> He and Sokchea scaled back their lives to live within their solar-powered means — ditching their toaster and microwave, giving up laundry on cloudy days when their batteries wouldn’t be able to recharge.
I read this as they completely got rid of their toaster and microwave. Otherwise I think it would read "giving up their toaster, microwave and laundry on cloudy days".
As a follow-up to this question, imagine a job where a significant portion of time is spent waiting on a computer (rendering animations, code compiling, etc).
Two contractors are hired, one with a modern laptop and the other with a 10 year old machine. The older machine takes at least twice as long to process the work.
Is it A) ethical to bill for time spent waiting for the machine to process and B) ethical to use the older machine? Assume the contractor using the older machine is using the best equipment currently available to them.
I'm having a similar experience travelling through Melbourne as almost all of my internet access is metered. My mobile plan has 3GB/month and is almost my sole source of internet.
I just discovered the public library which is great for getting work done, but I have to leave my room to get there. Most cafes either don't have wifi or impose a time limit w/ a user/pass login (so changing mac address won't defeat it).
I'm mostly finding it makes me more productive, though it's sometimes frustrating if I need to search for a quick Stack Overflow answer.
If it were true open source I think the project would get a lot more contributions. The enterprise edition, with the "best" features, is very much not free.
> When you say "there's nothing innovative about it" regarding hearthstone, you could say that about several of the games Blizzard has made.
This makes them good at making money, not necessarily good at making games. I personally see WoW as the beginning of Blizzard's decent. I can't argue that it made a boatload of money though, or that millions of people love it.
As for how it's a bad thing, Blizzard used to develop some seminal games in the RTS genre. These games showed significant innovation and shaped the genre (though they didn't invent it). Compare that to their current lineup of rehashed and cloned games. I don't see the same level of innovation anywhere.
I think Blizzard is so focused on profits at this point that monetization is the primary concern of any new game. It's just my personal, anecdotal opinion but it's also the reason I don't buy Blizzard games at release anymore.
I'm fairly certain that D3 was originally built around the auction house. They started with a solid stream of monetization and then built a game around that.
It's good but it's not great. League of Legends and Dota2 are both superior games in just about every way. Honestly Blizzard is just really late to the table with this one, which is surprising seeing as how MOBAs started in War3.
> Hearthstone is an amazing success and very fun.
Hearthstone is Magic: The Gathering with most of the pain points removed. I'm not saying it isn't fun or commercially successful, but there's nothing innovative about it. MtG never produced a viable online game, so Blizzard did.
> Starcraft 2 is okay.
> Diablo 3 kind of missed the mark
I agree with both statements. SC2 will never be as popular as Brood Wars, and they seem to be struggling with game balance a lot more. D3 completely missed the mark with the auction house.
What I see happening to Blizzard is a focus on micro transactions, with gameplay coming second. I think this article accurately summarizes their history, but ignores recent changes to their company that paint a different picture going forward. I'm not expecting SC3 (should it ever happen) to be as amazing as SC1, and I certainly won't be happy to pay $1 each time I run out of pylons.
That's the point I stopped reading.