Honestly, that's where we live now. The console games you buy are game licenses, meaning you don't own them. You can't rent them, you can't resell them. If you owned a video game, it's covered by the US Code. Those, you can sell, rent, do whatever you want - you own them.

Video game companies who sell games as game licenses have to be able to prove why the game being sold needs to be a license - if a court finds them to be identical, as opposed to a real difference...the court is supposed to say it's game ownership.

Game companies want to hide from this problem. When Nintendo went after Blockbuster, because they were renting video games - the US courts found that Blockbuster was covered. (Nintendo did turn around and successfully sue them for including the game manuals, so Blockbuster then had to pull those/reproduce them.)

He uses his fame like a free pass to treat people and organizations however he pleases. This does not make him a good person or a better chess player. It certainly makes him a horrible ambassador.

Yes, chess organizations are fairly status quo. He and every other participant KNOWS the rules regarding the dress code. If they let him break the rules on manner of dress, it appears as if they are not treating everyone equally by the rules.

It would be similar to Elon Musk going to a black-tie restaurant in a t-shirt and jeans. He would clearly think "I am more important than any of your rules for being in this place".

I think organized chess would be better off without him.

My range is pretty much zero. A buddy of mine is like a 2 out of 5. I didn't realize that folks actually meant imagining until about 8 years ago. I thought they were just declaring a mental space, kind of like a chalkboard.

I have a lot of concepts of what things are - I believe it helps me appear smarter than I am. While a normal human has a ton of image processing to do, I don't.

Songs don't get stuck in my head. I don't remember physical pain. I don't know what things taste like - what is garlic? What is salty? I was able to quit smoking pretty much instantly - I don't remember the habit (there was a short physical withdrawal, but that was it). I give off a stoic vibe, probably at least in part because I can't carry mental trauma around.

I don't know what my partner of 13 years looks like, beyond a string of concepts. What they sound like. I can't be hungry for a certain thing, I don't know if my vodka red sauce is different than the last one I made. My "vivid" dreams need to be written down within a minute or two of waking , or it's gone. Concepts only - but it feels like imagining. For me to paint a realistic surf hitting a shore, I need to have a picture of it. While I paint, so I can reference it the whole time.

I love Blender. I can 3D model things finally, without tons of pieces of paper to fake it. I can include reference pictures while I design.

For you normals at 5 of 5, that's a lie. There are folks who can voluntarily hallucinate better than you. Song stuck in their head? They'll start adding new instruments, or remove instrument lines. There's the guy who can imagine listen to FOUR symphonies at one time (Bob Milne).

I would prefer to be normal though. It's tiring, trying to problem solve, knowing that everyone else has access to a common tool. There are trivial arguments with people, because you appear to be willfully dense. I hurt people, not recognizing them outside of the context where I know them. (My neighbor friend from across the street brought cookies, and I stood at the door treating him like a stranger.)

I wonder sometimes even sharing - maybe a future work lead will evaporate, because they don't think I would be able to do a task without being able to voluntarily hallucinate.

I bought a Mac Pro desktop in 2004 with a student discount when I was dipping my toe into InDesign. Still use it when I want to use Illustrator/Photoshop/InDesign (without monthly fees, even though it is only CS3), or other software packages that I liked when I got the machine. But without OS/security/browser updates, I don't connect to the internet - there were also headaches when Blender & Cura stopped being able to update a couple of years ago. Now, I might turn it on a couple of times a month.

It was durable - the only part that died was a video card. The cinema display had an issue once, solved by cellophane tape. You could replace parts easily.

I just don't get the same feeling of commitment from Apple now. Expiring OS updates is just a poison pill to kill otherwise useful hardware.

Z-Wave has been more proprietary - you need to certify your product, which requires more money (gained through licensing, which generally means slightly higher prices to the consumer) to go through the hoops. The announcement is more pointed at companies debating Z-Wave or the next big thing - Matter.

