Are you serious? I have an out of state business trip in three weeks time halfway across the country. My company is sending me by plane. You *don't* always have a choice.
Besides, what happens when they decide to place cameras every 100 yds along major roads, scanning for "suspicious" faces? Are you going to tell me then, "Well, you can always just walk." The question is not whether or not we can *travel*. The question is whether or not anyone has the right to collect and maintain detailed information about me (as a law-abiding citizen) without my knowledge or consent. The circumstances under which that information is gathered is immaterial.
I agree completely. Follow through is the single most important thing you can have as a creator, regardless of your medium. In regards to game development, the real trick is finishing a project before you start the next one. It doesn't matter if you have a vision in which the One True Game is laid out before you. Finish your current project, within it's original scope first.
Anyone of a certain level of intelligence can learn to write code. The real test is whether or not you can actually make the game you set out to make.
What you say is true, but you could also say the same thing about all the beat-um-up games... first person shooters... any other game type True, but in this case, the Wiimote is giving you a simulcra of the actual activity (in this case, swordfighting). When you're actively participating in an activity (vs control using an abstract control scheme) it's much more frustrating when your on screen avatar doesn't match what you're trying to do. I'm thinking in particular about the Boxing game packaged in Wii Sports here. My father is a fairly decent boxer in real life and he became frustrated almost immediately with the Wii boxing game because it couldn't match his movements.
It's one thing to have an abstract control scheme providing a simplified set of options to you. We understand that you cannot convey a full range of activity through a couple of thumbsticks and a handful of buttons. But when an interface is apparently trying to give you that level of immersion, too much disconnect between your actions and those of your avatar can create frustration.
I wonder how they've approached making this work. Physics of swordplay aside, sword fighting is not easy. (Hint, *real* swordfighting doesn't look like the movies, and you can't pick it up in a couple afternoons swinging sticks at your friends.) If their simulation of sword movements is true to how each player is swinging their Wiimote, I think people may get frustrated very quickly by the fact that they're going to suck. On the other hand, if the controls are simplified to allow a preset handful of attacks, I wonder how much depth they can provide to the game.
They used the TASER to subdue him without twisting arms other more forceful methods. The thing is, in most states, police are *required* to use joint locks and other physical methods way before they are supposed to even consider using a taser. Why? Because Tasers *can* kill people. That much electrical current can disrupt your heart and cause cardiac arrest. At worst, a joint lock may dislocate (or, rarely, break) a joint if the victim is really resisting. While certainly painful, it's a *hell* of a lot less likely to kill a person than tasering them.
The point is, though, that the police do not have the authority - even when someone is twisting and panicking during arrest - to taser him until he presents a danger to those around him. Mr. Meyer was not lashing out at the police, he was not trying to strike them or otherwise injure them. He *was* resisting arrest, but not violently.
Finally, have you ever been tasered? I can assure you, it hurts *much* worse than a properly applied joint-lock. What the police did was deliberately inflict serious pain with a potentially lethal weapon on a man who was very nearly under their control - for their own convenience, not safety.
And I know that I run that risk, but these guys actually do seem to know what they're doing. I've worked for sinking ships before (in, admittedly, an unrelated field) and it felt different. The real point though, is that I took this job over several others which offered *better* pay (because I didn't want to move if I didn't have to and also, playing with giant robots rocks). I had other options with companies which were already established. They were just more boring than this one. 8^)
For where I'm living now, cost of living is pretty low. I rent a 3 bedroom duplex apartment for just under $500/mo, heating included. So, for around here, I consider anything in the neighborhood of $50,000/year a decent salary. Obviously, this wouldn't be the case if I were in CA or somewhere else people generally want to live. 8^) All told though, I do make a good living. After car/rent/credit payments, more than 60% of my income still goes to "Misc."
It's the guy just getting out of high school or college in the last 10 years and the next 6 that is the real question Just for the record, I graduated Jan 2007 with a Bachelors of CS degree from Utah State University, with a 2.8 GPA. My point is that, I *am* that guy. I just graduated, I had little (6 mos) professional programming experience, and neither my school nor my GPA are particularly advantageous. I still found plenty of people who wanted to pay me a decent salary.
