I get where you are coming from, but euphemisms can be OK. For instance, I often substitute the word "fiddlesticks" for the exclamation "fuck", or use any number of other childish words -- especially ironic given my somewhat threatening appearance. For me, it adds humor and levity to the situation and reduces stress and negativity.
I had a good friend, a military man, who absolutely refused to cuss (as he called it) on general principle. I never once heard him say a "bad word" in all the years I knew him. The twist is, he regularly made some of the most bizarre, perverted, and depraved utterances using only the most professional and clinical descriptions he could muster. Such a sicko. Again, the disparity provided a certain humorous context.
Right you are, I totally forgot about that. I don't understand that decision accept from the perspective of fear, on behalf of Sony, that homebrew games will outshine their commercial counterparts.
Your suspicions are correct, I can be very impatient. It will take some serious will power to force myself to take my time. I'm planning a total, back to basics approach, starting with Algebra I, and pacing myself very deliberately from there.
Thanks for the recommendations. A lot of people share your view about the value of Amazon reviews, I'll take them more seriously as I investigate the various book options out there.
I'm seriously considering it, perhaps as a Slashdot Journal. I run a programming website where people expect regular updates. It has really helped keep me motivated.
Yes and no. It is possible to use those GPUs for massively parallel computing through the use of programmable shaders. Still, I doubt they'll ever be exploited in 99% of these kinds of non-gaming applications.
I know this post will be lost in the shuffle, but I want to thank you all for taking the time to reply to this topic. You have given me a ton of practical advice, and more importantly, hope.
Perhaps I should have replied earlier to this topic to give a little more background on my situation, some details were omitted by myself or Slashdot editors. But I'm actually glad I didn't get too specific because of the breadth of answers I have received. Many others will benefit from them, so I thank you for your indulgence.
Some of you wanted to know more background, well here it is for the interested.
I moved around a lot as a child, five different school systems up to junior high. Mismatched curriculum was always a problem, each school I'd start at was more advanced than the last, but my real problems didn't begin until I stopped moving. I went to a very reputable New York high school in the mid-80s. In my latter years there I was diagnosed (perhaps incorrectly) with some vague, undefined "learning disability". They'd no doubt label it ADHD today. I do seem to have dyslexia, but personality conflicts with my teachers had a bigger impact on my learning. Their anger and frustration with my obvious ability versus my lack of performance had a very negative effect on me. It didn't matter that I had an IQ of 136 or that I scored 1390 on my SATs, my grades were always terrible because I resented having to do what I thought was pointless busy work (something I regret today). By my twelfth year I was cutting classes everyday to spend my time in the library, learning what I wanted to learn about science, mathematics, and computers. If I am interested in a subject, and have the proper material, I usually have little difficulty learning and excelling in it.
My specific problems in mathematics classes were varied. Part of it was not being presented with practical applications. Most of it was not doing the home work, which severely penalized my grades and crippled my overall retention. Although I did well on tests, I wasn't learning. Having a literal nervous breakdown during my analytic geometry finals didn't help anything. All that said, I LOVE mathematics. I love its purity, its elegance, its logic, and its lack of ambiguity.
Fast forward to today, I'm a clever and skilled programmer, graphics designer, and game developer, 26 years as a hobbyist, 10 as a professional, with no formal education in those fields. As I expand my skill set in game programming, I'm finding more and more that I don't possess enough basic mathematics ability to truly understand topics like kinematics, physics, artificial intelligence, and statistics, even if I almost blindly employ them everyday. The practical applications I craved as a child are squarely in my lap, and I'm so rusty now that I couldn't tell you the difference between a derivative and a determinant. I may know more about fractals and ray tracers than any of my friends, but I couldn't possibly explain them or think about them critically because I don't speak the language. I liken it to being able to play jazz, but not being able to read music or talk about music theory in a meaningful way. This needs to change, my lack of mathematics skills are holding me back.
So there you have it, in too many words or less. Thanks again to all the respondents, and to Slashdot for posting this topic.
WiiWare can completely turn this around, there are tons of casual games in the pipe. The problem is that Nintendo can't figure out how to get people to actually hook their machines up to the internet. Most Wii owners have broadband but a large majority of them have never put their machine online. That's a major obstacle for Nintendo and they are now starting an internet connectivity initiative to try to overcome this. Watch Iwata's keynote, it's quite illuminating.
Well, from what I've read about the US release, all of the content in the AO rated version is the same as the M version, they just pasted effects on top of certain scenes to make everything harder to see. It's sort of like how Martin Scorsese reduced the vividness of the blood in the ultraviolent ending of Taxi Driver to please the censors. It's a little bizarre that both ratings boards were more concerned about the imagery than the content.
