Yeah requiring manual dexterity introduces some new and interesting challenges. I wonder how they'll ensure every student is able to finish the games
I wonder if that is built into the lecture and guided discussion of the class. Keeping in mind that this is a general inquiry about contemporary ideas of identity and society, I think a discussion about everyone's differences may be appropriate.
Certainly, some of the players may have issues with the FPS aspect, but perhaps their problem-solving abilities are stellar, maybe the converse. I do think it is a necessary (and difficult) learning experience to discover that there are some things that some people can't do well.
When I deposit paychecks, I ask for a couple rolls ($25 rolls). I've been using this latest dollar coin when going to restaurants. My reasoning is that using it as tip money will get it into more people's hands than just spending them in businesses (which I also do).
I developed an appreciation for bigger value coins after spending a month in Germany a couple years ago.
Are you also going to make a car analogy about driving through an intersection with a green light, but hitting a pedestrian who didn't look? You were totally right to keep going, it was totally the pedestrian's fault for not looking. Right?
What you are doing is taking the idea of creating a copy a step or two further. Instead of just copying the entire Thriller album, you're also taking credit for its creation and selling it. You're taking the entire works of Shakespeare, putting your name on them, and selling them as original works.
Perhaps creating a combination drive that uses read-only SSD and a smaller section of this for the temporary directories? Booting from the SSD would be swift, everything written to the SED portion, and then save anything important to flash drives, network storage, or another option. This seems like a great way to maintain a secure operating system for Joe and Jane Public. Or... imagine the near future where computers are sold with MS's OS du jour irrevocably installed, and the only way to upgrade is to bring the machine to a "certified upgrade specialist". I also fear the day when our cable or satellite providers install these into DVRs. This new option does seem like a very useful tool, but also a very dangerous asset to the already dangerous.
The very idea of commerce of goods requires laws protecting private property. Without private property, everything else in an economy is a farce.
If I write a book, and then choose to sell it, there is no partnership, because the only way you're getting the book is by paying me for it. You won't get what's in the book without providing me with something worth equally as much. If you don't have the common medium of exchange (usually gold), I might be willing to accept vegetables or meat.
By suggesting that everything is a partnership, and that you are as privy to the products of my labor as I am, you're basically saying that nothing I have is worth anything. You go first. Build a better mousetrap, and give it to everyone. Be the first to develop a means of cold fusion, and give it to the world. Liberalism is compassion and generosity with everyone else's resources.
I know a few people in the Denver area who are AT&T customers, and they are greatly displeased with the service and consistency of the network. Consistent call dropping on any given morning, and 4-7pm most days. I have no intention of using AT&T until I start getting positive feedback. I keep telling them that Verizon has the best network, and T-Mobile probably has the best plans.
Seriously, I've found that the simplest, non-dictionary passwords are the best. Call me crazy, but I work from the premise that a random user is just as likely to guess my password on the first try as they are to guess it if given 100000 tries.
The place where I work (and other places that fly the same banner) has employees that are exceedingly technology illiterate, so it's a pretty good bet that I can find their passwords written near the terminals on pieces of paper. Since we're required to use two different, complex passwords with special characters, numbers, and various case letters (one for the local system and one for the corporate), and change them both (every month and every three months, respectively) without repeating the same thing for six changes, it's a recipe for disaster. I even tried explaining this basic principle to one of the upper IT guys where I work, one of the key people in deciding various policies.
I guess it's the idea that these techno-phobes, or whatever term is used to label them, need to be told to use something unusual, lest they use something more obvious, like "love", "tammy", "robert".
Without Netflix, and without support for standard resolution televisions, why should I consider buying this over a Roku or any of the other "set-top multimedia" boxes?
True! As an overnight front desk employee of a well-known, international hotel brand, I have access to a HUGE supply of credit/debit card numbers (often the actual physical card), and most of the customers' personal information. Add some malicious intent, and the whole scene becomes very ugly for everyone else very quickly.
You make a good point, I should have listed some of the missing features, but I stopped paying attention to the specific features after backwards compatibility disappeared. Since the two biggest features (for me) were blu-ray playback and backwards compatibility, I stopped caring much after half of the reasons got quashed. Being a regular reader on here, it's kind of hard to miss all the Sony hate and the regular reports about PS3 features disappearing as fast as American civil liberties.
Why not return the features that were removed? Why not add more features? I was going to buy a PS3, but scrapped those plans when several things went out the window. How many other people are like me?
I appreciate the clarification on the point of statistics; I'll attempt to be a bit clearer in the future. My expectation was that offering an amount of disclaimer at the outset would be enough to dissuade any harsh criticism. Live and learn.
