What's weird about making the data from scientific studies publically available? Frankly, I think the data from all government funded research should be public domain.
From the full article, the law as written, would bar the EPA from using any studies involving confidential patient information unless they were made public.
The (Republican) backers response? Apparently they think participants/Patients should sign a waiver agreeing that the raw study data might be made public, or they can simply choose not to participate in the study.
Frankly, I'm disgusted.
The result is clear: very few, if any, studies would be available to the EPA to use as a basis to set policy.
The idea of transparent science is good. But this is clearly an attempt to strip the EPA of any ability to actually do science or regulate based on science.
The iPhone when it came out was far less useful than any of the windows phones, but it took off because it cost more, and did less, while being pretty.
Nope. Multitouch was simply worlds better than stylus + soft or slide out keyboard.
"Visual voicemail" or whatever it was called kicked the ass out of dial-in voicemail which was still the default on windows mobile devices.
And the whole UI being designed for touch instead of stylus made it a LOT easier to use.
Yes, you definitely gave up lots of functionality in terms of the iphone not having stylus, and only being able to interact with it with your fingers; editing a spreadsheet on an iphone 3G was terrible compared to Windows Mobile 5/6... but making a call or appointment or sending a text message was orders of magnitude better.
Yes, its important to consider the context classical works were written from. The Flintstones for example or Huck Finn... etc. The various racial and gender issues in them can and should be attributed to values from 1880 or 1960 respectively.
We should of course, bear in mind that Heinlein is writing from the 40s through the 80s and need to keep that in focus, but they are not the background canvas that his works rest on he... he brings the social conventions to the forefront propses that we look at them his way, and in doing so demands that we consider them on their own merits. Whether its that we re-consider the family unit as a business-corporate entity; or to challenge us on incest and pedophilia; or his postulation that libertarian economic policy is ideal.
These are not the context; these are his theses. They demand critique.
Of course, but why are they *fun*? Do you really think it says nothing about you?
They certainly aren't universally viewed as fun; I know many people who would never choose to play one. And of those that do choose to play them their are a variety of motivations and reasons... I outlined some earlier; but there are lot more.
That you read anything else into a game says something about you, wouldn't you think?
That I even play games says something about me. Which games I choose, and how I choose to play them All reveal a great deal about me. Do I play them on easy or on hard? Do I care about "achievements" ? Do I care if others can see those achievements? Do I use cheats? Do I tend to play Iron man or do I save and reload often? Do I prefer strategy or tactics or reaction? How important are graphics? Do I prefer solo or competitive multiplayer or cooperative? Do I pirate games? Or buy them? Do I wait for sales or buy on realease day? Which games do I buy on release day? Do I choose avatars that are projections of me? (Mayor Sheldon Cooper of Sheldonopolis? Or are they whimsical? Or are they crude... Mayor Farts of Pooplandia? Do I only choose handsome male avatars? Or will I play a female or troll... or troll female? Does it affect how I behave? Do you finish every quest you start? Do only do quests that give you measurable upgrades? Do you read the quest text? Do you care about the story at all? Do you bother with appearance items at all? Or are you look like a patchwork of mismatched armors? Do you want it to look impressive or fearsome or do you set out to make it look like a joke? Do you get into your character or is it just a puppet you steer around?
To suggest that how you play a game says nothing deep or penetrating about you is to be utterly naive. Sure playing a Rogue doesn't imply you are a criminal. But there's a wealth of information about you from how you play.
Yeah, I second the poster who suggests rereading them again now... except honestly most just weren't THAT good.
nobody is going to confuse Heinlein with Ayn Rand when it comes to message versus storytelling.
Actually I disagree, several of his works had lengthy tangents of just Heinlein channeling message that really didn't connect to the story. Friday for one, Farnham's Freehold for another, Number of the Beast, I will fear no evil, all stand out as examples for me. Probably others... to sail beyond the sunset...etc.
I think Stranger in a Strange Land... well the commentary on society in that one was integral to the story.
A lot of his work was good, and even his weaker stuff is still worth a read -- some neat stuff explored; but your definitely looking through a window into Heinlein's political, economic, and sexual ideology and it becomes apparent to the point of being an annoying distraction.
Not saving an avatar doesn't show that you're biased against them, because they don't exist.
Discriminating between saving black vs white avatars does indicate some sort of bias. Deal with it.
Am I racist because I like green coloured avatars,
Adding green colored avatars would be an interesting experiment; would they similarly be discriminated against on average? Or would their introduction break the "real world to virtual world" parallel in the average mind and lead to any real-world biases not being applied; leading to no discernible bias... or perhaps you need to eliminate black and white as options and only have green, orange, and purple avatars... and then that might be interesting too. Would their be a bias... would people bias towards helping other avatars with the same color as their own avatar... would orange be universally favored regardless of the color of self? Would players own real life colorings affect the displayed bias or lack thereof. I couldn't say.
But if there is a definite bias displayed, then there is a definite bias. Racism is one possible and reasonable explanation that can't be discounted out of hand.
Although depending on the textures and lighting... maybe it was simply because the white ones were easier to see...?
or a criminal because I have a penchant for rogue classes?
A criminal? no. but it does say something about you; if you examine the reasons why you have a penchant for rogue classes; I'm sure you'll find something out about yourself reflected in that.
and I don't go around pickpocketing IRL either.
