The speed of light isn't a FEELING. It is obvious to me that apples are sweeter than potatoes. That FEELING is true, and scientific study can't prove or disprove that feeling. It can explain the feeling, quantify relative sugar amounts and so on, but it can't state that I'm not feeling what I'm feeling.
If it's to study "why men don't like condoms", as it is being widely reported, then yes, the study is a waste of money. The reason is obvious to anybody that's ever used one.
However, if the study is "how can we FIX what men don't like about condoms", then the study becomes very important, and might benefit society immensely. If a condom could be constructed that didn't impede feeling at all, there would be huge benefits, a great reduction in unwanted pregnancies.
Also, if they made one that felt BETTER, we could eliminate women altogether.
I agree. I wouldn't mind something like a flat twenty years. Artist dies, it goes to their heirs, for the duration. I also wouldn't mind something like 10 years + an optional renewal, but the less complicated the better.
I want to keep copyright, and I wouldn't want it to be extremely shortened... there really are some creative works that languish for several years before becoming hits. But if the duration was twenty years... hell, Pac-Man would be public domain now. Lord of the Rings. Indiana Jones. And that's ok... the creators of all those have certainly benefited. At some point they need to simply be recognized as part of our culture.
I desperately have a project that I want to do based on Edgar Rice Burrough's Mars series. Unfortunately, the series falls on the cusp of copyright extension; the first five books are out of copyright, the remaining six... who knows? Maybe they never will be. Also the names of the three major characters are trademarked by Burrough's heirs... which, as far as I can tell, can potentially exclude any use of them in derivative works FOREVER.
I'm not positive, but I anticipate a backlash against the Democrats in the 2010 elections for just this reason. I doubt it will be large enough to shift the balance, though. It almost seems like the Democrats are anticipating their period of ascendancy to be short, with the pace at which they are creating new laws, and reshaping our institutions and economy. I wish the Republicans had cut, trimmed, and scaled back as enthusiastically when they had total control... but they were too drunk on money and power, as well.
That's nonsensical. If that was true, the burden would have shifted to you the moment you challenged his challenge to the claim.
The key issue is that there is a fact in dispute. You initially asserted it's true, you have the burden of proof.
You're wrong, by the way. There is no guaranteed right that allows you to download a copy of an item you purchased. That's an urban myth, kind of like downloading a rom is ok if you delete it in 24 hours, or that you have to keep snippets of songs under 30 seconds to stay within fair use.
Does it REQUIRE OGSL capability? I've been a bit disappointed with the number of open-source games that require relatively cutting edge and expensive video hardware, with no fallback options. My current system only has drivers for OpenGL 1.4, which as far as I can tell doesn't support that capability.
I disagree. I think, pretty much, games are ALL art. Just like, pretty much, paintings are ALL art. They're crappy, poorly done art, granted. But QUALITY doesn't determine whether something is art or not. A beautiful painting is no more art than a painting done by a moody eleven year old girl. It just is better art.
I know a proper definition of art is hard to come by, but 'well done' certainly shouldn't be part of it. A piece of art is a creation (or recreaction) that filters some sort of sensibility or theme through the creator's perspective, and passes it on to the viewer to judge. If "Shadow of the Colossus" is art (and it sure as hell is), than "Pac-Man" is art. Much less ambitious art, but fundamentally it falls in the same category.
Yeah, those pictures are pretty obviously faked. In fairness, though, it's probably pretty much impossible to catch an image of the projected screen using flash photography. On the gripping hand, it's faked FAR better than it actually would look.
I once worked for an American cellular company and there was a website (a public one) which could be used to lookup information about any phone number/shrug
Did the site provide info about ALL phone numbers, or just the ones owned by that provider? Was it a 1-at-a-time number lookup, or did they allow a verification of 100,000 phone numbers in one big file? Maybe it would have been perfect, and we just never KNEW about it. That wouldn't surprise me. As I said, things were in flux.
Really though, a 'legitimate' telemarketing company should only be calling people they have an existing relationship with, not blanketing an area code or buying a list of phone numbers.
We never did cold calling. Even dealing with established customers doesn't mean that you know that a particular number is a land line, or that a number will stay a land line, or that the change of address you got included a switch from land to cell.
Calm your kneejerking. There was no cold calling; only customers with established business relationships were called. We contacted nobody from rented lists, we only contacted people who were customers or had inquired about products within the last 18 months.
