I thought the Slashdot community was smarter than this! Yes, you can tell the difference on a PC screen up to 300+ fps, if we're talking about a very quickly updating display where there's no motion blur, interlacing, etc.
But the human eye can barely see anything past television's 24 fps because that 24 fps is motion-blurred and interlaced. Since modern video games can replicate at least the motion blur side, most people can't see much more than 30 fps when a developer bothers to include these effects.
But all of this is a side argument. The REAL problem that virtually nobody tackles here is that games are now developed in 30fps because they must render in high-def resolutions. When you're trying to crank out 1080p with high dynamic range and AA and etc, you've got to trim the fat somewhere, and that somewhere is pretty universally framerate.
Hey, everyone, stop staring at your penny-loafers for a minute. Why are engineers really chosen to be terrorists? Because they're socially awkward. It's not because they're so good at blowing stuff up (look at how many attempts fail for technical reasons). It's not because they're religious zealots (college graduates are more likely to be non-religious, or otherwise liberal). It's because a guy comes along and shows this brilliant mind a way to finally "belong" by joining a "family" that will care for him.
It's the same reason so many brilliant minds became hackers and phreakers and so forth back in the day.
I can't believe this comment didn't turn into a giant nerd orgy. Does this say something about Slashdot? If so, what?
Back the the post- yes, this is exactly what Stephenson envisioned with Snow Crash, and I'm certain there's a marketing team at Google thinking the same thing. Google just needs to get it over with, buy Second Life, and make Snow Crash reality. I'd post more response to the OP, but if you've thought about the information system in Snow Crash at all, you've already thought of it.
Oblivion also fits on a fraction of a DVD-9.
What is Rockstar's problem? Anyone?
"Waaah. No hard drive is required."
-Oblivion does just fine when users have only a memory card. You know, kind of like GTA 3, Vice City, and San Andreas for Playstation. I know this "memory card" thing is really new to you guys since you only developed three top-tier titles in this same series using this exact same process before, but I think you can manage.
"Bu-bu-bu- One DVD is too small."
-Nevermind that they destroyed space limitations with compression and smart coding when they fit GTA3-San Andreas on one disc, all of a sudden NOW this is some kind of new problem.
As I've said so many other times on this site: Wacha wanna bet they'd never gripe if this wasn't Microsoft they were talking about? They did just fine for years on Playstation, but NOW it's a problem when it's the EXACT SAME issues on a Microsoft console.
Errr... wouldn't it be really really great if sudo had a "fancy display mechanism" and "extra monitoring"? I'd be very freakin' happy if sudo offered to pop itstelf up to help me run commands when I needed it instead of having to manually call it....and yet, because this is Microsoft's idea, everyone's pulling out the torches and pitchforks. Yup.
I wish there were more people like this in the world, oddly enough. Apple releases a $5-600 phone+mp3+ other stuff no one really needs, and it's hailed as the Second Coming of Jesus Christ Himself. Reminds me of the (MiniMac?) that was an "ultra-powerful" computer at an incredibly "affordable price"... that wasn't sold with a monitor, or a keyboard, or a mouse, so as to make the price look artifically small. And lo, the Mac fans did salivate. And anyone who'd ever seen a tower sold by itself before... gave a collective "wtf?", as that's all it was.
The iPhone is JUST an mp3-playing phone, and there are literally dozens of other mp3+phones on the market, and some of them already do more than the iPhone (and cost more to boot!). As Mugatu once said, "I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!".
Why people are so excited about this just does not make sense to me.
"Raise your hand if you can afford a $600 phone."...you'e just found a way to categorize all Apple enthusiasts with one single sentence. Pay too much for too little? Only if it comes in a shiny pearl-and-chrome box!
After all the/.ers crapping their pants over Zune not-so-long ago, I find it refreshing to be reminded that we do indeed live in a world NOT run by techs and Apple worshippers (oddly enough). See also: Jobs potentially getting busted for scamming Apple stock. If Apple were running the show, things wouldn't be much different (heck, at least Gates doesn't scam stock... that I remember). Er, come to think of t, everything would be more overpriced and it would ALL be pearl and chrome... but that'd be the only difference. And Jobs would be scamming the stocks.
It's especially unbelievable with Zune Store vs. Itunes debacle. Everyone was screaming their heads off that "Oh no, Zune requires a proprietary player" and "It's so terrible! You can only get Zune songs from a Zune store!". It was like the world collectively forgot the existance of iTunes for a moment of blind Microsoft-bashing.
Oh, wait.