To continue on the path of the hypocrite criticism, I don't think it's exactly a hypocritical statement to declare "based on my experiences" and then label everyone's intuition "wrong". When I think "intuition", I imagine someone saying "My intuition is to choose these numbers for my lottery ticket"*. The only real problem that I see with my assertion is the lack of a broad measurement. It is correct to say "Every Saab is prone to mechanical failures" if I've only ever experienced one Saab; however, it is clearly misleading, especially since I've only experienced one. We both are aware of that, so I'm just beating a dead horse. The issue I see with this harsh criticism is that I stressed my inexperience and lack of information, and I'm still being attacked for being misleading. In a more tangible setting: assume I just sold a laptop without a power supply, and I specifically stated that I don't know about the functionality of any components, so I'm selling this "as-is". After the sale, the buyer demands their money back because all of the hardware is useless. Who's wrong there?
Again, on the point of my statement about objectivity made with a small sampling, I was considering offering a bit more insight. Instead of just saying something about women and their objectivity, I was also going to relate it to auto mechanics. In this instance, the problem is largely that mechanical repair of automobiles is (for whatever reason) simply something that interests men more than women. Not explaining this idea is something that I chose because I'm so accustomed to people replying "too long, didn't read". When so little of my posting is done on slashdot, where the audience is exponentially more capable than anywhere else that I post (other than ilovephilosophy.com), I become accustomed to tailoring my arguments to just one point, not any of the other closely related points. Sadly, I let this bad habit bleed into my involvement where it has no place.
*In that situation, there is no way one could have any prior experience to use for drawing conclusions (no conclusions about lottery numbers can be drawn with any points of reference, they don't exist). Using "a priori" http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/a+priori can mean that one is stating characteristics about something without having actually experienced it (a man describing something from the perspective of a woman). Again, I seem to be sacrificing clarity for brevity. I'm assuming that we already agree about a couple of definitions (or uses) of these various words, and it's clear that we don't. I am making a few small jumps when using "ex nihilo", and I really shouldn't be doing that. To truly be making an assumption (intuitive judgement or whatever) from nothing would also require the creation of anything that actually references it, and I haven't addressed those points.
I'm not sure what part of using "statistics" requires a specific methodological approach. Based on my understanding, "statistics" is a fairly broad term, much like "home". Portions of the actual sampling can be twisted or omitted, but they're still statistics, much like calling what is spoken in Mexico "Spanish". I think you'll notice from my phrasing that I made no attempts to be fraudulent with the information provided, any errors of terminology would be the result of my original sources also being faulty. My (apparent) ignorance has nothing to do with being intentional, but lacking in the kind of specific information that doesn't seem to be something I would fully grasp without in-depth studying of statistics.
We can go back and forth on this particular issue without getting very far. My explanation was based on a declared inference, an admittedly weak conclusion. You called me on my inaccurate approach to a fine-tuned word, I am willing to concede that point, since I haven't done much reading on that topic. I called your fallacious appeal to hypocrisy. All in all, I think we're even; however, I still see no evidence of foul on my play of statistics, given the broad range of uses that I'm able to glean from Wikipedia.
[I]ntuition... doesn't come out of nowhere
It can when using the philosophical definition, and has been known to masquerade as "a priori".
After reading the well-organized responses of a couple others, I think I should have been a bit more clear with the jab at "trial and error". I think "trial and error" is a perfectly legitimate way to approach solving a problem, but using it as the _only_ method of problem-solving can be detrimental. Similarly, it isn't possible to have intuition about automobiles if you've never seen one (even though I have seen several instances of people using their "intuition" to make declarations about things that they've never experienced).
Instead of writing a long answer that most won't read, I've found that I can generally make the best impact in online discussions by giving a cursory explanation of my point, and then refine the specifics that cause problems.
No, I'm using the population sampling available to me in my short life. I haven't conducted any broad surveys, but the greatest number of people that I assist with technical problems are women. Saying "statistically" isn't a way to make my information seem scientifically credible, it's using the statistics I've observed to describe the conditions I have seen.
Stop putting words into my post, I made no assumptions about the methodological soundness of my information. I never mentioned any sort of "studies", I expressed the shakiness of the ground where I stand. I did not express certainty or infallibility. There is nothing in my post about using my "gut instinct"; my statements were made in accordance with the facts I've observed.
Even if I were the pot calling the kettle black, it doesn't change the fact that the kettle is black.
