The + operator was removed despite being there for a long time.
Also there's a whole bunch of wrong info in the article. The most blatant one is that they claim google by default performs an AND search, which even a cursory use of google will demonstrate is not true.
>Search for X and Y. This will return only results related to both X and Y. Note: It doesn’t really make much difference for regular searches, as Google defaults to “AND” anyway. But it’s very useful when paired with other operators.
The author must be using a different google than me. It's been many, many years since google functioned as an AND search. It very frequently decides to drop one or more words from my search if there is a low number of results, it's extremely annoying. Once you could force the old behaviour with +<term>, and then later with quoting ("term"). Both of those now also tend to drop search terms for me.
If anyone has an actually reliable way to get a real AND search out of google, I'm all ears.
More precisely, an expiration timestamp is embedded in the repository metadata.
Packages in debian and derivatives are not signed. Instead, the manifest that lists all the available packages and their checksums is signed. That's also where the expiration data is stored.
Even more precisely still, not even the lists of packages are signed. Only InRelease and Release are signed, and they only contain the list of Package files. It's FreeBSD that has the approach of just one signed file containing everything. APT has moved closer to it over the years, but it is not there yet.
Onion services can have various goals. Hiding the server is a very common one, but it's not always the case.
For example facebook runs an onion server for their service, they don't need to hide the service itself. So they configure their Tor relays with no anonymity on the service side (HiddenServiceSingleHopMode 1) and get better performance.
Such non-anonymous onion services can have many goals, for example:
* Reducing load on Tor exit nodes
* Providing users a secure, authenticated connection without depending on the CA system (assuming you got the URL through a secure channel the first time, you know only the key holder can provide service on that host).
* NAT traversal for services that otherwise have no need for anonymity
It's not so much that they can't be used 24/7, but that Li-Ion batteries really don't like staying at 100% charge (nor 0% either for that matter).
If you can configure your laptop to only charge the battery to ~80% or so, you'll extend the battery life significantly. The optimal range for long-term storage is ~40-60% charge.
The idle task (when there's nothing to run) doesn't have a priority at all, it just gets run when nothing else is available. the "idle" priority is an actual priority, for when there's no higher-priority task to run. The ZPT is prioritized below "idle", so super-duper-low priority.
I haven't played any of these games either, and the kinds of "press a button in time to make stuff happen" events you describe are something I really hate in games, so I don't think I will.
That said, your description of the illusion of choice in the story... sounds like every story-based videogame ever. I've been playing games since the 90s, and I can't really think of any such games off the top of my head where your choices will lead you down a completely different path.
Commonly the game will have different ending cutscenes depending on your choices, but the main story quest always takes you to the same locations.
Deus Ex was lauded for giving you choices, but you always took the same general path through the game. Maybe you saved that character and then you meet him again for a short conversation much later - but it didn't really matter.
Planescape Torment is often described as the best story-driven RPG ever written. While it had lots of optional sidequests and offered the option to roleplay your character in loads of different ways, in the end you always took the same path through the main storyline.
These are just two examples of higly rated, character- and story-driven games that happen to be among my favorite games of all time.
It's understandable, after all creating content costs money, and content that won't be seen except by a tiny minority of players seems like a sunk cost to the developers.
I agree somewhat; it's pretty difficult to create a COMPLETELY different game. However the second act in Witcher 2 was quite different depending on your choice in the first act to the point that replaying it adds a lof of depth to the overall story and presentation. I heard the 3rd game is just as impressive but I haven't been able to experience it myself
Meanwhile, Deus Ex was revolutionary because it gave you a lot of choice in terms of gameplay variety. Your mission could be to enter a building and just some of the ways could be:
A)Sneak Inside through vents
B)Bribe a guard
C)Impersonate an employee finding a loose ID card
D)Use your high jump to go through the roof
E)Shoot your way in
F)Use a keypad by overhearing the password from a guard
E)Use an explosive to break down a wall
Telltale games did neither of these things and got left behind pretty quickly when it failed to innovate off the success of the Walking Dead
I played The Wolf Among Us twice through. I thought the story was very interesting, and wanted to see what happened if you did everything different. Obviously you know a lot of content is going to be re-used, but by and large probably 95% of it was unchanged. It lowered my opinion substancially, though I still liked it more as a movie/TV show, than a game.
