I like the monomyth - in terms of a movie/book at the moment - it's the same story every time because it works.
In terms of a CRPG, I think it works too, but as you say it can't be 15% of the game (as it is with a film). But as with any game, it sucks to start off right in the middle of the action. Games like that are confusing.
Which is why CRPGs typically start the player off in the town, talking to friendly people, doing some optional mundane quests. This should not last long, and I think more importantly, the player should at his choosing immediately be able to pick up swords and run out into the actual game (which is how Baldur's Gate worked, along with many others).
The inverse of this Baldur's Gate II - started the player off immediately in a GOD AWFUL 3-LEVEL DUNGEON WHICH ANNOYED THE HELL OUT OF ME... in fact by the time I got out I was so sick of the game I never really went back (I know... I'm missing a great game).
But it's good to compare BG1 and 2 actually, because BG1 is the monomyth, the start-out-killing-rats-in-the-barn quest, while BG2 has an already-pretty-powerful adventurer. And I really do prefer the BG1 start - I prefer to start from nothing and work my way up. As long as the game system is designed so that level 1 characters can still kick butt and have fun. I think it worked well in BG1.
Also I hate WoW for stretching out the game experience so much that you need to devote your entire life if you want to actually get to some high-end content. So much for the days when anyone could finish a game if they had a few hours a week. WoW didn't waste my time - just my money.
I know musicians who can reproduce a musical score after only one hearing. Are we going to find a way to control them? What's more - they have virtually limitless memory.
Ah, you refer of course to the legendary Amadeus Mozart, who listened to the Miserere and then wrote out its score from memory, in the worlds first known case of music piracy and decompilation! The man was centuries ahead of his time!
(He was only 14 at the time, but that wouldn't have stopped the RIAA, had it existed back then. It was truly a freer age).
Exactly. Furthermore, Wikipedia defines Hypervisor as:
a hypervisor (also: virtual machine monitor) is a virtualization platform that allows multiple operating systems to run on a host computer at the same time. Why would MS want anybody running multiple OSes? They're trying their hardest to even prevent people from running XP (Vista Upgrade disabling XP keys).
I have a story from the NY Times (reg now required) in my journal which talks about this very issue. One of the solutions? Use software packages to 'soften' the images. In other words, film the movie in HD format then turn down the resolution so it is similar to that of what is on video tape or film.
They're way ahead of you... just plug in any non HDCP/HDMI-compatible monitor into your HD video player, and the software inside will automatically "soften" the image for your viewing pleasure.
Oh Okay, so, is what you're saying that while this is a general purpose quantum computer (ie. it can run arbitrary programs not just solve certain fixed problems), it's not guaranteed to be able to solve any NP problem generally?
I'm not very well-researched in either quantum computing or theory of computation so I'm probably not understanding...
Wait, it seems from TFA that this is a general-purpose computer:
One very cool thing that we're planning to do in Q2/2007 is to provide free access to one of these systems to people who want to either develop or port applications to it...so if you have an idea for an app that needs a fast NP-complete problem solver, start thinking about what you could do with some serious horsepower.
Hm.. well let's hope so. In any event, I think this game (the IT game) is all about interoperability. You can pretend do be about interoperability for so long (as MS does), but when your business model is about preventing interop, you're eventually going to lose. Wine will make that happen, sooner or later.
While this is true - it's not strictly a valid comparison between Linux and Windows (and therefore should be discounted) - we can still salvage most of its meaning. Now I'm assuming that each node is a system function, not a function of Apache or IIS - if I'm wrong in this assumption then may we all be horribly crushed from above somehow.
If you look at it, there are only a couple of "entry point" looking nodes, and the rest is the system calling itself internally. So you could say that the program making these calls is irrelevant, if internally, Linux is making far fewer / more organised syscalls than Windows.
Having said that, it's all quite speculative on my part, from looking at a black and white graph with resolution not high enough to make out any nodes properly... so... grain of salt.
Wow... I kind of figured since DX10 was only for Vista it would be a long time till we saw it in Wine. One major reason why I've been dreading the release of Vista (since I absolutely refuse to upgrade for DRM and licensing reasons, it means I'll miss a lot of games in the meantime. Which is why I chuck a fit every time I read someone saying "If you don't like Vista, don't upgrade! It's simple!")
If Wine can show DX10 working on Unixes, then it'll prove that it's "necessarily-Vista-kernel-entrenched" as they claimed it was. And, lol, as another commenter pointed out below, it'd be hilarious if Wine let you run DX10 games in Windows XP. I swear, those guys are going to be the salvation of all the other platforms.
