TwinIon

This seems like an obvious move for them, especially if they want to get players that have been gone a while back into the fold.

I might pick up the expansion and play through for a while. I played the last expansion through to max level and then did a tiny bit of raiding just to see what it was like.

12 minutes ago, best3444 said:

What's the next big mmo? Will they ever make a new WOW with the new tech?

I don't think they're currently working on one at scale, but I'd be surprised if there isn't at least a small team at Blizz still pursuing a next gen MMO. Their original plan was to follow up WoW with Project Titan, but that ended up falling apart and eventually turned into Overwatch.

33 minutes ago, Greatoneshere said:

Is your issue that they are going after only Google or that they are doing it at all? Because I'm all for going after all of them if possible.

 

I have no problem with pre-loads, but bullying it into existence is not something I'm a fan of, which is how this read to me. And anything that limits monopolies and trusts, even arguably benign blocks such as this one (is it really bad they pre-load their stuff? no) because they are already running loose and drunk on power. 

I don't think that they should be doing this at all, and 2 of the 3 vectors they chose to go after seem entirely benign and likely to end up limiting consumer choice.

Pre-loading a completely essential part of an OS seems pretty standard to me. There might not be a more core function of an OS today than the ability to browse the web, and Google is far more open in this regard than Microsoft was back in the day or Apple is today with iOS. They allow default installs for competing products and they allow defaults to be changed.

They're even more open when it comes to forking. The only reason that it's possible to fork Android at all is because it's (at least partially) open source. This ruling seems like a punishment for that decision. If Android had been closed source (as all it's competitors have been and are), no one would be complaining that Google's restrictions with forks are problematic.

Like I said before, I think there is something to Google buying exclusivity arrangements. That is an abuse of market power to the detriment of their competitors and prevents real competition taking place. Of course, the only reason that such exclusivity arrangements exist is because other companies were trying to do the same thing. 

12 hours ago, Xbob42 said:

Correct. And since they're not publicly owned, they don't have to dedicate every possible moment of their company's existence to the impossible goal of infinite growth.


Sometimes this is good for us consumers, sometimes it's bad. But I think overall they tend to do what they want to do, rather than what anyone tells them to do. I don't want a Valve game made by people who don't want to make it. That sounds much worse than nothing.

At the same time, it sure would be nice if enough people there wanted to make Half-Life 3 or Portal 3 that it actually got done.

It's quite possible that I've gotten a false impression from this particular twitter thread and the other things I've read from inside Valve, but it seems less like an issue of "are there enough people that want to make HL3" and more of an issue of Valve's internal structure making organizing and managing such a project difficult if not impossible.

I agree it's a great thing that Valve isn't in a position where they have to pump out new sequels every year to satisfy shareholders or stay afloat. With the latitude that affords them, they have the freedom to do anything, it's a shame that we see so few fruits that freedom affords.  

12 hours ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

This whole thread but this clip in particular

How the hell can you not like the collective defense part of NATO? It's the entire freaking point of the thing. Especially if you think the biggest issue with NATO is that no everyone is paying their fair share, wouldn't it be great to have this thing that requires everyone to help eachother out?

This is a stupid decision. Bundling chrome and google search into android is really not that big of a deal as long as you allow preinstalled alternatives. Various device makers and carriers already pre-load alternatives and set them as default apps, Google isn't directly preventing that. I think it's naive to say that at this point that an OS and a web browser are entirely distinct and if Google is building an OS, it seems perfectly fair for them to also require their browser. At least they, unlike their competition, allow different rendering engines and allow OEMs, carriers, and users to set their own defaults.

I think there's something of an argument to be made when it comes to Google buying exclusivity, but it still seems odd to tell Google they can't do that, but allow other companies to do it.

The issue of Android forking is something I'm not entirely clear on. Google allows forks, but doesn't allow them to use the Play Store. If that's the whole issue, it seems fair to me, though I'm open to counter arguments. I realize that access to the store is the primary reason that Android isn't forked, but I think it's kind of extraordinary that Android can be forked under any circumstances. This decision, assuming it stands, could very well be the end of AOSP, and will certainly accelerate the move of crucial components from ASOP to Google Play Services.

Overall it just seems odd to me that Google is now subject to the largest antitrust fine in history for allowing their platform to be open, but not open enough. If you're Apple and you don't allow anything. I realize it's the difference between how you're treated with 75% market share vs 25%, but still.

