in around 8 hours. But at 10 meters, it would take a year to collect the same debris, and at 1 km, it would take ten thousand centuries. (All based on my primitive physics skills; YkmMV).
But can your skinny, smart fish that produce few offspring create other glowing animals?
Thought not. Nerds 1, Brainiac fish 0.
Sorry, I already patented a method by which an individual analyzes manual physical processes to ascertain any potential conflict with applicable licenseable material.
Well, at least it isn't obvious.
Solution:
Use a URL shortening service.
I'm not sure what "comprehensive solution" is being called for. Antivirus is an undecidable problem; the best we can ever do is check for what we know to date, and add some guesswork for finding future malware. But we will never have a perfect antivirus program.
The better solution has proven to be OS security locks. Like it or not, the walled-garden approach implemented by Apple in iOS--and more recently by Microsoft--has made it much more difficult for malware to actually do anything harmful to your data and device. (Then again, it has also made it much more difficult for goodware to actually do anything useful with your data and device.)
Even a good set of file permissions like in Linux, or in Windows Vista and 7, have been nearly as effective at blocking malware as what the antivirus industry has produced (and by that statement, I include the fact that many antivirus programs make the computer so unusable that people turn parts of them off). Of course, permissions tend to leave vulnerable anyone who is susceptible to social engineering.
This is what generally happens: Microsoft produces major new features in one version. It's fresh and new, but there are definitely quirks. But the point is that everyone gets used to it. Then Microsoft produces a followup version, and that one fixes the bugs and adds a couple of things that are truly useful. It's mostly the same, but better. That's the flagship version.
This happened with Vista and 7, Me and XP (sort of), 95 and 98, 3.0 and 3.1.
Windows codename Blue will likely be the flagship to the Windows 8 newness. The best thing Microsoft could do for itself is to release it early, before all the business and government departments holding out on XP decide that Windows 7 is the way to go.
I wonder if maglev trains could decrease the effectiveness of terrorist bombings.
Unlike conventional trains that have a car dedicated as an engine, my understanding is that the maglev rail provides propulsion. So then, there is no need for the cars to be linked together and linked to an engine car... each could run independently along the track.
Then a terrorist couldn't take out thousands of people with one bomb. And as a result, perhaps it wouldn't be deemed a large enough target to attempt at all.
(Another plus: using individual cars, each could be sent off as soon as it is filled... there would be less waiting for the entire train to fill, and the schedules could run constantly.)
This is like saying OneNote is a massive failure because somebody who uses Excel doesn't know about it.
Am I the only one who misread that as "Facebook will let you massage strangers for $1"?
There are many situations that two parties may agree upon, to the detriment of others or society.
I believe in fiscal conservatism, but keep this point in mind. The willingness of two parties to submit to a contract is not a free check to do whatever they want.
(That's a general thought. In this case, the only "detriment" is to a person taking advantage of a free service, a person who is free to stop using the service. So I agree with you.)
Perhaps they can be left in an unpressurized airlock (which current spacecraft will still have, and perhaps future spacecraft as a backup system).
This of course assumes the inner door of the airlock is compatible with this suit's door.
That's why we need the research. I'm certain that you can't make any weapon that can't kill or seriously injure, but surely weapons can be made that are both more effective and less lethal than current technology, for a price similar to a handgun.
Gun accident rates were at 0.2 per 100,000 population in the U.S. (according to this article, based on 2006 data). If we can arm 10 times as many people while pushing the accidental death rate farther down, I call that a win for the good guys (people who aren't gunning down people in schools and theaters and the workplace and religious institutions).
Even so, I wish that research into reliable non-lethal disabling weapons would increase tenfold.
We could give reliable stun guns to every teacher, and train them, without fear that students would get killed due to negligence.
We could enact gun control legislation without reducing personal defense. This in turn could cause more criminals to choose the available non-lethal weapons when committing crimes.
Five Guys usually makes me test my lab.
Surely, there will be some freeloaders, but so what?
Your country must be more civilized. Where I live, the freeloaders are everywhere.
One major problem is that the "system" is beyond the ability to control. The government provides assistance in all forms, but somehow that is never enough. Our government provides food, shelter, clothing, and emergency health care to the freeloaders. That's never enough though... now they need cell phones and laundry service and food/care for their pets and transportation and better living conditions. (Did I mention that despite the government assistance, they don't take care of themselves or their kids, so now there are more health care costs, etc.?)
If you do work, you don't get much or any of that for free. You start at $0.00, and work for your money. Then you pay taxes, and buy those things I listed. By the time you pay for health insurance and everything else that puts you on the same level as a typical freeloader, you are left with little money to spend as you want. You work 40 hours per week, yet barely live any better than those who work 0 hours per week.
So why slave away at a thankless job, away from my family during the day? I could be spending more quality time with my family, being lazy or doing whatever I can do without paying money for it... all while having all my needs and many of my wants provided for by the government check.
Many brilliant people do not recognize their full potential. Most of us know people who have had great ideas, as good or better than Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg.
Success involves risk. It takes more than hard work and great ideas to succeed; sometimes, it just takes a good bit of luck. Many of us who are smart enough to come up with such ideas, are smart enough not to risk our livelihoods (and that of their families) on an idea that has a small chance of taking off. Others tried and failed, and despite having more potentially great ideas, they may no longer be in a position to take another risk, or they have been burned too badly.
This is where the safety net makes sense: from the beginning, a social contract is made with those who take risks so that if their ideas succeed, they support those whose ideas didn't pan out. More people would accept this arrangement, and more good ideas would be tried. Other ideas will fail, and our society will benefit from the experience.
To your point: I would gladly accept a system where those who don't participate in the risk-taking do not benefit from the social safety net.
Such as the White House?
Giving everyone a basic income would provide them a safety net, encouraging risk-taking and innovation. Whoever does succeed contributes more back to the societal safety net.
But some people don't try. They don't want to try. If given a choice between a free shack and a nice home they can work to afford, they will choose the shack. How do we get them to contribute something positive to society, and to take the risks that the safety net is intended to promote?
But those two women might be able to fight him off with their guns.
Gun laws will simply remove the guns from the women, not the guy.
Sure I have.
I can't bring myself to LMGTFY on a 3-digit /. id.
Suffice to say, there is plenty of evidence (including some linked below in the comments) correlating armed societies with reduced murder and crime rates.