"Kdawson, your are an idiot." - I hereby proclaim this to be Sasayaki's law. When insulting someone on the internet, it is likely you will make some horrible spelling or grammar error which results in everyone laughing at you. If you are picking on someone for their own spelling or grammar, the probability of this approaches 1.
Australian here- It's pretty simple really. (Disclaimer: I've posted this before, but it bears repeating)
We have a political system where, instead of directly voting for a prime minister, we instead vote for our local representative; the party with the most seats gets to elect the prime minister. Essentially.
The problem comes when the two main political parties own almost equal seats, but many seats are "safe" seats. Think Texas. Is a Democrat ever going to be elected in a landslide in Texas? Nah. Is a Republican going to take San Fransisco in a landslide? Nah.
So, politicians focus on the marginal seats. Think Florida, which could go either way.
It just so happens a number of those seats are, currently, in and around Adelaide; a highly religious, conservative city known as "The City of Churches". So, politicians on all sides of the political spectrum are metaphorically sucking our version of the Bible Belt's dick in order to get those precious one or two seats, which means they can keep/gain government respectively.
Which means our current administration is pushing through knee-jerk think-of-the-children legislation while the opposition is basically screaming "US TOO BUT BIGGER, BETTER, MORE KNEE-JERKY."
It's pure horseshit and doesn't represent the will of the Australian people at all.
Abbott has refused to speak out against the net filter. Secretly, I would say he quite likes it and will go along with it.
Secretly? (Disclaimer: I have posted this before, but it's worth restating)
Tony Abbot visited humble Darwin city recently and it was there that I personally got to ask him, in his public question and answer time, the following question (roughly remembered):
"The Internet is an important part of the lives of many young Australians, as well as Australia as a whole in this modern age- what do you think of the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's plan to censor the Internet?"
His answer began:
"Well, I'm afraid I'm probably going to disappoint you..." and yes, unfortunately, he did.
Paraphrased his answer was: "Stopping child pornography is extremely important to me and the Liberal party and therefore, if we can prove the censorship plan doesn't work, we will oppose it; but only *this particular thing*. We will continue to seek effective means to block 'filth' (his word) from entering our country any way we can. If the filter works, we will support it."
Basically the message I got from his reply is that Tony Abbot believes that the filter will work "well enough" and is too much of a hot potato to oppose politically. The subtext I personally divined from his answer was a little more chilling; that the filter didn't go far *enough* for his tastes, and that he'd personally rather a complete whitelist than a blacklist. Therefore, speaking as a card-carrying Liberal... if you think that voting for the Liberal party in the next election will make the filter go away, you are sadly mistaken.
On a side note, the fact that he himself is an extremely religious man probably doesn't help a great deal, since it seems that too many politicians tend to "trust God about these things" when it's abundantly clear that God knows sweet F-A about the Tubes and how they work.
Australian here- I'll explain. It's pretty simple really.
We have a political system where, instead of directly voting for a prime minister, we instead vote for our local representative; the party with the most seats gets to elect the prime minister. Essentially.
The problem comes when the two main political parties own almost equal seats, but many seats are "safe" seats. Think Texas. Is a Democrat ever going to be elected in a landslide in Texas? Nah. Is a Republican ever going to take San Fransisco in a landslide? Nah.
So, politicians focus on the marginal seats. This is Florida, which could go either way.
It just so happens a number of those seats are, currently, in and around Adelaide; a highly religious, conservative city known as "The City of Churches". So, politicians on all sides of the political spectrum are metaphorically sucking the bible thumper's dicks in order to get those precious one or two seats, which means they can keep/gain government respectively.
Which means, in turn, our current administration is pushing through knee-jerk think-of-the-children legislation while the opposition is basically screaming "US TOO BUT BIGGER, BETTER, MORE KNEE-JERKY."
It's pure horseshit and doesn't represent the will of the Australian people at all.
We have a political system where, instead of directly voting for a prime minister, we instead vote for our local representative; the party with the most seats gets to elect the prime minister. Essentially.
The problem comes when the two main political parties own almost equal seats, but many seats are "safe" seats. Think Texas. Is a Democrat ever going to be elected in a landslide in Texas? Nah. Is a Republican going to take San Fransisco in a landslide? Nah.
So, politicians focus on the marginal seats. Think Florida, which could go either way.
