IMHO they missed the mark on this one. It's not about good or evil, it's about catering to the ego's sense of importance.
Speaking from personal experience, if I am going out of my way to commit a personal sacrifice in the name goodness, then my sense of importance becomes expanded for the duration of the act. For example, if you're running a marathon for a charity you believe in. Suddenly, you may find the wordly measurements of your physical endurance to be exhibiting increased levels.
Are you a super human? No. You're just willing to grit your teeth and take a little more pain. Because it's *important* and what you're doing is *important* and the ego just eats it up.
Twitter is SOCIAL, Engineers are ANTI-SOCIAL, and you wonder why the two aren't a match made in heaven? Twitter lacks any sort of competitive appeal, sex appeal, or intellectual appeal.
It is used to disseminate socially relevant knowledge, and humor. Sports. Celebrity Gossip. One-Liners.
These are the cornerstones of twitter. Having said that, if you want the truly great tweets, you need a reliable third party to sift through the junk and gather them for you.
Unfortunately this process has become increasingly inefficient with the demise of Conan's Late Night Twitter Tracker.
I got a ticket for 60 in a 55 once. It was raining, and the officer told me that speed limits were designed for optimum conditions in daylight hours and that I needed to slow down.
In most cases, Eye Hand Coordination is a big factor in sports, and a big factor in gaming . Obviously there are exceptions like soccer and checkers, but yeah there is a lot of cross over.
I would have thought this was immediately obvious as someone who has both played video games and sports competitively. The biggest difference from a competitive point of view? Video games put you completely at the mercy of developers, and it sucks.
Who wants to spend a year refining a particular talent for a video game, and then have a new patch completely change the balance and gameplay dynamics. Also if you put 8 years of your life into the game, what happens when it's out of date? Even if it's a game with big tournaments and prizes, they all go out of style.
Mainstream sports, on the other hand, date back thousands of years and should experience very few changes in our lifetime.
As an adult, I could never devote myself fully to a game in that manner... As a child I guess I had nothing better to do =)
I think the key word here is "obsessed". The characteristics you've ascribed to yourself are moderated, healthy behaviors. In contrast, true obsession is a psychological dysfunction.
That's the sense of it in a nutshell, no more or less than eating yourself to 600 pounds, owning 20 cats, or threatening murder over cartoons.
A news website, with a summary that sounds like a press release.. nothing wrong here. Not a marketing guy, but as I understand it a press release is different than normal advertising copy - it's news (in this case, news for nerds)
Have you ever migrated a large project from flash professional into a flex development environment? It's not as simple as you're suggesting, because business-world library elements are often integrated into various base classes and possess ties throughout the project.
If you simply export them into a.swc, they will continue to be associated with those classes, and any code change will require you to re-publish from flash professional.. is flash builder even your development environment if you're not compiling from there?
Perhaps my google-fu is weak, but I've never seen a shred of useful documentation online about this migration process. The best articles I've come across involve processes such as: step #1 convert all of your library elements into mxml format.
Yes, probably sounds like a lot of fun when you're staring down a couple hundred (or more) of those library elements, each with their own states, layers and base classes. And that's just step 1.
I understand where your confusion is coming from, seeing as how flash builder can build content for the flash player, and all of these different adobe formats run on the same fvm (flash virtual machine).
I never said that flash builder cannot build flash content -- I said that it cannot build flash files.
Whether you use the flex framework, straight AS3 or flash professional, what you have in the end is a shockwave file (swf) for users to interact with. You could, alternatively, have a compiled shockwave file for use as a library (swc) instead of the run-time format.
When you work with a flash professional product, you store library symbols and components in a (fla)sh file. hence the.fla extension. You have to sign a non-disclosure agreement for complete understanding of.fla technology, because it's adobes proprietary format.
When you have a product named flash builder, and your user goes to new->flash file and gets prompted that they need an additional piece of software, that has a $700 tag -- it is at this time that I see a difference in the name. There are many products that interact with the.swf format, because it is open, yet.fla to my knowledge remains under adobe's control.
The bottom line is that flash builder cannot build flash files. Adobe shouldn't feel the need to strong-arm people that are looking for basic.fla support into buying CS5. CS5 should be a product that stands on it's own merits.
I am a developer by nature; I don't have any interest in ever building a.fla file. My problem is with their business practices, seeing things the way I have laid them out here.
Suppose for an instance, that one day you are tasked with converting a project from.fla into a flex development environment. I question how you would interact with that.fla file, in any way? The most obvious answer is that you would have to get your hands on a copy of Flash Professional, version 5 of which is a $700 product.. and flash builder cannot open flash files without it.
I find the name Flash Builder to be very misleading, and they should have either kept it as Flex Builder or given stand-alone flash file support.
