3) Writing style: You must be *very* *formal* in your writing style to be considered credible in academic circles. Have an English teacher (or similarly-minded person) go over the paper with a fine-toothed comb looking for any spelling, grammar, or word-use errors. Absolutely no slang or colloquialisms whatsoever are acceptable in a research paper. Do not use contractions. Try not to use any analogies unless they are truly apt and likely to be universally understood. Try not to use first or second person in the paper. Remember, people from all over the world from different cultures, many of whom do not speak English as their primary language, will hopefully be reading your paper, and you don't want them to get confused by any culture-specific concepts or words.
This is absolutely not the case. By all means, be clear, use correct grammar. But don't fall into the trap of writing like you've got a broomstick up your vocabulary's arsehole. Slang should be encouraged if it is universal. Do not treat your audience like babies, treat them like adults who might have English as a second language but have sufficient skills to pick up your paper.
There is only one surefire way to stand out from the crowd in academia, and that's to have styyyyllleeeeee. Too many papers are written by people who write by numbers.
The fundamental difference here that I think a lot of people miss is length.
Just as movies differ from books in length, games do. A game story's got to be sustained over 5-100 hours. It's a longer format, and that can be good or bad. The pacing's also totally different: things we do in games are often the things a movie will skip over (travel in particular).
If a film's story comes directly from a game's, there will be cutting for time reasons. If instead it's just "based in the universe" it might fall into the trap of trying to explain too much. Then if it's too scant on detail it might upset some fans.
Does anyone else find the tone of this article, and the tone used by similar stories about Conroy, to be childish and overall harmful to any kind of legitimate debate or possibility of changing the minds of the people in charge?
Saying he wants to "ram the great firewall of Oz down everyone's throat" makes you sound like a childish politician yourself, making every point in as dramatic a tone as possible, one step away from begging him to 'think of the children'. It almost makes me feel sympathy for the guy, who surely can't like what he reads when he makes a vanity google search.
It seems that 'geeks', 'gamers' and 'youths' generally can't seem to understand that when you complain rudely, the powers-that-be aren't going to listen. If you behave in a way that they see as childish, they will continue to treat you like children. That's why constantly defending games as 'not harmful' (instead of the more measured response, 'surely not any more harmful than movies, etc') is not useful. That's why Jack Thompson stayed around for so long. It's why Conroy's determination continues to get stronger, and why the SA Attorney-General isn't going to approve an R-rating anytime soon.
The problem here is the common misconception that 'probability zero' is the same as 'impossible.
It's not! Choose a random real number (again, suppose that you could). Now as yourself, what were the chances of getting that number? They were:
1 in (the number of real numbers, aka infinity, aka 2^aleph_0)
aka, 0. No matter what you do, you'll get something that had probability zero. In most real-world situations, a probability of zero equates to the impossible....but you're the one who brought infinity into this. You can't have your cake and eat it too (unless your cake is infinite).
When a sweeping generalisation has exceptions, it's not "simple-minded" to make assumptions with the generalisation at their core - especially when dealing with a topic as emotionally charged as weight.
If a fat person told you they'd tried diet and exercise, which of the following is your response?
a) You feel sympathetic to their cause: it's not their fault! Clearly they're one of those people whose genetics mean they can eat and exercise and remain in an unhealthy state!
OR
b) You feel sympathetic to their cause, but wonder whether they really tried hard. It's tough to stick to a diet and exercise regimen.
If you answered a, you're incredibly naive. I hope you're stuck between 175 kilos of hypothyroidism and 200 kilos of big bones.
I read it plenty, and I read it hard. Each of your points is valid and interesting. Each is also an excuse, trotted out by the fatties of this world trying to tell us that they can't help the way that they are.
Unfortunately your attitude does the bloaters a disservice, too: the more you tell fat people that they can't change the way they are, the more fat they get, the less confident they get, and the less happy they'll get in general. You're part of the problem - by trying to stick up for them you're actually marginalising them more than I am.
it's in your nature to complain.
There's no beating facebook. The war is over, Facebook won. Sure, people migrated to facebook from Myspace and its predecessors, but these were a different brand of user.
There's no way your mum is going to sign up for a new social media site - it took long enough to convince her that facebook was worth her time. Old people hate change. They're not the type to migrate.
If the bodies of most organisms are anything to go by, evolution loves symmetry. The universe isn't random, it obeys rules, and when you combine random effects with structured rules you fairly often get to see patterns.
Perhaps a better explanation:
"The golden ratio is found everywhere in nature even to the quantum level. It is THEREFORE the most pleasing ratio to the human eye.