Zigbee's been looser on standards. It pivoted by going to CHIP/Matter (Zigbee Alliance becomes Connectivity Standards Alliance, but still supports Zigbee). Matter's main push is security, but ...there's a cost for the licensing, going the direction of Z-Wave. The big players of Zigbee/CSA - Amazon, Apple, Google, Samsung...I can only imagine they want your IOT data/silo.

I've been happy with Z-Wave devices so far in the home automation - smoke alarms, door/window sensors. Low power consumption, reasonable range, not super-expensive or tied into a specific IOT ecosystem. I'm hoping they stick around.

I use it to grab Blender tutorials, so I can curate my own collection of knowledge, offline. Watching on an airplane, riding on the bus, traveling internationally.

Makes me wonder what kind of copyright youtube posters have, or assume to have. (I appreciate the Creative Commons licensing on Thingiverse - not 100%, but good enough to communicate expectations of use.)

Even just being a game studio, they have to overcome the stasis that is Amazon. It's not just to please a singular person, but a range of mid- or senior-level managers outside the studio...any of which can send you back to the drawing board, at any stage.

Amazon, you have my sympathies. It's great that you want to release an amazing title, and that you continue to try. At this point, it feels like a trap...you're stuck aiming for bigger every time, to make up for each previous struggle. Good luck!

Sonos pushes updates that break things, and there's no going back. Previously, it was "the OSX machine that was supported, is no longer supported (no access to music library)".

Be careful of updating your phone app post-May 2020...you might lose access to your speakers completely.

Your doctor appointment is 15 minutes. This is the amount of time they have to ask you why you're here, what it isn't, what it might be, and come back later if you are still sick next week.

It treats short-term problems, without seeing longer term issues...unless you go to a specialist after multiple visits to your GP or multiple GP/urgent care. And the specialist is going to see things through their lens.

Imagine data science, which is vastly more efficient with larger sets of data. Yes, hospitals/doctors will have a team of data scientists to monitor/improve the use of data sets...but right now every doctor and hospital silo their data. Tiny little empires that overlap in small ways.

We didn't get to modern translation engines because we got amazing at programming. Large data sets. How else do we get to better health care analysis?

We were waiting in the house for about 90 minutes with our agent, while the inspector and sewer scope were done - talking about different offer options, what we wanted, what we thought they expected, what the seller might settle for.

And then as we were wrapping up, we noticed an Alexa sitting on a kitchen shelf. (Apparently, not supposed to be running a camera or microphone without notice.)

Our agent went on a tear after unplugging it. Calling the seller's agent immediately, then telling us that we could consider this cause to drop the bid.

It seemed something accidental that might be done by someone not tech savvy, but yeah - there should be stickers with every Alexa.

I would like companies to remove access for employees when they switch departments. Sure, it's convenient if Joe can still log into a management console to fix a VM, he's got the knowledge and need.

But Joe's not hip to what the rest of his old team is doing now. Maybe there's something additional he should be doing when fixing a VM.

Honestly, I'd like a bucket for each employee. When an employee gains access to something, the person granting them access, tosses a note in that bucket on what access was granted.

Every time that employee leaves a role, their manager checks the bucket for access roles. If their manager changes, the new manager (and hopefully old) checks access roles. At every review period, manager checks the bucket.

Employees, their managers, and HR can check the employee's bucket whenever. If I control access to a specific software/hardware, I can see who has access.

Active Directory is not a substitute for the process â" there can still be machines/software not managed by AD.

I have two Raspberry Pi 2's running as Octoprint servers for 3D printers. (Stock Octopi installs.)

There's a Pi Zero that runs an appliance monitor (modified for both washer & dryer) for the apartment building. https://github.com/Shmoopty/rp...

Fun stuff, and worth it for people who want to tinker. Sensors can be cheap, and they're nice little general purpose computers.

I've been too lazy/busy to wire up a power-down switch â" and that doesn't come stock. If it's not reachable on the network and headless, you're probably just going to power it down and power it back up again...it *usually* won't corrupt your SD card.