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Spore Creatures Now Outnumber Known Earth Species
GBC writes "AFP is reporting that, as of a week ago, the number of creatures in the "Spore" database exceeded the number of known species on Earth. They are created using 'Creature Creator,' which is available in a free (with limited parts) or paid download at the Spore website. Will Wright seems extremely happy with the progress so far: 'We hit 100K in 22 hours and a million by the end of the first week. The numbers are just blowing us away.'"
...penis creatures?
Aren't they mostly just variations on walking genitalia or lewd acts thus far?
"I must not fear. Fear is the mind killer." -Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear
How many creatures per user are created? They didn't seem to have a limit on how many creatures are created per user, so couldn't 5 people be creating thousands?
Should it worry me that there is more interest in fake creatures then real ones these days? This is turning into Pokemon on Meth...
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
My amazingly large number of 3 creatures helped add to that database.
huh - it's interesting to see this - pudge does lots of it too but usually keeps it to his journal. not saying it's bad, just don't know that i've seen other editors actively advocating political positions in the front page threads.
will there be some sort of 'official' slashdot take on things or is it just more of a free for all? and if so, does the editor thing come into play at all - as far as moderation and what not, or are you guys operating under different rules than the rest of the participants? just curious.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
-1 No Indiana Jones reference
Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.
I guess this takes the concept of Wikigroaning to a whole new level.
Rob
My skins cells also outnumber known Earth species. Is that relevant to anything? I believe someone commented yesterday (when this was news) that obviously this only implies that the criteria for "creature" is less stringent than for "species".
... if it had a console where you can hack the creature's DNA! Or at least try altering the DNA to give it mutant powers!
Really it would be a fun exercise and it and it could teach what can go horribly, horribly wrong with just a little nudge to the DNA here and there. 8)
Roughly half my comments are never submitted. You may be reading the better half...
Actually, it's only the Eukaryotic species that number in the millions. There are more than 10^9 bacterial species. How much more, no one knows (http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=16357141).
I've mostly been staying away from Spore because of the fairly restrictive DRM it's supposed to be shipping with. Anyone know if the creature creator tool also installs the DRM?
I just recently re-formatted and re-installed windows, and I'm trying not to bog it down again with crapware like DRM systems that drag down my system performance.
Personally, since I can't get the full game without DRM, I'm not sure I'm too interested in the CC even if it *doesn't* have the DRM, since it's not *much* use creating a creature but never playing the game.
Apparently, Will Wright and company weren't at all satisfied with the idea of people creating monstrous amounts of after-market content for their Sims games. Not only have they whet the appetites of all the people who enjoy the Creture Creator for the retail game, but they also get to sell Spore right out of the gate as having "millions of creatures available online." The only expense involved was building the software for creature creation, and they would have done that anyway. Brilliant!
Really it would be a fun exercise and it and it could teach what can go horribly, horribly wrong with just a little nudge to the DNA here and there.
You obviously haven't seen the creatures that already have been created with this software. Some of them are the definition of "horribly wrong."
Abaddon: An Xbox 360 Indie game
Have you ever seen pictures of ANWR? I should say picture, without the s, because one picture says it all. Most of the 20million acres is just that, barren tundra. Drilling for oil would use maybe a few thousand acres at most. All you psycho environuts need to start putting things into perspective.
The original poster obviously missed the most extraordinary animal on the planet: the slashdotter. Without it, the world is obsolete. By the way, how would this creature look like? Any takers?
My mom always told me I was 38% god and 62% sticky stuff . . .
Ohh spiteful one tell me who to smote and he shall be smolten!
Have you seen the millions of miles of untapped, yet leased land given to the oil companies already?
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
I do hope you realize that the link you made to "your" profile does nothing for any of us. I mean, did you even look at the URL to notice that there's nothing that uniquely identifies your account in it?
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
I've seen pictures of Gabriel Anwar.......pretty hot (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000270/).....especially in certain scenes in Body Snatchers.
Layne
Here is a long picture diary of a trick to ANWR that prove you absolutely positively don't know what you're talking about. But then, I think that should be apparent given the name of Arctic National Wildlife Reserve.
Drilling in ANWR would not yield significant benefits to the oil market until 2026 according to the Department of Energy.
It seems before you should tell people to get perspective, you should stop deluding yourself with homemade "facts".
All you psycho environuts need to start putting things into perspective.
Name-calling generally isn't effective in convincing someone that their opinion may not be the most well-warranted. It also reflects badly on your character, and reinforces negative stereotypes about everyone who advocates your position, even further harming your agenda.
If you really want any of the "psycho environuts" to listen to reason, then you will need to come across as reasonable, and present your arguments (including plenty of supporting evidence) in a respectful and logically precise manner.
Have you been to the Arctic? Tundra is not barren.
It is treeless, but thats a long way from being barren. Many areas are covered with flowers, moss, lichen, and are host to all sorts of birds, insects, mammals, etc. The huge caribou herds are the most obvious wildlife. Lush, no. Beautiful, yes. There's nothing quite like coming over a hill and seeing the entire side of a mountain covered with blooming purple flowers.