I find it interesting you mention pickpocketing at all. My interest in rogue classes tends to focus on their stealth and back stab attacks -- I have a friend who plays rogues and his interest is always in their fast-talk / deception skills. But you... you mentioned pickpocketing... interesting.;)
Anything you leave behind at a crime scene is fair game.
What about stuff you leave behind NOT at a crime scene?
So they got some DNA at a crime scene, but don't know whose it is. They think it might be you, but the judge denies them a warrant based on lack of evidence... so they follow you around until they see you throw away a cup, or a piece of gum, or sneeze and toss the tissue away in a public place. Then they amble up and help themselves.
The couldn't get a warrant for your DNA, but because its impossible to live a normal and free life without shedding DNA they just had to wait a while until you left some behind.
Whether or not that is "ok" is something that deserves national discussion.
well the issue i am having now is that i have to pull the battery to do a real reset. how will the GS6 deal with that? when the soft button combo wont do a reset, pull the battery!
I've never run into an iPhone where I couldn't do the hard reset with the soft buttons. I'm sure its probably happened to somebody out there, and if they'd been able to pull the battery that would have been another option for them.
I also can't remember the last time I had to physically take the battery out of a laptop or pull the plug on a desktop computer either because the power off button combo wasn't being responded too.
Speak for yourself. I now have to use an external battery pack instead of just being able to carry around a relatively small battery.
That is where the market has gone even for phones with replaceable batteries. Nobody is carrying around an actual spare battery anymore.
I'm sure I'm doing something wrong, but I can't get a full day's use out of a smartphone.
I couldn't quite get a full day out of a galaxy s3 no matter what I did.
I can now get just barely 2 days out of an s5 if i forget to charge it. I don't use it continually, and I don't use it for music or games; or "social crap".
5 years ago that was true. Im still using my GS3 which works fine to this day. it gets a little hot, but after replacing the battery i could see me getting a good 2 more years out of it (longer if i wasnt using a bunch of apps)
You can replace the battery on most "sealed phones" too. Its just more of a process; and depending on your comfort level you might prefer to take it to a shop to do it for $20+price-of-battery for you. But you can still do that. And you only need to do it once, after 3-4 years.
Who cares if its super easy to replace the battery if its something you only do once after 3-4 years? As long as the 'non-replaceable battery' is shop replaceable that's good enough for me.
If its not shop replaceable, then I don't want it. But i know zillions of people with old iphones who have had the battery replaced.
The fact that they can't carry a spare and change it between calls? So what? Nobody does that? I don't even know I'd charge an extra samsung s5 battery if i owned one.
As long as I can get the battery replaced 2-5 years down the road for a nominal price; that's fine. So my concern isn't whether the S6 has a user replaceable battery or not... its whether the little shop down the road will be able to get one 4 years from now. Because he has no trouble getting iphone batteries for an iphone 3GS... but my friends 3 year old Sony feature phone ?? Good luck... and that phone actually has a user replaceable battery!
I suppose its a one-way indicator. A high price doesn't mean its necessarily any good. But if the price is too low to pay for reasonable quality its going to be low quality.
Do I think the $10 unbranded one is cheap garbage with poor quality control? Yes. Could somebody slap a fancy sticker on it, and try and sell it for $25. Yes. So what? Would you like a cookie or something?
Check the reviews... poor construction, falls apart, dead after minutes of use, power supply fails, fries drives, connections aren't snug...and even the "brand name ones" aren't exactly good. I'd expect to 10% disatisfied customers on a site like newegg. I'm seeing LOTs of products with HUNDREDS of reviews with 25%+ rating it 1 or 2 eggs. That's ABYSMAL.
These things are cheap junk. If someone actually makes a GOOD one and stands behind it, I'd love to hear about it. Because I'd love to have a good one on my test bench that will reliably work with any drive I plug into it.
As it is I plug them into the motherboard IDE socket on a test PC; and I have a laptop IDE adapter for it. That at least always works reliably if the hard drive isn't toast. Unlike these usb devices.
For the article poster, especially if all he's got are laptops to work with, then get an IDE kit and cross your fingers, be prepared to exchange it, but it should get the job done. Just don't expect it work if you need it again a year from now.
I'm not endorsing that kit in particular. I've had mixed experience with the quality of these kits... you get what you pay for. But it'll get the job done.
That echos my point, somewhat. It is pretty easy to design an AI for a lot of video games that can beat a human (without cheating).
Yes, albeit, for a slightly strained definition of "without cheating":)
Whether you use the moniker "constraints" or call it "dumbing down",
I think the distinction is important. Dumbing it down would be deliberately sabotaging its ability to make good decisions. The constraints certainly have the same effect, but we aren't sabotaging the decision making itself, but merely restricting the information it actually has to work with access to human levels.
No perfect clock. No perfect positioning. etc.
It is odd that the hard part about making a game AI would be making an AI that isn't too competetive, but that's where we are.
Not really. It's just that we've devised a game that's difficult and interesting for humans, but is very easy and trivial for the bot; especially given that by default it has world state information we just don't have. (It knows what time it is, what its x/y/z is.
