I've written this before, quite a while back, and I can't find the link, so I'll repeat myself.
Games developers, and individuals are designing new inovitive games, but publishers won't fund the development of anything that their market drones don't understand. Its simple, unless you can pitch an idea in 30 second "its like X but with Y from Z" style your lost.
Of course, the publishers would blaim the consumers - if they won't buy it we won't sell it. And they might be right. Don't ask why developers arn't making inovitive games, ask why the public aren't buying inovitive games.
Also, there is the factor that an origanal game takes longer to make, and is therefore more expensive, and higher risk. With 10% of the games taking 90% of the sales, thats not a risk many publishers are prepaired to take.
Or perhaps its the magazines faults. Reviewers are afraid to give good reviews to 'different' games, incase they get their reputation tarnished by a flop. Dito vice-versa with mainstream games. Reviewers don't want to pan a game and then see it become a huge hit. How humiliating. Editors want mainstream reviews to sell to joe public. Tell 'em what they wanna here. Quake 7 is great, so go buy it, then we can sell you the walkthrough. (And buy the way, Id, buy some advertising space - We've given you a great review!)
But then weve gone it a circle, and basically, its the publics fault again. So I ask you - when did you last buy an origanal, inovative game?
Dispite this beeing an obviouse troll, I'd like to retort, Hairy_Potter wrote:
what kind of fascination, wonderful games have come out of the UK, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, Crumpets III D, Bow to the King? Face it, just like every other facet of the computer world, American's make the best computer games
X-COM, Magic & Mayhem, Creatures 1,2 & 3. And their just the ones from the companies I've worked for. The UK is also the home of The Bitmap Brothers, Codemasters, Psygnosis, Bullfrog, Rare, SCI, Muckyfoot, Jeff Crammond, and more (my co-workers are realing them off faster than I can type!).
I can assert from experience, as both an exibitior, and a visitor, that the ECTS is nothing but shiny things, flashing lights, loud noises, lies, and small women with large brests.
So there is something to see, if thats what you want to see, but its not what it claims to be, and the show has absolutly no connection with the real world.
Yours, A cynical, jaded, developer,
Also drug dealers usually offer great deals for first-time buyers, then once they have a steady customer who's come to depend on them they start
the gouging.
Are you talking from experience? Or are you wheeling out old propoganda?
I would imagine, that your average scag head is especially unhappy when prices go up. S/he'd be used to getting her 5$ bag, I'd say a dealers much more likly to stiff on quantity or quality than price, and then who's going to be the biggest sucker, the new kid who's "trying it out", or the old mess-head thats done more dope than Cypress Hill? - No your analogy is poor.
Amazon (et al) on the other hand are in a much better possition to shuffle prices as the see fit. If someone shops there regular it would not be hard to write a learning algorythm (GA, NN, whatever) that fiddles the prices on the "recomended reading" list to maxamises its profit.
I could do it in a weekend... and, Amazon, if your listening, for, say - ten grand, UKP, I will.:)
a federal jury found that Microsoft had violated Connecticut's unfair-trade practices act, but awarded Bristol damages of just $1
Thats right the jury awarded just one dollar. It was the judge that set the $1 million, at a later date (after appeal?).
There something weird going on here, and I'm not sure I like it. What makes a jury award such a small amount of compensation that a Judge has to overule it later down the line.
Q-7: What does the average/.'er give back to the open source community?
A-7: Some code, perhaps a few low- to medium-profile Linux-based products, and evangalism in the market.
I'm not sure I agree with that. Don't get me wrong, while some/.'ers do a lot, I would not say they where average.
I would say that the average/.er probably controbutes a lot of hot air, perhaps a bug report or two and maybe a low profile toy project. Only a very small % of Linux users controbute code, and/. isn't Linux exclusive.
I've often had a device run out of batteries in a place where I didn't have a chance to recharge the device for several hours or days, leaving me in trouble.
On top of that, li-ion batteries will die completely after a few years (2-3 maybe) after which your device is totally useless.
My PalmV has never run flat, even up to a few weeks away from the charger, not that it often needs to be away from the charger, which has a switchable socket types (mine - UK & Europe). You and it only needs to be charged for a few hours a day to keep it full under heavy use. You got time to sleep? Then you've got time to charge!
As for them conking out after a few years, I don't know if thats true, but if it is then all the better. My PalmV came with a 5 year all inclusive garranttee (which I've already used once when a button broke while I was developing a game) so I'll get a new one!
This "problem" isnt restricted to christian theology, its a classic philosophical problem and applies to everyone.
How do you know that what your percieve is real? What for that matter is "real"?
