sure but it's irrelevant. it's like saying "baseball is inaccessible because Derek Jeter is amazing". or "i can't play chess because Carlsen Magnus is a grandmaster".
there are so many responses suggesting Starcraft cannot be played casually. it's no different than saying chess cannot be played casually- which is ridiculous.
Not necessarily. Some people have serious problems multitasking and can't juggle resource management, unit constraints, tech trees and defense/offence simultaneously themselves (my girlfriend being one of them, she just can't play RTS's) on a basic level.
Never mind trying to also throw in micro and optimum game strategies into the mix.
sure- but just like chess, it's about finding an opponent of equal skill to have fun with and play together.
SC2 specifically has a few options for this. one really fun option is playing 2v2 vs CPU. or 1 v CPU on easy mode (it is essentially a passive CPU). the expansion is also introducing "archon mode" which is 2v2 but each team of 2 controls one base/army. "comp stomps" were prominent in SC1 because even though they were, by definition extremely easy, it's a fun social way to play. there are also "fastest" modes that completely eliminate the need for resource management by giving all players unlimited minerals.
my point is that while SC2 is daunting, there are a dozen options for players of all skill levels, even those who don't intend to play competitively.
maybe a better analogy than chess would be learning an instrument. it's difficult to become a good guitar player, but it takes an advanced lack of interest to not have fun learning.
> At this scale, two solar panels, so something like 1200 watt hours of energy per day I don't think you'll find a wind generator and tower to beat the price.
There are many small scale wind generators that produce more than enough energy to run watermakers on yachts, much more cheaply solar panels for the energy output.
This has been a solved problem for quite a few years.
As an American, it confuses the heck out of me, too.
I sometimes think of the "retail ruining of Thanksgiving" as a pretty good argument against libertarianism. That is, if government mandated that stores can't open on Thanksgiving, pretty much EVERYONE benefits: stores don't really WANT to open early, they just want to open before their competitors. A mandated open time prevents the "race to the bottom... of Thanksgiving morning". Similarly, bargain hunters don't want to miss out on Thanksgiving either - they just want to get the best deals.
Merchants and consumers voluntarily doing something on or around a holiday you personally revere is definitely not an argument against libertarianism. Your "pretty much EVERYONE benefits" line is though, since libertarianism is very much concerned with individual rights over majority rule.
Keep in mind that some people not only like to stretch their dollar, but they don't have the luxury of shopping online, or when the malls are open. Not everyone works 9-5 on weekdays. Not everyone owns a computer, has broadband, or is computer savvy. And not everyone saves their "thanks" and family time for the last Thursday in November (some people actually bond during Black Friday shopping!). Majority opinion, thank God, is not how we run this country.
Keep in mind that stores employ people, and those employees don't often get a say in whether they work black friday or not (not if they want to stay very long at that store).
Ultimately, that's why I kind of finally got on board with the fact that most stores (and even restaurants) are closed on Sundays in France - especially since the rule on whether a store can be open on Sunday is that the owner of the store needs to be present during all business hours.
That law around the owner having to be present is a wonderful way of giving flexibility on opening hours, while making the person in power seriously consider the trade offs. I'm curious though, how does that work for chains such as Starbucks where I'm sure they don't mandate the CEO personally attend every branch.
Of course they get a say. No one is holding a gun to their head. Yeah, they might not stay at that store, but in a tight labor market, there's another workplace that would have a position that would fit their schedule or their life-work balance better.
But you need to trade your precious time and effort to get paid. Mandating that there should be no trade on the nth day of the week/month/year, days that were arbitrarily set by a bunch of dead white guys trying to appease their subjects or gods is just mind boggling to me. That should definitely not be a basis for a one-size-fits-all rule for people in vastly different circumstances who wish (often need) to trade or not trade.
How are they defining ownership? If someone takes out a mortgage on their store do they have to get the bank manager down there whenever they're open? Can a big firm nominate some putz to be the owner of record?
I think it's an excellent argument FOR libertarianism. If something as minor as you being confused by stores not following your preconceptions about Black Friday (which is a completely artificial concept, and not invented by you either) is considered enough for government intervention and prohibiting people to shop when they want and store owners to open when they want - it definitely looks like an argument for not giving you (or anyone) a power to actually have such influence. The bar is just way too low. If people are unable to distinguish between their personal confusion and a serious problem that requires government to intervene, then limiting the access to government intervention as much as possible, at least until people are mature enough to distinguish between serious issues and their personal quirks, looks like a very prudent idea. The alternative would be a random hodgepodge of weird laws and bylaws, composed of somebody's personal quirks, by now long forgotten, which summarily is bad for everyone but not dismissed because everyone wants their chance to implement their own quirks. Which of course no country would want to happen to them... oh wait...