It can:
advance 4 units at 1 unit per second, turn 28.5 degrees at 5 degrees per second retreat 12 units at 11 units per second turn 19 degrees a 11.4 degrees per second advance 72 units at 15 units per second can be arbitrarily long, is trivial for the bot to execute, doesn't require any sensory input/feedback, and can be replayed backwards.
I can't do that. No human can. We aren't that precise. We maintain position and navigate only approximately with constant correction from sensory input. And if I'm playing a game where perfect navigation is demonstrably a very valuable skill then I can't compete with a bot that is allowed to do that. (And my performance against bots drops considerably on open or lava catwalk Quake 3 maps vs closed tunnels maps due to their inhuman ability to navigate exactly where they wish to go whether they are looking where they are going or not...)
That's not "advanced AI"; that's "giving it rudimentary AI paired with superhuman ability". That's not much fun.
But here's the philosophical question: does the motivation behind someone's actions really matter, or is what they actually do the only thing that actually counts?
No it doesn't matter if they do the same thing. But they don't do the same thing. The current process of tweaking the AI's super human abilities and tossing a wrench into their decision making so its not always the optimal choice etc to make them appear more human like vs actually being human-like in response to human constraints does not result in them doing the same thing.
Instead of being truly human like. They end up acting like superhumans with narcolepsy... brilliantly efficient but occasionally they just fall asleep; and worse they usually can be relied upon to fall asleep at the wheel in a given set of circumstances that can be manufactured by the opponent (aka exploited)
For example, in RTS with harvestors a human player might trap a bunch of the AI's harvestors -- a human opponent would not be fooled once he saw what happened, and he'd build more, and suicide/free/destroy the trapped units. But the AI? The average AI will just starve, because it hasn't been programmed to recognize that scenario or how to respond when it happens. It has enough harvestors, so it won't build more... it has sent them orders to harvest...and they aren't under attack... so mission accomplished. Resources will arrive soon.... any minute now... still waiting... oh my base is under attack... hope those resources show up soon... man where are my resources... shit I lost.
All manner of path finding exploits are common in RTS games. Getting his units to stumble over themselves and get in their own way. Funnelling them into kill zones. Etc.
The same AI was applied to deathmatch player bots. They had no prior knowledge of the level, or strategies for playing the game. The first few kills were very easy as they figured out what to do. But as they learned your tendencies, they would very quickly evolve into a circle-strafe master. They also learned the map layout pretty quickly, including drop sites and periods for weapons and health. They would then time their circle-strafe to always be on the spawn site immediately as the health or ammo spawned. They would invariably win against even the best human players by monopolizing all of the supplies and winning a war of attrition. Very impressive to watch.
Yes, and it gives another example of the issue. The AI has access to a perfect clock, and perfect spatial awareness, and has perfect control over its movement, sees everything in its field of view no matter how briefly it sees it...
It can run and jump a maze of catwalks over lava with perfect reliability - BACKWARDS. It can do all that and land on a specific set of coordinates where it knows supplies are going to respawn the millisecond it respawns, because it can time to the millisecond when it last picked it up.
It's cool, and it is devilishly hard to compete against, but its not good "AI". Its not out thinking its opponents, its merely taking full advantage of its machine attributes.
For example, In quake I might know the location and approximate respawn time of the quad damage. I would certainly plan my route to be in the area when I was expecting it to respawn... or perhaps plan to have a sight line to it to pick off someone else making a run at it. I have a rough idea how long it takes me to get from where I am to the Quad damage spawn point from various places on the map.
A better player than me, will have smaller error bars on all of those things. A top player smaller still. But the "AI" it has perfection. It's not coming up with a BETTER strategy than me, its simply perfect at executing the same strategy because it can run the level backwards, and end up precisely where it wants to end up precisely when it needs to.
Making the AI human-like; imparts the same reaction times, the same imprecise lossy recollection of the map (I can run some maps backwards, but its usually at least a little bit of steer-by-wall... so if its catwalks over lava or freeform jump pads on a quake 3 open level I can't do that without looking. I can maintain approximate respawn cycles for a number of spawn points, and calculate approximate lenghts of time to get from point A to B... but not for every spawn point in the level, and not to within a millisecond,
Restricting the AI to human ability is not "dumbing it down" that's just putting us both on equal footing. Go ahead and make the AI as good as it can possibly be under all those constraints...if its truly a better than human AI it will come up with better strategies given those constraints.
Because I can come up with the strategy of run and jump backwards, never miss with the rail gun, and pick up the quad damage the instant it spawns; I just can't execute on that strategy with machine precision because I'm not a machine.
So we should let them pipe it down to a Gulf of Mexico port and put it on a ship because nothing bad will happen to those ships?
ok...
First, the crude from the pipeline is delivered to refineries in Illinois and Texas. So no, it doesn't all get loaded into a boat in the Gulf of Mexico.
Second, refined fuel poses less threat to the environment, so if it ends up on a boat after its refined that's an improvement.
Third, even if it needs to end up on a boat at some point because its going overseas, so be it. That doesn't mean you don't want it in a pipeline for as much of the journey as possible.
Thus your argument really has no legs to stand on. You are right of course that any shipping accident is bad, but all scenarios are categorically an improvement over alternatives.