We were legitimate in the sense that: We tried as hard as we could to stay within all laws, we honored completely every request a consumer made not to contact them, and we tried our best not to call a cell phone.
Every number we called, we already knew the person. But that doesn't mean that the number they provided us was a landline. Sometimes they didn't tell us, sometimes the number changed.
Firefox users should be thrilled as well, because if it shows up in Opera, it will show up in Firefox a year or two later, and be hailed as revolutionary.
The "Friends" dots appear in the middle of articles, and there's some sort of unresponsive grey boxes that look like they should expand or scroll when clicked that are scattered through, overlapping, the text of almost every comment. I know this is unrelated to the article, but I'm not sure how else to let Slashdot know their site is slowly becoming more and more broken.
I worked briefly for a mail order company that dabbled in [legitimate] telemarketing. The trouble is that the phone company won't provide information about whether a particular number is a cell phone or land line. You used to be able to tell, but after number portability went through, you had no way of knowing. We tried not to call them, and if we were told they were cell phones, we would mark them off and never call them again. However, it was impossible to be 100% sure; what was a land line last year could be a cell number this year..
At least that WAS the situation. Things were in rapid flux. I think the larger data warehouses are putting together lists of cell phone numbers, that you can buy and use to suppress those numbers out of your file; but they're not cheap, and they aren't complete.
I just barely agree. The shift to 3d from 2d can add to gameplay (and, can take away, as well). If you do have a 3d world, a certain amount of processing power is really necessary to build a scene that isn't so crudely rendered that it really does subtract from the gameplay.
However, I think the PS2, heck, the Dreamcast, hit the threshold of 'good enough' in that regard. I really don't believe that the additional power of the 360 and PS3 is being used to improve gameplay, to create larger worlds, to make better AI. I think Mass Effect (which is a great game) could have easily been published on the PS2 with pretty much not a single instance of changed gameplay... just less detailed models, simpler textures, fewer animations, and so forth. This is subjective, so tastes vary, but for me I could care less about the difference between standard and high def, or whether the control panel is a simple texture, or every button is an intricately and individually modeled.
If you stand in front of the natal, turn to the side, and then turn back facing it... how can it tell whether you turned back toward it or away from it? The body silhouette is the same. Would it actually be smart enough to tell that it's seeing your face, not the back of your head?
I think it's good tech, and Microsoft has been putting a lot of work into developing these sorts of innovative new interfaces; but it just seems like it will have a severely limited scope. Much like speech recognition is GREAT in a very small set of circumstances, and a nuisance in most others.
The biggest problems with Natal for a console that I see, is that any game with any depth at all will require that an additional controller be used. That's not really a problem, but makes it a little less exciting.
The Wii saved this gen, in my opinion, and may save next gen. Games for the PS3 and 360 are much like big, expensive summer blockbusters. Huge budget, impressive, technically proficient, and with little creativity and absolutely no risk. Games for the Wii are like direct-to-video movies. Cheap, generally crappy, but often entertaining and innovative.
Developers should be HOPING that the next gen follows the Wii pattern instead of the PS3 pattern. Except... maybe the big publishers view upping development costs as a way of eliminating their less-well-funded competition.
Right. A lot of comments aren't thinking through the setup that a consumer will have. Any Natal game will need to account for the fact that the TV may be a 19" sitting on a nightstand, in a room with barely enough room to take a step left and right.
Full body tracking will need to take into account that the tv needs to be viewed, and provide some way of moving and turning that aren't simply interpreting 1:1 the player's actions. Did you see the driving demo? Move your leg forward to accelerate, backward to break. That's fine, but it's NOT like driving. Maybe you can move around by pointing at the floor around you. That's fine, but now you're memorizing commands, which is just the equivalent to the 'waggle' that so many people complain about on the Wii.
It's great technology, and I think it plays on Microsoft's strength; they really can be a powerhouse developing software/hardware hybrids like this. But it's also going to have strong limitations.
Slashdot Mirror
The speed of light isn't a FEELING. It is obvious to me that apples are sweeter than potatoes. That FEELING is true, and scientific study can't prove or disprove that feeling. It can explain the feeling, quantify relative sugar amounts and so on, but it can't state that I'm not feeling what I'm feeling.
If it's to study "why men don't like condoms", as it is being widely reported, then yes, the study is a waste of money. The reason is obvious to anybody that's ever used one.
