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Comment DNA Testing (Score 4, Interesting) 747

Maybe we'll have the capability to cheaply trace each confirmed case back to the source through the DNA of diseases. Turn a few ambulance chasing lawyers loose on folks causing outbreaks for whatever reason and a few people might change their tune.

Comment Re:Sounds horrible (Score 1) 146

I make games for a living, and have tried many of the gamification apps for things like household chores or which beers you've drank to see what they're like. They're a pain in the butt to enter things into and just aren't much fun IMO.

What you're saying can be summarized as "this is hard so it isn't worth doing".

This is what passes for insightful commentary on Slashdot today?

I know, I know, I must be new here.

I'm sorry that's what you gathered from my post. It's not what I wrote or intended anyone to take away.

A better summary: Layering a game like structure on top of everyday activities has so far not produced many good experiences. Unless there are major unforeseeable advances in experience design and technology over the next couple of years, there will not be anywhere close to 85% of daily activities structured as "games".

Comment Sounds horrible (Score 5, Insightful) 146

I make games for a living, and have tried many of the gamification apps for things like household chores or which beers you've drank to see what they're like. They're a pain in the butt to enter things into and just aren't much fun IMO.

I've seen some interesting things in education, where achievement and point systems are used to construct a less bad grading system, which is cool. But to get to 85% of daily tasks being gamified would take a ton of amazing experience design and technological advancements that I just don't see happening by 2020. Maybe more like 5% would be a more reasonable estimate.

Also, if my HR department decides to gamify performance reviews I'm going to lose it.

Comment Re:Now if we can get this device onto storm drains (Score 4, Informative) 96

Or, perhaps retain storm drainage on golf courses so their fertilizer doesn't end up in streams to begin with. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R... If golf courses and farmers wouldn't mow and plow right down to the water and then over-fertilize, we could reduce phosphorus in streams a ton. If you're interested in the health of golf course sized stream in the US, I recommend checking out the EPA Wadeable Stream Assessment (I worked on the field work in Arkansas) http://water.epa.gov/type/rsl/...

Comment Re:People actually liked the controller? (Score 1) 92

I bought the console strictly for social play. The controller design excels at enabling fun multiplayer games for use in the same room by giving one player things the other can't see (a hide and seek style game for example). Keeping UI off the TV is nice, but not terribly effective when you have to continually take your eyes off screen to interact with your inventory, map, etc.

Comment Re:I doesn't matter (Score 4, Insightful) 199

Not to be all conspiratorial, but I think it's been a while now since politicians were really in charge of this sort of thing.

Agreed. I would add, I doubt that anyone who's done the things you have to do to get elected at the national level wants to cross the folks that have access to potentially EVERY electronic piece of information generated by them, their family and staff in the last decade plus. Don't think for a minute that if someone like Feinstein got critical of their programs, some shady business dealings of her husband's or his associates wouldn't get laundered to FBI or others.

Comment Virtualization has helped out experimentation (Score 2) 308

Our workplace has been pretty laid back about people experimenting with whatever they would like once we got set up with Amazon. Want to try out anything new, just remember to shut down the services when you're done. We're limited to what Amazon has available, but for a web and app focused business, we have a ton of options available.

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