All that said, I think Canada should refine it and export themselves; in-source the industry and take a larger share of the profits; and reduce environmental risks of a pipeline. There is a refinery in the works north of Edmonton - The Sturgeon Refinery. But even so refineries are spectacularly expensive and difficult to get built for regulatory/environmental and NIMBY reasons so once built it makes sense to bring the oil to them; so if the Texas / Illinois ones have capacity sending oil there makes sense.
This just in: Even in simplistic AAA games with bots, the AIs are better than human players, we have to dumb them down to keep the game fun.
First the prime challenge in the games you are talking about is lining up a crosshair with a pixel with a mouse and selecting fire.
If AI's had to do that they might have some difficulty. In practice the so-called AI bots already know where you are, and could keep their weapon lined up on your noggin through half the map without the need for line of sight. Tthey also get to target and fire at me without having to diddle around with a mouse or looking at the screen to see where I am.
Get a bot to actually play such a game with the same UI and world view I have (keyboard and mouse and what they can see on screen and hear on the speakers) and they tend to be quite abysmal.
Second, switch over to RTS games... and there the only way to give the AI any challenge is to stack the deck in its favor... whether its StarCraft or Supreme Commander or Wargame: Red Dragon. Or in a 4X game like Masters of Orion etc... we've yet to see an AI even really challenge a human being without giving it scripts to follow and extra resources to use.
The safest option is to let Canada transport the stuff across Canada to a Canadian port.
Where they put it in a boat and sail it down the west coast. And we all know nothing bad happens with boats.
Further, in addition to Alberta crude, the keystone pipeline expansion was ALSO going to carry crude from the Williston Basin reserves (Montana and North Dakota) south; and Canada's not going to be taking care of transporting that, either.
Now in my own opinion. I prefer the pipeline, however the maintenance of pipes is generally crap and leaks are common.
The issue of maintenance that you make is spot on. But where things get interesting is that is not a question of the pipelines or no pipelines because that's not realistic. Its pipelines or something else. And what else is actually safer than pipelines? My reading on the subject suggests pipelines are the safest option.
So as bad as the pipeline might be, everything else we might do to transport the oil is even worse. So unless we want to leave the oil in the ground (which we all know isn't likely to happen) then pipelines really make the most sense; environmental concerns and all.
I admit I am not an expert on this stuff but I've dabbled; and I think its a smaller problem than you make out. I expect the format for these things is somewhat standardized. Maybe game engine specific, or developer specific, where the files are probably structured similarly to previous games or other games, etc.
I hardly doubt a whole new game data format is invented from scratch for each title.
There are probably existing modding tools and game data extractors that will work as-is or with only a little modification to get the majority of the simple art resources (textures, artwork, sounds, text strings, etc)
You open them in hex editor and they look like complete mush. Now what? I hope you have your coffee machine ready.
Given they've been spending months looking at in-game rocks, and waiting for lunar cycles, this is hardly going to be worse.
I'd have assumed there was by now at least some method of at least reading a PS4 disk on a PC; and that they'd be able to dig at the code and game assets, even if they couldn't run it, or use modified code on the PS4 itself...
But surely they have enough to look at the games art assets already now? No?
I get so sick and tired of seeing people use some sort of a card or device to pay for small purchases. It's never as quick as cash is.
Perhaps its because of where you live? Where I live, chip and pin is ubiquitous, and tap (e.g. "Visa PayWave") is starting to become very common.
Tap is the fastest by far. Chip and Pin is next. Cash is next after that.
When other people pay with credit card or debit card or their phones, it ends up taking at least 30 seconds,
Apparently you've never seen Visa PayWave in action.
If somebody can't find their card right away,
Yes, that's a problem that only happens with cards. Nobody has ever not been able to find their cash right away. It has magic properties such that a $20 note is always in the pocket you expect it to be... while one's cards move around like ninjas.
or if they forget their pin, or if the terminal can't read the card, or if the transaction fails, [...] If the person had just paid with cash, we'd have all been on our way already!.
Or if they forget to bring enough cash, and find themselves a couple bucks short, or they'd go rummaging around for exact change so as not to break a 20, or they find exact change after the cashier has already started counting them change, or they use the cashier as a change machine and start asking her to trade fives for singles or break 20s into fives... and then the cashier has to be very careful, maybe even call a manager because she's worried she's being scammed and wants to have a second set of eyes to make sure everything adds up right. Or the cashdrawer can run out of something, and your waiting for a manager to go get some more from another cashier or the safe.
I've spent LOTS of time waiting in line for people doing stupid things with cash. Moreso then cards... especially now with stuff like paywave.
Phones don't seem to be faster though; getting the phone out, signing in, finding the app, etc... takes longer than it should. I think cards aren't going anywhere for a while yet.
Good question about the study, but I'd suppose that the larger the sample you get to meet, the more likely you'd find either.
So you should check off bi-sexual? The logic being that we suppose (for the sake of argument) the female response rate might drop off a bit as a result, but you'll more then make up for it with the additional male responses increasing the gross total, thereby improving your odds of finding that special someone!
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What's weird about making the data from scientific studies publically available? Frankly, I think the data from all government funded research should be public domain.
From the full article, the law as written, would bar the EPA from using any studies involving confidential patient information unless they were made public.
The (Republican) backers response? Apparently they think participants/Patients should sign a waiver agreeing that the raw study data might be made public, or they can simply choose not to participate in the study.
