I don't think it suggests OCD at all, I think most people are like this. I've been reading A Theory of Fun for Game Design and it suggests that fun comes from grokking patterns in games. If you get to know the initial conditions and rules of a game, it seems only natural that you would run through simulations in your brain, conscious or not. Then, the next time you play the game, you do better, and have more fun because the game is rewarding you (with higher scores, more levels), and you can experience and learn more patterns in the game. Repeat until you feel you have mastered the game (grokked it completely) and become bored.
But yeah, I do the same thing, though often I will do it consciously during idle time. The same for other forms of learning; as a student, I usually read an assignment the day it is released, and gradually think about it (consciously and unconsciously) for a while, then start the assignment with most of the details already worked out in my head.
Though I am getting a bit impatient waiting for a great game for the Wii (Super Paper Mario was alright, but didn't satiate my craving), this and other announcements is just encouraging companies to rush out tripe. Only a matter of time until we get another E.T.!
If Microsoft doesn't want the 360 heavily modded as the original Xbox has been, they just have to let us do what we want to do. Playing downloaded movies is definitely high on that list, and is one of the main reasons I modded my original Xbox; giving us these codecs is definitely a step in the right direction for Microsoft. It really seems like the Xbox team is doing a lot of things right, despite the recent failures MS has been fouling the market with (i.e., Vista). Removing all DRM would be a giant leap forward, though highly unlikely. I don't really know anything about XNA and its limitations, but it seems like another tool that may prove useful. The IM stuff I could really care less about.
But what is up with that controller? Looks like an April Fool's day mockup. My hands hurt already.
Our thoughts stem from the firing of neurons. If half of those neurons are computer chips, was it a human thought or a computer generated though.
Is there really a difference? Our brains are incredibly complicated, but just because they are biological doesn't mean they're not just computing devices. It may be unsettling to some to believe, but this idea of 'free will,' that we're in control of our minds and can freely choose to do whatever we want is an illusion created by the very brain that tells us what to do. Sure, you can just randomly say "Hey, let's break the monotony!" and jump off a building, exhilarated by the feeling of freedom, but it's all a function of the inputs your brain has received over its lifetime. I have no doubt that, given the same inputs, you would do the same thing all over again.
This also brings up something interesting I remember from classes about computability theory. The halting problem can be expressed as: if a turing machine is given a turing machine as an input, can it determine if the input will finish running? Keeping in mind that a turing machine can simulate another turing machine. If one considers the brain a computing device, like a turing machine, then extending the halting problem metaphor, will we ever be able to reverse-engineer the brain to the point that we can recreate it?
I can definitely attest to this. While I mark computer science assignments, not English papers, as long as the class size is at a managable level, you pick up on students' style without even realizing it. When something seems a bit odd, I usually reference previous papers and find large differences in style that suggests some plagiarism. I can only imagine that this become even more pointed in English papers.
One caveat to this, though, is for large classes. When I mark second or third year classes, I might have 30-50 papers per assignment, five assignments per term, so by the third assignment or so style differences stick out like a sore thumb. First year classes, on the other hand, have upwards of 100 papers per assignment, and I rarely mark the same person's assignment twice because the class has maybe 1200 students in all. They have different people mark each assignment so that it's not biased to one marker's harshness-level, but this means you can only pick out the most obvious of cheaters.
Not to mention the touchscreen makes it great for learning to read and write as well. While I was out in Japan I picked up some games to help with learning Kanji, and it was invaluable. Saved me the cost of an electronic dictionary anyway!
While I may be naive, this sounds like one of the most significant pieces of medical news I've heard in my lifetime. I'm curious about how much impact this news could have if it turns out to be safe and effective. Type O is in short supply compared to other types, for obvious reasons, but does anyone have any statistics (that aren't made up) concerning deaths as a result of not having the proper type of blood? If the current and future blood supplies were converted to type O (theoretically, I would assume this would be done as needed), how many lives could it save?
From the title I thought they were talking about preventing cheating on online exams... Unfortunately, since they're not, I doubt we'll be able to take the secure programming exam online securely any time soon.
I'm not quite sure what the parent is talking about... Highlight some text, go to another app and press the middle mouse button, and presto, copying has occurred. Am I missing something?
I'm not 100% sure if you're being sarcastic or not, but I think giving it a camera would be a pretty bad idea. At least, when you make the analogy to the game boy camera.
To clarify, the social aspect that you're talking about would be very nice, making the DS basically the video phone that we were all promised back in the 20th century (as long as we don't have to call each other by friend code...), but I think making a camera the way the game boy camera was made will never work. If this kind of thing were to fly, I would propose some way to make any old USB webcam work with the DS, some kind of USB to DS converter. Note that I have no technical knowledge of the two connections, so I am in no way saying that this would even be possible. But, if they were to release a video chat type program that I could just plug my existing webcam into, I would be very interested. If I had to buy a Nintendo one, I would probably say no thanks.
