Interesting

Gaming in 2016 – Predicting 2017?

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According to SuperData Research  people spent US$91,000,000,000 on games. Billion… This is an all-time record. But, they are hyping things a bit. In 2015 Statistica shows $91.5 billion spent and $99.6 billion in 2016. I suppose it depends on where one gets their numbers and categorizes them. Game revenue is notoriously flaky as companies like to hype their increasing sales and keep decreases secret.

Still that is about a 10% increase year-to-year. Eight billion isn’t chump change, unless your spending $10 trillion on credit, like some governments…

Data From Statistica

They break the revenue down into subcategories. Handheld games are dying. Smartphone games are the hot item. They show the largest growth from 2015 to 2016 and that is expected to continue, which seems reasonable as smartphones are selling well.

In 2005 smartphones sales were just $3.8 billion. Eleven years later in 2016 sales of smart phones was $55 billion, a 1,447% increase. So, as more people get smartphones there are more possible users of smartphone games. According to Statistica a little less than half of the 2016 game revenue was from smartphone gaming.

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Philosophy: Do you know what the Ignorance Project is?

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I used to be surprised at how little people know, especially about current events and important political subjects. I’ve gotten over it. I’ve moved on to the psychology of changing minds.

Ignorance Project

I’m not the only one concerned about ignorant people messing up the world in their effort to make things better. In a 2014 presentation by TED (About) we learn about global ignorance and what can be done about it.

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Tech and Space 2016 w/47

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I like science and math. Science is the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment. To practice science one needs observations and experiments.

On the observation side, Nov 19th the NOAA GOES-R weather satellite was launched.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_k637XQUOM

Launches and later positioning are not as simple as one might imagine. Getting into a geo-stationary orbit at the correct place is no simple thing. It is expected to take 16 days to maneuver and test the satellite before it is in the right place. Then a year of testing follows. Depending on the results and the health of other GOES satellites this new satellite will park over either the east or west coast of America. 

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