There are plenty of countries in the world that prevent stores from opening on specific days or times, and it's not exactly like these countries are backward cesspools of government oppression.
I went Black Friday shopping a few years ago when midnight was the earliest opening. We got some good deals, and it was fun, but I don't like that I'm partly to blame for making all those employees work on Thanksgiving.
We don't have nearly enough national holidays in the U.S., and I don't want to take this one away from anyone.
I really don't get some public holidays either. Here in Victoria, Australia, they introduced a new public holiday this year the day before a sporting event to celebrate that sporting event (the AFL grand final). It's official name is - I kid you not "Friday before the AFL Grand Final"
It's one of those things where the starting line just keeps moving forward. I remember several years ago when people were lamenting how the day after Halloween was when stores immediately started stocking Christmas supplies and decorations. Now Halloween isn't even the starting point.
I suspect that this somewhat has to do with the decline in retail dollars and the higher-ups are milking whatever they can get their hands on to keep sales going.
You could more or less argue the same thing about phones.
They all have the same apps that 90% of people use (Facebook etc), they all have the same core features that 90% of people use (texting, internet and calling) and yet.. many people upgrade often.
I expect its just a newer = better mentality that humans share.
As a user of a 2012 Nexus tablet, I'd say it's more than that - as the OS and apps auto-update, the device feels slower and slower, with inexplicable freezes. The system alone takes half the total RAM, leading to constant swapping out of apps. I refuse to give in to the upgrade treadmill, but there's a clear pressure.
(There's also the fact that for many, the upgrade is effectively "free" with their contract.)
I only upgraded my original iPad a month and a half ago because the screen failed - it ran all of the apps that I used flawlessly.
My use case is perhaps in the minority (I used my iPad primarily to read, watch movies via Air Video, browse the web, keep up to date with friends via social media, bedtime email etc), but still did it 5.5 years strong.
Apple forces upgrades with a devious anti-feature: version-locked apps, combined with no OS updates for old devices.
The system auto-updates your apps, whether you want to or not. Eventually, the newer apps simply refuse to run on older versions of the OS, and you can't get OS updates for that phone anymore.
The result is that to the extent that you care about using any apps, you have to buy a new phone, even though your old phone's hardware is still more than adequate in a technical sense.
I've not found this. My original iPad ran all of the apps that I use on my current one, it simply ran old versions of the apps. I only upgraded it about a month and a half ago simply because the screen failed (not bad for 5.5 years though). Agreed they don't support the OS anymore, but the bigger brand names (Facebook, Twitter, Netflix) still have apps that run perfectly fine on that hardware.
I discovered this one day on the street as I attempted to hail an Uber on my old iPhone 3GS.
They had stopped releasing new OSes for the 3GS some time ago. The Uber app had been auto-upgraded and now simply announced that it refused to run on such an old OS.
Or you're just seeing a temporary hangover in consumer behavior from the days when there were big leaps from year to year. Once people get used to the idea that next year's phone will be more or less the same as this year's, they'll be less inclined to upgrade for upgrading's sake.
All decent smart phones from the last 3-4 years run Facebook, Twitter, Skype, Email, SMS, and a web browser just fine.
The Lumia 920 was released in 2012, and has an 8.7 megapixel camera with an f/2.0 Carl Zeiss lens, and supports 1080p video capture. You are not limited by the camera.
Because there is an opportunity cost to having an SD slot. Remember it takes up physical space inside the device, which could be used for more internal memory, battery space etc. they would have opted for something everyone wants over a smaller subset of users
> Because there is an opportunity cost to having an SD slot. Remember it takes up physical space inside the device, which could be used for more internal memory, battery space et
There are opportunity costs for everything, but microsd readers are a cheap, mature, commodity technology that's been in top-end phones for ages, its impact on the phone's available real-estate for battery and memory is nearly negligible.
That sounds more like an engineering challenge than a UX compromise. Also, as these heated threads show, what "everyone wants" is a bit elusive. I think they could overcome these "costs" if they wanted, but they don't -- the actual UX "cost" of complicating how the user interacts with storage is probably one reason why.
I know you edited your post saying you would't, but do NOT do anything to their codebase/website etc. Don't even remotely entertain the idea.
Similarly, don't spout anything libellous incase they end up going on the offensive.
Best thing you could do is pick up the phone and actually call them and give them a chance to respond (they're humans just like you) and if they dodge your calls, go for a debt collection service.
I watched Life in the World Championships on the weekend do like 300APM constantly.
I'd honestly be going GG at about 1 minute in I think.