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Comment Re:Have you ever (Score 1) 824

I usually touch it in a frantic bid to find the "open door" button. My feeble mind can never disentangle the subtleties between <|> and >|< in the few milliseconds available when I wish to hold the door for someone. I take comfort in knowing that my mistakes do not hasten the door's closing, but I take umbrage at the thought that if the elevator didn't have the placebo button, I could find <|> more quickly and to better effect.

Comment Other non-placebo treatments (Score 4, Interesting) 824

I read an article in the Washington Post ~20 years ago about people waiting in lines. A hotel was constantly receiving complaints about the speed of their elevators. They kept tweaking the elevators, but the complaints continued to roll in (despite the quantifiable improvements). Rather than continuing to pursue the problem with technology, they turned to psychology and installed mirrors in the elevator lobby. Seems that if people have something interesting to look at (to them at least), the time passes more quickly and they do not notice that the elevators are slow. After they made this final change, the complaints stopped. I think about this every time I see a mirror in an elevator lobby.

Comment How much skin to make a pint of blood? (Score 3, Interesting) 229

Just how much skin does it take to make a pint of blood? I would think a lot, but not having read the article, I wouldn't know.

Seems to me they invented the reverse of the process that's really needed. It's a lot harder to get enough skin for grafting than it is to get blood for transfusions. Wouldn't blood-to-skin be a better conversion?

Comment Re:Mobile devices (Score 1) 328

iPads are just a teardrop on the ocean. What about phone browsers? My guess is that browsing from a phone is becoming a bigger part of the pie, and IE just isn't in that game. Note that the browsers that are growing are the ones available for phones.

Comment Re:Never, at least for most people.... (Score 1) 606

Though fuel efficiency is a good candidate, the number ONE issue will be liability for the manufacturers of said flying cars. Consensus here seems to be that they would have to be computer controlled. All it takes is one bug, and they're on the losing side of a multi-[mb]illion dollar lawsuit. The second suit will cost even more.
Games

Pirates as a Marketplace 214

John Riccitiello, the CEO of Electronic Arts, made some revealing comments in an interview with Kotaku about how the company's attitudes are shifting with regard to software piracy. Quoting: "Some of the people buying this DLC are not people who bought the game in a new shrink-wrapped box. That could be seen as a dark cloud, a mass of gamers who play a game without contributing a penny to EA. But around that cloud Riccitiello identified a silver lining: 'There's a sizable pirate market and a sizable second sale market and we want to try to generate revenue in that marketplace,' he said, pointing to DLC as a way to do it. The EA boss would prefer people bought their games, of course. 'I don't think anybody should pirate anything,' he said. 'I believe in the artistry of the people who build [the games industry.] I profoundly believe that. And when you steal from us, you steal from them. Having said that, there's a lot of people who do.' So encourage those pirates to pay for something, he figures. Riccitiello explained that EA's download services aren't perfect at distinguishing between used copies of games and pirated copies. As a result, he suggested, EA sells DLC to both communities of gamers. And that's how a pirate can turn into a paying customer."
Windows

Submission + - Poll suggestion

jomegat writes: What do you do with the "Designed for Windows" sticker on your PC?
  • Leave it there in disgust.
  • Leave it there to admire.
  • Peal off and discard.
  • Put it on something else, such as a file cabinet.
  • Put it on a Linux/Mac user's computer when he's not looking
  • Send it to Cowboy Neal

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