Frankly, I'm disgusted.
The result is clear: very few, if any, studies would be available to the EPA to use as a basis to set policy.
The idea of transparent science is good. But this is clearly an attempt to strip the EPA of any ability to actually do science or regulate based on science.
The iPhone when it came out was far less useful than any of the windows phones, but it took off because it cost more, and did less, while being pretty.
Nope. Multitouch was simply worlds better than stylus + soft or slide out keyboard.
"Visual voicemail" or whatever it was called kicked the ass out of dial-in voicemail which was still the default on windows mobile devices.
And the whole UI being designed for touch instead of stylus made it a LOT easier to use.
Yes, you definitely gave up lots of functionality in terms of the iphone not having stylus, and only being able to interact with it with your fingers; editing a spreadsheet on an iphone 3G was terrible compared to Windows Mobile 5/6... but making a call or appointment or sending a text message was orders of magnitude better.
Not really.
Yes, its important to consider the context classical works were written from. The Flintstones for example or Huck Finn... etc. The various racial and gender issues in them can and should be attributed to values from 1880 or 1960 respectively.
We should of course, bear in mind that Heinlein is writing from the 40s through the 80s and need to keep that in focus, but they are not the background canvas that his works rest on he... he brings the social conventions to the forefront propses that we look at them his way, and in doing so demands that we consider them on their own merits. Whether its that we re-consider the family unit as a business-corporate entity; or to challenge us on incest and pedophilia; or his postulation that libertarian economic policy is ideal.
These are not the context; these are his theses. They demand critique.
Uh... they're *fun*?
Of course, but why are they *fun*? Do you really think it says nothing about you?
They certainly aren't universally viewed as fun; I know many people who would never choose to play one. And of those that do choose to play them their are a variety of motivations and reasons... I outlined some earlier; but there are lot more.
That you read anything else into a game says something about you, wouldn't you think?
That I even play games says something about me. Which games I choose, and how I choose to play them All reveal a great deal about me. Do I play them on easy or on hard? Do I care about "achievements" ? Do I care if others can see those achievements? Do I use cheats? Do I tend to play Iron man or do I save and reload often? Do I prefer strategy or tactics or reaction? How important are graphics? Do I prefer solo or competitive multiplayer or cooperative? Do I pirate games? Or buy them? Do I wait for sales or buy on realease day? Which games do I buy on release day? Do I choose avatars that are projections of me? (Mayor Sheldon Cooper of Sheldonopolis? Or are they whimsical? Or are they crude... Mayor Farts of Pooplandia? Do I only choose handsome male avatars? Or will I play a female or troll ... or troll female? Does it affect how I behave? Do you finish every quest you start? Do only do quests that give you measurable upgrades? Do you read the quest text? Do you care about the story at all? Do you bother with appearance items at all? Or are you look like a patchwork of mismatched armors? Do you want it to look impressive or fearsome or do you set out to make it look like a joke? Do you get into your character or is it just a puppet you steer around?
To suggest that how you play a game says nothing deep or penetrating about you is to be utterly naive. Sure playing a Rogue doesn't imply you are a criminal. But there's a wealth of information about you from how you play.
Yeah, I second the poster who suggests rereading them again now... except honestly most just weren't THAT good.
nobody is going to confuse Heinlein with Ayn Rand when it comes to message versus storytelling.
Actually I disagree, several of his works had lengthy tangents of just Heinlein channeling message that really didn't connect to the story. Friday for one, Farnham's Freehold for another, Number of the Beast, I will fear no evil, all stand out as examples for me. Probably others... to sail beyond the sunset...etc.
I think Stranger in a Strange Land ... well the commentary on society in that one was integral to the story.
A lot of his work was good, and even his weaker stuff is still worth a read -- some neat stuff explored; but your definitely looking through a window into Heinlein's political, economic, and sexual ideology and it becomes apparent to the point of being an annoying distraction.
Not saving an avatar doesn't show that you're biased against them, because they don't exist.
Discriminating between saving black vs white avatars does indicate some sort of bias. Deal with it.
Am I racist because I like green coloured avatars,
Adding green colored avatars would be an interesting experiment; would they similarly be discriminated against on average? Or would their introduction break the "real world to virtual world" parallel in the average mind and lead to any real-world biases not being applied; leading to no discernible bias... or perhaps you need to eliminate black and white as options and only have green, orange, and purple avatars... and then that might be interesting too. Would their be a bias... would people bias towards helping other avatars with the same color as their own avatar... would orange be universally favored regardless of the color of self? Would players own real life colorings affect the displayed bias or lack thereof. I couldn't say.
But if there is a definite bias displayed, then there is a definite bias. Racism is one possible and reasonable explanation that can't be discounted out of hand.
Although depending on the textures and lighting... maybe it was simply because the white ones were easier to see...?
or a criminal because I have a penchant for rogue classes?
A criminal? no. but it does say something about you; if you examine the reasons why you have a penchant for rogue classes; I'm sure you'll find something out about yourself reflected in that.
and I don't go around pickpocketing IRL either.
I find it interesting you mention pickpocketing at all. My interest in rogue classes tends to focus on their stealth and back stab attacks -- I have a friend who plays rogues and his interest is always in their fast-talk / deception skills. But you... you mentioned pickpocketing... interesting. ;)
Anything you leave behind at a crime scene is fair game.
