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Star Wars Prequels

Old Republic unplayable on launch date, greed or i->

Submitted by Umuri
Umuri writes "Bioware's long awaited MMO, Star Wars: The Old Republic(release date 12-20-2011), has hit a rather rough snag, as most online retailers have announced box delivery dates anywhere from the 22nd to the 29th or even some in next year. Yet EA has gone back on it's word to allow a grace period and is saying even preorders will be shutoff on launch day. Is this a plot for them to sell more digital copies(which they proudly advertise as code delivery on the 16th)? Or is it a supply screwball where they lack enough physical copies. Either way, it's bad PR."
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Comment: Re:How Many Times Have You... (Score 1) 487

by Umuri (#36711502) Attached to: Have American Businesses Been Stranded By the MBAs?

In terms of asking for metal instead of plastic - My car. I outright refuse to drive fiberglass POS when i have any such option. I much prefer having steel parts, steel body, steel frame protecting me and keeping everything running than the plastic replacement pos that wear out and can't drive worth a crap.
That being said, yes i rarely get to buy anything after 1998, why do you ask? :P

Also on the list - My keyboard has a metal core and actual springs, I love my model M.

Comment: Jury Qualification Improvement (Score 2) 111

by Umuri (#35830438) Attached to: Crowdsourcing the Censors: A Contest

I like the idea, however your problem is you will always come across trolls on the internet, or people who just like screwing up systems. I would say this percentage on facebook is quite sizable, so i would propose these alterations(to be taken individually or all together or mix/match):

Assign a trustability value to each juror, that is hidden and modified in one of two ways(or both):

Have a pool of pre-existing cases(I'm sure facebook has tons of examples stored in their history banks).
In this situation facebook knows what the outcome should be according to their standards.
Have any prospective juror have a mix of "real" cases and these pre-existing cases mixed together for a trial period, say that first 20 cases they review have an unknown mix. This way they can't guess which ones are appropriate or not.

Use their verdicts on these existing cases to assign a juror a "reliability" factor on their verdicts on the non-example cases in their batch.
That way jurors who don't quite get the rules, or are causing problems, are easily weeded out and their vote counts less in the total verdict weight on their real cases.

Alternatively:
Trustability starts at 50%, so new jurors get half votes.
whenever a juror disagrees with the majority opinion by the polar opposite choice, lower their trustability rating.
Likewise when they are in the majority and it is not a middleground, increase their trustability.

Both of these improvements will lower the odds of troll or mob mentality, even if the control a decent size of the juror pool because their individual votes will be worth less, while being invisible enough to the end-user that they won't be able to tell they aren't being effective.

Comment: Really, I thought the question is... (Score 4, Insightful) 636

by Umuri (#35787336) Attached to: Are Graphical Calculators Pointless?

Why are we having exams that require a calculator?
I did all of calculus and most of linear so far(sufficiently complex equations were done to allow for matlab use, but the test stuff could be done without), and even statistics(yay longhand division!) without one just fine, and most problems can easily be done without them if the proper setup numbers are used.

Also, they are NOT crippled enough. Even when i was in middle school there were program packs to download your textbook onto your ti-83 (I had a ti-80 and i could still type the formulas by hand) so they are still too advanced to not cheat with. And don't tell me you can just wipe the memory, any sufficiently smart cheater would have a ti with a different spare battery. You can find easy DIY's for those online nowadays easy.

Allow a calculator with a 10 key, if they need to graph something, then they should be able to figure it out enough by hand and not need a calculator.

All testing with a graphing calculator does is let more students pass because they don't need to learn, they just need to throw thier notes on the calculator memory. (Yes you'd have references in real life, but the point of most math tests is it's so basic you shouldn't NEED references, it should be the core material you know by heart)

Comment: Anyone else have this idea? (Score 3, Interesting) 225

by Umuri (#35023868) Attached to: Drug Catapult Found At US-Mexico Border

I mean surely i'm not the only engineer who's joked that all they really need to do is catapult and parachute to get over the border, with no need for a parachute if they're launching hard projectiles. I mean the range on old catapults and trebuchets was quite well, and could be scaled as a simple matter of physics.

So I suppose next we might find a tunnel that is one mile down and 40 miles under the border to breach the "castle walls" of the united states?

I request a weekend in Havana with Phil Silvers!

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