The idea that all you need is belief in yourself to succeed makes for a great feel-good fantasy experience, but it's as true as the age-old myth that you'll get ahead if you pray hard enough and bring God on your side.
I think the idea is good, but misstated. It would be better to say that not believing in yourself will lead to failure. I.E., confidence is necessary for success, but it alone won't be enough. It's a catalyst that helps skill, determination, and talent act more effectively.
Wow, I thought Dreamfall was great. The combat was unnecessary, but other than that it was a wonderful game. Normally, when you describe a game as an interactive movie, it's an insult; but this was an example of one done right, with depth, story, and characterization. I thought the story held together quite well and really liked the main character. The longest Journey was excellent also, but I like the sequel better.
We do have the problem solved, technically. The engineering solution is pretty clear; breeder reactors, reprocessing, burying whatever remains in geologically stable areas. There just isn't the political will or common sense to proceed with the solution.
Nuclear power means nuclear weapons. The two are inseperable. The only way to eliminate nuclear weapons is to destroy nuclear technology and ensure that nobody ever rediscovers it.
Wow. The parent poster may be actually insane. Not just nutty in an eccentric, slashdot, sense, but someone with a full-on schizophrenic break with reality.
"Do particles have free will?" That's as fanciful whether the invisible pink unicorn is behind you right now. No, I can't disprove it, any more than I can disprove that lasagna likes Mozart. But I can realize that the idea is so meritless that it isn't worth considering until real evidence crops up. We don't have the resources to thoroughly discredit every one of an infinite number of silly ideas.
If I was to seriously debate it, I would start with trying to get a clear definition of free will out of the scientists, which I doubt I will get. Absent that, the discussion is meaningless. Particles having free will is a concept that should be greeted with a "what the f*ck does that even mean?", in the exact same way something like "Positive energy flows from universal oneness" should be.
How does that explain my kids, and how they play the SNES and Gameboy Advance emulators on their computers as much or more than their modern consoles? Nostalgia is not an element there. (I know, you said 'emulators excluded', but I'm not excluding them, because I shouldn't have to.) I'll challenge you to play a 360 or PS3 game, wait for the graphics rush to wear off, and tell me the game is better than anything for the SNES.
I'll grant you that the new consoles have vastly greater computational power, but really doubt that we're getting significantly better AI out of it. I think every megaflop that can be squeezed out is devoted to graphics, with AI and game logic getting only what is absolutely required.
Completely wrong, I guess that myth will never die. Its pretty much equally powerful then the stuff from the last generation, its hardware can't even run some effects that the Xbox1 could do, due to the lack of shader, so you won't see a game like Riddick on the Wii ever.
Keep in mind that the normal generation jump in computing power is around 10 times or more, the Wii is stuck somewhere between 1.5x-2.0x times more powerful then the Gamecube and quite a bit of that additional power is already eaten up by 16:9/480p output vs 4:3/480i output that the Gamecube did.
The Gamecube was in between the PS2 and X-Box in power, probably closer to the X-Box; the PS2 was pretty clearly the least powerful. I think the Wii is clearly more powerful than the X-Box. However, I agree that it is much closer to last generation in power than to the PS3 and 360. Comparing on a specific feature is a bit misleading; I could point out specific features of the Dreamcast that were far better than the PS2.
The difference is *FAR* bigger then just HD. For one very important thing there is anti-aliasing, which the Wii doesn't do and causes all Wii games look pretty sucky on a big screen. But more importantly there is texture and object count. One of the fundamental difference between this gen and last gen is that in a PS3 or a Xbox360 game you have the screen full of stuff, crisp textures and a ton of objects, while on a PS2/Wii/Xbox1 game you always have plenty of empty space that is only filled with a blurry texture. Stuff like that gets *very* clear when you compare a MarioGalaxy vs a Ratched&Clank side by side in 480p, those games are really a generation apart.
Now one could of course argue that most of that is just fluff, unimportant to gameplay, and I even agree with that, I certainly had much more fun with Galaxy then Ratched, but claiming that there isn't a *huge* technological leap between Wii and a Xbox360/PS3 is ridiculous. There certainly is one, but well, I have to admin, that the brain is pretty damn good at filling those empty spots with stuff from imagination, so a last-gen game never feels as empty as it really is.
I don't think we disagree; just to clarify, when I say 'HD Graphic Detail' I didn't mean just a 1080p display, but all the accompanying graphical processing ability... antialiasing, more texture space, etc. The Wii is severly lacking compared to the new consoles. My point is that lack is not that relevant. Most people don't care. I don't.