What about stuff you leave behind NOT at a crime scene?
So they got some DNA at a crime scene, but don't know whose it is. They think it might be you, but the judge denies them a warrant based on lack of evidence... so they follow you around until they see you throw away a cup, or a piece of gum, or sneeze and toss the tissue away in a public place. Then they amble up and help themselves.
The couldn't get a warrant for your DNA, but because its impossible to live a normal and free life without shedding DNA they just had to wait a while until you left some behind.
Whether or not that is "ok" is something that deserves national discussion.
just as your notes are anecdotal, so are mine. My anecdotal evidence gives me reason to be concerned.
Sure a mole-hill level of concern is entirely reasonable. :)
well the issue i am having now is that i have to pull the battery to do a real reset. how will the GS6 deal with that? when the soft button combo wont do a reset, pull the battery!
I've never run into an iPhone where I couldn't do the hard reset with the soft buttons. I'm sure its probably happened to somebody out there, and if they'd been able to pull the battery that would have been another option for them.
I also can't remember the last time I had to physically take the battery out of a laptop or pull the plug on a desktop computer either because the power off button combo wasn't being responded too.
You are making a mountain out of a molehill.
Speak for yourself. I now have to use an external battery pack instead of just being able to carry around a relatively small battery.
That is where the market has gone even for phones with replaceable batteries. Nobody is carrying around an actual spare battery anymore.
I'm sure I'm doing something wrong, but I can't get a full day's use out of a smartphone.
I couldn't quite get a full day out of a galaxy s3 no matter what I did.
I can now get just barely 2 days out of an s5 if i forget to charge it. I don't use it continually, and I don't use it for music or games; or "social crap".
5 years ago that was true. Im still using my GS3 which works fine to this day. it gets a little hot, but after replacing the battery i could see me getting a good 2 more years out of it (longer if i wasnt using a bunch of apps)
You can replace the battery on most "sealed phones" too. Its just more of a process; and depending on your comfort level you might prefer to take it to a shop to do it for $20+price-of-battery for you. But you can still do that. And you only need to do it once, after 3-4 years.
Who cares if its super easy to replace the battery if its something you only do once after 3-4 years? As long as the 'non-replaceable battery' is shop replaceable that's good enough for me.
If its not shop replaceable, then I don't want it. But i know zillions of people with old iphones who have had the battery replaced.
The fact that they can't carry a spare and change it between calls? So what? Nobody does that? I don't even know I'd charge an extra samsung s5 battery if i owned one.
As long as I can get the battery replaced 2-5 years down the road for a nominal price; that's fine. So my concern isn't whether the S6 has a user replaceable battery or not... its whether the little shop down the road will be able to get one 4 years from now. Because he has no trouble getting iphone batteries for an iphone 3GS ... but my friends 3 year old Sony feature phone ?? Good luck... and that phone actually has a user replaceable battery!
On the other hand its a little harder to verify that you actually have an umodified ISO that doesn't have something nasty in it.
In practice the majority I've encountered at least appear clean... but that doesn't make the nagging worry go away.
as if price is some indicator of quality.
I suppose its a one-way indicator. A high price doesn't mean its necessarily any good. But if the price is too low to pay for reasonable quality its going to be low quality.
Do I think the $10 unbranded one is cheap garbage with poor quality control? Yes.
Could somebody slap a fancy sticker on it, and try and sell it for $25. Yes. So what? Would you like a cookie or something?
Check the reviews... poor construction, falls apart, dead after minutes of use, power supply fails, fries drives, connections aren't snug...and even the "brand name ones" aren't exactly good. I'd expect to 10% disatisfied customers on a site like newegg. I'm seeing LOTs of products with HUNDREDS of reviews with 25%+ rating it 1 or 2 eggs. That's ABYSMAL.
These things are cheap junk. If someone actually makes a GOOD one and stands behind it, I'd love to hear about it. Because I'd love to have a good one on my test bench that will reliably work with any drive I plug into it.
As it is I plug them into the motherboard IDE socket on a test PC; and I have a laptop IDE adapter for it. That at least always works reliably if the hard drive isn't toast. Unlike these usb devices.
For the article poster, especially if all he's got are laptops to work with, then get an IDE kit and cross your fingers, be prepared to exchange it, but it should get the job done. Just don't expect it work if you need it again a year from now.
with 160 Mb drive that I would want to copy in full to a newer machine.
Pull the hard drive, and attach it to the new computer via a USB kit.
Something like:
http://www.amazon.com/Vantec-C...
I'm not endorsing that kit in particular. I've had mixed experience with the quality of these kits... you get what you pay for. But it'll get the job done.
That echos my point, somewhat. It is pretty easy to design an AI for a lot of video games that can beat a human (without cheating).
Yes, albeit, for a slightly strained definition of "without cheating" :)
Whether you use the moniker "constraints" or call it "dumbing down",
I think the distinction is important. Dumbing it down would be deliberately sabotaging its ability to make good decisions. The constraints certainly have the same effect, but we aren't sabotaging the decision making itself, but merely restricting the information it actually has to work with access to human levels.
No perfect clock. No perfect positioning. etc.
It is odd that the hard part about making a game AI would be making an AI that isn't too competetive, but that's where we are.
