One thing that's made Amazon so successful is that Bezos seems to have the spine to ignore that sort of short-sighted "advice", at least historically. I haven't seen any evidence that's changing.
And the article also cites another woman in California who says she lost access to more than 600 photos she'd posted on Instagram -- only half of which were backed up. Her response?
Well, at least she's learned how important it is to regularly back up your...
She created a new Instagram account, this one with two-factor authentication, "and plans to change her password more often."
If that abomination known as Windows 8 couldn't drive users to Linux, don't kid yourself that a little issues like end-of-support lifetime for a very popular version of Windows will do the trick. Remember, we've already gone through this with Windows XP. Experience tells us that most home users will just keep using Windows 7 until their PC dies, while corporations still not ready to switch will pay extra for longer support.
Peak oil / global oil supply has been incorrectly predicted for over a century now. Might as well throw the latest failed prediction onto the pile.
I'm not saying it's not a great idea to reduce our dependence, but don't kid yourself that it will happen naturally because we run out, at least not anytime soon.
Do you feel that knowledge of being watched tends to increase attentiveness in your case, or did you feel you drive as you normally do? Also, were you contacted for the study, or did you apply? I'm sort of curious about the selection method, and whether it might introduce any inherent bias.
To be honest, the study's conclusion probably goes against most people's expectations, and so its always worth looking at the study with a reasonably critical eye. It's a good thing that people are looking into thing sort of thing though.
You might be surprised. I've worked on several online games before, and multiplayer gameplay creates a significant set of technological challenges that single-player games don't have to worry about (predictive modeling, server-side validation, backend gameplay and matchmaking services, etc). And while the artists aren't necessarily creating a huge game world like in many single-player games, they're plenty busy. I don't think most people appreciate how much work goes into creating a single playable character, with all the unique models, animations, skins, weapons, effects, sounds, and voice work that go into each one.
Why do you think it's now impossible to make games with a small group or solo dev? In fact, I'm a solo dev doing that right now, and there are plenty of other examples. Obviously, you can't expect to create a game that competes with AAA stuff, but there are plenty of game types that are well within reach of a single developer. Modern tools and language improvements allow you to be vastly more productive and do much, much more than you ever could back in the Apple II days (my first computer too).
You can still buy any brand you want without worry, although you may still want to stay away from some brands on principle. Just use a third-party media device, and leave your TV as a dumb HDMI terminal. It's a better experience anyhow. For the moment at least, I believe most TVs only use WiFi, not the more expensive cell networks, so they can't connect behind your back without your consent.
It seems rather redundant. I mean, excessive job-hopping would seem to make one less employable already. As a prospective employer, when you look at a resume and see that someone hasn't been at a job longer than a year for the past seven or eight years, you'd naturally wonder why, and might tend to assume that this person may not last long at your company either. Why codify such a "social rule" when such a tendency tends to occur naturally?
Also, the most problematic "sick viewpoint", IMO, is the government believing it has the right and perhaps even an obligation to stick its nose in every aspect of a person's life. As you said, while employers can complain about such things, only the government can really enforce the necessity for workers to live like slaves with no hope of escaping to a better job.
Because when people try to visualize the problem of space debris, they often look at a very small picture or animation of earth, forgetting that the globe represents an entire planet. Yes, it's a problem, but people are terrible about conceptualizing anything at that scale.
Even just the popularity of the dancing aspect should provide an indication about that...
Have you played any MMOs in the last decade or so? Dancing in multiplayer games is pretty old news. Hell, even the dance Epic got sued for has been seen in other games before. It's just that Fortnite is the hot new thing, so everyone who hasn't been paying close attention to the gaming scene for the past few decades thinks they're seeing this phenomenon for the first time. Really, it's all been done before, just in slightly different formats, and naturally, not with the sheer numbers, since the videogame industry has grown significantly.
I'm not trying to dismiss the current popularity of Fortnite... just trying to put it in a bit of perspective.
I guess not bothering to read the article is something of a tradition here, but this point is addressed. From TFA:
The three-minute test in the lower atmosphere ensured there was no debris in space and the remnants would “decay and fall back on to the earth within weeks”, the ministry added.
So, no space debris, unlike China's test, which was at a much higher orbit, and caused a huge cloud of debris that will last anywhere from decades to centuries.
They weren't popular in 1978, they were niche. "Modern gaming" is some large % of kids. Most people didn't even have computers in 78. Now ~everyone has a gaming phone. Why is this so hard for you old farts?
I'm not sure you comprehend how many kids then had regular access to an Atari, Odyssey 2, Amiga, Apple II, or regularly hung out at the local mall's arcade. Videogames have been extremely popular with kids for several generations now. The first generation are now in their forties and fifties, and mostly understand the appeal, and as such aren't as scared shitless by the way kids get sucked into these games.