Seasoned actionscript and flex developer here.. I read this article a few days ago, his points are all nonsense. #1 Duplicate code base - The libraries only include what files you reference, like c++. If you don't want the other classes, then don't use them! It's that easy #2 There is an in-depth article by Joan Lafferty that goes over migrating from flex 3 to gumbo. This guy is bitching about his ignorance towards the process, not the process itself. #3 Yeah, there is more code.. But guess what? There is also CODE GENERATION in flash builder 4, specifically for skinning. All those extra lines of code are generated for you, so who cares. It's not like you have to actually write them.
You want some legitimate complains about flash builder? This guy doesn't really know what he's talking about, and he's not going to give them to you. There is one huge complaint that I have, and that is the ridiculous name change from Flex Builder to Flash Builder.
It would make sense, really, if Flash Builder could build flash files. But it can't. If you try to create a Flash file it tells you that you need to install CS5 to use that feature. And CS5 isn't even released yet. WTF? It's not even in open beta, so you can't install it even if you were okay with using a beta product in conjunction with a released product.. and yet there are articles posted on adobes web site talking about how you can edit flash files now with "Flash" Builder.. sadly, not true. And it doesn't work in conjunction with CS4, so even if you have that they're strong-arming people into the upgrade.
I commend you on your excellent use of the "Think of the Children" argument.
3) I not only have my own interests to defend, but those of my Children. So far as I am aware, if my and my wife's DNA are collected, then my Children's DNA can be inferred.
For example a simple toggle button on the keyboard to control if it is currently tracking your eyes or not. This way you could look all around the screen, but it would only alter your view if the toggle is on.
I'm sure it would include more advanced user interaction than that, and I agree with you that the 3-5 years is total BS and probably only there for shock value.
I just don't agree with your outright dismissal of other tracking technologies entirely.
Got a new logitech mouse recently. New to me anyway, it's a G5
Has 2 buttons on it to increase or decrease the mouse sensitivity in real time. I don't play many games these days, but I could see that being very useful for first person shooters.. zoom in with a sniper rifle.. decrease mouse sensitivity at the press of a button..etc
Also the mouse has a weight cartridge with adjustable weight, so each user can adjust the physical feel of the mouse to their liking.
There is some open source actionscript called Flex, built by adobe, which provides a ton free data visualization components that are incorporated into the flash player.
A lot of these can probably provide the sort of visualizations you're looking for, and it's only a matter of plugging in the data.
One of the professors at my college recently had a gender change.
I guess we can all do our part to increase the female presence in computer science..
selfish much?
on
The Gym Arcade
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
some of us have a desire to leave the world in better condition than we found it.
This involves life outside of simulation, even if games are a great escape in moderation.
ESPN Street Racing
on
The Gym Arcade
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
The key is to really work fun game play into the system, and I think this has a much greater chance of success than the children's "educational game software" attempts to make learning fun.
I remember an old playstation ESPN racing game where your character would ride around on a bike, but you could kick the other players on either side and knock them to the ground.
Add some blood, maybe a few screams as they hit the pavement and I think we would have a winner!
If you want to get really sophisticated that would be really badass if you could work something like this into google-streetview and ride around in actual city scape.
I think the turing test should consist of the scientists themselves that developed the AI programs.
If it's own writers cannot tell the difference between the program and other humans -- that is when real AI is a clock cycle away. Know it's most intimate inner workings and still be fooled.
It really depends on the type of hardware involved.
One example - Limited write memory can be intensely overwritten until it's worn out and rendered useless, resulting in financial loss. I don't know if it has anything to do with this case, or if any damage actually occurred.
Some interesting notes.. particularly the USA's Smith Act, which made it a crime to advocate or teach the desirability of overthrowing the United States Government, or to be a member of any organization which does the same.
I'm not a lawyer.. but doesn't the preamble of our own declaration of independence state "it is [the people's] right, it is their duty, to throw off... Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security"
Man, I don't think I could ever be a lawyer. I love my compiler too much - logic and consistency is actually enforced.
This reminds me of the final fantasy games I used to play.
Basically every game had an airship, which was a sea vessel that looked similar to a pirate ship. It would become airborne via aid of a blimp or helicopter style blades.
It wasn't submersible, but the ship was definitely not lightweight. One of my dreams is to become an eccentric billionaire and build one to throw sky parties.
Slashdot Mirror
IMHO they missed the mark on this one.
It's not about good or evil, it's about catering to the ego's sense of importance.
Speaking from personal experience, if I am going out of my way to commit a personal sacrifice in the name goodness, then my sense of importance becomes expanded for the duration of the act.
For example, if you're running a marathon for a charity you believe in. Suddenly, you may find the wordly measurements of your physical endurance to be exhibiting increased levels.
Are you a super human? No.
