I second World of Tanks. It's one of the most "perfect" games I've ever seen. In *every* way -- sound, graphics, gameplay -- it gets straight 'A's. From the desktop to driving your tank takes about a minute, and battles are capped at 10 minutes in length. It's a great game to just pick up and play for fifteen minutes.
The game is free to play, but you can opt to pay a monthly fee to increase the speed at which you gain experience and money. And although you can pay money to buy certain items that can give you a slight edge in battle, the game is most certainly *not* pay-to-win.
Battles are arranged in two random teams of 15 players, and there are several variations on the basic game of destroy all enemies or capture their base. Tanks are all arranged into tiers based on their strength, and the random battle matchmaker tries its best to keep players from going up against unbeatable enemies.
I just can't say enough good things about this game, but I'll have to cut myself short here. For the serious and casual gamer alike, World of Tanks is right at or near the top of the "best game in the world" list.
"How come after 25 years in the tech industry, someone hasn't worked out how to make accurate progress bars? "
Because, unlike the computers you see on TV and the movies, computers in real-life cannot be programmed to be psychic.
"This migration I'm doing has sat on 'less than a minute' for over 30 minutes. I'm not an engineer; is it really that hard?"
Yes it is.
I don't know what kind of engineer you are, so for the sake of illustration I will assume you design and build bridges. Let's say I ask you to build a bridge across a river. Can you give me an accurate estimate (to the hour) on when said bridge will be complete without you having done any surveying first and without knowing anything about the availability of the materials and labor required to build said bridge, or what the weather patterns will be like?
You could make an estimated guess, sure -- and that's exactly what progress bars typically do. Sometimes they are just bad at guessing (i.e. poorly programmed) or things happen that just can't *reasonably* be taken into consideration when the time prediction algorithm is coded.
Given that ideas only reach the status of theory if they have overwhelming evidence supporting them, it isn't at all clear what 'all sides' would involve."
It means looking at evolution from both Old and New Testaments.
You have to smile while you're on the phone (uhm really?),
For the more observant among us, it *is* possible to sometimes determine when a person on the other end of the phone is smiling by the way their words sound.
It is my understanding that this behavior is the byproduct of evolution. Please forgive my very basic, rudimentary, and incorrect-in-some-places explanation of how I understand the evolution and humanity's current obsession with believing in things that don't exist.
It starts with certain chemicals encountering each other in one way leading to a reaction, and encountering in another way lead to the reaction not happening.
Move forward through time a bit and you've got masses of chemicals naturally gravitating toward certain interactions with other masses of chemicals which lead to certain reactions, and gravitating away other masses of chemicals which don't result in certain reactions.
You have small lifeforms going after food and avoiding predators. Senses develop in these lifeforms which can detect environments wherein it can find food and avoid predators.
Then you have information processing systems developing which are able to do pattern matching in order to identify where good things might be and bad things might not be. Increasing complexity in this system gives rise to the lifeform beginning to be able to predict places, behaviors, etc. which can lead to positive and negative outcomes for itself.
Increasing in information processing complexity, the lifeform begins to learn causes of the situations that can lead to positive and negative outcomes. In order to maximize its own benefit, it actively starts to reason out unknown causes.
Still more complexity leads to entire frameworks of understanding of the world around the lifeform being imagined.
Conditioning to external stimuli, combined with unknown causes, leads to superstition. When causes for events are simply unknowable for the lifeform, it extends the concepts that it knows about - e.g. other lifeforms, etc. - and invents an "unknown actor" (i.e. god) as the cause, trying to come up with the best framework for predicting what behaviors it needs to perform in order to maximize its benefit and minimize its harm.
This framework evolves in social lifeforms to become a series of rituals and, eventually, religious beliefs.
These religious beliefs are, in effect, environmental conditioning. This condition becomes hard to break, since it's tied, evolutionarily, to the lifeform's successful existence.
"Comments should be avoided whenever possible. Comments duplicate work when both writing and reading code."
Oh my god, this is the worst programming advice I've ever heard. Is this a joke? Maybe some clever attempt at creating job security?
There is a terrible dearth of commented code in the world -- especially in the lower-level languages like C and C++ -- and this guy is telling people we need fewer comments in our code?
Facebook has no right to comment on this. We're talking about a person's right to privacy, not a corporation's right to privacy.