Previous generations of adults freaked out about Mortal Combat and the terrible influence it was having on our youth. Before that, I guess it was D&D that promoted devil worship. Hell, even Pokemon has been banned in some countries. Fortnite and PUBG are just popular right now - nothing more, so become targets. This is nothing new. Just the latest in a long line of reactive old farts being busybodies, trying to protect everyone from themselves.
A very good point. I work in videogames, which obviously has, as an industry, a great interest in writing efficient code.
However, in code meant for tools, or even game code that's reasonably far off the critical path, I'll happily sacrifice efficiency in some complex code in order to make it more readable, because that's significantly more important for the those that may come after me who have to maintain it. For code that's in a critical path, only then will I spend the extra effort writing more optimal code. Optimal code sometimes has a price to pay both in the time spend writing it, but also maintaining it in the future.
There are occasions where more optimal code is also clearer and more elegant, but you have to have a reasonably comprehensive knowledge of both the language and the project you're working on to properly make this call.
Wow. Please point out where I claimed that EVs can't work for ANYBODY. I started off by stating that my next car will be an EV, and I already mentioned charging stations, which I thought implied superchargers as well. Clearly, I think they'll work well in my own use case, and plenty others like mine.
My next car will almost certainly be all-electric, as I never travel more than 150 miles in a single hop. But I get annoyed when EV zealots try to hand-wave away concerns about range for people who occasionally have to drive long-ish distances.
Electric vehicles make good commuter cars if you live reasonably close to work, but unless you get a very high-range EV and live in an area with a sufficient density of charging stations, they're still pretty impractical for most medium to long-distance travel. Unless you can afford one car for commuting and another for the occasional long-distance jaunt, it makes sense to get a vehicle that can cover ALL potential needs.
"Dipping their toes?" Wow, where have you been? They've already released THOUSANDS of open source projects, including some massive ones, like.NET core.
The music files are sitting on your local machine, in AAC format, and are all DRM free. I'm not sure how you consider that "renting."
You can argue whether or not you care about having the data in uncompressed format, but beyond that, the argument seems a bit weak. They're both just digital bits on a physical medium.
Slashdot Mirror
I've always figured that to be the case, because the trolling is just too good. But I really wish we could claim the same about anti-vaxxers.
One thing that's made Amazon so successful is that Bezos seems to have the spine to ignore that sort of short-sighted "advice", at least historically. I haven't seen any evidence that's changing.
And the article also cites another woman in California who says she lost access to more than 600 photos she'd posted on Instagram -- only half of which were backed up. Her response?
Well, at least she's learned how important it is to regularly back up your...
She created a new Instagram account, this one with two-factor authentication, "and plans to change her password more often."
I... what? No... that's not... sigh...
If that abomination known as Windows 8 couldn't drive users to Linux, don't kid yourself that a little issues like end-of-support lifetime for a very popular version of Windows will do the trick. Remember, we've already gone through this with Windows XP. Experience tells us that most home users will just keep using Windows 7 until their PC dies, while corporations still not ready to switch will pay extra for longer support.
Peak oil / global oil supply has been incorrectly predicted for over a century now. Might as well throw the latest failed prediction onto the pile.
I'm not saying it's not a great idea to reduce our dependence, but don't kid yourself that it will happen naturally because we run out, at least not anytime soon.
Thx for sharing your experience.
Do you feel that knowledge of being watched tends to increase attentiveness in your case, or did you feel you drive as you normally do? Also, were you contacted for the study, or did you apply? I'm sort of curious about the selection method, and whether it might introduce any inherent bias.
To be honest, the study's conclusion probably goes against most people's expectations, and so its always worth looking at the study with a reasonably critical eye. It's a good thing that people are looking into thing sort of thing though.
Pfft. Obviously a conflict of interest there. Those organizations undoubtedly WANT children to grow up healthy.
And for everything they obtain from the mainland in trade, they need to produce something useful in return.
No need. This is 100% powered by good intentions!
You might be surprised. I've worked on several online games before, and multiplayer gameplay creates a significant set of technological challenges that single-player games don't have to worry about (predictive modeling, server-side validation, backend gameplay and matchmaking services, etc). And while the artists aren't necessarily creating a huge game world like in many single-player games, they're plenty busy. I don't think most people appreciate how much work goes into creating a single playable character, with all the unique models, animations, skins, weapons, effects, sounds, and voice work that go into each one.
Why do you think it's now impossible to make games with a small group or solo dev? In fact, I'm a solo dev doing that right now, and there are plenty of other examples. Obviously, you can't expect to create a game that competes with AAA stuff, but there are plenty of game types that are well within reach of a single developer. Modern tools and language improvements allow you to be vastly more productive and do much, much more than you ever could back in the Apple II days (my first computer too).
You can still buy any brand you want without worry, although you may still want to stay away from some brands on principle. Just use a third-party media device, and leave your TV as a dumb HDMI terminal. It's a better experience anyhow. For the moment at least, I believe most TVs only use WiFi, not the more expensive cell networks, so they can't connect behind your back without your consent.
