Breaks
Latest
Uber is forcing six-hour rest breaks on busy US drivers
With its latest app update, Uber is forcing US drivers to take a six hour break after working 12 straight hours. The company implemented a similar feature in the UK earlier this year, but lets American drivers work two hours longer. The app will issue three warnings, starting after 10 hours of straight driving, before going offline and forcing drivers to stop. The aim is to put a halt to drowsy driving that causes 4,000 accidents a year, the company said in a statement.
Officers' Quarters: Breaking good
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook. Breaks are good. Everyone needs a break from something that they do on a regular basis: work, school, sports, etc. Raiding is no different. Raiders need breaks. So do roleplayers, arena teams, and achievement junkies. Whether it's one person stepping away from WoW for a little while or a team taking a week or two off from group activities, this kind of short-term sabbatical is a healthy practice. As an officer, breaks can be dangerous to your guild if you handle them poorly. Take a lesson from the Horde: Thrall needed a break and now Durotar is a war zone. Let's look at the right way to manage it.
The Daily Grind: Do you need breaks from MMOs?
It's safe to say that if you're a regular Massively reader, you're pretty fond of MMOs on a whole. It's all but a tautology, even. Unfortunately, whether you just run the occasional mission in Guild Wars or you're in the midst of a hostile corporate takeover in EVE Online, playing MMOs can start to take a toll on you. They're demanding of your time in a way that many other video games aren't, with the constantly evolving social framework really pushing players to log in on a regular basis. Fortunately for gamers, there are usually a lot of alternatives beyond just endlessly killing the ubiquitous 10 rats. So do you need to take the occasional break from playing MMOs? Do you need to intersperse your playtime in World of Warcraft with regular single-player interludes? Or do you find that it's still just a game and you can log in or not as the mood strikes you with no real need for a specific break? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Stop playing your favorite game
Do we have everyone's attention? Great. Now do exactly that. Stop playing your favorite game. Not forever, just for now. Just let it rest and play something else for a while. That's the idea proposed by Bio Break in an entry about letting go. The idea, as it's put forth, is that the best way to fight burnout is to prevent it from happening in the first place. If you're really enjoying a game and are just a few days away from a major goal, why not put it down and savor that instead of pushing forward until the game has stopped being fun? Of course, it's hard for us to behave that way -- if we're enjoying a game, our inclination is to keep playing until we aren't, at which point burnout kicks in and we start almost dreading logging in. But it's an interesting idea and a different approach to keeping ourselves engaged. It's a lot easier to go back to a game if you've just let it sit for a while and have had some time to think about it fondly without being reminded of its blemishes. Absence can indeed make the heart grow fonder, and perhaps you should let your favorite game be absent for just a little while. You'll still be almost at your next major checkpoint when you get back, after all.
Is the DS really this fragile?
Over at flickr, user yatta has had a most unfortunate incident occur. His DS lite has been busted all to crap. It was only dropped about two feet, he claims, but since it fell right on its hinge, it pretty much exploded. Talk about your weak points for massive damage, eh? Maybe this gentleman could use a handy guide to help him fix it? Or, maybe just the phone number to Nintendo customer service.Any of you out there have horror stories about broken DSes?
Orient Computing BREAKS-EASY obliterates your hard drive
Kingston's self-destructing flash drive not good enough for you? The mighty Iron Drive not up to snuff (or capacious enough)? If you're personal data could place you or your loved ones into all sorts of danger (legal or otherwise), Orient Computing's got it all taken care of. While other devices have surfaced that sport a ridiculous amount of security layers, there's just nothing like completely obliterating your pertinent information moments before the CIA drops your door and apprehends you. Of course, not everyone's necessity to hastily make their 2.5- or 3.5-inch hard drives completely "useless and unreadable" stems from criminal activity, but it seems like the thrift store would be a better (albeit less exciting) destination for a doomed HDD if there was nothing to fear. Still, there's no word on price or release date just yet, but there's always the bottom of a deep river if you need an instant solution.