You're just willing to grit your teeth and take a little more pain. Because it's *important* and what you're doing is *important* and the ego just eats it up.
Twitter is SOCIAL, Engineers are ANTI-SOCIAL, and you wonder why the two aren't a match made in heaven?
Twitter lacks any sort of competitive appeal, sex appeal, or intellectual appeal.
It is used to disseminate socially relevant knowledge, and humor.
Sports. Celebrity Gossip. One-Liners.
These are the cornerstones of twitter.
Having said that, if you want the truly great tweets, you need a reliable third party to sift through the junk and gather them for you.
Unfortunately this process has become increasingly inefficient with the demise of Conan's Late Night Twitter Tracker.
Output to a PDF document and have them print it out.
PDF is an open format. Go for it! Enjoy.
Flash is an OKAY solution, but the printer support is hopeless unless your users have downloaded and installed an AIR application.
I got a ticket for 60 in a 55 once.
It was raining, and the officer told me that speed limits were designed for optimum conditions in daylight hours and that I needed to slow down.
What a prick.
In most cases, Eye Hand Coordination is a big factor in sports, and a big factor in gaming .
Obviously there are exceptions like soccer and checkers, but yeah there is a lot of cross over.
I would have thought this was immediately obvious as someone who has both played video games and sports competitively.
The biggest difference from a competitive point of view? Video games put you completely at the mercy of developers, and it sucks.
Who wants to spend a year refining a particular talent for a video game, and then have a new patch completely change the balance and gameplay dynamics.
Also if you put 8 years of your life into the game, what happens when it's out of date? Even if it's a game with big tournaments and prizes, they all go out of style.
Mainstream sports, on the other hand, date back thousands of years and should experience very few changes in our lifetime.
As an adult, I could never devote myself fully to a game in that manner...
As a child I guess I had nothing better to do =)
I think the key word here is "obsessed".
The characteristics you've ascribed to yourself are moderated, healthy behaviors. In contrast, true obsession is a psychological dysfunction.
That's the sense of it in a nutshell, no more or less than eating yourself to 600 pounds, owning 20 cats, or threatening murder over cartoons.
A news website, with a summary that sounds like a press release.. nothing wrong here.
Not a marketing guy, but as I understand it a press release is different than normal advertising copy - it's news (in this case, news for nerds)
swf stands for shockwave file
fla stands for flash file, which is a format that flash builder cannot create
Have you ever migrated a large project from flash professional into a flex development environment?
It's not as simple as you're suggesting, because business-world library elements are often integrated into various base classes and possess ties throughout the project.
If you simply export them into a .swc, they will continue to be associated with those classes, and any code change will require you to re-publish from flash professional.. is flash builder even your development environment if you're not compiling from there?
Perhaps my google-fu is weak, but I've never seen a shred of useful documentation online about this migration process.
The best articles I've come across involve processes such as: step #1 convert all of your library elements into mxml format.
Yes, probably sounds like a lot of fun when you're staring down a couple hundred (or more) of those library elements, each with their own states, layers and base classes. And that's just step 1.
I understand where your confusion is coming from, seeing as how flash builder can build content for the flash player, and all of these different adobe formats run on the same fvm (flash virtual machine).
I never said that flash builder cannot build flash content -- I said that it cannot build flash files.
Whether you use the flex framework, straight AS3 or flash professional, what you have in the end is a shockwave file (swf) for users to interact with.
You could, alternatively, have a compiled shockwave file for use as a library (swc) instead of the run-time format.
When you work with a flash professional product, you store library symbols and components in a (fla)sh file. hence the .fla extension. .fla technology, because it's adobes proprietary format.
You have to sign a non-disclosure agreement for complete understanding of
When you have a product named flash builder, and your user goes to new->flash file and gets prompted that they need an additional piece of software, that has a $700 tag -- it is at this time that I see a difference in the name. .swf format, because it is open, yet .fla to my knowledge remains under adobe's control.
There are many products that interact with the
The bottom line is that flash builder cannot build flash files. .fla support into buying CS5.
Adobe shouldn't feel the need to strong-arm people that are looking for basic
CS5 should be a product that stands on it's own merits.
I am a developer by nature; I don't have any interest in ever building a .fla file.
My problem is with their business practices, seeing things the way I have laid them out here.
Suppose for an instance, that one day you are tasked with converting a project from .fla into a flex development environment. .fla file, in any way? The most obvious answer is that you would have to get your hands on a copy of Flash Professional, version 5 of which is a $700 product.. and flash builder cannot open flash files without it.
I question how you would interact with that
I find the name Flash Builder to be very misleading, and they should have either kept it as Flex Builder or given stand-alone flash file support.
Seasoned actionscript and flex developer here.. I read this article a few days ago, his points are all nonsense.