Even if it were possible though, I don't know what kind of worm can such a connector would open up; if it could work with webcams, who says we couldn't plug a 250gb external hard drive into it? If it were possible, I would think the DS homebrew community would have explored it by now. Still, it would be pretty cool.
Xbox360 is the console of choice for online multiplayer gamers, and there is something undeniably fun about playing the Wii with your friends in person. Is the PS3 aiming to be the console of choice for immersive single-player games?
I agree wholeheartedly. Pre-built systems are part of the reason why novice computer users get so frustrated when their brand new computer doesn't run as fast as it should, or are bombarded with annoying messages a month after they start up their computer loaded with 30-day trial software. Wiping the drive and installing a fresh copy of Windows (or preferably a Linux distro) is often needlessly difficult when dealing with non-standard hardware with hard to find drivers, forcing these user to just 'live with it'. While the obvious solution to custom build the PC works well for desktops, what are laptop owners to do? It's not as simple to build a laptop (yet?). There are custom laptop manufacturers, but even so you're limited to the hardware they allow you to choose from. Is there a way for less experienced computer users to avoid the annoyances of software bloat when buying a laptop?
I use Shaw as well, and I can confirm that they will enforce their limits. Over the Christmas season when private torrent sites were having free weekends (i.e., downloads didn't count towards ratio) I went quite overboard two months in a row, at which point they called a few times to "discuss options". They seemed a lot more concerned about the up/down ratio (which was leaning to the up side) than the gross amount of bandwidth. I didn't have any hard disconnections, but at times it seemed like they would refuse 1/2 of the connections to the DNS server, so I switched to OpenDNS for a while. Not sure if that was due to going over the limits or just some maintenance or something. The alternative here in Mantioba, MTS (who offers DSL), has no advertised limits, and have not heard of anyone being limited or cut off due to excessive bandwidth use. Speed leaves something to be desired though.
FTA: Almost all of the games on the Lowood list represent the beginning of a genre still vital in the video game industry.
I fail to see how Civilization I/II is the beginning of a noticable genre in a list with both Warcraft (which should be Dune 2) and SimCity. Axe it and add in Dragon Quest, the beginning of console-style RPG's, which is without a doubt still vital in the video game industry.
I paid for the DVD so why should I be subjected to their ads everytime I watch the DVD? Yesterday I excitedly put in the Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny DVD. Say what you will about the movie, but I love the D. After a few shitty trailers, I was horrified to see, instead of D-related fun, a commercial for some Honda truck. I know the movie didn't do so well in theatres, but I thought New Line would have a bit more respect for the people that paid for the DVD. Is this a common practice on mainstream DVD's nowadays? Most of the stuff I tend to buy is a bit more obscure.
Man, I'm sick and tired of every creative pursuit being labelled 'art'. Programming is art, drinking tea is art, playing soccer is art... Fine art is art. Applied art is craft. Once you create something for a specific purpose other than aesthetics (anything with utility, basically) it ceases to be art.
It's great to hear that game makers are taking story more seriously than in the past. Personally, I've never been satisfied by a 'branching' storyline; too often, it's just the illusion of choice. I remember reading in Nintendo Power a year or so before Final Fantasy 6 (then dubbed 3) came out that there were "3 separate storylines to explore!" with a screenshot of a black backdrop with 3 characters to choose from (I think it was Terra, Locke and Edgar? I'm not positive about that though). When I got to that point in the game, I was so excited to choose something in a game and have my choice matter. I was excited by the prospect of getting to play the game three times and have three different stories. When I discovered you only got to choose the order in which you played those sections of the game, I was quite disappointed. It's still one of my favourite games of all time, and perhaps in retrospect, as an adult, I might not want to play the game three times through to feel as if I've 'beaten' it. Still, that was the one criticism I had on the game as a kid.
There will always be a market for the linear game model, but I believe that the future of RPG's (and other genre of game) includes dynamically generated storylines. Research into interactive storytelling has been going on for a long time. A research project at the University of Alberta that I will be working on this summer deals with player-specific storylines in an RPG domain. I believe these games have great potential to be incredibly immersive and fun, and fun is what it's all about!
I don't think the term 'flip-flop' should be used in a reasoned political debate. To me it just smells of bullshit regardless of the context that it's used in--and in this case, I think it's used aptly. Unfortunately, it's been overused so much by both the left and right-wing media that it makes me disbelieve anything surrounding it. Stances and opinions shouldn't be static; candidates, like anyone else, should be free to learn more about an issue and change their opinion accordingly. Without knowing the motivations and new developments surrounding someone's change of opinion--which you very rarely see in the factoids given in calls of flip-floppery--I pretty much disregard it entirely.
