I like the whole series. Others are talking about 1 and 2, so I’ll add Half-Life Alyx. It’s a VR game, and at the time the PC VR scene was almost all indie games. I remember working out that if I wanted to carry more stuff I didn’t need to worry about only being allowed to hold two grenades, I could just pick up a bucket, fill it with grenades, and carry that around.
I also remember being able to pick up pens and draw on a whiteboard.
I’m not sure how it holds up these days, but at the time it was quite the experience.
I can’t imagine it being worth it for one game. The occulus quest headsets are probably the cheapest entry point, especially second hand, but you also get Facebook lock in, and they sell them at a loss so they can better show you ads and make more money. So I’d only go for the quest if you are desperate 😆. Objectively the Quest 3 may be a better headset than the Valve Index, but that’s because the Index is like 4 years old at this point. Many people still think the Index is better, but it depends what your priorities are.
A new Index is still like $999 all these years later. You might be able to get a used one cheaper, but probably not super cheap if it still works well.
VR arcades exist, so it might make sense to find one and play the game there if they have it! However, part of the appeal of Alyx is the use of the Index controllers (Knuckles) that have finger tracking fancy stuff. Arcades might be using the Vive Pro, so you’d have to check if they have Alyx and if they have an Index you can play it on.
I guess this also applies to getting a Quest. It will be fun but not the full experience, Alyx was designed for the Index.
I’m pretty sceptical about ground effect planes, there’s a very good reason why they’ve never really taken off, despite so many countries and organisations giving them a try over the years, but I’d love to know what everyone else thinks.
This is basically a plane, right? And would be priced similar to a flight on a 12 seater plane, or perhaps even higher if they are taking you to central Auckland and saving you a taxi.
Although this brings Whangārei within commuting distance, I don’t imagine it will be priced appropriately for people do daily commuting?
I’m also curious how far their batteries take them. So they can do Whangārei to Auckland in 35 mins, can they turn around and go back or do they need to spend 6 hours charging?
Over here in NZ we had the biggest influx of expats back to NZ in memory. Perhaps you had the same?
Another possibility is perhaps a drop in the number of rental properties overall. Money got cheap, house prices went up, perhaps lots of landlords sold up, and lots of renters suddenly could afford to buy?
One size doesn’t fit all. That’s why all kids should have an hour of reading, an hour of writing, and an hour of maths every day (which takes up like 70% of the learning time available).
It’s probably pretty difficult to measure the performance of charter schools vs public schools.
A charter school might specifically cater to underachieving kids, kids for whom the public system didn’t work well. Then by selection the public schools will outperform the charter school.
Or alternatively, a charter school might outperform public school because the class sizes can be smaller and they don’t have to stick to the government set rules for schools. If you set dumb rules (like three hours a day on the three Rs) then you can then point to the charter schools and say “look, they are doing better than the public schools so we should convert more schools to charter schools” when in reality it’s just a sign the way you run public schools is wrong.
If we look at a country level then things like attitude towards education, the specific implementation differing between countries, or the general social structure outside of school differing may make comparisons meaningless.
Another factor is that “charter school” doesn’t necessarily mean run by a company, just that they have an agreement with the government (a charter) that says they don’t have to follow the normal curriculum. But from my understanding charter schools in NZ are privately run?
The figure below shows some notable results from the CREDO studies. The key takeaway is that charter school students, in general, perform about the same as their matched peers in the traditional public schools, but there is variation across different types of schools and groups of students. For example, students in urban charter schools generally perform better than their matched pairs—likely for an assortment of reasons—while students in online charter schools perform much worse.
This study shows that charter schools are slow to get started (i.e. perform poorly at the start) and slowly catch up to public schools over time:
This study investigates whether student achievement varies during the institutional life span of charter schools by comparing them to new public schools. The results show that there is little evidence that new public schools struggle with initial start-up issues to the same extent as new charter schools. Even after controlling for school characteristics, new public schools generally perform about as well as one would predict given their demographic and socioeconomic profile. New public schools hit the ground running and maintain steady performance, while new charter schools begin to improve after their first year and slowly close the gap.
This article talks about how charter schools and public schools are as good as the people running them:
The effectiveness of charter schools is a hotly contested and often debated issue among educators, parents, researchers and politicians. And studies have been published supporting both sides of the argument: that charters underperform public schools and that they outperform public schools. However, the key difference appears to be the state in which the charter is located and the organizing body by which the charter is run.
*What rights do you have to the digital movies, TV shows and music you buy online? That question was on the minds of Telstra TV Box Office customers this month after the company announced it would shut down the service in June. Customers were told that unless they moved over to another service, Fetch, they would no longer be...
I think it’s like this: if your game is not on Steam, you won’t sell many copies. Publishers fight to make sure the game is on Steam.
If your movie isn’t on Steam, the company doesn’t care. No one goes to Steam for movies. So Valve has to fight to get the rights to distribute (and compete with streaming services).
I don’t know about that guy but you can’t even get cheque books in NZ anymore. They were phased out, mostly because electronic payments are ubiquitous and most places already stopped accepting cheques a decade or two back.