Current PC based VR headsets like the Vive and Rift require three connections: power, USB, and video (currently HDMI). With the announcement of a new "VirtualLink" standard, future headsets will be able to rely on just a single USB-C connection. VirtualLink is a new alt mode for USB-C that will carry enough video bandwidth for 4K@120hz along with a USB 3.1 data channel and 27W of power.

On the surface, it seems great. Current VR setups are unwieldy and this does something to help mitigate that. Unfortunately, there are some big roadblocks. First of all the major manufacturers need to actually adopt this standard before wireless or standalone headsets take over the market. Then the standard needs to actually find some support. While some OEMs have toyed with the idea of putting a USB-C connector capable of Displayport Alt mode on video cards, that's a pretty simple change. They're basically just taking the pins that would go to a DP out and putting a USB-C connector on there. For VirtualLink to work it'll need extra power available and either a USB 3.1 controller or header on the video card. That's a few different changes that don't benefit anyone that isn't using a VirtualLink compatible VR headset.

Inclusion on laptops seems slightly easier, but it also means one more flavor of USB-C you'll be finding on some machines, most of which won't support it.

That's the best excuse they could come up with?

How long until he completely contradicts this statement and says he was right all along? I feel like it usually only takes him a day or two.

I honestly have no real gauge of how much is actually getting done in Valve. Most importantly they keep Steam up and running, but I feel like it's been in maintenance mode for a long time. Dota2 remains a thing. Artifact seems to be getting made, and every once in a while a mobile game comes out. I know they built a lot of the tech for the Vive, but at this point I'm unclear how much of that work is them and how much is HTC.

Still,  it seems like a company with their resources should be far more productive. So either their efforts are focused on things I'm not noticing, I'm underestimating the work required for their current output, or they're just really unproductive in general.

Here's an interview with Nathan and the director (Allan Ungar). Seems like it was just something that Allan wanted to do, and he and Nathan have a mutual friend that put them in contact.

Wife was out last night, so I got to push my speakers a bit.

The Dark Knight - 5/5 - Ten years later, it sure holds up.

Gravity - 5/5 - Still takes my breath away every time.

12 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

These people don't believe global warming is a thing... do you really think they would understand server and computer Technology? Again conservatives and the Republican establishment have done this country a huge disservice playing to the ignorance of their voters for 30 years and it blew up in their faces with the election of Trump. We just have to hope there's enough people with sense left in this country to get us back on track... I have my doubts.

I don't even think that the issue here is an understanding of digital forensics. I have no doubt that Trump lacks a fundamental understanding of how any of this works, but that's not the reason he keeps bringing it up. It's pretty simple deflection. As you correctly point out, the absence of facts is hardly a barrier to these people.

Still, I find it kinda funny that the complaint with the servers in general boils down to the equivalent of being mad that they didn't grab the emails that were printed out when they already had them on a flash drive.

35 minutes ago, legend said:

I was asking why it wouldn't be the case that other sellers would keep prices low to take the market. I think I may be confused about which actors are being referenced in that quote. They raise a few: "American sellers, American buyers, Chinese sellers, Chinese buyers, and finally other countries selling.

I agree it's a bit confusing. I think the situation is this:

-US to China seafood is now subject to a 25% tariff

-China to US seafood is now subject to a 10% fariff. This includes products caught in the US but processed in China (e.g. salmon turned into burgers).

So US sellers that process their product in China pretty much have to raise prices, unless they're going to find a way to process it here.

US sellers that sell to China also have to raise prices, or they can sell elsewhere, but selling elsewhere means dealing with many disparate markets (Brazil, Spain and Ukraine), rather than the single large market of China.

4 hours ago, legend said:

 Really? Wouldn't they keep their prices the same to steal the market?

I kinda agree. If (as a hypothetical example) Canadian seafood isn't subject to these tariffs, and their competitors in the US now have to raise prices, it seems like they could try and leverage that price advantage to steal more of the market.

They don't get into it in the article, but my first thoughts are that the Canadians might also raise their prices, but just raise them slightly less. A 5% price increase would still give them a 5% advantage, if all else is equal. Otherwise the issue could just be supply. The price hike will happen more quickly than you can increase the supply of fish, either from farming or fishing, so you can either sellout your product at the same price, or take advantage of increased prices across the board and take the extra money. Given the nature of these tariffs and the President, I'd be very hesitant to go out and acquire the infrastructure necessary to dramatically increase supply just in case this all goes away suddenly.

On 7/14/2018 at 12:05 PM, Xbob42 said:

Even in a super basic coding tutorial I did to make a little Breakout clone, you could double click on anything and it would highlight all instances of that term. If you started to type anything, if it matched existing terms, you could just select it from there, which always seemed faster than typing it outright, even for people like me who are quick typists.