Maybe/probably because of the huge/dubious Nintendo/Mario / Sega/Sonic rivalry/collusion from the 8-bit/16-bit days. Now players/fanboys from that classic/nostalgic era can finally make Mario and Sonic fight/kiss in the same game to decide who/what is/was the best/worst mascot/shill?
RIAA wants to get $150,000 per infringement. If they nailed only 1/10th of the users on just the eMule network right now, each for a single infringement, they would net far more money than they normally make in a year. How can you seek damages so far removed from reality? RIAA wants us to believe that the $40 billion dollar music industry is the being victimized by eMule users to the tune of $600 billion worth of copyright infringement at any given moment.
Yeah, I guess I should have Googled first. An awful lot is being made of a single blog entry citing the anecdotal evidence of two people. I find it hard to believe that the failure rate is 7 to 10 times higher than Microsoft stated. I'm serious. Stop laughing. But, hey, it's in Wikipedia so it must be true.
... but wrong. The name was chosen long before the story. The name is a commentary on the current state of the MMORPG and what is required to move it forward.
We have a winner! That's exactly what it means. It's about creation of Destination Games out of the ashes of Origin (Origin -> Destination) and the reinvention of the MMORPG genre.
LightWave's FPrime plugin is such awesome technology providing pixel perfect real-time previews and astounding rendering acceleration. It's extremely useful during lighting and texturing. It's continuous, progressive refinement rendering engine is also a tremendous time saver letting you strike a balance between quality and speed automatically by providing you with progressively better looking versions of the entire animation basically from the moment you press render. For me, these features alone would be enough to put LightWave over the top. Does the competition have anything like it?
Remember how you lost the OS war to Microsoft? Its because Windows had more apps, and it didn't matter that it sucked.
This has been Apple's Achilles heel since the introduction of the Mac. The old Apple II was a wonderfully open system and was phenomenally successful for it. Macintosh changed that philosophy and they've been repeating the same mistake, and failing for it, ever since. Woz has been openly critical of Apple's closed systems for a long time and rightly so. Apple just doesn't get it anymore. They need to get back to selling a good product, instead of a slick image.
Slashdot Mirror
I might have to get it simply for this review:
"A great book, a book of first-class importance." -- H. G. Wells
As a historical exploration of math, it looks fascinating. Thanks.
I get where you are coming from, but euphemisms can be OK. For instance, I often substitute the word "fiddlesticks" for the exclamation "fuck", or use any number of other childish words -- especially ironic given my somewhat threatening appearance. For me, it adds humor and levity to the situation and reduces stress and negativity.
I had a good friend, a military man, who absolutely refused to cuss (as he called it) on general principle. I never once heard him say a "bad word" in all the years I knew him. The twist is, he regularly made some of the most bizarre, perverted, and depraved utterances using only the most professional and clinical descriptions he could muster. Such a sicko. Again, the disparity provided a certain humorous context.
Right you are, I totally forgot about that. I don't understand that decision accept from the perspective of fear, on behalf of Sony, that homebrew games will outshine their commercial counterparts.
There are a few of us in this thread and I find it very encouraging to see I'm not alone.
Your suspicions are correct, I can be very impatient. It will take some serious will power to force myself to take my time. I'm planning a total, back to basics approach, starting with Algebra I, and pacing myself very deliberately from there.
Thanks for the recommendations. A lot of people share your view about the value of Amazon reviews, I'll take them more seriously as I investigate the various book options out there.
I'm seriously considering it, perhaps as a Slashdot Journal. I run a programming website where people expect regular updates. It has really helped keep me motivated.
Yes and no. It is possible to use those GPUs for massively parallel computing through the use of programmable shaders. Still, I doubt they'll ever be exploited in 99% of these kinds of non-gaming applications.
I know this post will be lost in the shuffle, but I want to thank you all for taking the time to reply to this topic. You have given me a ton of practical advice, and more importantly, hope.
Perhaps I should have replied earlier to this topic to give a little more background on my situation, some details were omitted by myself or Slashdot editors. But I'm actually glad I didn't get too specific because of the breadth of answers I have received. Many others will benefit from them, so I thank you for your indulgence.
Some of you wanted to know more background, well here it is for the interested.
I moved around a lot as a child, five different school systems up to junior high. Mismatched curriculum was always a problem, each school I'd start at was more advanced than the last, but my real problems didn't begin until I stopped moving. I went to a very reputable New York high school in the mid-80s. In my latter years there I was diagnosed (perhaps incorrectly) with some vague, undefined "learning disability". They'd no doubt label it ADHD today. I do seem to have dyslexia, but personality conflicts with my teachers had a bigger impact on my learning. Their anger and frustration with my obvious ability versus my lack of performance had a very negative effect on me. It didn't matter that I had an IQ of 136 or that I scored 1390 on my SATs, my grades were always terrible because I resented having to do what I thought was pointless busy work (something I regret today). By my twelfth year I was cutting classes everyday to spend my time in the library, learning what I wanted to learn about science, mathematics, and computers. If I am interested in a subject, and have the proper material, I usually have little difficulty learning and excelling in it.