Seriously, that is *eight* years after the Playstation2 was released, really not exactly much. But even still I have some doubt of even that, while the Wii is powerful in some areas, I am not sure if it could do a Shadow of the Colossus type of game. The PS2 isn't the most powerful console around, but at the end of its lifecycle some extremely impressive stuff has been done of it, thanks to its vector processor I guess, that I haven't seen anywhere else.
I'll disagree with you there; I think the Gamecube could match anything the PS2 could do, let alone the Wii.
Yeah, but also a market smaller then both of those consoles combined, i.e. a cross platform game for Xbox360 and PS3 still has a larger market then a Wii-only title.
I have a hunch that a lot of the 360's and PS3 are owned by the same people, who will probably not be buying a copy for both. But that's just my impression. Another way of looking at it is they can write the game specifically for the Wii, for probably half the cost of developing if for the other consoles, not have to worry about porting it, and still have a market that is nearly the same size.
I totally grant you that the wii can't compete with the other two consoles in terms of raw power. But that doesn't mean it is a last gen console; it just means it evolved in a different direction. And perhaps more successfully. A tyrannosaurus rex can whip the snot out of any given mammal; but the mammals evolved in different directions, with less raw power... but we're still around. Progress can be along more than one axis.
His logic was perfectly sound; it just was formal.
Yes, it is possible that particles have free will even if humans don't. But the gp was smart enough to realize that that is a really stupid, obviously untrue idea, so he dismissed it. Humans do that all the time... at least the smart ones do. It's necessarily, in a universe where uncertainty is always present.
The problem with that is that if you don't use motion controls, the Wii doesn't offer you ANYTHING. The online experience is crap, the processor and the GPU are crap, and Nintendo's developper support and tools are crap.
Remember, the Wii is substantially more powerful than any last generation console (PS2, Gamecube, X-Box), so I don't think it's fair to say it's crap; it's certainly less powerful than the PS3 and 360, but the difference is mainly in HD graphic detail, and I think the market is indicating that most people don't really care. Think of it this way: The Wii is theoretically powerful enough to do a better game than anything ever made for the PS2. If 3rd party games, suck, it's solely because the game designers suck.
Also, the Wii does offer something else besides the motion controls... a market substantially larger than either of the other two consoles.
The police are held more accountable today than ever just as their transgressions are better and better reported.
I absolutely believe this. It doesn't mean there aren't corrupt police, or that the problem doesn't require a lot more work; just that it is a hell of a lot cleaned up from decades back. Same with politics. Yes, they're all corrupt bastards, but compared to a hundred years ago, they're squeaky-clean.
If I were called to testify against someone selling pot, I would be in a very bad place indeed
If my child committed murder I would go to jail rather than testify.
You know, you're generally in the ethical clear when you simply tell the truth. I think you're over-complicating things... and that can be dangerous when it comes to morals.
But the major cost from rising fuel prices is not in the gas you put into your car; it's transporting commodities. It's great that you took steps to cut your personal fuel consumption, but oranges are still going to cost more and more to be trucked up from Florida... and it doesn't matter how short your commute is.
Try reading up on trophic levels. Every additional step in the food chain represents about a 90% loss of efficiency, so the benefits of vegetarianism are far from negligible.
True, but I think the gp was referring to the trendy type of vegan that thinks everything should be organically grown. That's absolutely unfeasible on a global scale; it's only possible in trendy American stores because we are so damn rich. Organic vegan food is a massive luxury, and a waste, and (in my opinion) almost immoral.
I'm in Marketing. (Boo and Hiss at me all you want). And here's one thing I've learned, that most other marketers will never admit:
Very rarely can You budge consumer's buying patterns by more than 5 or 10 percent. In fact, a big marketing program is generally a definite success if it generates a 3-5% lift. If you're trying to sell things most customers don't want, it will almost always fail. That's all that I'm saying. The final arbiters of Blu-Ray success will be the consumer. All that the companies can do is nudge, prompt, and hope.
Blu-Ray is an intermediate case. It does not offer a clear and obvious advantage, like DVD did; on the other hand, it isn't a horrendously bad product, like Divx; instead, it's a product with minor advantages, so it will most likely have slow and steady growth. It will eventually replace DVDs, unless something WITH significant advantages comes along and overtakes it. Maybe online distribution, but that's still several years off.
It does matter, if most people have the same plan. Remember, most people decided to not plan on buying Divx disks from Circuit City, and... the plan worked. They went away.
Seriously, "I'm cheap and have no taste", Score 5: Informative. I'm glad that guy gave us his life story detailing his frugality, it really brought something to the conversation.
Do you have the ability to abstract a point out of an example? For instance... what if those details apply to many others? Is that possible, even likely? What if the majority of people are just as frugal? Would the Blu-Ray format be doomed, or just delayed?