It seems rather redundant. I mean, excessive job-hopping would seem to make one less employable already. As a prospective employer, when you look at a resume and see that someone hasn't been at a job longer than a year for the past seven or eight years, you'd naturally wonder why, and might tend to assume that this person may not last long at your company either. Why codify such a "social rule" when such a tendency tends to occur naturally?
Also, the most problematic "sick viewpoint", IMO, is the government believing it has the right and perhaps even an obligation to stick its nose in every aspect of a person's life. As you said, while employers can complain about such things, only the government can really enforce the necessity for workers to live like slaves with no hope of escaping to a better job.
Because when people try to visualize the problem of space debris, they often look at a very small picture or animation of earth, forgetting that the globe represents an entire planet. Yes, it's a problem, but people are terrible about conceptualizing anything at that scale.
Even just the popularity of the dancing aspect should provide an indication about that...
Have you played any MMOs in the last decade or so? Dancing in multiplayer games is pretty old news. Hell, even the dance Epic got sued for has been seen in other games before. It's just that Fortnite is the hot new thing, so everyone who hasn't been paying close attention to the gaming scene for the past few decades thinks they're seeing this phenomenon for the first time. Really, it's all been done before, just in slightly different formats, and naturally, not with the sheer numbers, since the videogame industry has grown significantly.
I'm not trying to dismiss the current popularity of Fortnite... just trying to put it in a bit of perspective.
I guess not bothering to read the article is something of a tradition here, but this point is addressed. From TFA:
The three-minute test in the lower atmosphere ensured there was no debris in space and the remnants would “decay and fall back on to the earth within weeks”, the ministry added.
So, no space debris, unlike China's test, which was at a much higher orbit, and caused a huge cloud of debris that will last anywhere from decades to centuries.
No worries. We'll employ them writing articles about how robots are going to take all our jobs away.
They weren't popular in 1978, they were niche. "Modern gaming" is some large % of kids. Most people didn't even have computers in 78. Now ~everyone has a gaming phone. Why is this so hard for you old farts?
I'm not sure you comprehend how many kids then had regular access to an Atari, Odyssey 2, Amiga, Apple II, or regularly hung out at the local mall's arcade. Videogames have been extremely popular with kids for several generations now. The first generation are now in their forties and fifties, and mostly understand the appeal, and as such aren't as scared shitless by the way kids get sucked into these games.
Previous generations of adults freaked out about Mortal Combat and the terrible influence it was having on our youth. Before that, I guess it was D&D that promoted devil worship. Hell, even Pokemon has been banned in some countries. Fortnite and PUBG are just popular right now - nothing more, so become targets. This is nothing new. Just the latest in a long line of reactive old farts being busybodies, trying to protect everyone from themselves.
Already done: https://arstechnica.com/gadget...
A very good point. I work in videogames, which obviously has, as an industry, a great interest in writing efficient code.
However, in code meant for tools, or even game code that's reasonably far off the critical path, I'll happily sacrifice efficiency in some complex code in order to make it more readable, because that's significantly more important for the those that may come after me who have to maintain it. For code that's in a critical path, only then will I spend the extra effort writing more optimal code. Optimal code sometimes has a price to pay both in the time spend writing it, but also maintaining it in the future.
There are occasions where more optimal code is also clearer and more elegant, but you have to have a reasonably comprehensive knowledge of both the language and the project you're working on to properly make this call.
Wow. Please point out where I claimed that EVs can't work for ANYBODY. I started off by stating that my next car will be an EV, and I already mentioned charging stations, which I thought implied superchargers as well. Clearly, I think they'll work well in my own use case, and plenty others like mine.
My next car will almost certainly be all-electric, as I never travel more than 150 miles in a single hop. But I get annoyed when EV zealots try to hand-wave away concerns about range for people who occasionally have to drive long-ish distances.
Electric vehicles make good commuter cars if you live reasonably close to work, but unless you get a very high-range EV and live in an area with a sufficient density of charging stations, they're still pretty impractical for most medium to long-distance travel. Unless you can afford one car for commuting and another for the occasional long-distance jaunt, it makes sense to get a vehicle that can cover ALL potential needs.
but can someone explain why the company would actually obligated be obligated to honor such terms?
Because they just got more than $10,000 worth of advertising from their little stunt. It's pretty good marketing.
"Dipping their toes?" Wow, where have you been? They've already released THOUSANDS of open source projects, including some massive ones, like .NET core.
https://opensource.microsoft.c...
Nope, same with me. Except it took quite a bit longer to realize it. It almost made sense as a slang term for a drug.
The music files are sitting on your local machine, in AAC format, and are all DRM free. I'm not sure how you consider that "renting."
You can argue whether or not you care about having the data in uncompressed format, but beyond that, the argument seems a bit weak. They're both just digital bits on a physical medium.