 

 

 Did they just stop doing this? Were they in a huge rush? I imagine professional programming is a lot different than dinking around just to learn some basics, but I can't imagine not using incredibly helpful tools.

In most code files autocomplete can work because it's referencing something (like in that image) that is declared within that file itself, or it can pull from other files that are being explicitly referenced from the file being worked on.

Most .ini files don't really work that way. They're mostly just dumb text files that don't have any real code, they're just setting variables for runtime. There aren't references to the files where those variables are used, so there's no way that autocomplete (at least as I'm familiar with it in Visual Studio or Eclipse) would help with this particular bug.

That was quite good for a fan film. I imagine Fillion is happy having a consistent gig on TV, but I'd happily watch more of him in a movie like this.

17 hours ago, Mercury33 said:

Uh yeah I would def watch that. Love Stephen Lang in it too. How do we get this actually made?

Thank you for saying his name. I recognized him but couldn't recall his name.

I don't think it's worth revisiting, but I came across this article about why the whole "where is the server?" thing is stupid. I assumed it was some conspiracy nonsense, but it's funny just how toothless a complaint it is. The TL:DR version is that the FBI almost certainly has a complete image of the hardware involved, including surrounding infrastructure, so the physical boxes are worthless as evidence.

Bagles. The pizza in NY is certainly above average and often excellent, but I've never been wowed by a bagel in the city.

This is a stupid discussion, because it doesn't matter and devs will figure it out anyways. It's exactly like how at the end of last generation people were saying that everything this generation should be 1080p60, but of course that was never the case. Developers would make the call and decide that they didn't need 60 fps and that 30 was fine. They'd figure out that be it 30 or 60 fps, that dynamic resolution scaling was still useful in getting the best looking game out at a consistent frame rate.

As we move to higher resolution screens and more powerful hardware, the fundamental equation hasn't changed at all. Everyone still wants to make the best looking game the hardware can support. Some games might run at "true 4k" and others will fudge it, one way or another, and it'll look fine. Some games will continue to run at 30hz, others at 60. Trade offs will continue to be made, and the vast majority of gamers will never really notice or care. They'll just care that it looks good. And it will.

The first couple parts of the show were pretty funny, but also kinda painful. Poor random people trying to be nice and going along with the insanity of Baron Cohen.

The gun stuff was incredible though. I love how he would say "twelve to four year olds" as if saying the bigger number first somehow meant that four wasn't an insane number. I love that the lead in to the final montage was a Florida congressman in disbelief at what he was asking.

Maybe he's not wrong about the EU, at least it when it comes to the World Cup. All Euro semi finals?

On 7/14/2018 at 5:42 PM, DPCyric said:

What is odd about it? Tom Cruise only has a couple bad movies on his resume and I imagine generally rejects the role for any script he feels is bad (I really don't know why he accepted the role for The Mummy tbh). Honestly I am disappointed he doesn't diversify a little more playing it safe is his downfall but it is hard to argue against his action hero resume.

It's an odd franchise because it's an action series spawned from a TV show that completely threw away every possible relation to that show in the first 15 minutes of film. It's a series that has spanned six movies over more than 20 years and has been propelled almost exclusively by its star in an age when movie stardom matters less than ever. It's a series that started with a film by veteran Brian De Palma, had an entry by John Woo, was the vehicle for JJ Abram's first feature and Brad Bird's first live action film. It's a series where the box office success has been all over the place, from being De Plalma's and Woo's biggest successes, to being JJ's least impressive earner. It's a series that grew up during the rise of CG effects but has always put a premium on and really set the bar for physical stunt work. The MI franchise is an anomaly of modern movie making.

That's amazing.

I guess we'll find out how crucial she was to the film now that she's dropped out.

Imdb doesn't have much about the film, but it seems to be getting made by some rather small production companies.

I've heard a few people on twitter saying it's the best action movie since Fury Road. That's a hell of an endorsement. Even if it's not quite that good, at least it seems we've avoided another Quantum of Solace / Spectre scenario.

With this movie coming out, it's been nice to see so much praise for the Mission Impossible franchise. It' really is a bit of an oddity, but it's been consistently enjoyable and exciting. I'm happy that this one continues that streak.

It's overpriced because it's for Apple products, there aren't many alternatives, and it's aimed at professionals, but it's not as horribly overpriced as it may seem. At work I have a dell thunderbolt dock that charges my laptop and what not, and it's $300 by itself.