In NZ we would talk annual salary, rent per week, and we just don’t talk about mortgage payments because it’s easier not to.
I think we probably do annual salary because there isn’t consistency with how people are paid. Weekly and fortnightly are probably the most common, but monthly is pretty normal too and I’ve seen some being paid twice monthly.
Specifically about the DOC part of this, isn’t one direction (the NZ First led one) about the public interacting with the departments in English, where as the Minister’s comments on using te reo were about usage internally within the department?
Despite this, departments and agencies have received no official government directive on the use of te reo and English.
No Government entities have been directed to change their names to English.
A small number of agencies, including the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotaki, have voluntarily opted to change their names in line with the government’s position.
I don’t think this can be true. A government department doesn’t change their name without a Minister’s input, and even if the government provided no “official” advice, if the government’s (very public) position is the name should be English and the Minister supports that then how can they say no? I’d probably put money on it that it didn’t feel voluntary to them.
Sorry but I went off on a thread with someone else and now I really need to know what this is based on. As far as I can tell, GDPR’s international reach has never been tested, there is no specific legislation I can find, and any companies big enough for the EU to care also operate in the EU so can be hurt by EU courts (as in, pay the fine or no more Facebook in Europe).
I’m being down voted to hell for asking a question but I still want some confirmation of the answer backed up by something.
Thanks for providing this, I wasn’t able to find it through my own searches. I’m reading the linked documents, and can’t find anything to back up that the US courts will enforce the foreign fine. In fact, this is specifically addressed in the document and it seems to support that they will not support it.
C. The rule against recognition of foreign fines and penal judgments
The general rule in favor of recognizing foreign country judgments that meet the foundational requirements above is subject to a key exception: under both the Recognition Acts and the common law, U.S. courts generally do not recognize or enforce foreign judgments for the collection of taxes, fines, or penalties.
Given my original question was why can’t they ignore the fine, it seems the answer is that they can?
I’m almost certain that import and export has specific laws written for that case, considering how crucial it is to the country. GDPR is a specific new thing less than 10 years old and has no equivalent in US law.
Sorry, I may have given the impression that I mean I was questioning if there are any laws that control how interactions with other countries work. In fact my question was if there are generic laws that say “when Europe introduces some new law, the US has to follow it”.
Thanks! Feels a little like the exception that proves the rule though 😅
If you see the chain here (sorry, lemmy has no good way to link to a comment - here is a lemmyverse.link link for redirecting to it in your instance), it seems US courts generally follow (but are not obliged to follow) court orders from other countries where there is a similar law in the US. So it’s likely now that California courts would uphold rulings in relation to GDPR, but other states probably wouldn’t.
However, there’s a giant caveat in that fines and penalties are specifically excluded (see above chain) so for my original question about whether the site could ignore the fine - well as far as I can tell they can ignore it, because it won’t be enforced by US courts.
That doesn’t rule out other action though. Perhaps a US court would uphold some sort of takedown order, since it’s only fines and penalties that are specifically excluded and the US would likely have other laws (some sort of anti-stalking?) that could be used for the takedown request?
The only thing that currently stands out, and it a tad annoying, is the aids amplify my own voice when I speak. Makes to me my voice sound echoey and louder than I’m used to.
A quick search and it seems it’s normal you’ll probably get used to it, but also there are some specific things that can make it worse so if you have a follow up appointment then mention it then as there might be some adjustments that can help to some minor extent.
I also saw mention of specific hearing aids that you can train your voice on and it filters it out. But I’m assuming they come at a premium.
Let's discuss: Half-Life (beehaw.org)
The format of these posts is simple: let’s discuss a specific game or series!...
Perpetual Motion finally achieved! (lemmy.zip)
Seagliders' 35-minute trips to Auckland closer with $145m deal (www.nzherald.co.nz)
I’m pretty sceptical about ground effect planes, there’s a very good reason why they’ve never really taken off, despite so many countries and organisations giving them a try over the years, but I’d love to know what everyone else thinks.
Australia's housing crisis in 10 graphs, from the federal budget (www.abc.net.au)
Iron (mander.xyz)
Mama mia! (lemmy.nz)
Govt to convert 35 state schools to charter schools (www.newshub.co.nz)
‘My whole library is wiped out’: what it means to own movies and TV in the age of streaming services (www.theguardian.com)
*What rights do you have to the digital movies, TV shows and music you buy online? That question was on the minds of Telstra TV Box Office customers this month after the company announced it would shut down the service in June. Customers were told that unless they moved over to another service, Fetch, they would no longer be...
Check your email for the verification code we just sent you. (lemmy.sdf.org)
I found a worm on my USB
This is probably not the right community but I haven’t found a better one....
We may never know (lemmy.world)
Minister encourages DOC to use te reo Māori "everywhere and anywhere", despite Government position (www.newstalkzb.co.nz)
PSA: A website called SteamHistory enables stalkers through Steam mass data harvesting. Here's how stalkers found me despite creating a new, private, anonymous account.
cross-posted from: lemmy.cafe/post/4800845...
Aotearoa Weekly Kōrero 13/5/2024
Last weeks thread here...