Meh. I'm not too worried about my future as a programmer, honestly. Right now, the industry (like many others just coming to terms with globalization) seems to be undergoing some growing pains, but most of the hiring managers I've talked to (or heard from) are all saying the same thing - those outsourced jobs may be cheap on the surface, but they cost too much in re-training.
If outsourcing firms cannot do the job they were hired for, it doesn't matter how damn cheap their salaries are. Most of the businesses trying to use this form of (apparently) cheap labor are either going out of business or rehiring experienced programmers at the appropriate salaries - in the long run it still costs less to it right than to do it over.
Finally, I happen to have the good fortune to work in the robotics industry. There are some analysts who project the robotics industry will become as big as the car industry - within the next ten years. Currently, the company I'm with (a ~10yr old "startup") has about 30 programmers on staff. If an entire, gigantic industry does form in the next handful of years, you can bet they'll need plenty of people handy with code.
This is (IMHO) exactly what the *IAA is doing. They don't need to catch everyone, they only need to catch and publicly punish enough people hard enough to dissuade other people from doing the same thing. People's sense of self-preservation (tickled via paranoia) is often enough to police them.
There once was a music exec
Who thought to himself, "What the heck.
We'll remix these singles
And sell them as 'ringles'!"
And music fans muttered "Aw, feck."
As a long time gamer, I'm not entirely sold on the Xbox 360. It seems to me that Microsoft is tying their console so closely to their Games for Windows / DX10 effort that I am willing to bet that many games for the 360 will turn up on PC as well. Also, I think the PS3's hardware provides more potential for future development. (Whether or not game studios will be able to take advantage of that potential is another issue altogether.)
I'm not a Sony fanboi, I waited in line for my Wii and ignored the PS3 launch completely. I want my games to be fun, not just pretty. (Which probably explains the old Atari 2600 in my living room) But I see interesting things in the PS3's future that I don't think the 360 will be able to match.
As improbable as it sounds, you pretty much hit the nail on the head. Political lobbyists represent the interests of their clients to various politicians. They can also provide campaign contributions to politicians running for office - which is, if not outright bribery, is definitely within spitting distance. This is the source of much controversy. You can learn more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_lobbying
I suppose they use the word "piracy" because it sounds more evil than "data duplication."
Ye gods and little fishes, I'd settle for them using "copyright infringement" instead of "piracy." If they need it to sound more evil, they could hire one of those deep-voiced announcer guys that does the voice-overs for MPAA previews.
Prosecutor: "Your honor, we intend to prove that the defendant is guilty of..." *snaps fingers*
Announcer Guy: COPYRIGHT... INFRINGMENT
Juror: Oooh... That sounds evil.
Actually, I teach European Broadsword fighting and watching the major muscle groups does help a great deal, so I can see where you're coming from with this. But it only goes so far. Certainly, you can learn to predict what your opponent is about to do by watching muscle groups - but it's not a guarantee. You *can* deliberately mess with such a predictive system quite easily, once you know which muscle groups tense properly, of course. The more common scenario, however, is when the aggressor simply changes their mind just after starting an attack - for instance, suddenly realizing that a low strike would be a better idea than a high one will cause a rapid change in direction, but the initial tensing may have indicated a high attack.
I'm not suggesting that a pilot, say, would deliberately try to psych out his plane, but honestly, you can't be *sure* what someone is going to do until they do it. I don't feel comfortable trusting any sort of important system to an anticipating program. If it guesses wrong, you're hosed. The biggest problem I see is that it doesn't have any external model of the world. All it can do is look at the human and try to take it's cues from them. If the pilot suddenly tenses, it may just be that a stewardess came into the cockpit unexpectedly, but the plane may think he just saw a mountain and needs to pull up sharply.
They're not really predicting the player's actions here, are they. In their game, you're just timing a jump. Given that the swinging vines are only near enough to jump between some part of the time, they're just predicting which opportunity the player will try for the jump on. Since they're measuring skin conductivity and the player has usually decided to jump some time before the timing is perfect, these results don't really surprise me. All they've done is train a neural network to measure stress levels well enough to predict when someone is about to take a risky action - in this case, jumping their avatar between vines.
The very definition of faith is to believe in something without any proof to support that belief.
I know it's somewhat pedantic, but by your definition we only have faith in science. I think what you meant was that faith is believing in something without any evidence to support that belief.