Not really. It's just that we've devised a game that's difficult and interesting for humans, but is very easy and trivial for the bot; especially given that by default it has world state information we just don't have. (It knows what time it is, what its x/y/z is.
It can:
advance 4 units at 1 unit per second,
turn 28.5 degrees at 5 degrees per second
retreat 12 units at 11 units per second
turn 19 degrees a 11.4 degrees per second
advance 72 units at 15 units per second
can be arbitrarily long, is trivial for the bot to execute, doesn't require any sensory input/feedback, and can be replayed backwards.
I can't do that. No human can. We aren't that precise. We maintain position and navigate only approximately with constant correction from sensory input. And if I'm playing a game where perfect navigation is demonstrably a very valuable skill then I can't compete with a bot that is allowed to do that. (And my performance against bots drops considerably on open or lava catwalk Quake 3 maps vs closed tunnels maps due to their inhuman ability to navigate exactly where they wish to go whether they are looking where they are going or not...)
That's not "advanced AI"; that's "giving it rudimentary AI paired with superhuman ability". That's not much fun.
But here's the philosophical question: does the motivation behind someone's actions really matter, or is what they actually do the only thing that actually counts?
No it doesn't matter if they do the same thing. But they don't do the same thing. The current process of tweaking the AI's super human abilities and tossing a wrench into their decision making so its not always the optimal choice etc to make them appear more human like vs actually being human-like in response to human constraints does not result in them doing the same thing.
Instead of being truly human like. They end up acting like superhumans with narcolepsy... brilliantly efficient but occasionally they just fall asleep; and worse they usually can be relied upon to fall asleep at the wheel in a given set of circumstances that can be manufactured by the opponent (aka exploited)
For example, in RTS with harvestors a human player might trap a bunch of the AI's harvestors -- a human opponent would not be fooled once he saw what happened, and he'd build more, and suicide/free/destroy the trapped units. But the AI? The average AI will just starve, because it hasn't been programmed to recognize that scenario or how to respond when it happens. It has enough harvestors, so it won't build more... it has sent them orders to harvest...and they aren't under attack... so mission accomplished. Resources will arrive soon.... any minute now... still waiting... oh my base is under attack... hope those resources show up soon... man where are my resources... shit I lost.
All manner of path finding exploits are common in RTS games. Getting his units to stumble over themselves and get in their own way. Funnelling them into kill zones. Etc.
The same AI was applied to deathmatch player bots. They had no prior knowledge of the level, or strategies for playing the game. The first few kills were very easy as they figured out what to do. But as they learned your tendencies, they would very quickly evolve into a circle-strafe master. They also learned the map layout pretty quickly, including drop sites and periods for weapons and health. They would then time their circle-strafe to always be on the spawn site immediately as the health or ammo spawned. They would invariably win against even the best human players by monopolizing all of the supplies and winning a war of attrition. Very impressive to watch.
Yes, and it gives another example of the issue. The AI has access to a perfect clock, and perfect spatial awareness, and has perfect control over its movement, sees everything in its field of view no matter how briefly it sees it...
It can run and jump a maze of catwalks over lava with perfect reliability - BACKWARDS. It can do all that and land on a specific set of coordinates where it knows supplies are going to respawn the millisecond it respawns, because it can time to the millisecond when it last picked it up.
It's cool, and it is devilishly hard to compete against, but its not good "AI". Its not out thinking its opponents, its merely taking full advantage of its machine attributes.
For example, In quake I might know the location and approximate respawn time of the quad damage. I would certainly plan my route to be in the area when I was expecting it to respawn... or perhaps plan to have a sight line to it to pick off someone else making a run at it. I have a rough idea how long it takes me to get from where I am to the Quad damage spawn point from various places on the map.
A better player than me, will have smaller error bars on all of those things. A top player smaller still. But the "AI" it has perfection. It's not coming up with a BETTER strategy than me, its simply perfect at executing the same strategy because it can run the level backwards, and end up precisely where it wants to end up precisely when it needs to.
Making the AI human-like; imparts the same reaction times, the same imprecise lossy recollection of the map (I can run some maps backwards, but its usually at least a little bit of steer-by-wall... so if its catwalks over lava or freeform jump pads on a quake 3 open level I can't do that without looking. I can maintain approximate respawn cycles for a number of spawn points, and calculate approximate lenghts of time to get from point A to B... but not for every spawn point in the level, and not to within a millisecond,
Restricting the AI to human ability is not "dumbing it down" that's just putting us both on equal footing. Go ahead and make the AI as good as it can possibly be under all those constraints...if its truly a better than human AI it will come up with better strategies given those constraints.
Because I can come up with the strategy of run and jump backwards, never miss with the rail gun, and pick up the quad damage the instant it spawns; I just can't execute on that strategy with machine precision because I'm not a machine.
So we should let them pipe it down to a Gulf of Mexico port and put it on a ship because nothing bad will happen to those ships?
ok...
First, the crude from the pipeline is delivered to refineries in Illinois and Texas. So no, it doesn't all get loaded into a boat in the Gulf of Mexico.
Second, refined fuel poses less threat to the environment, so if it ends up on a boat after its refined that's an improvement.
Third, even if it needs to end up on a boat at some point because its going overseas, so be it. That doesn't mean you don't want it in a pipeline for as much of the journey as possible.
