timelines
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Twitter helps you keep track of NFL action with curated timelines
While you're sitting on the sofa watching your NFL team of choice take the field, you're likely peeking at a mobile device for updates, too. If that's the case, Twitter is looking to lend a hand this season with curated timelines for action around the league and game-specific options. In the #NFL timeline, you can see what the folks you follow are saying with "relevant tweets" from teams, players, coaches, media and celebrities peppered in to keep you in the know. For the game-focused feed (#SeahawksvsPackers or #SEAvsGB for example), everything is distilled down to what you need to watch that particular matchup. If that sounds a bit familiar it's because the social network did the same thing during the World Cup, and now it's looking to keep American football fans well-informed. For now, the timelines are only available on iOS and the web, so Android users will have to sit tight for the time being.
The Daily Grind: How long should in-game events run?
If you were hoping to get yourself a nice Sand People outfit in Star Wars: The Old Republic's Grand Acquisition Race... well, you can still buy one, but you can't obtain the tokens to do so any longer. That makes the event a very brief one indeed, as it ran for just a week. You might argue this to be just enough time for players to enjoy the event if they wanted and not so long as to get annoying. Or you might argue that it's far too short for any sort of real pursuit of the rewards. The trick with any in-game event is to run it just long enough, but everyone's going to have a different definition of how long is too long. For some players, a week is enough time to get everything; for others, a month is still not enough. It depends on playstyle, it depends on how much there is to do, and it depends upon how neat the event trappings are. So what do you think? How long should an in-game event run? 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!
Intel sets sights on 5nm chip; already gearing up fabs for 14nm production
Ivy Bridge, Intel's first generation of chips to use the 22nm fabrication process, is hardly out of the gate, and yet talk has already turned to the company's next manufacturing technologies. According to Xbit Labs, which got its hands on some telltale slides, Paul Otellini et al. have the roadmap for 10nm, 7nm and 5nm processes locked down, and the company is preparing fabs in the states and Ireland to make chips using the 14nm fabrication method. Given that timeframe, Intel says 10nm chips will ship in 2015, with work on 5nm technology beginning that same year. While the slides in question look legit -- and that timeline matches previous reports -- we're not sure just when these mystery slides first made the rounds. Alas, we'll have a good few years to sort 5nm fact from fiction.
All the World's a Stage: Orcs and timelines in roleplay
All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. In World of Warcraft, that player is you! Each week, Anne Stickney brings you All the World's a Stage with helpful hints, tips and tricks on the art of roleplay in WoW. Have questions about roleplaying, or roleplaying issues? Email me -- I'm always open to suggestions! Last week we discussed the life span of elves -- be they night elves or blood elves, the short answer is that elves life for a very, very long time. Elves are one of the native races of Azeroth, predated only by a few different races. But there are races on Azeroth today that didn't originate there, races that traveled to Azeroth through one means or another. Today we're going to talk about one of those races and how they came to arrive -- the orcs of Draenor. The life span of an orc is relatively short by Azerothian standards. Though elves can live to be thousands of years old, the orcs are lucky if they even get close to 100 years of age. This makes pinpointing timelines for the orcish race relatively simple, and much like the humans we discussed two weeks ago, there's a limit to how far back in the timeline you need to go in regards to age.
All the World's a Stage: Elves and timelines in roleplay
All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. In World of Warcraft, that player is you! Each week, Anne Stickney brings you All the World's a Stage with helpful hints, tips and tricks on the art of roleplay in WoW. Have questions about roleplaying, or roleplaying issues? Email me -- I'm always open to suggestions! Last week, we covered the human race and to a lesser degree the worgen and undead, in regards to where those individual races "fit" into the Warcraft timeline when roleplaying. As far as age goes, it's pretty easy to wrap one's mind around the approximate age of a human character. A Warcraft human may have a bit of a longer lifespan than we do out here in real life, but the basic mechanics of aging and memory stay the same, so long as there aren't any strange magical circumstances involved. In the case of elves, however, the timeline suddenly goes from being "just right" to amazingly, incomprehensibly huge. For some elves like Malfurion Stormrage, Tyrande Whisperwind and others, it stretches 10,000 years of history -- and only the very smallest fraction of that has been spent with the Alliance and an even smaller fraction of that has been spent with the Horde (in the case of the blood elves).
A beautiful timeline of educational gadgets reminds us that the Scantron machine was really awesome
Over the weekend, the New York Times published a timeline of photographs of technological advances in the classroom. While the blackboard and the horn-book (a wooden paddle printed with the alphabet) look like artifacts that might be leftover from when dinosaurs walked the earth, the ones that are a bit newer are quite interesting to behold. For instance, you may or may not be old enough to remember the blue-inked glory of a mimeograph machine (the oldest example dating from around 1940 is above), or the awesomeness of a Scantron machine which automatically graded multiple choice tests. Seriously, we can't tell you how many hundreds of Scantron forms we filled out in our time as students, but it was unfortunately more than none. Hit up the source link to see all of the glorious gadgets throughout the years, but be forewarned: the last one is an iPad.
The Tattered Notebook: No one is left behind
'Allo again, lovelies. Last week has been a week of danger and intrigue as I battled through Nektulos Forest and worked on getting my unique Shadowknight armor. During all of this, though, I thought to myself -- how can I apply any of these experiences to my notebook entry for this coming week? Then of course, it hit me. Why not just explain what I've been doing to get through the areas in a short amount of time? A few tips and tricks for playing the level game? Sure, I've been up and down with grouping and preparations for Sentinel's Fate, but many players are always intimidated when entering a game and "being behind." Well, don't worry about being behind. You're not entering the game late at all when it comes to EverQuest II, especially thanks to the recent additions to the game in Sentinel's Fate. Interested in catching up and experiencing some great content? Then click on through after the break! Also, I'm still looking for questions anyone has on EverQuest II, so I can answer them in an upcoming Tattered Notebook. Ask me anything, from EverQuest II questions, guild leadership and raiding questions, and even questions on my Dark Elven heritage. Send them over to seraphina@massively.com, and she'll be sure to forward them on through the Norrathian Express mail to me.