Being able to run a virtual phone on a PC is what entices me. It means anyone can sit at home and play around, write software, etc, even without owning a phone. While this is all "for fun", by the time these phones become cheap and accessible there will be a mass of kids who already have the expertise to use and program these devices.
What are you on about? Office 2007 has a fully open and standardised file format - Open XML! Just because it's designed such that nobody other than Microsoft will ever be able to fully implement it doesn't mean we shouldn't all jump on the bandwagon!
It reminds me of a thing I used to do a little more recently with Diablo II. The game would only write updates to your character file every 5 minutes. So whenever I died, I would immediately alt+tab, make a copy of my character file, and quit the game. Then I'd copy my backup over the newly-flushed (dead) character file, to revert to a version pre-death.
Actually I had a massive folder of all my character versions dating way back.... of course if I was playing it nowadays I'd put them all under revision control:)
The next version of Ubuntu is expected to include things like accelerated graphics drivers (not open source) and other little spiffies that are currently 'hard' to get working. The last great barrier is wifi (both configuration and support), but that's coming along, too.
I disagree. I love Linux, I love (k)Ubuntu, and I use it as much as possible. But I can't honestly claim it's ready for everyday use (and pushing it on people at the moment will probably just drive them away).
Now I'm very passionate about Open Source and so on, so I live with the deficiencies or learn how to console around them. But the average user won't have so much patience. This is things like the fact that if my network or Internet is down when I boot up, I have to "sudo ifdown eth0; sudo ifup eth0" in order to get it online. Like how Firefox won't open PDFs in-browser and I have to download and use KPDF. Like how I have no way to play Quicktime or WMV videos. I know Ubuntu can do all of these things if you fiddle around and tweak, but again your average user won't stand for it.
I read the Fiesty roadmap.. it looks like they're planning to improve default support for some of these things in the next version, but not all. Also I was quite looking forward to showing off the "wow" factor (to use the Vista terminology) of having a composite desktop environment installed by default, but it looks like it's been deferred.
Our business model is to provide content which is trivially easy for people to duplicate and distribute, but to sue anyone who actually does that.
The alternative being DRM. Personally, I'd prefer for normal consumers to have their fair use rights, and for copyright violators to be sued, than to give no rights to anybody.
I think the general consensus in the world is that the war in iraq was a mistake and it's an awful thing. It's now "cool" for politicians to oppose the war and demand troops to be pulled out.
Whereas the general consensus in the world regarding desktop operating systems is "This new Windows came out - better upgrade".
While obviously the two issues do not share the same importance, if you compare the relative ignorance of the people, the issue of Windows is where more "aggressive" reporting is required.
Okay, okay... I exaggerated a bit. I meant that at the very least, Apple had it implemented way before MS. It's libelous to claim that MS had this stuff any time before Apple. (Or, as you say, those that came before Apple).
Well.....I think that Newsweek is really mainstream....
Yeah, I guess so. I was commenting on the mainstream media I've seen in Australia (in print newspapers and TV), as opposed to what I read online.
But also this interview, even if it is printed, is really not asking the tough questions - Gates is left essentially in the clear after making potentially quite libelous statements.
Slashdot Mirror
I like the monomyth - in terms of a movie/book at the moment - it's the same story every time because it works.
In terms of a CRPG, I think it works too, but as you say it can't be 15% of the game (as it is with a film). But as with any game, it sucks to start off right in the middle of the action. Games like that are confusing.
Which is why CRPGs typically start the player off in the town, talking to friendly people, doing some optional mundane quests. This should not last long, and I think more importantly, the player should at his choosing immediately be able to pick up swords and run out into the actual game (which is how Baldur's Gate worked, along with many others).
The inverse of this Baldur's Gate II - started the player off immediately in a GOD AWFUL 3-LEVEL DUNGEON WHICH ANNOYED THE HELL OUT OF ME... in fact by the time I got out I was so sick of the game I never really went back (I know... I'm missing a great game).
But it's good to compare BG1 and 2 actually, because BG1 is the monomyth, the start-out-killing-rats-in-the-barn quest, while BG2 has an already-pretty-powerful adventurer. And I really do prefer the BG1 start - I prefer to start from nothing and work my way up. As long as the game system is designed so that level 1 characters can still kick butt and have fun. I think it worked well in BG1.
Also I hate WoW for stretching out the game experience so much that you need to devote your entire life if you want to actually get to some high-end content. So much for the days when anyone could finish a game if they had a few hours a week. WoW didn't waste my time - just my money.