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I don't think it suggests OCD at all, I think most people are like this. I've been reading A Theory of Fun for Game Design and it suggests that fun comes from grokking patterns in games. If you get to know the initial conditions and rules of a game, it seems only natural that you would run through simulations in your brain, conscious or not. Then, the next time you play the game, you do better, and have more fun because the game is rewarding you (with higher scores, more levels), and you can experience and learn more patterns in the game. Repeat until you feel you have mastered the game (grokked it completely) and become bored.
But yeah, I do the same thing, though often I will do it consciously during idle time. The same for other forms of learning; as a student, I usually read an assignment the day it is released, and gradually think about it (consciously and unconsciously) for a while, then start the assignment with most of the details already worked out in my head.
Though I am getting a bit impatient waiting for a great game for the Wii (Super Paper Mario was alright, but didn't satiate my craving), this and other announcements is just encouraging companies to rush out tripe. Only a matter of time until we get another E.T.!
If Microsoft doesn't want the 360 heavily modded as the original Xbox has been, they just have to let us do what we want to do. Playing downloaded movies is definitely high on that list, and is one of the main reasons I modded my original Xbox; giving us these codecs is definitely a step in the right direction for Microsoft. It really seems like the Xbox team is doing a lot of things right, despite the recent failures MS has been fouling the market with (i.e., Vista). Removing all DRM would be a giant leap forward, though highly unlikely. I don't really know anything about XNA and its limitations, but it seems like another tool that may prove useful. The IM stuff I could really care less about.
But what is up with that controller? Looks like an April Fool's day mockup. My hands hurt already.
Our thoughts stem from the firing of neurons. If half of those neurons are computer chips, was it a human thought or a computer generated though.
Is there really a difference? Our brains are incredibly complicated, but just because they are biological doesn't mean they're not just computing devices. It may be unsettling to some to believe, but this idea of 'free will,' that we're in control of our minds and can freely choose to do whatever we want is an illusion created by the very brain that tells us what to do. Sure, you can just randomly say "Hey, let's break the monotony!" and jump off a building, exhilarated by the feeling of freedom, but it's all a function of the inputs your brain has received over its lifetime. I have no doubt that, given the same inputs, you would do the same thing all over again.
This also brings up something interesting I remember from classes about computability theory. The halting problem can be expressed as: if a turing machine is given a turing machine as an input, can it determine if the input will finish running? Keeping in mind that a turing machine can simulate another turing machine. If one considers the brain a computing device, like a turing machine, then extending the halting problem metaphor, will we ever be able to reverse-engineer the brain to the point that we can recreate it?
I can definitely attest to this. While I mark computer science assignments, not English papers, as long as the class size is at a managable level, you pick up on students' style without even realizing it. When something seems a bit odd, I usually reference previous papers and find large differences in style that suggests some plagiarism. I can only imagine that this become even more pointed in English papers.
One caveat to this, though, is for large classes. When I mark second or third year classes, I might have 30-50 papers per assignment, five assignments per term, so by the third assignment or so style differences stick out like a sore thumb. First year classes, on the other hand, have upwards of 100 papers per assignment, and I rarely mark the same person's assignment twice because the class has maybe 1200 students in all. They have different people mark each assignment so that it's not biased to one marker's harshness-level, but this means you can only pick out the most obvious of cheaters.
Not to mention the touchscreen makes it great for learning to read and write as well. While I was out in Japan I picked up some games to help with learning Kanji, and it was invaluable. Saved me the cost of an electronic dictionary anyway!
*Raises hand* It was Amiga BASIC.
While I may be naive, this sounds like one of the most significant pieces of medical news I've heard in my lifetime. I'm curious about how much impact this news could have if it turns out to be safe and effective. Type O is in short supply compared to other types, for obvious reasons, but does anyone have any statistics (that aren't made up) concerning deaths as a result of not having the proper type of blood? If the current and future blood supplies were converted to type O (theoretically, I would assume this would be done as needed), how many lives could it save?
From the title I thought they were talking about preventing cheating on online exams... Unfortunately, since they're not, I doubt we'll be able to take the secure programming exam online securely any time soon.
I'm not quite sure what the parent is talking about... Highlight some text, go to another app and press the middle mouse button, and presto, copying has occurred. Am I missing something?
I'm not 100% sure if you're being sarcastic or not, but I think giving it a camera would be a pretty bad idea. At least, when you make the analogy to the game boy camera.