Websites like this should indeed have SOME warnings / liability waivers due to the legality of our society. A simple sign along the lines of "meeting IRL, giving out credit cards, etc is dangerous- myspace holds no liability" would suffice. And I'm sure it's in their TOS (they do have one, right?). If MySpace can be demonstrated to have utterly failed to provide ANY warnings or waivers, they deserve to get their legal comeuppance. It's just something you have to do "nowadays". I wouldn't even open up a guestbook on my own domain without a waiver somewhere on my site.
Beyond that, yes, it's a parenting issue.
I'm sure lots of people are enamored by this presentation... I'm not interested in the slightest. iPhone? It's really an Apple-branded PDA. At $600, it's NOT AN F'N PHONE! I'm pretty sure I could already get a PDA with cell phone functionality for an outrageous price like that. But Apple rebundles lots of current ideas in a shinier box, and they'll get credit for reinventing the industry. Meh.
If you're a Mac fan already, maybe this was a massive presentation. If you already didn't "get it" (or like me, think it's ridiculous), this presentation is utterly uninsteresting.
Take KOTOR for xbox, as an example.
And what an example! KOTOR and Jedi Knight don't even need to be Star Wars games- even if you're not a fan, they're still great games. As some have said here, the real problem is that a license like this is a Free Money pass according to the studio.
Look at the film industry- how many big licenses get screwed away into titles that barely make a profit, if at all? And even if they make money, it's usually more from the "holy crap you have to see how bad this is" factor than anything else- and that even hurts the source material. Example: DOOM, or as its known to most of the populace, "That crappy space movie starring The Rock".
And Star Trek isn't alone, although it's a bigger name suffering from the problem. The Gundam series is my favorite example- talk about an easy premise for a game! Take lots of giant robots, and make 'em fight. With really, really cool weapons. The result? Basically not a single good game ever, unless you wanna count the so-so 2d fighters back on SNES. I mean come on, GIANT FIGHTING ROBOTS! An 8-year-old can dream up a great game based on that line alone. Gundam even has plasma swords (re: "sabers made of light"), yet they still can't get it right.
I don't get it. We all know studios license out movies and shows because they think it's easy money, but virtually every time they do it, they disgrace themselves, disgrace the material, and usually only break even- assuming they don't lose. What's the point?
I'm done with POP mail pretty much altogether- I'm tired of server settings, and odd issues with clients connecting, and updates to a program freaking out my connection to the mailserver, etc etc. I use Thunderbird at work only because it's the reccomended method (read: ensures no one can claim delays any different from the rest). When I pop onto Gmail (with lots of auto-spam filtering) or indeed Hotmail (set to Exclusive mode for registrations, etc), my mail just works.
And I can check it at work, or at home, on pretty much whatever OS I please and I never have to worry about carrying my settings, or what client is available, or whether my mails are deleting from the server, or firewalls- unless freemail is blocked of course, in which case POP mail certainly would be as well anyway, making it a moot point.
As far as I'm concernt, POP mail altogether needs to be seen as a dinosaur. There has got to be a better way. Personally, it's Gmail.
upsell customers and make them purchase more than what the needed/wanted. That's not a joke. Ever wonder why Best Buy employees are always so keen to sell you CD-Rs, or cables, or gift cards, or magazine subscriptions, or to get you to go online and fill out a survey, (ect)? Also, the razor model of profit for new electronic devices rests solely on this principle- sell a device at a loss or near cost, and make it back on all the extras you can sell to consumers. Modern business IS talking people into buying what they don't need/want.
See also: Telemarketing, SPAM, Publisher's Clearing House (although that's also technically a lottery)...
I think the psychological / sociological importance of that finding is bigger than the immediate economic concern... for example, when someone robs the Quik-E-Mart, is he weighing only the amount of cash in the register versus the number of bullets in his gun? Is he basically not considering the long-term affects at all?
If this case applies more broadly, it could imply a need to turn a lot of modern psychology upside-down. Telling people to think before they act (and weigh the future consequences of action) might be something we're literally not hardwired for.
And that's not even touching on the future-future possibilities of synthetic persons, be they organic or metallic. Or androids, or... you get the idea. Interestingly, now might be a good time to get the gears cranking. Then we might have another 50 years to slowly swing policians around to the idea. Heck, by then we might even have the average Senator up to speed on the digital rights inherent to his iPod! (yes, it's a terrible pun)
1) What kind of heartless bastard sues a 12-year-old-girl for downloading music? 2) (as elsewhere)...so you've never, ever compiled, listened to, or passed on a mixed tape in your life? 3) THE WORDS YOU ARE USING TO REPLY TO THESE QUESTIONS WERE INVENTED BY OTHER MEN- YOU HAVE STOLEN THEIR WORDS! SUBMIT TO YOUR OWN WRATH!