As for your question, I agree with the guy who said:
Ah, you refer of course to the legendary Amadeus Mozart, who listened to the Miserere and then wrote out its score from memory, in the worlds first known case of music piracy and decompilation! The man was centuries ahead of his time!
(He was only 14 at the time, but that wouldn't have stopped the RIAA, had it existed back then. It was truly a freer age).
Oh Okay, so, is what you're saying that while this is a general purpose quantum computer (ie. it can run arbitrary programs not just solve certain fixed problems), it's not guaranteed to be able to solve any NP problem generally?
I'm not very well-researched in either quantum computing or theory of computation so I'm probably not understanding...
?
Hm.. well let's hope so. In any event, I think this game (the IT game) is all about interoperability. You can pretend do be about interoperability for so long (as MS does), but when your business model is about preventing interop, you're eventually going to lose. Wine will make that happen, sooner or later.
I'm willing to give Apple the benefit of the doubt here - MS on the other hand I have no qualms about labelling them just as shameless as the **AA.
While this is true - it's not strictly a valid comparison between Linux and Windows (and therefore should be discounted) - we can still salvage most of its meaning. Now I'm assuming that each node is a system function, not a function of Apache or IIS - if I'm wrong in this assumption then may we all be horribly crushed from above somehow.
If you look at it, there are only a couple of "entry point" looking nodes, and the rest is the system calling itself internally. So you could say that the program making these calls is irrelevant, if internally, Linux is making far fewer / more organised syscalls than Windows.
Having said that, it's all quite speculative on my part, from looking at a black and white graph with resolution not high enough to make out any nodes properly... so... grain of salt.
Wow... I kind of figured since DX10 was only for Vista it would be a long time till we saw it in Wine. One major reason why I've been dreading the release of Vista (since I absolutely refuse to upgrade for DRM and licensing reasons, it means I'll miss a lot of games in the meantime. Which is why I chuck a fit every time I read someone saying "If you don't like Vista, don't upgrade! It's simple!")
If Wine can show DX10 working on Unixes, then it'll prove that it's "necessarily-Vista-kernel-entrenched" as they claimed it was. And, lol, as another commenter pointed out below, it'd be hilarious if Wine let you run DX10 games in Windows XP. I swear, those guys are going to be the salvation of all the other platforms.
Being able to run a virtual phone on a PC is what entices me. It means anyone can sit at home and play around, write software, etc, even without owning a phone. While this is all "for fun", by the time these phones become cheap and accessible there will be a mass of kids who already have the expertise to use and program these devices.
I'll definately check this out on my PC.
I'm sorry... maybe I missed something here... isn't this the DIGITAL Millenium Copyright Act?
Haha, great story.
.... of course if I was playing it nowadays I'd put them all under revision control :)
It reminds me of a thing I used to do a little more recently with Diablo II. The game would only write updates to your character file every 5 minutes. So whenever I died, I would immediately alt+tab, make a copy of my character file, and quit the game. Then I'd copy my backup over the newly-flushed (dead) character file, to revert to a version pre-death.
Actually I had a massive folder of all my character versions dating way back
Wait, didn't he already win?
Anyway, as Lisa Simpson once said: "I can't believe you're actually comparing yourself to Gandhi!"
Now I'm very passionate about Open Source and so on, so I live with the deficiencies or learn how to console around them. But the average user won't have so much patience. This is things like the fact that if my network or Internet is down when I boot up, I have to "sudo ifdown eth0; sudo ifup eth0" in order to get it online. Like how Firefox won't open PDFs in-browser and I have to download and use KPDF. Like how I have no way to play Quicktime or WMV videos. I know Ubuntu can do all of these things if you fiddle around and tweak, but again your average user won't stand for it.
I read the Fiesty roadmap.. it looks like they're planning to improve default support for some of these things in the next version, but not all. Also I was quite looking forward to showing off the "wow" factor (to use the Vista terminology) of having a composite desktop environment installed by default, but it looks like it's been deferred.
So not yet, I don't think... one day soon.
I think the general consensus in the world is that the war in iraq was a mistake and it's an awful thing. It's now "cool" for politicians to oppose the war and demand troops to be pulled out.
Whereas the general consensus in the world regarding desktop operating systems is "This new Windows came out - better upgrade".
While obviously the two issues do not share the same importance, if you compare the relative ignorance of the people, the issue of Windows is where more "aggressive" reporting is required.
Okay, okay... I exaggerated a bit. I meant that at the very least, Apple had it implemented way before MS. It's libelous to claim that MS had this stuff any time before Apple. (Or, as you say, those that came before Apple).
But also this interview, even if it is printed, is really not asking the tough questions - Gates is left essentially in the clear after making potentially quite libelous statements.