The Onion has its own take on the difference between real war and video game war: an "ultra-realistic" war game featuring endless paperwork, awaiting orders, and repairing trucks: http://www.theonion.com/video/ultrarealistic-modern-warfare-... (I don't mean to trivialize war by this, and I should point out that The Onion is satirical.)
I read a post by a Marine once that said that a realistic war game would simulate guard duty by staring at a black screen for hours, and then send a minute flash of light several hours into the game when you're numb and tired.
Reminds me of the description of the game Desert Bus...
Ahh, good times... not. I clocked over 6000 hours guard duty during my military time; a game based on my experience would be a few minutes of action and hours of boredom.
Popular Science in 1948 had an article "This Capsule Challenges Vacuum Tube" on the germanium transistor calling it a device that may spark a revolution in electronics, and discussing various applications like much smaller radios, better TVs, and improved telephone transmission. They point out that the future success of the device depends on its cost, but mass-production might be possible. Computers are notably not mentioned. Link: http://books.google.com/books?id=YCcDAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA117&...
The above link pretty much answers everything. Please, skim the first two pages before replying. It explains why 'curve of pursuit' is the wrong strategy, how the lion can win if the tamer stays on the circumference, why the tamer should not stay on the circumference, and how to make this all mathematically rigorous.
Slot machines use a bunch of interesting psychological techniques. They are set up to produce "near misses", where the reels show you almost win, with the winning symbol just below the pay line. They create losses that appear as wins - you win less than you put in, so it feels like a win even though you lost money. They use a mapping so the odds of a reel stopping on something good are less than its physical fraction of the reel. They produce an illusion of control, since pushing the stop button has no effect on the result.
The worst part is that no matter how much you know that this is the case, it can be exceptionally hard not to be taken in by that "man, I was thiiiis close" feeling. I'd throw the famous Wargames quote in here, and not playing is, for me, definitely the only time I "win", but instead I'll quote everyone's favorite philosophical physicists:
"So I started betting, and right away I lost five dollars in succession — one, two, three, four, five. I was supposed to be out only seven cents; instead, I was five dollars behind! I've never gambled since then (with my own money, that is). I'm very lucky that I started off losing."
Back to the idea of near misses, I spent an afternoon reading webpages like this one...
...which show with charts how the "near miss" effect works. I then went ahead and blew the $20 that was in my pocket the next time I was in a casino for a buffet dinner. I play games that I enjoy, with the licenses, all the lights and sounds and big numbers and terrible payouts. I have some fun losing, but never as much fun as I'd have with 1/4th the money if I just took it down the street to the Pinball Hall of Fame arcade.
A virtual reel can have thousands of stops. 99% of those can map to the same physical space. That's the magic of Telnaes.
A typical PAR sheet is mentioned in the study two leaps above, but that's just reverse-engineering the math. Understanding virtual reels helps look at it from the designer's direction.
The invention of "bonus games" that play when a certain reel combination was hit also changed the math drastically. A lot of companies that were locked out of virtual reels by IGT's ownership of the Telnaes patent used this technique to offer similar payout structures.
That's probably true I'm just going by memory and what we have.
IGT seems to own all, it's like you can't touch a thing without IGT being involved. I've even heard stories of potential new IGT employees being asked if they have any invention ideas, if they do IGT will but them.
Some tips for border crossings, based on my Canada to US experiences:
The border agents don't like one-way flights. My sister was turned away at the border because she had a one-way flight to visit her boyfriend and they figured she was going to visit illegally. She also had "suspicious" things in her suitcase like a cookbook: "So you're going to take an illegal food service job?"
Make sure you can prove you have enough money to support yourself. The guy in line in front of me got sent back once because he couldn't prove this.
Avoid hard-to-explain travel arrangements, such as travelling in the US, crossing the border back into Canada to visit someone, then crossing back into the US to catch a plane. My best friend got stuck in Windsor because of this, although his scary hair and beard probably didn't help either.
If you have a green card, don't leave it at home by mistake. I got taken into the little room and had to pay a $265 administrative fee because of this.
Make sure you have documentation for everything. When my friends drove through the US to a wedding, I told them to make sure they had the invitation, hotel info, etc, to show customs so everything went smoothly.
Don't have a complex story that makes no sense. I'm sympathetic to the original author, but reading his post I couldn't figure out what he was really doing in the US and I'm not surprised he got turned away.
The strangest questioning I had crossing the border: "Where are you visiting?" "What's your father's name?" "What does your father do?" "A teacher? What school did he teach at?" By this point, I was wondering where this line of questioning was leading. But then the border guard said, "I know your father. He taught me in Grade 11."
While I'm on the subject of border crossing, I've opted out of TSA body scanning several times. I've seen complaints from others, but the patdown has always gone smoothly for me.