My specific problems in mathematics classes were varied. Part of it was not being presented with practical applications. Most of it was not doing the home work, which severely penalized my grades and crippled my overall retention. Although I did well on tests, I wasn't learning. Having a literal nervous breakdown during my analytic geometry finals didn't help anything. All that said, I LOVE mathematics. I love its purity, its elegance, its logic, and its lack of ambiguity.
Fast forward to today, I'm a clever and skilled programmer, graphics designer, and game developer, 26 years as a hobbyist, 10 as a professional, with no formal education in those fields. As I expand my skill set in game programming, I'm finding more and more that I don't possess enough basic mathematics ability to truly understand topics like kinematics, physics, artificial intelligence, and statistics, even if I almost blindly employ them everyday. The practical applications I craved as a child are squarely in my lap, and I'm so rusty now that I couldn't tell you the difference between a derivative and a determinant. I may know more about fractals and ray tracers than any of my friends, but I couldn't possibly explain them or think about them critically because I don't speak the language. I liken it to being able to play jazz, but not being able to read music or talk about music theory in a meaningful way. This needs to change, my lack of mathematics skills are holding me back.
So there you have it, in too many words or less. Thanks again to all the respondents, and to Slashdot for posting this topic.
*Nelson pummels CrabbMan*
WiiWare can completely turn this around, there are tons of casual games in the pipe. The problem is that Nintendo can't figure out how to get people to actually hook their machines up to the internet. Most Wii owners have broadband but a large majority of them have never put their machine online. That's a major obstacle for Nintendo and they are now starting an internet connectivity initiative to try to overcome this. Watch Iwata's keynote, it's quite illuminating.
http://www.irwebcasting.com/071010/53/f078bbc3f8/main/index_hi.htm
Well, from what I've read about the US release, all of the content in the AO rated version is the same as the M version, they just pasted effects on top of certain scenes to make everything harder to see. It's sort of like how Martin Scorsese reduced the vividness of the blood in the ultraviolent ending of Taxi Driver to please the censors. It's a little bizarre that both ratings boards were more concerned about the imagery than the content.
I'm so stealing that idea.
I'm/You're writing/reading all/none of my/your posts/trolls like/unlike that/this in the future/past.
Maybe/probably because of the huge/dubious Nintendo/Mario / Sega/Sonic rivalry/collusion from the 8-bit/16-bit days. Now players/fanboys from that classic/nostalgic era can finally make Mario and Sonic fight/kiss in the same game to decide who/what is/was the best/worst mascot/shill?
RIAA wants to get $150,000 per infringement. If they nailed only 1/10th of the users on just the eMule network right now, each for a single infringement, they would net far more money than they normally make in a year. How can you seek damages so far removed from reality? RIAA wants us to believe that the $40 billion dollar music industry is the being victimized by eMule users to the tune of $600 billion worth of copyright infringement at any given moment.
I can't believe /. is two years old already! Where do the cycles go?
Yeah, I guess I should have Googled first. An awful lot is being made of a single blog entry citing the anecdotal evidence of two people. I find it hard to believe that the failure rate is 7 to 10 times higher than Microsoft stated. I'm serious. Stop laughing. But, hey, it's in Wikipedia so it must be true.
I can sleep at home now!
*ding ding ding*
We have a winner! That's exactly what it means. It's about creation of Destination Games out of the ashes of Origin (Origin -> Destination) and the reinvention of the MMORPG genre.
http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/tabula-rasa/512497p1.html
Welcome to the wonderful world of capitalism! Enjoy your stay!
wait a second. 33% failure rate? Where'd you get that figure?
LightWave's FPrime plugin is such awesome technology providing pixel perfect real-time previews and astounding rendering acceleration. It's extremely useful during lighting and texturing. It's continuous, progressive refinement rendering engine is also a tremendous time saver letting you strike a balance between quality and speed automatically by providing you with progressively better looking versions of the entire animation basically from the moment you press render. For me, these features alone would be enough to put LightWave over the top. Does the competition have anything like it?
This has been Apple's Achilles heel since the introduction of the Mac. The old Apple II was a wonderfully open system and was phenomenally successful for it. Macintosh changed that philosophy and they've been repeating the same mistake, and failing for it, ever since. Woz has been openly critical of Apple's closed systems for a long time and rightly so. Apple just doesn't get it anymore. They need to get back to selling a good product, instead of a slick image.