What follows is an section of an essey I wrote a long time ago that touches on this subject. Enjoy!
A sceptical philosopher could argue that we cannot trust our senses, as there is no way to verify what we see, hear, smell, and feel. Who hasn't mistaken an innocent silhouette for something more sinister? Or awoken to discover that what you thought was real was in fact a dream? If it is that the things and people around us don't exist then they can't have minds, and we are alone. But say for a moment that we can trust our senses (for even if we cannot trust our senses there is nothing we can do about it, so why not continue living our lives as if we can?) and that those around us are not figments of our imaginations, then their presence and behaviour must confirm the existence of their minds. Not so, consider computers, I have seen a program that takes typed sentences and reorders them into questions, for a while it quite convincingly mimics a psychiatrist. Computers are just machines, and no one I know would argue that they, or this program has a mind. It is quite possible (although quite hideous) that - as I mentioned in my last essay - everything around one is also just a machine, a complex set of mechanisms that mimics a conscious mind, but even if other people are biologically the same as us what is to say the have minds? Conversely we may be surrounded by many, many, more minds than we ever considered, who is to say a cat does not consider the meaning of life as it dozes by the fire, that a cow does not ponder the meaning of goodness, or even the bee as it buzzes from flower to flower, may be thinking about the mind / body problem, and a tree may for all we know spend the day wondering at the might of the sun.
Of course parents want to reduce the effort it takes to raise a child. It natural, its evolution. The less energy expended in child rearing, the more childeren a parent can afford to have. The more childrern a person has the more there genes are propergated (and the more impressionable minds they get to enfuse with there ideoligys).
of course those icons on web pages sure don't get
any more legible.
Opera lets you zoom in and out, a feature which once used, is soarly missed.
Isn't it about time more browsers had this? Are there any plans for Mozilla to include this functionality?
With difference between the top end and bottom end of display technology, and the tendancy of (less skilled?) web designers to create "best viewed in NxN" sites, html viewing software neads to be deisgned to cope with these differences.
There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.
(Score:0) Troll
Godamn stupid moderator. Its not a troll. Its a quote, its a witticism, and its a truism. I didn't think it was nessesery to explain, and no one had pointed out, that this kind of reporting by statisistic is quite flawed, and should be taken with a pinch of salt. But of course, out of context even the Meta Moderators are going to agree...
I had a friend with a cool wool trenchcoat. I told him I liked his coat, and he said that he got it from U.S. Cavalry for $7. Wow! So I went online and bought one. Two, actually.
why can't we have an Open Source project that isn't based around some form of Linux or a POSIX kernel?
Who is "we"?
This is probably the key to your question, by expecting an imaganary "open source" community to take your project of choice and blast it into the stratosphere, you are creating unreasonable expectations.
You are looking at the headline *NIX Open Source projects, so of course you can't find anything else. Most non *NIX platforms don't have an open source community, they have freeware, and shareware, but not free open source.
Nothing stops you from starting your own open source project. Just don't expect people to support you if you don't toe the party line.
PocketIFS is an open source fractal hacking tool for the PalmOS. It has receaved favorable reviews, one bug report, and not a single line of code from anyone but me. (Perhaps because it Just Works).
They are just orders of magnitude more expensive than polygons, that's all.
No they are not. They are significantly less expensive than polygons.
The problem is that a single voxel only models a single point in 3d space, where as a polygon can model a whole surface. Using voxels can be more expensive than using polygons because you often need many more of them to model a given subject (when viewed close up).
This development is signficant because voxels come into their own when viewed from such a distance that a single voxel/polygon is reduced to a few pixels or less. For example, landscape rendering. This development gives the developer the flexability to render voxels in the distance, and switch to polygons (which provide more detailed visul information, but are more expensive to render) for close to the cammera.
Slashdot Mirror
Thad
Games developers, and individuals are designing new inovitive games, but publishers won't fund the development of anything that their market drones don't understand. Its simple, unless you can pitch an idea in 30 second "its like X but with Y from Z" style your lost.
Of course, the publishers would blaim the consumers - if they won't buy it we won't sell it. And they might be right. Don't ask why developers arn't making inovitive games, ask why the public aren't buying inovitive games.
Also, there is the factor that an origanal game takes longer to make, and is therefore more expensive, and higher risk. With 10% of the games taking 90% of the sales, thats not a risk many publishers are prepaired to take.