While story based games do have to fight combinatorial explosion of possibilities, games like Planescape Tormet deal with that by having actual gameplay: random encounters, item drops, side quests, leveling up. All the traditional RPG mechanics.
Life is Strange was also panned for having the illusion of choice, but I think was able to resist some of that criticism due to the strength of the story, and the different environment: most of the game is peaceful and sullen, not thrilling, so the limited gameplay isn't necessarily a problem.
There are actually quite a few games that I enjoy because your actions actually mattered in the game, and I highly recommend you try it if you enjoy a good story.
Heavy Rain and Detroit: Become Human are excellent examples in that your choices actually matter. For example, it's possible to lose a character much earlier on and drastically change how the whole story plays out, or choose an action which entirely changes a few 'stages' you proceed to. There are also a lot of different versions of the ending, either by showing totally different ending scenes, or tweaking some scenes with different characters, or additional cutscenes that change the whole meaning of the ending.Gameplay was also very satisfying for both games, from the things you can do in each stage or the Quick Time Events (QTE) which also change how the story plays out.
In comparison to Telltale's games which are supposed to be about how your choices matter, the only thing that gets affected are some throwaway dialogue and maybe a few short scenes. QTEs are also laughably simple and nearly impossible to fail, and if you do fail you just restart in the last scene anyway.
Probably they will be the only sellers for these items, so no counterfeit problem there. I doubt this will fix the situation for other items.
Personally I've switched away from amazon, after twice in a row getting a box with a switched item (HDD and SSD, respectively, both replaced with smaller and cheaper versions, and both "Sold by and shipped from Amazon"). Amazon support was good, they replaced the product, but it's a hassle to have to return-ship and wait. Now I either buy off aliexpress (if I'm okay with cheap/counterfeit, which is fine for many items) or local stores (if it's a product where I really care about quality).
> I doubt this will fix the situation for other items.
That's the point. The only way to buy genuine product, not co-mingled, will be buy it Amazon labeled.
Many Chinese brands have official stores at Aliexpress by the way, so you don't need to be okay with fakes if you don't want to. Not so many as at Tmall, but still.
Agreed. It's most likely a sin of omission, creating a broken system because it's not in their interests to fix the general counterfeiting problem.
There may be ancillary benefits, like increased seller competition into their monopsony, but it's not a priority for them to fix, because apparently it doesn't affect their bottom line enough.
It's not like it's hard to come up with a solution to the problem - they have lots of ways of surfacing prime-eligible items, you could have a similar way of surfacing manufacturer-approved resellers for some items. And as others have mentioned, there are no counterfeit kindles on amazon.com
> it's not in their interests to fix the general counterfeiting problem
But really it is, because judging on comments here, people are looking at aliexpress when they don't care that they are buying a cheap chinese product.
If Amazon is known as the place where you pay for a brand and get a counterfeit, and aliexpress is where you can just pay less for the counterfeit, that seems to me like a problem Amazon would want to fix.
I'm okay with cheap/counterfeit goods for some items, if I know what I'm buying and the price reflects that. I'm not okay with paying full price and receiving a worse product than I paid for.
Examples of things I would not buy knockoff/counterfeit would be power supplies, battery packs or anything dealing line voltage due to the obvious fire hazard. Examples of things I am fine with buying off aliexpress might be flash programmers, project boxes, clothes, etc.
Also, the examples I gave off amazon were not counterfeits, but rather wrong products. I bought a 12TB HDD and received a 6TB one from the same brand. Obviously I'm not okay with that, having paid full price for the 12TB one.