(on the more serious side) 1) What kind of unholy ritual summoned you and Jack Thompson to besiege our world? 2) Was Hitler there physically, or merely in spirit? Or some kind of spirit-body limbo state, perhaps?
(on the most serious side) There is no serious question to ask this guy. I hope RIAA gets sued into extinction and replaced.
Slashdot Mirror
I thought the Slashdot community was smarter than this! Yes, you can tell the difference on a PC screen up to 300+ fps, if we're talking about a very quickly updating display where there's no motion blur, interlacing, etc. But the human eye can barely see anything past television's 24 fps because that 24 fps is motion-blurred and interlaced. Since modern video games can replicate at least the motion blur side, most people can't see much more than 30 fps when a developer bothers to include these effects. But all of this is a side argument. The REAL problem that virtually nobody tackles here is that games are now developed in 30fps because they must render in high-def resolutions. When you're trying to crank out 1080p with high dynamic range and AA and etc, you've got to trim the fat somewhere, and that somewhere is pretty universally framerate.
Hey, everyone, stop staring at your penny-loafers for a minute. Why are engineers really chosen to be terrorists? Because they're socially awkward. It's not because they're so good at blowing stuff up (look at how many attempts fail for technical reasons). It's not because they're religious zealots (college graduates are more likely to be non-religious, or otherwise liberal). It's because a guy comes along and shows this brilliant mind a way to finally "belong" by joining a "family" that will care for him. It's the same reason so many brilliant minds became hackers and phreakers and so forth back in the day.
I can't believe this comment didn't turn into a giant nerd orgy. Does this say something about Slashdot? If so, what?
Back the the post- yes, this is exactly what Stephenson envisioned with Snow Crash, and I'm certain there's a marketing team at Google thinking the same thing. Google just needs to get it over with, buy Second Life, and make Snow Crash reality. I'd post more response to the OP, but if you've thought about the information system in Snow Crash at all, you've already thought of it.
Oblivion also fits on a fraction of a DVD-9. What is Rockstar's problem? Anyone? "Waaah. No hard drive is required." -Oblivion does just fine when users have only a memory card. You know, kind of like GTA 3, Vice City, and San Andreas for Playstation. I know this "memory card" thing is really new to you guys since you only developed three top-tier titles in this same series using this exact same process before, but I think you can manage. "Bu-bu-bu- One DVD is too small." -Nevermind that they destroyed space limitations with compression and smart coding when they fit GTA3-San Andreas on one disc, all of a sudden NOW this is some kind of new problem. As I've said so many other times on this site: Wacha wanna bet they'd never gripe if this wasn't Microsoft they were talking about? They did just fine for years on Playstation, but NOW it's a problem when it's the EXACT SAME issues on a Microsoft console.
Errr... wouldn't it be really really great if sudo had a "fancy display mechanism" and "extra monitoring"? ...and yet, because this is Microsoft's idea, everyone's pulling out the torches and pitchforks.
I'd be very freakin' happy if sudo offered to pop itstelf up to help me run commands when I needed it instead of having to manually call it.
Yup.
I wish there were more people like this in the world, oddly enough. Apple releases a $5-600 phone+mp3+ other stuff no one really needs, and it's hailed as the Second Coming of Jesus Christ Himself. Reminds me of the (MiniMac?) that was an "ultra-powerful" computer at an incredibly "affordable price"... that wasn't sold with a monitor, or a keyboard, or a mouse, so as to make the price look artifically small. And lo, the Mac fans did salivate. And anyone who'd ever seen a tower sold by itself before... gave a collective "wtf?", as that's all it was.
The iPhone is JUST an mp3-playing phone, and there are literally dozens of other mp3+phones on the market, and some of them already do more than the iPhone (and cost more to boot!). As Mugatu once said, "I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!".
Why people are so excited about this just does not make sense to me.
"Raise your hand if you can afford a $600 phone." ...you'e just found a way to categorize all Apple enthusiasts with one single sentence. Pay too much for too little? Only if it comes in a shiny pearl-and-chrome box!
After all the /.ers crapping their pants over Zune not-so-long ago, I find it refreshing to be reminded that we do indeed live in a world NOT run by techs and Apple worshippers (oddly enough). See also: Jobs potentially getting busted for scamming Apple stock. If Apple were running the show, things wouldn't be much different (heck, at least Gates doesn't scam stock... that I remember). Er, come to think of t, everything would be more overpriced and it would ALL be pearl and chrome... but that'd be the only difference. And Jobs would be scamming the stocks.
It's especially unbelievable with Zune Store vs. Itunes debacle. Everyone was screaming their heads off that "Oh no, Zune requires a proprietary player" and "It's so terrible! You can only get Zune songs from a Zune store!". It was like the world collectively forgot the existance of iTunes for a moment of blind Microsoft-bashing.