Maybe it's just my experience, but I have gathered that a higher percentage of women seem to ignore objective data if their "intuition" suggests otherwise. Fewer women have a "scientific method" approach to problem solving, and instead prefer a heuristic method (existential ideas about the world aside), or even "trial and error".*
Fields like IT, engineering, physics, chemistry, biology, etc require a more objective and rational approach to solving for unknowns. Statistically, this problem-solving method appears to be a field where women are lacking.
I agree that many of us prefer to re-use as many components as possible, I don't think it is as realistic as you might believe. The problem with this is that technology develops at such a rate as to obsolete everything in a desktop enough to make replacing everything in it practical.
How many of us still have motherboards with ISA connections? Sure, that's a little old. IDE? AGP? Those are both only a couple of years old. I don't think re-using an AGP or IDE card is realistic. How much digital stuff do you have that you want or need to keep? Can your old 80GB drive store it all? Do you still use SD-RAM? Moore's law?
if the media companies actually tried to serve customers instead of maximizing profits
In many businesses, giving the customers what they want IS maximizing profits. Look at the early Ford Motor Co. The media companies aren't trying to maximize profits, they're trying to suck money from people, a wholly different practice that comes from giving people just enough of what they want that they are willing to pay for it, but little enough that they are still miserable (kind of like why many car repair places stopped offering lifetime wheel alignments).
I, for one, have been a consistent repeat customer of the places that give me exactly what I want at a price that is reasonable. Each time I tell others about these places, they become repeat customers. Everyone wins, except the places that hate their customers.
PS- If any of you living in America care, Tires Plus offers lifetime alignments, Dunn Bros, Caribou Coffee, and Starbucks offer excellent products, and Amsoil often pays for itself in improved fuel efficiency and lengthened oil change intervals.
Mmmm mmm, I love that passive-aggression. Not only do you backhand us all with your empathetic rage, but you do it as an anonymous coward. Congratulations on proving the opposite of your point.
Slashdot Mirror
Troll? Is Saturday the day when everyone's sarcasm detector is off? If I had mod points left, I would be giving this something positive.
Did anyone else read the headline and think, "Great, another ridiculous claim about the damage being wreaked by wireless network signals"?
[citation needed]
Yeah requiring manual dexterity introduces some new and interesting challenges. I wonder how they'll ensure every student is able to finish the games
I wonder if that is built into the lecture and guided discussion of the class. Keeping in mind that this is a general inquiry about contemporary ideas of identity and society, I think a discussion about everyone's differences may be appropriate.
Certainly, some of the players may have issues with the FPS aspect, but perhaps their problem-solving abilities are stellar, maybe the converse. I do think it is a necessary (and difficult) learning experience to discover that there are some things that some people can't do well.
When I deposit paychecks, I ask for a couple rolls ($25 rolls). I've been using this latest dollar coin when going to restaurants. My reasoning is that using it as tip money will get it into more people's hands than just spending them in businesses (which I also do).
I developed an appreciation for bigger value coins after spending a month in Germany a couple years ago.
Are you also going to make a car analogy about driving through an intersection with a green light, but hitting a pedestrian who didn't look? You were totally right to keep going, it was totally the pedestrian's fault for not looking. Right?
What you are doing is taking the idea of creating a copy a step or two further. Instead of just copying the entire Thriller album, you're also taking credit for its creation and selling it. You're taking the entire works of Shakespeare, putting your name on them, and selling them as original works.
Go back under your rock.
Perhaps creating a combination drive that uses read-only SSD and a smaller section of this for the temporary directories? Booting from the SSD would be swift, everything written to the SED portion, and then save anything important to flash drives, network storage, or another option.
This seems like a great way to maintain a secure operating system for Joe and Jane Public. Or... imagine the near future where computers are sold with MS's OS du jour irrevocably installed, and the only way to upgrade is to bring the machine to a "certified upgrade specialist". I also fear the day when our cable or satellite providers install these into DVRs.
This new option does seem like a very useful tool, but also a very dangerous asset to the already dangerous.
Frank Booth: What kind of beer do you like?
Jeffrey Beaumont: Heineken.
Frank Booth: [shouting] Heineken? Fuck that shit! Pabst Blue Ribbon!
The very idea of commerce of goods requires laws protecting private property. Without private property, everything else in an economy is a farce.
If I write a book, and then choose to sell it, there is no partnership, because the only way you're getting the book is by paying me for it. You won't get what's in the book without providing me with something worth equally as much. If you don't have the common medium of exchange (usually gold), I might be willing to accept vegetables or meat.