Facebook is not a person; it is a corporation. It has one end goal: to make money. Everything Facebook says is driven by that one goal. If Facebook says that the right for people to be forgotten would harm privacy, what it really means is that the right for people to be forgotten would reduce Facebook's profits.
The one question I care about is this: Is Arndt a fan? Does he have an old Boba Fett action figure that he's kept since they came out (and not one in mint condition, one where most of the paint has worn off by handling)? Does he have a dog eared copy of the Thrawn trilogy? Does he still have the VHS original series--for obvious reasons--even though he no longer has a VCR? Does he care about the story and does he recognize why fans over 12 are miffed? I'm not asking whether he's a bat-shit crazy fan like, say, myself or my wife. I'm not talking about the kind of fan who cannot talk about the prequels in polite company, such a person would have trouble writing the new movies. I'm talking about the kind of fan who, unlike Lucas [tor.com], recognizes that once art is made other people invest themselves in it. A person who's willing to respect that.
It should be noted that Nicholas Meyer -- who co-wrote the screenplay for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan -- had never seen Star Trek before, yet managed to create arguably the best of the Star Trek movies. One doesn't necessarily need to be a long time fan of a franchise in order to create a great work from it.
And yet, most Slashdotters who read this will go to the polls on Tuesday and cast a vote in favor of this exact sort of behavior from their government.
"Oh, but the wrong lizard might get in," they cry, "we have to vote for the lesser of two evils!"
So Sladotters vote for the lesser of two evils, then complain when evil wins the election.
*sigh*
I know I shouldn't be so hard on you Americans since you don't really have free elections (I don't consider elections where the electorate is brainwashed by overwhelmingly powerful corporate interests via the media and militarized police forces into voting for the two pro-corporate-interest parties to be "free").:-\
This appears to be the root cause of most/all of the major problems facing Western democracies. A system whereby everyone is supposed to have relatively equal power to influence the government does not work when some individuals are allowed to become many orders of magnitude wealthier (and therefore more powerful) than everyone else.
As strange as it may seem, it is very likely that freedom and empowerment for all ultimately requires a maximum limit on personal wealth.
Slashdot Mirror
I second World of Tanks. It's one of the most "perfect" games I've ever seen. In *every* way -- sound, graphics, gameplay -- it gets straight 'A's. From the desktop to driving your tank takes about a minute, and battles are capped at 10 minutes in length. It's a great game to just pick up and play for fifteen minutes.
The game is free to play, but you can opt to pay a monthly fee to increase the speed at which you gain experience and money. And although you can pay money to buy certain items that can give you a slight edge in battle, the game is most certainly *not* pay-to-win.
Battles are arranged in two random teams of 15 players, and there are several variations on the basic game of destroy all enemies or capture their base. Tanks are all arranged into tiers based on their strength, and the random battle matchmaker tries its best to keep players from going up against unbeatable enemies.
I just can't say enough good things about this game, but I'll have to cut myself short here. For the serious and casual gamer alike, World of Tanks is right at or near the top of the "best game in the world" list.
I have no idea. I've never even heard of Dotslash. I'm assuming it's a website similar to this one?
My mistake. I thought we were talking about honest people.
Because, unlike the computers you see on TV and the movies, computers in real-life cannot be programmed to be psychic.
Yes it is.
I don't know what kind of engineer you are, so for the sake of illustration I will assume you design and build bridges. Let's say I ask you to build a bridge across a river. Can you give me an accurate estimate (to the hour) on when said bridge will be complete without you having done any surveying first and without knowing anything about the availability of the materials and labor required to build said bridge, or what the weather patterns will be like?
You could make an estimated guess, sure -- and that's exactly what progress bars typically do. Sometimes they are just bad at guessing (i.e. poorly programmed) or things happen that just can't *reasonably* be taken into consideration when the time prediction algorithm is coded.
Ah, that old canard.
An honest person is honest because he is honest. He doesn't need anything to keep him honest.
It means looking at evolution from both Old and New Testaments.
Typical internet advice:
Q: "So where should I go if looking for laptops sans OS, or at the very least sans Windows 8?"
A: "Buy a laptop with Windows 8, then..."
For the more observant among us, it *is* possible to sometimes determine when a person on the other end of the phone is smiling by the way their words sound.
Yeah, they should call him "Strange Todd", or something like that.
You should have asked her how many gods there were. "There's one? Sounds like math to me..."