However, if the study is "how can we FIX what men don't like about condoms", then the study becomes very important, and might benefit society immensely. If a condom could be constructed that didn't impede feeling at all, there would be huge benefits, a great reduction in unwanted pregnancies.
Also, if they made one that felt BETTER, we could eliminate women altogether.
My g/f is oblivious to most things.
Girlfriends of slashdotters HAVE to be.
The article lumps up-converting DVD players in with HD-DVD.
Wow, that really does make the whole article completely pointless, and by extension this whole talkback.
I agree. I wouldn't mind something like a flat twenty years. Artist dies, it goes to their heirs, for the duration. I also wouldn't mind something like 10 years + an optional renewal, but the less complicated the better.
I want to keep copyright, and I wouldn't want it to be extremely shortened... there really are some creative works that languish for several years before becoming hits. But if the duration was twenty years... hell, Pac-Man would be public domain now. Lord of the Rings. Indiana Jones. And that's ok... the creators of all those have certainly benefited. At some point they need to simply be recognized as part of our culture.
I desperately have a project that I want to do based on Edgar Rice Burrough's Mars series. Unfortunately, the series falls on the cusp of copyright extension; the first five books are out of copyright, the remaining six... who knows? Maybe they never will be. Also the names of the three major characters are trademarked by Burrough's heirs... which, as far as I can tell, can potentially exclude any use of them in derivative works FOREVER.
I'm not positive, but I anticipate a backlash against the Democrats in the 2010 elections for just this reason. I doubt it will be large enough to shift the balance, though. It almost seems like the Democrats are anticipating their period of ascendancy to be short, with the pace at which they are creating new laws, and reshaping our institutions and economy. I wish the Republicans had cut, trimmed, and scaled back as enthusiastically when they had total control... but they were too drunk on money and power, as well.
You probably imagine that you're fair-minded, and without prejudice, don't you? It'll be a shock when you realize the truth.
Most insightful response I've seen in a long time, and I have no mod points.
That's nonsensical. If that was true, the burden would have shifted to you the moment you challenged his challenge to the claim.
The key issue is that there is a fact in dispute. You initially asserted it's true, you have the burden of proof.
You're wrong, by the way. There is no guaranteed right that allows you to download a copy of an item you purchased. That's an urban myth, kind of like downloading a rom is ok if you delete it in 24 hours, or that you have to keep snippets of songs under 30 seconds to stay within fair use.
Does it REQUIRE OGSL capability? I've been a bit disappointed with the number of open-source games that require relatively cutting edge and expensive video hardware, with no fallback options. My current system only has drivers for OpenGL 1.4, which as far as I can tell doesn't support that capability.
I'm not a zealot, and Javascript isn't that bad. I'd say the people that hate it are more unthinkingly zealous.
Javascript is MISUSED a lot, but hell, so is C.
Socialized Healthcare.
I disagree. I think, pretty much, games are ALL art. Just like, pretty much, paintings are ALL art. They're crappy, poorly done art, granted. But QUALITY doesn't determine whether something is art or not. A beautiful painting is no more art than a painting done by a moody eleven year old girl. It just is better art.
I know a proper definition of art is hard to come by, but 'well done' certainly shouldn't be part of it. A piece of art is a creation (or recreaction) that filters some sort of sensibility or theme through the creator's perspective, and passes it on to the viewer to judge. If "Shadow of the Colossus" is art (and it sure as hell is), than "Pac-Man" is art. Much less ambitious art, but fundamentally it falls in the same category.
Yeah, those pictures are pretty obviously faked. In fairness, though, it's probably pretty much impossible to catch an image of the projected screen using flash photography. On the gripping hand, it's faked FAR better than it actually would look.
I wish that I had mod points, and that you weren't an anonymous coward. We need less of you here.
I once worked for an American cellular company and there was a website (a public one) which could be used to lookup information about any phone number /shrug
Did the site provide info about ALL phone numbers, or just the ones owned by that provider? Was it a 1-at-a-time number lookup, or did they allow a verification of 100,000 phone numbers in one big file? Maybe it would have been perfect, and we just never KNEW about it. That wouldn't surprise me. As I said, things were in flux. Really though, a 'legitimate' telemarketing company should only be calling people they have an existing relationship with, not blanketing an area code or buying a list of phone numbers.
