Blindsight is my new favorite book after 3 reads this year. Outstanding hard science fiction, very well written, fun to read, incredibly smart and well researched, and truly scary and thought provoking.
I love Look Around You. It's a nonsense-filled educational program spoof about science. Cartoon Network showed the second season in their Adult Swim lineup a couple years ago. The first and second seasons have different formats and intros and music, and the "next episode" bits allude to shows that don't exist. Series 1 episodes are shorter and more abstract "in the classroom" type videos. Series 2 are longer format documentaries with recurring reporters and subjects and running gags (like the goofy giant vault doors).
Spoilers: my favorite bits are Maths (season 1), Music (season 2, with the Little Mouse music video), Health (season 2, fairly horrifying) and Computer Games (season 2) with the worlds smartest computer which they challenge to escape from a cage and then find that at the end it has replaced itself with a paper mache decoy.
All this shows is a lack of imagination in control design. Obviously a mouse lets you point more quickly and accurately, but the fact that this alone gives you an advantage means they should add more articulation to the aiming and firing simulation models. Great action games require more strategy and quick thinking than lesser ones, and getting away from twitch-dependent control is a step in that direction.
I'm ready for FPS games that let you mouse-look as quickly as you like, but have a natural delay and some extra finesse to line up shots and compensate for recoil and player movement due to the physical model (it takes time to accelerate, move, decelerate,.and aim a weapon). In other words, model FPS characters more like tank games where turret speed and vehicle movement are factors. Decouple looking speed from aiming speed!
Anticipation is more fun than instant gratification feedback alone.
Brute force search of the entire problem space is not an ALGORITHM breakthrough. This is a measure of hardware and how "embarrassingly parallel" the problem is.
is to always ask the chef! A good chef has hand picked the ingredients, knows their suppliers, and will make superior recommendations because they know what is freshest. This is also why you should prefer to sit at the bar.
I strongly recommend reading "The Zen of Fish: The Story of Sushi, from Samurai to Supermarket" by Trevor Corson.
My local sushi joint closed this summer due to the down economy after a great 5 years. I was their best customer. I'm still in mourning (or withdrawal).
Derek Smart was screwed on BC3k by his publisher who dumped it out the door unfinished and broken. He filed a lawsuit against them for the rights to it and settled out of court. Smart is still in business making his own games more than 10 years later.
You don't have to like D.S. or his games, but serious gamers, indies, and solo devs have lots of respect for him.
The one thing I missed most from all the old software rendered games is how distinctive their visuals are. When everything shifted to hardware the look of 3d games became very uniform, only to slowly differentiate with improving art and tech as time went on. The new programmable hardware again allows more freedom in rendering approaches, and now the top end engines are effectively all specialized shader pipelines. After 5-10 years of very homogenous looking games it's a most welcome change.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe you've heard of him Slashdot?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing
"Technology implies belligerence." - Blindsight, by Peter Watts.
http://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm
Blindsight is my new favorite book after 3 reads this year. Outstanding hard science fiction, very well written, fun to read, incredibly smart and well researched, and truly scary and thought provoking.
Parenthood does not reduce his eligibility for a Darwin Award! Read the rules.
Interstellar travel could grant us an extended stay, but our eventual extinction is still virtually certain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_extinction
Mod parent up, and where the hell are all my mod points this year? I used to be swamped with them.
Does reading books also cause obesity?
America is sugar addicted and everything we eat has corn syrup and corn starch.
By showing people what war is really like we may be less inclined to support unnecessary or optional wars in the future.
The sooner we see horrors of war for what they really are, the better.
and it's all on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=look+around+you
I love Look Around You. It's a nonsense-filled educational program spoof about science. Cartoon Network showed the second season in their Adult Swim lineup a couple years ago. The first and second seasons have different formats and intros and music, and the "next episode" bits allude to shows that don't exist. Series 1 episodes are shorter and more abstract "in the classroom" type videos. Series 2 are longer format documentaries with recurring reporters and subjects and running gags (like the goofy giant vault doors).
Spoilers: my favorite bits are Maths (season 1), Music (season 2, with the Little Mouse music video), Health (season 2, fairly horrifying) and Computer Games (season 2) with the worlds smartest computer which they challenge to escape from a cage and then find that at the end it has replaced itself with a paper mache decoy.
Thanks ants. Thants.
All this shows is a lack of imagination in control design. Obviously a mouse lets you point more quickly and accurately, but the fact that this alone gives you an advantage means they should add more articulation to the aiming and firing simulation models. Great action games require more strategy and quick thinking than lesser ones, and getting away from twitch-dependent control is a step in that direction.
I'm ready for FPS games that let you mouse-look as quickly as you like, but have a natural delay and some extra finesse to line up shots and compensate for recoil and player movement due to the physical model (it takes time to accelerate, move, decelerate,.and aim a weapon). In other words, model FPS characters more like tank games where turret speed and vehicle movement are factors. Decouple looking speed from aiming speed!
Anticipation is more fun than instant gratification feedback alone.
Linus is monolithic.
Now they should try a health care bill.
http://discovermagazine.com/2010/mar/02-the-real-rules-for-time-travelers/article_print
Technical approaches do not solve social problems.
There is a trivial way to resolve illegal downloading.
Legalize it.
Brute force search of the entire problem space is not an ALGORITHM breakthrough. This is a measure of hardware and how "embarrassingly parallel" the problem is.
Perhaps Sherman Alexie would like to pay a license fee for their continued use of the idea of artistic ownership.
is to always ask the chef! A good chef has hand picked the ingredients, knows their suppliers, and will make superior recommendations because they know what is freshest. This is also why you should prefer to sit at the bar.
I strongly recommend reading "The Zen of Fish: The Story of Sushi, from Samurai to Supermarket" by Trevor Corson.
My local sushi joint closed this summer due to the down economy after a great 5 years. I was their best customer. I'm still in mourning (or withdrawal).
You should really just dump Acrobat and get Foxit Reader instead.
is to not gamble at all.
Games aren't for non-gamers.
Exactly my thoughts. Pretty much anything with ads can be improved by their removal.
Excite Truck and Excitebots are excellent. It's games like those, Mercury, Zack & Wiki, and Boom Blox that make the Wii worth owning.
As your name implies, this is a bad analogy.
Derek Smart was screwed on BC3k by his publisher who dumped it out the door unfinished and broken. He filed a lawsuit against them for the rights to it and settled out of court. Smart is still in business making his own games more than 10 years later.
You don't have to like D.S. or his games, but serious gamers, indies, and solo devs have lots of respect for him.
The original Alien is still the best by a long shot.
The one thing I missed most from all the old software rendered games is how distinctive their visuals are. When everything shifted to hardware the look of 3d games became very uniform, only to slowly differentiate with improving art and tech as time went on. The new programmable hardware again allows more freedom in rendering approaches, and now the top end engines are effectively all specialized shader pipelines. After 5-10 years of very homogenous looking games it's a most welcome change.
I really wish my TV had per-channel volume adjustment. Loudness abuse is seriously annoying.