#1 Duplicate code base - The libraries only include what files you reference, like c++. If you don't want the other classes, then don't use them! It's that easy
#2 There is an in-depth article by Joan Lafferty that goes over migrating from flex 3 to gumbo. This guy is bitching about his ignorance towards the process, not the process itself.
#3 Yeah, there is more code.. But guess what? There is also CODE GENERATION in flash builder 4, specifically for skinning. All those extra lines of code are generated for you, so who cares. It's not like you have to actually write them.
You want some legitimate complains about flash builder? This guy doesn't really know what he's talking about, and he's not going to give them to you.
There is one huge complaint that I have, and that is the ridiculous name change from Flex Builder to Flash Builder.
It would make sense, really, if Flash Builder could build flash files. But it can't. If you try to create a Flash file it tells you that you need to install CS5 to use that feature.
And CS5 isn't even released yet. WTF? It's not even in open beta, so you can't install it even if you were okay with using a beta product in conjunction with a released product.. and yet there are articles posted on adobes web site talking about how you can edit flash files now with "Flash" Builder.. sadly, not true. And it doesn't work in conjunction with CS4, so even if you have that they're strong-arming people into the upgrade.
I commend you on your excellent use of the "Think of the Children" argument.
3) I not only have my own interests to defend, but those of my Children. So far as I am aware, if my and my wife's DNA are collected, then my Children's DNA can be inferred.
It seems like it could be made doable.
For example a simple toggle button on the keyboard to control if it is currently tracking your eyes or not. This way you could look all around the screen, but it would only alter your view if the toggle is on.
I'm sure it would include more advanced user interaction than that, and I agree with you that the 3-5 years is total BS and probably only there for shock value.
I just don't agree with your outright dismissal of other tracking technologies entirely.
Got a new logitech mouse recently. New to me anyway, it's a G5
Has 2 buttons on it to increase or decrease the mouse sensitivity in real time. I don't play many games these days, but I could see that being very useful for first person shooters.. zoom in with a sniper rifle.. decrease mouse sensitivity at the press of a button ..etc
Also the mouse has a weight cartridge with adjustable weight, so each user can adjust the physical feel of the mouse to their liking.
Plus it's laser and my old optical one sucked.
Funny.
I had to post 'funny', because I accidentally modded it overrated.. so.. consider that mod undone.
There is some open source actionscript called Flex, built by adobe, which provides a ton free data visualization components that are incorporated into the flash player.
A lot of these can probably provide the sort of visualizations you're looking for, and it's only a matter of plugging in the data.
http://livedocs.adobe.com/flex/3/html/help.html?content=charts_types_11.html#227719
This also comes with a lot of tools for xml parsing and binary data transfers between client and server.
One of the professors at my college recently had a gender change.
I guess we can all do our part to increase the female presence in computer science..
some of us have a desire to leave the world in better condition than we found it.
This involves life outside of simulation, even if games are a great escape in moderation.
The key is to really work fun game play into the system, and I think this has a much greater chance of success than the children's "educational game software" attempts to make learning fun.
I remember an old playstation ESPN racing game where your character would ride around on a bike, but you could kick the other players on either side and knock them to the ground.
Add some blood, maybe a few screams as they hit the pavement and I think we would have a winner!
If you want to get really sophisticated that would be really badass if you could work something like this into google-streetview and ride around in actual city scape.
I think the turing test should consist of the scientists themselves that developed the AI programs.
If it's own writers cannot tell the difference between the program and other humans -- that is when real AI is a clock cycle away.
Know it's most intimate inner workings and still be fooled.
It really depends on the type of hardware involved.
One example - Limited write memory can be intensely overwritten until it's worn out and rendered useless, resulting in financial loss.
I don't know if it has anything to do with this case, or if any damage actually occurred.
Just speaking in terms of technicalities.
So from where I'm sitting it seems like every school in the nation that teaches the declaration of independence would be guilty under the smith act.
But like I said, I'm not a lawyer
Some interesting notes.. particularly the USA's Smith Act, which made it a crime to advocate or teach the desirability of overthrowing the United States Government, or to be a member of any organization which does the same.
I'm not a lawyer.. but doesn't the preamble of our own declaration of independence state "it is [the people's] right, it is their duty, to throw off ... Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security"
Man, I don't think I could ever be a lawyer.
I love my compiler too much - logic and consistency is actually enforced.
This reminds me of the final fantasy games I used to play.
Basically every game had an airship, which was a sea vessel that looked similar to a pirate ship.
It would become airborne via aid of a blimp or helicopter style blades.
It wasn't submersible, but the ship was definitely not lightweight.
One of my dreams is to become an eccentric billionaire and build one to throw sky parties.
If it ever happens, you're all invited!
You forgot to ask for a pack of cigarettes.
Even if you don't smoke, you can collect a bunch of them and then sell them to your friends back home.