Yes, which is why I'm not actually a fan of Pandemic. But both Space Alert and Escape are speed games, so there's not enough time to micromanage everyone. You have to count on your teammates to do the right thing, to talk to each other, to carry out a plan, and to be flexible when the shit hits the fan.

Some cooperative games (Space Alert, Escape, Pandemic) allow everyone to win as a group, which makes everyone feel good. But as Reiner Knizia put it "the best games are where the losers feel like they also won." Where even the losers have met goals in the game, have felt like they played well, or have enjoyed themselves. Who cares who wins at Cards Against Humanity? We don't even keep score in Concept. If a game has rewards along the way, where I can look back at a game and be happy with some of my good plays, it makes losing the game not so bad, maybe even irrelevant. I like to win poker tournaments, but if I've made a particularly good bluff or clever trap call, I feel good about my play even if I end up losing.

I play board games two or three times a week. I love games with elegant rules which still lead to a game that can be played over and over. I've been playing bridge for 30 years, and I still find something new every time I play. Dominion and Werewolf are really neat elegant systems, but nearly every game is a new experience.

I also need to be able to improve. I think Royal Turf is an elegant game, but I know the ideal strategy and don't enjoy playing anymore. Whereas I have a lot to learn to be a better Zendo player and a better poker player, and will never master either game.

I've often wondered about the possibility of not re-burying the trench: make the trench shallower, cover it with a walkable grate, and just leave it that way. Sure, the grate will get covered by leaves, and the trench will fill with water (have to have a way to drain that), but those seem like minor problems. The cable would be shielded from the vast majority of problems (falling branches, cars hitting poles, squirrels). And since it's just a grate covering, it's just as easy to find problems & service as if they were on a pole. I'm sure I'm missing some reason why this isn't feasible, though...

"Science data" as opposed to "telemetry data". It's a bit of a jargon term, but makes sense to me.

This is true with one big caveat: the kernel still comes from the cromeOS partition, not the linux partition. I learned this the hard way with my chromebook....I could never get it to a 2.6 Kernel (never mind 3.x) because the system had actually booted the kernel from the chromeOS partition, but the rest of linux from my ubuntu partition.

I'm beginning to think that the lack of difference between the party policies isn't that they're the same party...I think the institutional attitudes of various agencies doesn't change with government rotation because most of the employees of the agencies don't change. That can be as good (if the party you disagree with is in power, it's hard for them to gut an agency they don't like), and it can be bad (an out of control agency can almost do whatever the hell they like, since they know they can outwait any mangement they disagree with).

I'm not sure how to solve this one, though...if you clean out the entire upper echelon of an agency at administration rollover, then you risk seriously politicising even the most bland agencies. On the other hand, some of these agencies clearly need an attitude adjustment, and I really do think the attitude problem is endemic to the entire culture of the agency, not just their leadership.

Maybe a max term for any federal employee that they can't work for any one agency for more than 10 years?

Agree. The moon's dust problem alone makes it problematic. I'd argue for L4 or L5 before the moon. There's still some dust at L4 & L5, but the sheer amount of it is much lower, and the gravity well to get there (and leave again) is much lower. It's not as inpsiring to say "we're on L4!", but it's also a first-person-gets-it kinda situation...you can have multiple moon bases, but really only one at L4 or L5.

The difference, which the summary alludes to, but doesn't call out, is that it's very typical for book contracts to contain a clause that reverts all copyrights back to the author after the book falls out of print for some period of time. Music contracts very rarely have that. Music contracts may or may not have covered the right to distribute the works digitally, but the music publishers still have *some* rights to old works, where the book publishers will have none.

It's not quite that simple. The GP post is correct that Cogent has a horrible reputation in the industry. Here's a synopsis of the most common Cogent dispute:

1) User in New York on ISP A requests data from Server in San Francisco on Cogent.
2) ISP A and Cogent interconnect in San Francisco and New York.
3) ISP A wants Cogent to carry the traffic to New York and drop it onto the ISP's network as close a possible to the customer (cold-potato routing), Cogent wants it off their network as soon as possible so they drop it onto the ISP A San Francisco interconnect (hot potato routing).

The question boils down to: which one of them is going to have to build a bigger national backbone to handle the extra traffic from the user in New York? Neither one wants to, and wants to force the other one to do it.

As to why ISPs are not blacklisting Cogent: they are. That's what all these bandwidth problems with Netflix are about: ISPs are playing chicken with Cogent, trying to force Cogent's customers to bully them into upgrading their network. ISPs aren't limiting Netflix: they're refusing to upgrade interconnects with Cogent until Cogent starts using cold-potato routing.

In this case, one of Cogent's customers blinked before Cogent did, and side-stepped the problem.

This week, I've played bridge, Texas Hold'em, Dominion, Race for the Galaxy, La Boca, Coup, and Cartagena.

Oh, you probably meant video games. None. I love video games, but they eat all my time and are usually antisocial.

now? Let's find out:
Piñata
Mötley Crüe
  €

Set, Spot It, Rummy, Carcassonne, LotR Confrontation, and many other board games and card games. Electronic games? She has found those on her own without any encouragement from me.