By suggesting that everything is a partnership, and that you are as privy to the products of my labor as I am, you're basically saying that nothing I have is worth anything. You go first. Build a better mousetrap, and give it to everyone. Be the first to develop a means of cold fusion, and give it to the world. Liberalism is compassion and generosity with everyone else's resources.
I know a few people in the Denver area who are AT&T customers, and they are greatly displeased with the service and consistency of the network. Consistent call dropping on any given morning, and 4-7pm most days. I have no intention of using AT&T until I start getting positive feedback. I keep telling them that Verizon has the best network, and T-Mobile probably has the best plans.
Seriously, I've found that the simplest, non-dictionary passwords are the best. Call me crazy, but I work from the premise that a random user is just as likely to guess my password on the first try as they are to guess it if given 100000 tries.
The place where I work (and other places that fly the same banner) has employees that are exceedingly technology illiterate, so it's a pretty good bet that I can find their passwords written near the terminals on pieces of paper. Since we're required to use two different, complex passwords with special characters, numbers, and various case letters (one for the local system and one for the corporate), and change them both (every month and every three months, respectively) without repeating the same thing for six changes, it's a recipe for disaster. I even tried explaining this basic principle to one of the upper IT guys where I work, one of the key people in deciding various policies.
I guess it's the idea that these techno-phobes, or whatever term is used to label them, need to be told to use something unusual, lest they use something more obvious, like "love", "tammy", "robert".
Without Netflix, and without support for standard resolution televisions, why should I consider buying this over a Roku or any of the other "set-top multimedia" boxes?
True! As an overnight front desk employee of a well-known, international hotel brand, I have access to a HUGE supply of credit/debit card numbers (often the actual physical card), and most of the customers' personal information. Add some malicious intent, and the whole scene becomes very ugly for everyone else very quickly.
You make a good point, I should have listed some of the missing features, but I stopped paying attention to the specific features after backwards compatibility disappeared. Since the two biggest features (for me) were blu-ray playback and backwards compatibility, I stopped caring much after half of the reasons got quashed. Being a regular reader on here, it's kind of hard to miss all the Sony hate and the regular reports about PS3 features disappearing as fast as American civil liberties.
Why not return the features that were removed? Why not add more features? I was going to buy a PS3, but scrapped those plans when several things went out the window. How many other people are like me?
A cheaper turd is still a turd.
I appreciate the clarification on the point of statistics; I'll attempt to be a bit clearer in the future. My expectation was that offering an amount of disclaimer at the outset would be enough to dissuade any harsh criticism. Live and learn.
To continue on the path of the hypocrite criticism, I don't think it's exactly a hypocritical statement to declare "based on my experiences" and then label everyone's intuition "wrong". When I think "intuition", I imagine someone saying "My intuition is to choose these numbers for my lottery ticket"*. The only real problem that I see with my assertion is the lack of a broad measurement. It is correct to say "Every Saab is prone to mechanical failures" if I've only ever experienced one Saab; however, it is clearly misleading, especially since I've only experienced one. We both are aware of that, so I'm just beating a dead horse. The issue I see with this harsh criticism is that I stressed my inexperience and lack of information, and I'm still being attacked for being misleading. In a more tangible setting: assume I just sold a laptop without a power supply, and I specifically stated that I don't know about the functionality of any components, so I'm selling this "as-is". After the sale, the buyer demands their money back because all of the hardware is useless. Who's wrong there?
Again, on the point of my statement about objectivity made with a small sampling, I was considering offering a bit more insight. Instead of just saying something about women and their objectivity, I was also going to relate it to auto mechanics. In this instance, the problem is largely that mechanical repair of automobiles is (for whatever reason) simply something that interests men more than women. Not explaining this idea is something that I chose because I'm so accustomed to people replying "too long, didn't read". When so little of my posting is done on slashdot, where the audience is exponentially more capable than anywhere else that I post (other than ilovephilosophy.com), I become accustomed to tailoring my arguments to just one point, not any of the other closely related points. Sadly, I let this bad habit bleed into my involvement where it has no place.
*In that situation, there is no way one could have any prior experience to use for drawing conclusions (no conclusions about lottery numbers can be drawn with any points of reference, they don't exist). Using "a priori" http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/a+priori can mean that one is stating characteristics about something without having actually experienced it (a man describing something from the perspective of a woman). Again, I seem to be sacrificing clarity for brevity. I'm assuming that we already agree about a couple of definitions (or uses) of these various words, and it's clear that we don't. I am making a few small jumps when using "ex nihilo", and I really shouldn't be doing that. To truly be making an assumption (intuitive judgement or whatever) from nothing would also require the creation of anything that actually references it, and I haven't addressed those points.