I think the majority of people don't care enough to invest any substantial amount of money. I don't; I'll upgrade my media system in maybe five years, when I can get a HDTV for $300 and a bluray player for $50... and I'll skip the bluray player if the disks are still $25-$30 dollars.
As proof, look at broadcast HD cable. It's being compressed to the degree that much of the heightened visual quality is being lost, in favor of more channels. I think the consumer will speak, and their cry will be 'more channels, lower quality'. When the low-quality is still as good or better than DVD, why not?
Nah, I think those are the companies that get stuff done. In twenty years, everything the (new) CEO says will be vetted by the PR and legal departments, and the company will simply coast on slowly-decaying inertia until it dies.
The Wiimote is a perfectly usable pc peripheral. It's a somewhat low-resolution mouse replacement with some neat extra features. But the motion sensors by themselves are not the wiimote's main feature; the pointer is, which requires the sensor bar. Since this Asus device doesn't have the sensor bar, it's going to be far reduced in practicality from the wiimote.
'Published Crypto' is going to be far, far safer than any super-secret unpublished crypto you might ever happen across. It's been vetted. Properly encrypted text, using even simple algorithms, is effectively unbreakable with a large enough key. The only way to break it is to find the key by social engineering, or by brute forcing it. There are no secret backdoors the NSA has... that's like claiming the NSA can square a circle with a compass and straightedge. It's a mathematical problem, and it is known that there is no shortcut. The NSA has code breaking computers, true... but the only real advantage they have is speed. Instead of a thousand years, maybe they'll only take months or weeks. Do you think the NSA is going to spend that computer power trying to see what warez you've stolen, or spy on the 'free Tibet' mailing list you're on?
If you respond, please don't use the phrase 'Zenlike ignorance' again. Use words with meanings.
Slashdot Mirror
The idea that all you need is belief in yourself to succeed makes for a great feel-good fantasy experience, but it's as true as the age-old myth that you'll get ahead if you pray hard enough and bring God on your side.
I think the idea is good, but misstated. It would be better to say that not believing in yourself will lead to failure. I.E., confidence is necessary for success, but it alone won't be enough. It's a catalyst that helps skill, determination, and talent act more effectively.
Wow, I thought Dreamfall was great. The combat was unnecessary, but other than that it was a wonderful game. Normally, when you describe a game as an interactive movie, it's an insult; but this was an example of one done right, with depth, story, and characterization. I thought the story held together quite well and really liked the main character. The longest Journey was excellent also, but I like the sequel better.
Because you're too retarded to understand kernel design. Thankfully your opinion is insignificant, so go do your job monkey boy.
Hmm. His opinion... your opinion... balancing...
Nope, his opinion counts for more than yours. Better luck next time. Try again after you graduate high school.
We do have the problem solved, technically. The engineering solution is pretty clear; breeder reactors, reprocessing, burying whatever remains in geologically stable areas. There just isn't the political will or common sense to proceed with the solution.
Nuclear power means nuclear weapons. The two are inseperable. The only way to eliminate nuclear weapons is to destroy nuclear technology and ensure that nobody ever rediscovers it.
Wow. The parent poster may be actually insane. Not just nutty in an eccentric, slashdot, sense, but someone with a full-on schizophrenic break with reality.
Fire has killed a lot of people, too.
"Do particles have free will?" That's as fanciful whether the invisible pink unicorn is behind you right now. No, I can't disprove it, any more than I can disprove that lasagna likes Mozart. But I can realize that the idea is so meritless that it isn't worth considering until real evidence crops up. We don't have the resources to thoroughly discredit every one of an infinite number of silly ideas.
If I was to seriously debate it, I would start with trying to get a clear definition of free will out of the scientists, which I doubt I will get. Absent that, the discussion is meaningless. Particles having free will is a concept that should be greeted with a "what the f*ck does that even mean?", in the exact same way something like "Positive energy flows from universal oneness" should be.
How does that explain my kids, and how they play the SNES and Gameboy Advance emulators on their computers as much or more than their modern consoles? Nostalgia is not an element there. (I know, you said 'emulators excluded', but I'm not excluding them, because I shouldn't have to.) I'll challenge you to play a 360 or PS3 game, wait for the graphics rush to wear off, and tell me the game is better than anything for the SNES.
I'll grant you that the new consoles have vastly greater computational power, but really doubt that we're getting significantly better AI out of it. I think every megaflop that can be squeezed out is devoted to graphics, with AI and game logic getting only what is absolutely required.