You're right that oil drilling will disturb only a tiny fraction of the area in the reserve, but the effect will be greater than you would think from that areal ratio because it would ordinarily consist of criss-crossing the area with a network of roads and pipelines. The total area won't be much but the impact from that would be, especially because tundra environments are quite fragile compared to many other settings. Even dragging the equipment across the surface necessary to do seismic studies (the early stages of exploration) will leave scars on the surface that will be visible for decades. I know, because I've seen plenty of examples in the Arctic that date from the 1960s and 1970s. The effects from melting permafrost are *really* difficult to control if anything is disturbed on the surface.
All of this means that while I think you are right that drilling could be done, it would have to be done carefully. Doing it the way it was done at Prudhoe Bay, which is an absolute MESS that wouldn't be tolerated down south, is not appropriate. Pointing this out -- that it isn't barren rock and dirt and it is extraordinarily fragile compared to most environments -- doesn't make people "environuts". It means they understand what the real situation is, and want an appropriate balance between the short-term need for oil and longer-term preservation of a mostly pristine environment in as intact a state as practical.
I'm all for doing it, but doing it to the VERY high standards that should be expected in a wildlife reserve. That means flycamps only during exploration (no roads), specialized exploration techniques to limit damage to the tundra surface, complete remediation of drilling sites, and if a pipeline is put in it has to be engineered to be easily pulled out and the conditions restored when the production is finally done a couple of decades from now (assuming they find anything -- there's no guarantee).
People who use this stuff also need to put things in perspective: just because they aren't tearing up *your* back yard looking for black gold doesn't absolve you from some responsibility to make sure they aren't tearing up your neighbor's back yard to satisfy your binge consumption of the stuff.
"The Spores Dana, beware of the Spores, and the Invid. Beware of the Invid. They will come in search of the Spores."
polar bears going extinct - $500000000
children dying of curable diseases in poor countries - $100,000,000
some random crap you made online, while sitting in your parents basement sucking away the trust fund on taco bell and orange crush margaritas - worth saving on
archive.org for all eternity, and having your own web page about it, multi-hosted, and putting an entry in wikipedia. --- priceless!
I wonder if anyone has duplicated another user's creature without knowing about it....
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
You mean the land which might or might not contain oil but they have no clue how much or how hard it will be to access, or what type of crude? Yes, yes I have. OTOH, they pretty much have everything about ANWR pinned down except for the exact amount.
Have you seen the millions of miles of untapped, yet leased land given to the oil companies already?
Other than leased land so far underwater that we lack the technology to drill, oil companies are currently pumping *everything* they can stick a drill into, even slow-moving interns! Oil is $140 a barrel, man - is there some non-greedy oil company you're imagining here?
What a retarded meme.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Of course, that ignores both the existence of oil futures and the fact that if we had started drilling in '95 when this first came up we would be getting physical results by 2013.
I remember the whole "we won't get benefits for 10 years" arguments 10 years ago, man, and 20. Drill here. Drill now.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
my creatures resemble this remark
That'd just not work, you'd end up either changing an intron or breaking some important protein blueprint, making the creature unable to live. It's like letting you fire specific neurons in your creature's brain, you'd just end up causing seizures.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
OK. Here's the one picture you requested:
http://www.alaska-in-pictures.com/anwr-forest-455-pictures.htm
That just doesn't seem as barren as you say.
Gah!
I did that several months ago. It hasn't allowed me to watch my purchased DVDs since. Apparently, it doesn't like my VGA connection to my monitor.
I had to go learn how to rip DVDs just so I could watch the video I legitimately purchased.
Ironically, WMP 10 has no problem playing the ripped content, or any DVDs that I burned myself.
If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy_pr.html
See, this is what happens when computer get too smart.
I don't think you understand the scale of DNA... each creature would need gigabites of space, and you'd never find a set of changes that would result in "powers" by random guesses by an individual.
Sure, you could simplify the DNA... but then you'd pretty much just be giving someone a hex editor and a save file. And the result would be pretty much uniform failure to load the creature.
You seem to forget it does not only effect the places you drill, but you need to build roads, pipelines, accomodations for the workers, basically tear into every area of alaska that is still untouched. Just because some selfish wingnut like you needs to drive his SUV doesn't mean the human race should risk losing some of the only land on the planet that hasn't been raped by mankind. The Porcupine Caribou herd relies on the land in ANWAR as they migrate every year drilling in ANWAR will lead to the demise of the 120,000 caribou herd not to mention all the northern communities who rely on the herd for sources of food, clothing and materials. But hey what do you care about things like heritage, compassion, thousands of human lives, and houndreds of thousands of animal lives? as long as you can save some money filling your gas gussling vehicles, and spend your weekends cruising thats what's important right?
It's currently at $135, down from $146 due to George Bush's cheerleading for offshore drilling and poor economic predictions.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Spore: Vacation, Spore: Hot Date, Spore: Pets, and of course Spore: IKEA. Each of the expansions will give you an amazing array of building blocks for your creatures, like 2-3 appendages, and 1-2 new other attachments, for the low low price of $30. Remeber, EA can make it happen, so it Will.