However, that's not the case either. I'm also unabashedly a believer in God, but I also believe in evolution (*gasp* How can that be?! All believers are fundamentalist nutjobs! I saw it on/.!) and other various and sundry natural forces explained to us by science. I see no real conflict between my faith and science. I personally believe that no God would have given His creation the ability to reason about the natural world and then expected it not to use said ability. As Galileo put it: "I refuse to believe that the God who saw fit to give Man reason intended him to forgo its use!".
Here's the thing. The evidence for my belief in God is specific to me. I have prayed and felt my prayers answered. Unfortunately, that's not something which can be easily reproduced by the scientific method. That's fine by me. I feel no need to prove my beliefs to others. But to argue that religion is fundamentally conflicted with science is to misunderstand religion.
"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." -A. Einstein
Interestingly enough, shortly before he died, an audio version of the entire quintology (not sure if I'm making that word up) was put together. The final set (The "Quintessential Phase") actually does end on an upbeat note - if a bit ham-handedly.
I'd post spoilers, but I'm lazy. 8^P Suffice it to say that all the main characters survive and it is implied that they live happily ever after - except Marvin who can't help it.
Slashdot Mirror
Are you serious? I have an out of state business trip in three weeks time halfway across the country. My company is sending me by plane. You *don't* always have a choice.
Besides, what happens when they decide to place cameras every 100 yds along major roads, scanning for "suspicious" faces? Are you going to tell me then, "Well, you can always just walk." The question is not whether or not we can *travel*. The question is whether or not anyone has the right to collect and maintain detailed information about me (as a law-abiding citizen) without my knowledge or consent. The circumstances under which that information is gathered is immaterial.
I agree completely. Follow through is the single most important thing you can have as a creator, regardless of your medium. In regards to game development, the real trick is finishing a project before you start the next one. It doesn't matter if you have a vision in which the One True Game is laid out before you. Finish your current project, within it's original scope first.
Anyone of a certain level of intelligence can learn to write code. The real test is whether or not you can actually make the game you set out to make.
It's one thing to have an abstract control scheme providing a simplified set of options to you. We understand that you cannot convey a full range of activity through a couple of thumbsticks and a handful of buttons. But when an interface is apparently trying to give you that level of immersion, too much disconnect between your actions and those of your avatar can create frustration.
I wonder how they've approached making this work. Physics of swordplay aside, sword fighting is not easy. (Hint, *real* swordfighting doesn't look like the movies, and you can't pick it up in a couple afternoons swinging sticks at your friends.) If their simulation of sword movements is true to how each player is swinging their Wiimote, I think people may get frustrated very quickly by the fact that they're going to suck. On the other hand, if the controls are simplified to allow a preset handful of attacks, I wonder how much depth they can provide to the game.
The point is, though, that the police do not have the authority - even when someone is twisting and panicking during arrest - to taser him until he presents a danger to those around him. Mr. Meyer was not lashing out at the police, he was not trying to strike them or otherwise injure them. He *was* resisting arrest, but not violently.
Finally, have you ever been tasered? I can assure you, it hurts *much* worse than a properly applied joint-lock. What the police did was deliberately inflict serious pain with a potentially lethal weapon on a man who was very nearly under their control - for their own convenience, not safety.
Slashdot: Yay!
And I know that I run that risk, but these guys actually do seem to know what they're doing. I've worked for sinking ships before (in, admittedly, an unrelated field) and it felt different. The real point though, is that I took this job over several others which offered *better* pay (because I didn't want to move if I didn't have to and also, playing with giant robots rocks). I had other options with companies which were already established. They were just more boring than this one. 8^)
For where I'm living now, cost of living is pretty low. I rent a 3 bedroom duplex apartment for just under $500/mo, heating included. So, for around here, I consider anything in the neighborhood of $50,000/year a decent salary. Obviously, this wouldn't be the case if I were in CA or somewhere else people generally want to live. 8^) All told though, I do make a good living. After car/rent/credit payments, more than 60% of my income still goes to "Misc."
Meh. I'm not too worried about my future as a programmer, honestly. Right now, the industry (like many others just coming to terms with globalization) seems to be undergoing some growing pains, but most of the hiring managers I've talked to (or heard from) are all saying the same thing - those outsourced jobs may be cheap on the surface, but they cost too much in re-training.