It would be highly PROBABLE for a random universe, GOVERNED BY PHYSICAL LAWS, to create this sort of symmetry."
Actually, in a perfect world, homogeneous consoles would not only increase that amount of money gamers had to spend on games (where these people make their money - not on the console sale), but would dramatically decrease costs for devs.
It costs an arseload more cash to make a game for PS3 and 360 than it would for just one console.
Those who would decry technology focus too much on (relatively) meaningless data: "these people who have no desire to remember X do not remember X, whereas in the past, we needed to remember X and we did!" and its ilk.
Those who would defend technology spend their time pointing out the obvious flaws in that argument.
Both sides ignore the important question: will this affect us in other ways?
There are many things I do not NEED to do, but I do them because they benefit me in other ways. I do not NEED to be able to run a mile, or perform pushups, or solve Rubik's Cube or a Crossword. However, I do them because in doing so, I prepare myself for things to come.
Likewise, many everyday activities benefit us in similar ways: kids don't walk to school anymore, but the argument "they don't have to, since we have cars" doesn't hold up - walking has benefits beyond getting us somewhere.
The question is, then, whether our memories ARE getting worse. Certainly we depend less on them for certain types of data. Whether we are replacing this practise with other forms of mental exercise is a more complicated issue: is our use of the cellphone and computer to recall this stuff good practice for using tech down the line? I'll bet those people who can't remember their phone number would score better than the oldies in a 'technology competency' test, on average.
In other words, the issue is, as usual, far more complicated than TFA would have you believe. The data they've used to draw their conclusion is LAUGHABLE, yes, but that doesn't mean their claim is false.
Slashdot Mirror
3) Writing style: You must be *very* *formal* in your writing style to be considered credible in academic circles. Have an English teacher (or similarly-minded person) go over the paper with a fine-toothed comb looking for any spelling, grammar, or word-use errors. Absolutely no slang or colloquialisms whatsoever are acceptable in a research paper. Do not use contractions. Try not to use any analogies unless they are truly apt and likely to be universally understood. Try not to use first or second person in the paper. Remember, people from all over the world from different cultures, many of whom do not speak English as their primary language, will hopefully be reading your paper, and you don't want them to get confused by any culture-specific concepts or words.
This is absolutely not the case. By all means, be clear, use correct grammar. But don't fall into the trap of writing like you've got a broomstick up your vocabulary's arsehole. Slang should be encouraged if it is universal. Do not treat your audience like babies, treat them like adults who might have English as a second language but have sufficient skills to pick up your paper.
There is only one surefire way to stand out from the crowd in academia, and that's to have styyyyllleeeeee. Too many papers are written by people who write by numbers.
The fundamental difference here that I think a lot of people miss is length.
Just as movies differ from books in length, games do. A game story's got to be sustained over 5-100 hours. It's a longer format, and that can be good or bad. The pacing's also totally different: things we do in games are often the things a movie will skip over (travel in particular).
If a film's story comes directly from a game's, there will be cutting for time reasons. If instead it's just "based in the universe" it might fall into the trap of trying to explain too much. Then if it's too scant on detail it might upset some fans.
yes i would like that very much
the four students and graduates with accounts at the end of its first year will be proof that it won't work.
april fool i'm way too late
Google has the word 'ogle' embedded as a subword.
Am I to take this as compelling evidence that Google has intent to invade my privacy?
It was a billion times more entertaining than Happy Feet.
'colourful' works better.
Does anyone else find the tone of this article, and the tone used by similar stories about Conroy, to be childish and overall harmful to any kind of legitimate debate or possibility of changing the minds of the people in charge?
Saying he wants to "ram the great firewall of Oz down everyone's throat" makes you sound like a childish politician yourself, making every point in as dramatic a tone as possible, one step away from begging him to 'think of the children'. It almost makes me feel sympathy for the guy, who surely can't like what he reads when he makes a vanity google search.
It seems that 'geeks', 'gamers' and 'youths' generally can't seem to understand that when you complain rudely, the powers-that-be aren't going to listen. If you behave in a way that they see as childish, they will continue to treat you like children. That's why constantly defending games as 'not harmful' (instead of the more measured response, 'surely not any more harmful than movies, etc') is not useful. That's why Jack Thompson stayed around for so long. It's why Conroy's determination continues to get stronger, and why the SA Attorney-General isn't going to approve an R-rating anytime soon.
USE YOUR NOGGINS, INTERNET
The problem here is the common misconception that 'probability zero' is the same as 'impossible.