Oh, wait.
Websites like this should indeed have SOME warnings / liability waivers due to the legality of our society. A simple sign along the lines of "meeting IRL, giving out credit cards, etc is dangerous- myspace holds no liability" would suffice. And I'm sure it's in their TOS (they do have one, right?). If MySpace can be demonstrated to have utterly failed to provide ANY warnings or waivers, they deserve to get their legal comeuppance. It's just something you have to do "nowadays". I wouldn't even open up a guestbook on my own domain without a waiver somewhere on my site. Beyond that, yes, it's a parenting issue.
I'm sure lots of people are enamored by this presentation... I'm not interested in the slightest. iPhone? It's really an Apple-branded PDA. At $600, it's NOT AN F'N PHONE! I'm pretty sure I could already get a PDA with cell phone functionality for an outrageous price like that. But Apple rebundles lots of current ideas in a shinier box, and they'll get credit for reinventing the industry. Meh. If you're a Mac fan already, maybe this was a massive presentation. If you already didn't "get it" (or like me, think it's ridiculous), this presentation is utterly uninsteresting.
Take KOTOR for xbox, as an example. And what an example! KOTOR and Jedi Knight don't even need to be Star Wars games- even if you're not a fan, they're still great games. As some have said here, the real problem is that a license like this is a Free Money pass according to the studio. Look at the film industry- how many big licenses get screwed away into titles that barely make a profit, if at all? And even if they make money, it's usually more from the "holy crap you have to see how bad this is" factor than anything else- and that even hurts the source material. Example: DOOM, or as its known to most of the populace, "That crappy space movie starring The Rock". And Star Trek isn't alone, although it's a bigger name suffering from the problem. The Gundam series is my favorite example- talk about an easy premise for a game! Take lots of giant robots, and make 'em fight. With really, really cool weapons. The result? Basically not a single good game ever, unless you wanna count the so-so 2d fighters back on SNES. I mean come on, GIANT FIGHTING ROBOTS! An 8-year-old can dream up a great game based on that line alone. Gundam even has plasma swords (re: "sabers made of light"), yet they still can't get it right. I don't get it. We all know studios license out movies and shows because they think it's easy money, but virtually every time they do it, they disgrace themselves, disgrace the material, and usually only break even- assuming they don't lose. What's the point?
I'm done with POP mail pretty much altogether- I'm tired of server settings, and odd issues with clients connecting, and updates to a program freaking out my connection to the mailserver, etc etc. I use Thunderbird at work only because it's the reccomended method (read: ensures no one can claim delays any different from the rest). When I pop onto Gmail (with lots of auto-spam filtering) or indeed Hotmail (set to Exclusive mode for registrations, etc), my mail just works.
And I can check it at work, or at home, on pretty much whatever OS I please and I never have to worry about carrying my settings, or what client is available, or whether my mails are deleting from the server, or firewalls- unless freemail is blocked of course, in which case POP mail certainly would be as well anyway, making it a moot point.
As far as I'm concernt, POP mail altogether needs to be seen as a dinosaur. There has got to be a better way. Personally, it's Gmail.
See also: Telemarketing, SPAM, Publisher's Clearing House (although that's also technically a lottery)...
I think the psychological / sociological importance of that finding is bigger than the immediate economic concern... for example, when someone robs the Quik-E-Mart, is he weighing only the amount of cash in the register versus the number of bullets in his gun? Is he basically not considering the long-term affects at all? If this case applies more broadly, it could imply a need to turn a lot of modern psychology upside-down. Telling people to think before they act (and weigh the future consequences of action) might be something we're literally not hardwired for.
And that's not even touching on the future-future possibilities of synthetic persons, be they organic or metallic. Or androids, or... you get the idea. Interestingly, now might be a good time to get the gears cranking. Then we might have another 50 years to slowly swing policians around to the idea. Heck, by then we might even have the average Senator up to speed on the digital rights inherent to his iPod! (yes, it's a terrible pun)
1) What kind of heartless bastard sues a 12-year-old-girl for downloading music? ...so you've never, ever compiled, listened to, or passed on a mixed tape in your life?
2) (as elsewhere)
3) THE WORDS YOU ARE USING TO REPLY TO THESE QUESTIONS WERE INVENTED BY OTHER MEN- YOU HAVE STOLEN THEIR WORDS! SUBMIT TO YOUR OWN WRATH!
(on the more serious side)
1) What kind of unholy ritual summoned you and Jack Thompson to besiege our world?
2) Was Hitler there physically, or merely in spirit? Or some kind of spirit-body limbo state, perhaps?
(on the most serious side)
There is no serious question to ask this guy. I hope RIAA gets sued into extinction and replaced.