Completely wrong, I guess that myth will never die. Its pretty much equally powerful then the stuff from the last generation, its hardware can't even run some effects that the Xbox1 could do, due to the lack of shader, so you won't see a game like Riddick on the Wii ever. Keep in mind that the normal generation jump in computing power is around 10 times or more, the Wii is stuck somewhere between 1.5x-2.0x times more powerful then the Gamecube and quite a bit of that additional power is already eaten up by 16:9/480p output vs 4:3/480i output that the Gamecube did.
The Gamecube was in between the PS2 and X-Box in power, probably closer to the X-Box; the PS2 was pretty clearly the least powerful. I think the Wii is clearly more powerful than the X-Box. However, I agree that it is much closer to last generation in power than to the PS3 and 360. Comparing on a specific feature is a bit misleading; I could point out specific features of the Dreamcast that were far better than the PS2.
The difference is *FAR* bigger then just HD. For one very important thing there is anti-aliasing, which the Wii doesn't do and causes all Wii games look pretty sucky on a big screen. But more importantly there is texture and object count. One of the fundamental difference between this gen and last gen is that in a PS3 or a Xbox360 game you have the screen full of stuff, crisp textures and a ton of objects, while on a PS2/Wii/Xbox1 game you always have plenty of empty space that is only filled with a blurry texture. Stuff like that gets *very* clear when you compare a MarioGalaxy vs a Ratched&Clank side by side in 480p, those games are really a generation apart. Now one could of course argue that most of that is just fluff, unimportant to gameplay, and I even agree with that, I certainly had much more fun with Galaxy then Ratched, but claiming that there isn't a *huge* technological leap between Wii and a Xbox360/PS3 is ridiculous. There certainly is one, but well, I have to admin, that the brain is pretty damn good at filling those empty spots with stuff from imagination, so a last-gen game never feels as empty as it really is.
I don't think we disagree; just to clarify, when I say 'HD Graphic Detail' I didn't mean just a 1080p display, but all the accompanying graphical processing ability... antialiasing, more texture space, etc. The Wii is severly lacking compared to the new consoles. My point is that lack is not that relevant. Most people don't care. I don't.
Seriously, that is *eight* years after the Playstation2 was released, really not exactly much. But even still I have some doubt of even that, while the Wii is powerful in some areas, I am not sure if it could do a Shadow of the Colossus type of game. The PS2 isn't the most powerful console around, but at the end of its lifecycle some extremely impressive stuff has been done of it, thanks to its vector processor I guess, that I haven't seen anywhere else.
I'll disagree with you there; I think the Gamecube could match anything the PS2 could do, let alone the Wii.
Yeah, but also a market smaller then both of those consoles combined, i.e. a cross platform game for Xbox360 and PS3 still has a larger market then a Wii-only title.
I have a hunch that a lot of the 360's and PS3 are owned by the same people, who will probably not be buying a copy for both. But that's just my impression. Another way of looking at it is they can write the game specifically for the Wii, for probably half the cost of developing if for the other consoles, not have to worry about porting it, and still have a market that is nearly the same size.
I totally grant you that the wii can't compete with the other two consoles in terms of raw power. But that doesn't mean it is a last gen console; it just means it evolved in a different direction. And perhaps more successfully. A tyrannosaurus rex can whip the snot out of any given mammal; but the mammals evolved in different directions, with less raw power... but we're still around. Progress can be along more than one axis.
His logic was perfectly sound; it just was formal.
Yes, it is possible that particles have free will even if humans don't. But the gp was smart enough to realize that that is a really stupid, obviously untrue idea, so he dismissed it. Humans do that all the time... at least the smart ones do. It's necessarily, in a universe where uncertainty is always present.
The problem with that is that if you don't use motion controls, the Wii doesn't offer you ANYTHING. The online experience is crap, the processor and the GPU are crap, and Nintendo's developper support and tools are crap.
Remember, the Wii is substantially more powerful than any last generation console (PS2, Gamecube, X-Box), so I don't think it's fair to say it's crap; it's certainly less powerful than the PS3 and 360, but the difference is mainly in HD graphic detail, and I think the market is indicating that most people don't really care. Think of it this way: The Wii is theoretically powerful enough to do a better game than anything ever made for the PS2. If 3rd party games, suck, it's solely because the game designers suck.
Also, the Wii does offer something else besides the motion controls... a market substantially larger than either of the other two consoles.
The police are held more accountable today than ever just as their transgressions are better and better reported.
I absolutely believe this. It doesn't mean there aren't corrupt police, or that the problem doesn't require a lot more work; just that it is a hell of a lot cleaned up from decades back. Same with politics. Yes, they're all corrupt bastards, but compared to a hundred years ago, they're squeaky-clean.