Actually, no they don't. The predictions are that ANWR will require 10-30 years of exploration before extraction can begin save for 1000 acres along the coast that have already been explored.
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
A few roads, and a few pipelines that the animals actually love. There's a pipeline already in alaska iirc where the enviromental nuts freaked out saying the pipeline would harm the environment, but it's actually been a boon due to the heat given off by them that many animals like to nest/bed by.
Has anyone made the species that dies after only FIVE generations?
YES.
Every single game of SPore will die after FIVE
"reinstalls".
Spore : The game RENTAL that keeps on giving EA money.
The future is ugly : No one owns anything.
The company rents/leases property to you.
You have no more ownership over anything.
Home ownership will soon be destroyed.
Oops, off topic.
SOFTWARE ownership will soon be destroyed.
You will NEVER own any software from EA.
THEY CONTROL YOU!
But people are idiots and will support Securerom.
Crack addicts.
If EA succeeds with this securerom bulls**t,
everyone will copy them.
I hope Blizzard doesn't do that. I really
want starcraft 2, diablo 3.
But if Blizzard puts securerom on their products,
goodbye blizzard.
I guess my gaming days are numbered.
It had to be a police state that made me stop
playing games. I guess I'll have to make my own
game. Learn programming. Give it away for free.
I've always hated programming. But I do like
revenge.
Legal tactic to Securerom : Design your own game.
Give it away for free.
Scrabulous anyone? LOL.
Scrabble was too damn effing slow. India
kicked their ass.
I never really thought of trying this out but this is too impressive... Downloading the free trial right now!
In all seriousness, what does drilling for oil under the ground have to do with wildlife above it? Not that I necessarily agree with doing it, with gas at absurd highs it seems high time to start exploiting our reserves, which include massive amounts of oil shale.
Norway seems a roughly similar environment, did drilling for oil somehow extinctify all of their wildlife?
I see you do not grasp *why* it's $140 here, yet it's the same price in euros, canadian dollars, mexican pesos, that it was before the Dollar's price went up?
Can we say "Dollar devaluation?" I knew we could. It is where the price of hard goods seems to go up, when infact the currency used to measure it is, infact, dropping like a stone. If you had studied the price per barrel of oil in euro, while yes it was risen, it is nowhere near as dramatic.
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
Wow, was I looking forward to this game. *Did* I love that free creature creator demo!
Wanted to buy the full version, but here in Europe it costs 10 EUR instead of 10 Dollars. And when I sniffed about I found - secuROM.
And my happyness collapsed into a crying heap. SecuROM! And, yes, the full game will have it too!
Good-bye, Spore. I'm really very sad, but it looks like we'll never meet...
Free PC version of ChipWits at http://www.breueronline.de/klaus/chipwits/
Well maybe they should use explorers or scouts instead of warriors so they can get the extra movement point(s) per turn.
Anyone else think the comments just weren't rendering right before they turned off ABP and saw ads?
E3 is almost over and the population of SPORE penis monsters is all we have to talk about? Come on Slash dot editors . . . . .
Ohh spiteful one tell me who to smote and he shall be smolten!
And if my aunt had balls she'd be my uncle.
We should be reducing our oil dependency. Period. Full stop.
Doing irreparable damage to the ecology of ANWR for a theoretical supply of oil that at the most generous estimates would supply the US with less than 6 months of oil in 20 years is not good policy.
rather than destroy a wildlife preserve, and contribute to global warming, why not come up with affordable ways to mass produce algae for bio fuels, and create a sustainable profitable renewable carbon neutral energy source, that especially benefits from the use of human sewage for it's mass production...
drill, and drill now, do you only think of how much it costs you to fill up on gas? do you realize that bio-diesel and bio-ethanol from algae feed stocks could easily be produced BELOW the cost of oil, if it were mass produced like corn is..
it also takes care of what to do with human sewage, in part.
and here's the upshot, we knew about algae in the 70's when carter wanted to go green, but greedy energy companies aren't about 'building up' new only partially government tested alternative energy sources, especially ones they can't 'artificially' inflate, because just as the price of corn is always abysmally low, if there were 1000 companies all making as much algae as they can the price of algae energy would be very hard to control.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
So we drill, and we get more oil for a short period of time 10 years from now. What happens as our (and the worlds) needs for oil grow at a faster pace? IN 10 years it will lower the gas prices from $11 a gallon to $10.75?
We need to be focusing on moving away from oil. We need to find a fix for our problem, not a temporary patch that will only last a short time.
Spelling and Grammar errors have been added to this post for your enjoyment
Drilling in ANWR will not destroy a wildlife preserve, or even be noticed by the wildlife - there's a *lot* of land up there. Your proposals might help the cost of gas, but they would fail to piss off hippies, so they have no benefit to society. Come up with a way to make bio-diesel directly from vegetable rights activists (Soylent black?) and maybe you'll have something.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
"Drilling in ANWR will not destroy a wildlife preserve, or even be noticed by the wildlife"
except for every time the pipeline shifts as the melting permafrost becomes unstable and gallons of the stuff leaks out and starts contaminating the ground water.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
I support this post - so long as they start with hunting this is a better option.
What they don't say is that 90% of them look like something drawn by a 2 year old.