We never did cold calling. Even dealing with established customers doesn't mean that you know that a particular number is a land line, or that a number will stay a land line, or that the change of address you got included a switch from land to cell.
The person giving us the number did know. That doesn't mean they told us.
Calm your kneejerking. There was no cold calling; only customers with established business relationships were called. We contacted nobody from rented lists, we only contacted people who were customers or had inquired about products within the last 18 months.
We were legitimate in the sense that: We tried as hard as we could to stay within all laws, we honored completely every request a consumer made not to contact them, and we tried our best not to call a cell phone.
Every number we called, we already knew the person. But that doesn't mean that the number they provided us was a landline. Sometimes they didn't tell us, sometimes the number changed.
Firefox users should be thrilled as well, because if it shows up in Opera, it will show up in Firefox a year or two later, and be hailed as revolutionary.
So have I. Firefox 3.0.11, but I'm on Windows XP.
The "Friends" dots appear in the middle of articles, and there's some sort of unresponsive grey boxes that look like they should expand or scroll when clicked that are scattered through, overlapping, the text of almost every comment. I know this is unrelated to the article, but I'm not sure how else to let Slashdot know their site is slowly becoming more and more broken.
I worked briefly for a mail order company that dabbled in [legitimate] telemarketing. The trouble is that the phone company won't provide information about whether a particular number is a cell phone or land line. You used to be able to tell, but after number portability went through, you had no way of knowing. We tried not to call them, and if we were told they were cell phones, we would mark them off and never call them again. However, it was impossible to be 100% sure; what was a land line last year could be a cell number this year..
At least that WAS the situation. Things were in rapid flux. I think the larger data warehouses are putting together lists of cell phone numbers, that you can buy and use to suppress those numbers out of your file; but they're not cheap, and they aren't complete.
I just barely agree. The shift to 3d from 2d can add to gameplay (and, can take away, as well). If you do have a 3d world, a certain amount of processing power is really necessary to build a scene that isn't so crudely rendered that it really does subtract from the gameplay.
However, I think the PS2, heck, the Dreamcast, hit the threshold of 'good enough' in that regard. I really don't believe that the additional power of the 360 and PS3 is being used to improve gameplay, to create larger worlds, to make better AI. I think Mass Effect (which is a great game) could have easily been published on the PS2 with pretty much not a single instance of changed gameplay... just less detailed models, simpler textures, fewer animations, and so forth. This is subjective, so tastes vary, but for me I could care less about the difference between standard and high def, or whether the control panel is a simple texture, or every button is an intricately and individually modeled.
If you stand in front of the natal, turn to the side, and then turn back facing it... how can it tell whether you turned back toward it or away from it? The body silhouette is the same. Would it actually be smart enough to tell that it's seeing your face, not the back of your head?
I think it's good tech, and Microsoft has been putting a lot of work into developing these sorts of innovative new interfaces; but it just seems like it will have a severely limited scope. Much like speech recognition is GREAT in a very small set of circumstances, and a nuisance in most others.
The biggest problems with Natal for a console that I see, is that any game with any depth at all will require that an additional controller be used. That's not really a problem, but makes it a little less exciting.
The Wii saved this gen, in my opinion, and may save next gen. Games for the PS3 and 360 are much like big, expensive summer blockbusters. Huge budget, impressive, technically proficient, and with little creativity and absolutely no risk. Games for the Wii are like direct-to-video movies. Cheap, generally crappy, but often entertaining and innovative.
Developers should be HOPING that the next gen follows the Wii pattern instead of the PS3 pattern. Except... maybe the big publishers view upping development costs as a way of eliminating their less-well-funded competition.
Right. A lot of comments aren't thinking through the setup that a consumer will have. Any Natal game will need to account for the fact that the TV may be a 19" sitting on a nightstand, in a room with barely enough room to take a step left and right.
Full body tracking will need to take into account that the tv needs to be viewed, and provide some way of moving and turning that aren't simply interpreting 1:1 the player's actions. Did you see the driving demo? Move your leg forward to accelerate, backward to break. That's fine, but it's NOT like driving. Maybe you can move around by pointing at the floor around you. That's fine, but now you're memorizing commands, which is just the equivalent to the 'waggle' that so many people complain about on the Wii.
It's great technology, and I think it plays on Microsoft's strength; they really can be a powerhouse developing software/hardware hybrids like this. But it's also going to have strong limitations.