I'm not sure what part of using "statistics" requires a specific methodological approach. Based on my understanding, "statistics" is a fairly broad term, much like "home". Portions of the actual sampling can be twisted or omitted, but they're still statistics, much like calling what is spoken in Mexico "Spanish". I think you'll notice from my phrasing that I made no attempts to be fraudulent with the information provided, any errors of terminology would be the result of my original sources also being faulty. My (apparent) ignorance has nothing to do with being intentional, but lacking in the kind of specific information that doesn't seem to be something I would fully grasp without in-depth studying of statistics.
We can go back and forth on this particular issue without getting very far. My explanation was based on a declared inference, an admittedly weak conclusion. You called me on my inaccurate approach to a fine-tuned word, I am willing to concede that point, since I haven't done much reading on that topic. I called your fallacious appeal to hypocrisy. All in all, I think we're even; however, I still see no evidence of foul on my play of statistics, given the broad range of uses that I'm able to glean from Wikipedia.
[I]ntuition... doesn't come out of nowhere
It can when using the philosophical definition, and has been known to masquerade as "a priori".
After reading the well-organized responses of a couple others, I think I should have been a bit more clear with the jab at "trial and error". I think "trial and error" is a perfectly legitimate way to approach solving a problem, but using it as the _only_ method of problem-solving can be detrimental. Similarly, it isn't possible to have intuition about automobiles if you've never seen one (even though I have seen several instances of people using their "intuition" to make declarations about things that they've never experienced).
Instead of writing a long answer that most won't read, I've found that I can generally make the best impact in online discussions by giving a cursory explanation of my point, and then refine the specifics that cause problems.
No, I'm using the population sampling available to me in my short life. I haven't conducted any broad surveys, but the greatest number of people that I assist with technical problems are women. Saying "statistically" isn't a way to make my information seem scientifically credible, it's using the statistics I've observed to describe the conditions I have seen.
Stop putting words into my post, I made no assumptions about the methodological soundness of my information. I never mentioned any sort of "studies", I expressed the shakiness of the ground where I stand. I did not express certainty or infallibility. There is nothing in my post about using my "gut instinct"; my statements were made in accordance with the facts I've observed.
Even if I were the pot calling the kettle black, it doesn't change the fact that the kettle is black.
Sophist, meet real philosopher.
We'll make our own internet! With blackjack, and hookers!
Maybe it's just my experience, but I have gathered that a higher percentage of women seem to ignore objective data if their "intuition" suggests otherwise. Fewer women have a "scientific method" approach to problem solving, and instead prefer a heuristic method (existential ideas about the world aside), or even "trial and error".*
Fields like IT, engineering, physics, chemistry, biology, etc require a more objective and rational approach to solving for unknowns. Statistically, this problem-solving method appears to be a field where women are lacking.
I agree that many of us prefer to re-use as many components as possible, I don't think it is as realistic as you might believe. The problem with this is that technology develops at such a rate as to obsolete everything in a desktop enough to make replacing everything in it practical.
How many of us still have motherboards with ISA connections? Sure, that's a little old. IDE? AGP? Those are both only a couple of years old. I don't think re-using an AGP or IDE card is realistic. How much digital stuff do you have that you want or need to keep? Can your old 80GB drive store it all? Do you still use SD-RAM? Moore's law?
Why would I buy prepared coffee from Starbucks? I buy the beans and use a French press at home. Their Caffe Verona and Italian Roast are excellent.
if the media companies actually tried to serve customers instead of maximizing profits
In many businesses, giving the customers what they want IS maximizing profits. Look at the early Ford Motor Co. The media companies aren't trying to maximize profits, they're trying to suck money from people, a wholly different practice that comes from giving people just enough of what they want that they are willing to pay for it, but little enough that they are still miserable (kind of like why many car repair places stopped offering lifetime wheel alignments).
I, for one, have been a consistent repeat customer of the places that give me exactly what I want at a price that is reasonable. Each time I tell others about these places, they become repeat customers. Everyone wins, except the places that hate their customers.
PS- If any of you living in America care, Tires Plus offers lifetime alignments, Dunn Bros, Caribou Coffee, and Starbucks offer excellent products, and Amsoil often pays for itself in improved fuel efficiency and lengthened oil change intervals.
Mmmm mmm, I love that passive-aggression. Not only do you backhand us all with your empathetic rage, but you do it as an anonymous coward. Congratulations on proving the opposite of your point.