It's not! Choose a random real number (again, suppose that you could). Now as yourself, what were the chances of getting that number? They were:
1 in (the number of real numbers, aka infinity, aka 2^aleph_0)
aka, 0. No matter what you do, you'll get something that had probability zero. In most real-world situations, a probability of zero equates to the impossible....but you're the one who brought infinity into this. You can't have your cake and eat it too (unless your cake is infinite).
Your first dot point there is redundant, but whatevz.
More pressing is your assertion that all numbers are real numbers.
On the other hand, terrorists actually kill actual people. With actual bombs.
You're comparing virtual apples with physical oranges, and ignoring the fact that you can only eat one of those for lunch.
When a sweeping generalisation has exceptions, it's not "simple-minded" to make assumptions with the generalisation at their core - especially when dealing with a topic as emotionally charged as weight.
If a fat person told you they'd tried diet and exercise, which of the following is your response?
a) You feel sympathetic to their cause: it's not their fault! Clearly they're one of those people whose genetics mean they can eat and exercise and remain in an unhealthy state!
OR
b) You feel sympathetic to their cause, but wonder whether they really tried hard. It's tough to stick to a diet and exercise regimen.
If you answered a, you're incredibly naive. I hope you're stuck between 175 kilos of hypothyroidism and 200 kilos of big bones.
I read it plenty, and I read it hard. Each of your points is valid and interesting. Each is also an excuse, trotted out by the fatties of this world trying to tell us that they can't help the way that they are.
Unfortunately your attitude does the bloaters a disservice, too: the more you tell fat people that they can't change the way they are, the more fat they get, the less confident they get, and the less happy they'll get in general. You're part of the problem - by trying to stick up for them you're actually marginalising them more than I am.
Spoken like a true fatty. If you put as much effort into losing weight as you do making up excuses for your giant arse, you might be better off.
it's in your nature to complain. There's no beating facebook. The war is over, Facebook won. Sure, people migrated to facebook from Myspace and its predecessors, but these were a different brand of user. There's no way your mum is going to sign up for a new social media site - it took long enough to convince her that facebook was worth her time. Old people hate change. They're not the type to migrate.
To be fair, iiNet are probably getting together with Telstra and Optus and making decisions on what politicians *they* want to buy.
where does the family burger fit into this?
Perhaps it was foolish to personify evolution in a response to a religious post; I assure you my intent was imagery and not theology ;)
If the bodies of most organisms are anything to go by, evolution loves symmetry. The universe isn't random, it obeys rules, and when you combine random effects with structured rules you fairly often get to see patterns. Perhaps a better explanation: "The golden ratio is found everywhere in nature even to the quantum level. It is THEREFORE the most pleasing ratio to the human eye. It would be highly PROBABLE for a random universe, GOVERNED BY PHYSICAL LAWS, to create this sort of symmetry."
i'd go for something more like.... -1 Snarky?
Actually, in a perfect world, homogeneous consoles would not only increase that amount of money gamers had to spend on games (where these people make their money - not on the console sale), but would dramatically decrease costs for devs.
It costs an arseload more cash to make a game for PS3 and 360 than it would for just one console.
In a perfect world.
I can factor large primes very easily.
For any prime p,
p = 1 x p.
Lizards are cold-blooded, right?
My guess is that it's not too great with getting wet and keeping warm.
...by those on both sides of the debate.
Those who would decry technology focus too much on (relatively) meaningless data: "these people who have no desire to remember X do not remember X, whereas in the past, we needed to remember X and we did!" and its ilk.
Those who would defend technology spend their time pointing out the obvious flaws in that argument.
Both sides ignore the important question: will this affect us in other ways?
There are many things I do not NEED to do, but I do them because they benefit me in other ways. I do not NEED to be able to run a mile, or perform pushups, or solve Rubik's Cube or a Crossword. However, I do them because in doing so, I prepare myself for things to come.
Likewise, many everyday activities benefit us in similar ways: kids don't walk to school anymore, but the argument "they don't have to, since we have cars" doesn't hold up - walking has benefits beyond getting us somewhere.
The question is, then, whether our memories ARE getting worse. Certainly we depend less on them for certain types of data. Whether we are replacing this practise with other forms of mental exercise is a more complicated issue: is our use of the cellphone and computer to recall this stuff good practice for using tech down the line? I'll bet those people who can't remember their phone number would score better than the oldies in a 'technology competency' test, on average.
In other words, the issue is, as usual, far more complicated than TFA would have you believe. The data they've used to draw their conclusion is LAUGHABLE, yes, but that doesn't mean their claim is false.