It is my understanding that this behavior is the byproduct of evolution. Please forgive my very basic, rudimentary, and incorrect-in-some-places explanation of how I understand the evolution and humanity's current obsession with believing in things that don't exist.
It starts with certain chemicals encountering each other in one way leading to a reaction, and encountering in another way lead to the reaction not happening.
Move forward through time a bit and you've got masses of chemicals naturally gravitating toward certain interactions with other masses of chemicals which lead to certain reactions, and gravitating away other masses of chemicals which don't result in certain reactions.
You have small lifeforms going after food and avoiding predators. Senses develop in these lifeforms which can detect environments wherein it can find food and avoid predators.
Then you have information processing systems developing which are able to do pattern matching in order to identify where good things might be and bad things might not be. Increasing complexity in this system gives rise to the lifeform beginning to be able to predict places, behaviors, etc. which can lead to positive and negative outcomes for itself.
Increasing in information processing complexity, the lifeform begins to learn causes of the situations that can lead to positive and negative outcomes. In order to maximize its own benefit, it actively starts to reason out unknown causes.
Still more complexity leads to entire frameworks of understanding of the world around the lifeform being imagined.
Conditioning to external stimuli, combined with unknown causes, leads to superstition. When causes for events are simply unknowable for the lifeform, it extends the concepts that it knows about - e.g. other lifeforms, etc. - and invents an "unknown actor" (i.e. god) as the cause, trying to come up with the best framework for predicting what behaviors it needs to perform in order to maximize its benefit and minimize its harm.
This framework evolves in social lifeforms to become a series of rituals and, eventually, religious beliefs.
These religious beliefs are, in effect, environmental conditioning. This condition becomes hard to break, since it's tied, evolutionarily, to the lifeform's successful existence.
"I thought you had died a few years ago. Do you have any idea how truly relieved I am to hear that you are still alive?"
C'mon, guy-tards. Let's try to keep it civil here. Thanks.
Oh my god, this is the worst programming advice I've ever heard. Is this a joke? Maybe some clever attempt at creating job security?
There is a terrible dearth of commented code in the world -- especially in the lower-level languages like C and C++ -- and this guy is telling people we need fewer comments in our code?
Of course. Haven't you seen that documentary, The Matrix?
He shot his dick off the first time he tried masturbating. Such a shame.
Good lord, I must have had one hell of a brain fart there. Yet, somehow, it made the line that much funnier.
Too bad Moses spent so much time trying to save squirrels and zebras that he couldn't be bothered to save some of that tech.
Joe: "I'm going to France."
Abe: "You should go to China."
Joe: "I'm going to France."
Abe: "I'm from the future. You should go to China."
- Looper (plot holes like a block of swiss cheese, but a fun movie nonetheless)
Facebook has no right to comment on this. We're talking about a person's right to privacy, not a corporation's right to privacy.
Facebook is not a person; it is a corporation. It has one end goal: to make money. Everything Facebook says is driven by that one goal. If Facebook says that the right for people to be forgotten would harm privacy, what it really means is that the right for people to be forgotten would reduce Facebook's profits.
Private corporate interests disguised as political parties?
It should be noted that Nicholas Meyer -- who co-wrote the screenplay for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan -- had never seen Star Trek before, yet managed to create arguably the best of the Star Trek movies. One doesn't necessarily need to be a long time fan of a franchise in order to create a great work from it.
And yet, most Slashdotters who read this will go to the polls on Tuesday and cast a vote in favor of this exact sort of behavior from their government.
"Oh, but the wrong lizard might get in," they cry, "we have to vote for the lesser of two evils!"
So Sladotters vote for the lesser of two evils, then complain when evil wins the election.
*sigh*
I know I shouldn't be so hard on you Americans since you don't really have free elections (I don't consider elections where the electorate is brainwashed by overwhelmingly powerful corporate interests via the media and militarized police forces into voting for the two pro-corporate-interest parties to be "free"). :-\
No, you fool: Booby would be in the eye of the Beholder!
This appears to be the root cause of most/all of the major problems facing Western democracies. A system whereby everyone is supposed to have relatively equal power to influence the government does not work when some individuals are allowed to become many orders of magnitude wealthier (and therefore more powerful) than everyone else.
As strange as it may seem, it is very likely that freedom and empowerment for all ultimately requires a maximum limit on personal wealth.