If I were called to testify against someone selling pot, I would be in a very bad place indeed
If my child committed murder I would go to jail rather than testify.
You know, you're generally in the ethical clear when you simply tell the truth. I think you're over-complicating things... and that can be dangerous when it comes to morals.
The truth be told, the company was failing and he wanted to save is ass. The bottom line is still the influx of cash.
Which is commendable, and exactly what we want in an executive.
But the major cost from rising fuel prices is not in the gas you put into your car; it's transporting commodities. It's great that you took steps to cut your personal fuel consumption, but oranges are still going to cost more and more to be trucked up from Florida... and it doesn't matter how short your commute is.
Try reading up on trophic levels. Every additional step in the food chain represents about a 90% loss of efficiency, so the benefits of vegetarianism are far from negligible.
True, but I think the gp was referring to the trendy type of vegan that thinks everything should be organically grown. That's absolutely unfeasible on a global scale; it's only possible in trendy American stores because we are so damn rich. Organic vegan food is a massive luxury, and a waste, and (in my opinion) almost immoral.
The goal is to build a livable city that is energy efficient, non-polluting, and protects the wildlife in the area.
Seriously, I wonder what the real goal is?
I'm in Marketing. (Boo and Hiss at me all you want). And here's one thing I've learned, that most other marketers will never admit:
Very rarely can You budge consumer's buying patterns by more than 5 or 10 percent. In fact, a big marketing program is generally a definite success if it generates a 3-5% lift. If you're trying to sell things most customers don't want, it will almost always fail. That's all that I'm saying. The final arbiters of Blu-Ray success will be the consumer. All that the companies can do is nudge, prompt, and hope. Blu-Ray is an intermediate case. It does not offer a clear and obvious advantage, like DVD did; on the other hand, it isn't a horrendously bad product, like Divx; instead, it's a product with minor advantages, so it will most likely have slow and steady growth. It will eventually replace DVDs, unless something WITH significant advantages comes along and overtakes it. Maybe online distribution, but that's still several years off.
But it doesn't MATTER what your plans are.
It does matter, if most people have the same plan. Remember, most people decided to not plan on buying Divx disks from Circuit City, and... the plan worked. They went away.
Seriously, "I'm cheap and have no taste", Score 5: Informative. I'm glad that guy gave us his life story detailing his frugality, it really brought something to the conversation.
Do you have the ability to abstract a point out of an example? For instance... what if those details apply to many others? Is that possible, even likely? What if the majority of people are just as frugal? Would the Blu-Ray format be doomed, or just delayed?
I think the majority of people don't care enough to invest any substantial amount of money. I don't; I'll upgrade my media system in maybe five years, when I can get a HDTV for $300 and a bluray player for $50... and I'll skip the bluray player if the disks are still $25-$30 dollars.
As proof, look at broadcast HD cable. It's being compressed to the degree that much of the heightened visual quality is being lost, in favor of more channels. I think the consumer will speak, and their cry will be 'more channels, lower quality'. When the low-quality is still as good or better than DVD, why not?
Nah, I think those are the companies that get stuff done. In twenty years, everything the (new) CEO says will be vetted by the PR and legal departments, and the company will simply coast on slowly-decaying inertia until it dies.
By what means? How can one logically determine what one "should" do without an objective goal?
By finding goals that apply to all humans. There are some traits we all share, or else 'human' would be a nonsensical word.
Thread winner.
The Wiimote is a perfectly usable pc peripheral. It's a somewhat low-resolution mouse replacement with some neat extra features. But the motion sensors by themselves are not the wiimote's main feature; the pointer is, which requires the sensor bar. Since this Asus device doesn't have the sensor bar, it's going to be far reduced in practicality from the wiimote.
'Published Crypto' is going to be far, far safer than any super-secret unpublished crypto you might ever happen across. It's been vetted. Properly encrypted text, using even simple algorithms, is effectively unbreakable with a large enough key. The only way to break it is to find the key by social engineering, or by brute forcing it. There are no secret backdoors the NSA has... that's like claiming the NSA can square a circle with a compass and straightedge. It's a mathematical problem, and it is known that there is no shortcut. The NSA has code breaking computers, true... but the only real advantage they have is speed. Instead of a thousand years, maybe they'll only take months or weeks. Do you think the NSA is going to spend that computer power trying to see what warez you've stolen, or spy on the 'free Tibet' mailing list you're on?
If you respond, please don't use the phrase 'Zenlike ignorance' again. Use words with meanings.
And if Obama wins, we'll no doubt be very tired of all the Barack-hating that will be sweeping the nation in 2011.