Thus your argument really has no legs to stand on. You are right of course that any shipping accident is bad, but all scenarios are categorically an improvement over alternatives.
All that said, I think Canada should refine it and export themselves; in-source the industry and take a larger share of the profits; and reduce environmental risks of a pipeline. There is a refinery in the works north of Edmonton - The Sturgeon Refinery. But even so refineries are spectacularly expensive and difficult to get built for regulatory/environmental and NIMBY reasons so once built it makes sense to bring the oil to them; so if the Texas / Illinois ones have capacity sending oil there makes sense.
This just in: Even in simplistic AAA games with bots, the AIs are better than human players, we have to dumb them down to keep the game fun.
First the prime challenge in the games you are talking about is lining up a crosshair with a pixel with a mouse and selecting fire.
If AI's had to do that they might have some difficulty. In practice the so-called AI bots already know where you are, and could keep their weapon lined up on your noggin through half the map without the need for line of sight. Tthey also get to target and fire at me without having to diddle around with a mouse or looking at the screen to see where I am.
Get a bot to actually play such a game with the same UI and world view I have (keyboard and mouse and what they can see on screen and hear on the speakers) and they tend to be quite abysmal.
Second, switch over to RTS games... and there the only way to give the AI any challenge is to stack the deck in its favor... whether its StarCraft or Supreme Commander or Wargame: Red Dragon. Or in a 4X game like Masters of Orion etc... we've yet to see an AI even really challenge a human being without giving it scripts to follow and extra resources to use.
The safest option is to let Canada transport the stuff across Canada to a Canadian port.
Where they put it in a boat and sail it down the west coast. And we all know nothing bad happens with boats.
Further, in addition to Alberta crude, the keystone pipeline expansion was ALSO going to carry crude from the Williston Basin reserves (Montana and North Dakota) south; and Canada's not going to be taking care of transporting that, either.
Now in my own opinion. I prefer the pipeline, however the maintenance of pipes is generally crap and leaks are common.
The issue of maintenance that you make is spot on. But where things get interesting is that is not a question of the pipelines or no pipelines because that's not realistic. Its pipelines or something else. And what else is actually safer than pipelines? My reading on the subject suggests pipelines are the safest option.
So as bad as the pipeline might be, everything else we might do to transport the oil is even worse. So unless we want to leave the oil in the ground (which we all know isn't likely to happen) then pipelines really make the most sense; environmental concerns and all.
I admit I am not an expert on this stuff but I've dabbled; and I think its a smaller problem than you make out. I expect the format for these things is somewhat standardized. Maybe game engine specific, or developer specific, where the files are probably structured similarly to previous games or other games, etc.
I hardly doubt a whole new game data format is invented from scratch for each title.
There are probably existing modding tools and game data extractors that will work as-is or with only a little modification to get the majority of the simple art resources (textures, artwork, sounds, text strings, etc)
You open them in hex editor and they look like complete mush. Now what? I hope you have your coffee machine ready.
Given they've been spending months looking at in-game rocks, and waiting for lunar cycles, this is hardly going to be worse.
I'd have assumed there was by now at least some method of at least reading a PS4 disk on a PC; and that they'd be able to dig at the code and game assets, even if they couldn't run it, or use modified code on the PS4 itself...
But surely they have enough to look at the games art assets already now? No?
I get so sick and tired of seeing people use some sort of a card or device to pay for small purchases. It's never as quick as cash is.
Perhaps its because of where you live? Where I live, chip and pin is ubiquitous, and tap (e.g. "Visa PayWave") is starting to become very common.
Tap is the fastest by far.
Chip and Pin is next.
Cash is next after that.
When other people pay with credit card or debit card or their phones, it ends up taking at least 30 seconds,
Apparently you've never seen Visa PayWave in action.
If somebody can't find their card right away,
Yes, that's a problem that only happens with cards. Nobody has ever not been able to find their cash right away. It has magic properties such that a $20 note is always in the pocket you expect it to be... while one's cards move around like ninjas.
or if they forget their pin, or if the terminal can't read the card, or if the transaction fails, [...] If the person had just paid with cash, we'd have all been on our way already!.
Or if they forget to bring enough cash, and find themselves a couple bucks short, or they'd go rummaging around for exact change so as not to break a 20, or they find exact change after the cashier has already started counting them change, or they use the cashier as a change machine and start asking her to trade fives for singles or break 20s into fives... and then the cashier has to be very careful, maybe even call a manager because she's worried she's being scammed and wants to have a second set of eyes to make sure everything adds up right. Or the cashdrawer can run out of something, and your waiting for a manager to go get some more from another cashier or the safe.
I've spent LOTS of time waiting in line for people doing stupid things with cash. Moreso then cards... especially now with stuff like paywave.
Phones don't seem to be faster though; getting the phone out, signing in, finding the app, etc... takes longer than it should. I think cards aren't going anywhere for a while yet.
Good question about the study, but I'd suppose that the larger the sample you get to meet, the more likely you'd find either.
So you should check off bi-sexual? The logic being that we suppose (for the sake of argument) the female response rate might drop off a bit as a result, but you'll more then make up for it with the additional male responses increasing the gross total, thereby improving your odds of finding that special someone!
Hmmm....