If outsourcing firms cannot do the job they were hired for, it doesn't matter how damn cheap their salaries are. Most of the businesses trying to use this form of (apparently) cheap labor are either going out of business or rehiring experienced programmers at the appropriate salaries - in the long run it still costs less to it right than to do it over.
Finally, I happen to have the good fortune to work in the robotics industry. There are some analysts who project the robotics industry will become as big as the car industry - within the next ten years. Currently, the company I'm with (a ~10yr old "startup") has about 30 programmers on staff. If an entire, gigantic industry does form in the next handful of years, you can bet they'll need plenty of people handy with code.
This is (IMHO) exactly what the *IAA is doing. They don't need to catch everyone, they only need to catch and publicly punish enough people hard enough to dissuade other people from doing the same thing. People's sense of self-preservation (tickled via paranoia) is often enough to police them.
There once was a music exec
Who thought to himself, "What the heck.
We'll remix these singles
And sell them as 'ringles'!"
And music fans muttered "Aw, feck."
As a long time gamer, I'm not entirely sold on the Xbox 360. It seems to me that Microsoft is tying their console so closely to their Games for Windows / DX10 effort that I am willing to bet that many games for the 360 will turn up on PC as well. Also, I think the PS3's hardware provides more potential for future development. (Whether or not game studios will be able to take advantage of that potential is another issue altogether.)
I'm not a Sony fanboi, I waited in line for my Wii and ignored the PS3 launch completely. I want my games to be fun, not just pretty. (Which probably explains the old Atari 2600 in my living room) But I see interesting things in the PS3's future that I don't think the 360 will be able to match.
Just my $.02
As improbable as it sounds, you pretty much hit the nail on the head. Political lobbyists represent the interests of their clients to various politicians. They can also provide campaign contributions to politicians running for office - which is, if not outright bribery, is definitely within spitting distance. This is the source of much controversy. You can learn more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_lobbying
Ye gods and little fishes, I'd settle for them using "copyright infringement" instead of "piracy." If they need it to sound more evil, they could hire one of those deep-voiced announcer guys that does the voice-overs for MPAA previews.
Prosecutor: "Your honor, we intend to prove that the defendant is guilty of..." *snaps fingers*
Announcer Guy: COPYRIGHT... INFRINGMENT
Juror: Oooh... That sounds evil.
Nah... He's just a complete twat.
I'm not suggesting that a pilot, say, would deliberately try to psych out his plane, but honestly, you can't be *sure* what someone is going to do until they do it. I don't feel comfortable trusting any sort of important system to an anticipating program. If it guesses wrong, you're hosed. The biggest problem I see is that it doesn't have any external model of the world. All it can do is look at the human and try to take it's cues from them. If the pilot suddenly tenses, it may just be that a stewardess came into the cockpit unexpectedly, but the plane may think he just saw a mountain and needs to pull up sharply.
Makes me nervous.
They're not really predicting the player's actions here, are they. In their game, you're just timing a jump. Given that the swinging vines are only near enough to jump between some part of the time, they're just predicting which opportunity the player will try for the jump on. Since they're measuring skin conductivity and the player has usually decided to jump some time before the timing is perfect, these results don't really surprise me. All they've done is train a neural network to measure stress levels well enough to predict when someone is about to take a risky action - in this case, jumping their avatar between vines.
I know it's somewhat pedantic, but by your definition we only have faith in science. I think what you meant was that faith is believing in something without any evidence to support that belief.
However, that's not the case either. I'm also unabashedly a believer in God, but I also believe in evolution (*gasp* How can that be?! All believers are fundamentalist nutjobs! I saw it on
Here's the thing. The evidence for my belief in God is specific to me. I have prayed and felt my prayers answered. Unfortunately, that's not something which can be easily reproduced by the scientific method. That's fine by me. I feel no need to prove my beliefs to others. But to argue that religion is fundamentally conflicted with science is to misunderstand religion.
"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." -A. Einstein
You: Welcome, new self-induced Alzheimer overlords!
Them: Thank you!
Ten minutes later...
Them: Remind us... Who are you, again?
I'd post spoilers, but I'm lazy. 8^P Suffice it to say that all the main characters survive and it is implied that they live happily ever after - except Marvin who can't help it.
Wow! I didn't realize you could browse /. with Lynx! ;)