Or perhaps its the magazines faults. Reviewers are afraid to give good reviews to 'different' games, incase they get their reputation tarnished by a flop. Dito vice-versa with mainstream games. Reviewers don't want to pan a game and then see it become a huge hit. How humiliating. Editors want mainstream reviews to sell to joe public. Tell 'em what they wanna here. Quake 7 is great, so go buy it, then we can sell you the walkthrough. (And buy the way, Id, buy some advertising space - We've given you a great review!)
But then weve gone it a circle, and basically, its the publics fault again. So I ask you - when did you last buy an origanal, inovative game?
Thad
Thad
So there is something to see, if thats what you want to see, but its not what it claims to be, and the show has absolutly no connection with the real world. Yours, A cynical, jaded, developer,
Thad
I would imagine, that your average scag head is especially unhappy when prices go up. S/he'd be used to getting her 5$ bag, I'd say a dealers much more likly to stiff on quantity or quality than price, and then who's going to be the biggest sucker, the new kid who's "trying it out", or the old mess-head thats done more dope than Cypress Hill? - No your analogy is poor.
Amazon (et al) on the other hand are in a much better possition to shuffle prices as the see fit. If someone shops there regular it would not be hard to write a learning algorythm (GA, NN, whatever) that fiddles the prices on the "recomended reading" list to maxamises its profit.
I could do it in a weekend ... and, Amazon, if your listening, for, say - ten grand, UKP, I will. :)
Thad
I'd recomend you check out John Marshall's comment for more info...
Thad
There something weird going on here, and I'm not sure I like it. What makes a jury award such a small amount of compensation that a Judge has to overule it later down the line.
Thad
Thad
I would say that the average /.er probably controbutes a lot of hot air, perhaps a bug report or two and maybe a low profile toy project. Only a very small % of Linux users controbute code, and /. isn't Linux exclusive.
Thad
As for them conking out after a few years, I don't know if thats true, but if it is then all the better. My PalmV came with a 5 year all inclusive garranttee (which I've already used once when a button broke while I was developing a game) so I'll get a new one!
Thad
;)
Thad
How do you know that what your percieve is real? What for that matter is "real"?
What follows is an section of an essey I wrote a long time ago that touches on this subject. Enjoy!
More of the same can be found here.Thad
Thad
Isn't it about time more browsers had this? Are there any plans for Mozilla to include this functionality?
With difference between the top end and bottom end of display technology, and the tendancy of (less skilled?) web designers to create "best viewed in NxN" sites, html viewing software neads to be deisgned to cope with these differences.
Thad
Thad
Thad
Then port Linux to it.
Thad
Thad
Damnit.
Thad
This is probably the key to your question, by expecting an imaganary "open source" community to take your project of choice and blast it into the stratosphere, you are creating unreasonable expectations.
You are looking at the headline *NIX Open Source projects, so of course you can't find anything else. Most non *NIX platforms don't have an open source community, they have freeware, and shareware, but not free open source.
Nothing stops you from starting your own open source project. Just don't expect people to support you if you don't toe the party line.
PocketIFS is an open source fractal hacking tool for the PalmOS. It has receaved favorable reviews, one bug report, and not a single line of code from anyone but me. (Perhaps because it Just Works).
Thad
- RCX
- LegOS (C/C++)
- Lego::RCX.pm (Perl)
- Not Quite C
- pbForth
- TinyVM & leJOS (java)
- TCL RCX
Wow I suck.You try to make a car, but end up with a speed boat. But you don't care. its a really cool speadboat!
After months of development your lego car starts quickly, but then grows so big it crushes you. And crashes.
After half an hours hacking you have a dune buggy that works. Unfortunatly further development is impossable.
After months of development you realise its not quite feasable.
you lego build
Your lego car works everywhere, but its quicker to walk.
Your car doesn't work, but if it did you could control it remotly with a pretty GUI
Thad
The problem is that a single voxel only models a single point in 3d space, where as a polygon can model a whole surface. Using voxels can be more expensive than using polygons because you often need many more of them to model a given subject (when viewed close up).
This development is signficant because voxels come into their own when viewed from such a distance that a single voxel/polygon is reduced to a few pixels or less. For example, landscape rendering. This development gives the developer the flexability to render voxels in the distance, and switch to polygons (which provide more detailed visul information, but are more expensive to render) for close to the cammera.
Thad
But that was early days. What did we know then.
Thad
It can scramble the IP (return address) so that its users don't get "wacked" in revenge.
They are selling it to other spammers.
They know its "wrong" and that people will fight back, and they don't give a damn.
This may contaminate the gnutella filespace with junk, and "we" don't like that.
Thad
The Power Puff Girls is an ironic work of post modern genius. If you think its juts for kids, then you've missed the point.
Thad