To clarify, the social aspect that you're talking about would be very nice, making the DS basically the video phone that we were all promised back in the 20th century (as long as we don't have to call each other by friend code...), but I think making a camera the way the game boy camera was made will never work. If this kind of thing were to fly, I would propose some way to make any old USB webcam work with the DS, some kind of USB to DS converter. Note that I have no technical knowledge of the two connections, so I am in no way saying that this would even be possible. But, if they were to release a video chat type program that I could just plug my existing webcam into, I would be very interested. If I had to buy a Nintendo one, I would probably say no thanks.
Even if it were possible though, I don't know what kind of worm can such a connector would open up; if it could work with webcams, who says we couldn't plug a 250gb external hard drive into it? If it were possible, I would think the DS homebrew community would have explored it by now. Still, it would be pretty cool.
Xbox360 is the console of choice for online multiplayer gamers, and there is something undeniably fun about playing the Wii with your friends in person. Is the PS3 aiming to be the console of choice for immersive single-player games?
I agree wholeheartedly. Pre-built systems are part of the reason why novice computer users get so frustrated when their brand new computer doesn't run as fast as it should, or are bombarded with annoying messages a month after they start up their computer loaded with 30-day trial software. Wiping the drive and installing a fresh copy of Windows (or preferably a Linux distro) is often needlessly difficult when dealing with non-standard hardware with hard to find drivers, forcing these user to just 'live with it'. While the obvious solution to custom build the PC works well for desktops, what are laptop owners to do? It's not as simple to build a laptop (yet?). There are custom laptop manufacturers, but even so you're limited to the hardware they allow you to choose from. Is there a way for less experienced computer users to avoid the annoyances of software bloat when buying a laptop?
I use Shaw as well, and I can confirm that they will enforce their limits. Over the Christmas season when private torrent sites were having free weekends (i.e., downloads didn't count towards ratio) I went quite overboard two months in a row, at which point they called a few times to "discuss options". They seemed a lot more concerned about the up/down ratio (which was leaning to the up side) than the gross amount of bandwidth. I didn't have any hard disconnections, but at times it seemed like they would refuse 1/2 of the connections to the DNS server, so I switched to OpenDNS for a while. Not sure if that was due to going over the limits or just some maintenance or something. The alternative here in Mantioba, MTS (who offers DSL), has no advertised limits, and have not heard of anyone being limited or cut off due to excessive bandwidth use. Speed leaves something to be desired though.
FTA: Almost all of the games on the Lowood list represent the beginning of a genre still vital in the video game industry.
I fail to see how Civilization I/II is the beginning of a noticable genre in a list with both Warcraft (which should be Dune 2) and SimCity. Axe it and add in Dragon Quest, the beginning of console-style RPG's, which is without a doubt still vital in the video game industry.
Man, I'm sick and tired of every creative pursuit being labelled 'art'. Programming is art, drinking tea is art, playing soccer is art... Fine art is art. Applied art is craft. Once you create something for a specific purpose other than aesthetics (anything with utility, basically) it ceases to be art.
It's great to hear that game makers are taking story more seriously than in the past. Personally, I've never been satisfied by a 'branching' storyline; too often, it's just the illusion of choice. I remember reading in Nintendo Power a year or so before Final Fantasy 6 (then dubbed 3) came out that there were "3 separate storylines to explore!" with a screenshot of a black backdrop with 3 characters to choose from (I think it was Terra, Locke and Edgar? I'm not positive about that though). When I got to that point in the game, I was so excited to choose something in a game and have my choice matter. I was excited by the prospect of getting to play the game three times and have three different stories. When I discovered you only got to choose the order in which you played those sections of the game, I was quite disappointed. It's still one of my favourite games of all time, and perhaps in retrospect, as an adult, I might not want to play the game three times through to feel as if I've 'beaten' it. Still, that was the one criticism I had on the game as a kid.
There will always be a market for the linear game model, but I believe that the future of RPG's (and other genre of game) includes dynamically generated storylines. Research into interactive storytelling has been going on for a long time. A research project at the University of Alberta that I will be working on this summer deals with player-specific storylines in an RPG domain. I believe these games have great potential to be incredibly immersive and fun, and fun is what it's all about!
I don't think the term 'flip-flop' should be used in a reasoned political debate. To me it just smells of bullshit regardless of the context that it's used in--and in this case, I think it's used aptly. Unfortunately, it's been overused so much by both the left and right-wing media that it makes me disbelieve anything surrounding it. Stances and opinions shouldn't be static; candidates, like anyone else, should be free to learn more about an issue and change their opinion accordingly. Without knowing the motivations and new developments surrounding someone's change of opinion--which you very rarely see in the factoids given in calls of flip-floppery--I pretty much disregard it entirely.