It just so happens a number of those seats are, currently, in and around Adelaide; a highly religious, conservative city known as "The City of Churches". So, politicians on all sides of the political spectrum are metaphorically sucking the bible belt's dick in order to get those precious one or two seats, which means they can keep/gain government.
Which means our current administration is pushing through knee-jerk think-of-the-children legislation while the opposition is basically screaming "US TOO BUT BIGGER, BETTER, MORE KNEE-JERKY."
It's pure horseshit and doesn't represent the will of the Australian people at all.
That's not weird at all. In most countries I know of, conspiracy to commit murder or attempted murder carries much the same penalty as murder, by and large (parole conditions etc not withstanding).
What IS weird is that pictures of murders (and movies with with murders in them) are so very, very common- played on our household TVs, in our movie theatres and present on almost any media you can find today... but the mainstream view is that this is harmless, just a fantasy, and not harmful to adults even in gratuitous amounts. I certainly think so.
So why is it then that hand-drawn porn of the Simpsons is considered extremely harmful and dangerous, when the Simpsons are not real people, never were... and in any event are (in a technical sense) ALL over the age of 21 (even Maggie)? There's not even a real "actor" there. Just ink and paper, nothing more. I'll say it again: "Just ink and paper, nothing more."
My DSL goes down (for just a minute or two) daily. It's usually no big deal, but here it apparently would be. Thus this is a game I could never purchase. Let's let our dollars send the message to the publisher that they're living in a dreamworld with such an unfeasible technical requirement.
Let me whip out my Corporate-Speak translator for you.
"Blah blah blah three letter acronym breaks a few times a day. ??? technical stuff, do not want.... I'm not buying your product, it's a lost sale, therefore piracy. I am STEALING your software as we speak."
Re:How about integers instead of floating point?
on
Quake 3 For Android
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· Score: 1
My apologies, you are correct. The calculations are made per frame- a simple typo on my part.
Unfortunately, this won't happen. (Disclaimer: I have posted this before, but it's worth restating)
Tony Abbot (The head of the Liberal party- that's the guys NOT in power, for you Americans) visited humble Darwin city recently and it was there that I personally got to ask him, in his public question and answer time, the following question (roughly remembered):
"The Internet is an important part of the lives of many young Australians, as well as Australia as a whole in this modern age- what do you think of (the Prime Minister- Americans would say 'president') Kevin Rudd's plan to censor the Internet?"
His answer began:
"Well, I'm afraid I'm probably going to disappoint you..." and yes, unfortunately, he did.
Paraphrased his answer was: "Stopping child pornography is extremely important to me and the Liberal party and therefore, if we can prove the censorship plan doesn't work, we will oppose it; but only it. We will continue to seek effective means to block 'filth' (his word) from entering our country any way we can. If the filter works, we will support it."
Basically the message I got from his reply is that Tony Abbot believes that the filter will work "well enough" and is too much of a hot potato to oppose politically. The subtext I personally divined from his answer was a little more chilling; that the filter didn't go far *enough* for his tastes, and that he'd personally rather a complete whitelist than a blacklist. Therefore, speaking as a card-carrying Liberal... if you think that voting for the Liberal party in the next election will make the filter go away, you are sadly mistaken.
On a side note, the fact that he himself is an extremely religious man probably doesn't help a great deal, since it seems that too many politicians tend to "trust God about these things" when it's abundantly clear that God knows sweet F-A about the Tubes and how they work.
Re:How about integers instead of floating point?
on
Quake 3 For Android
·
· Score: 1
Wise beard man. His words are wise, his face is beard.
Re:How about integers instead of floating point?
on
Quake 3 For Android
·
· Score: 3, Informative
I don't know anything about the code either, but I can take a stab.
The angles aren't actually the problem, the real problem is points on a Cartesian plane (x and y coordinates)... but angles suffer from the same thing that is the real problem. I'll explain as simply as I can (even for experienced programmers and mathematicians, I have found simple to be better, so don't take that the wrong way).
The exact location of every 3D object in a game is represented by X, Y and Z coordinates. These are currently stored in floating point, so that something can be at x=.5 and be comprehensible to the engine. This means that the object can be almost anywhere without rounding to an integer.
Your idea is that basically with small enough points, the player would be unable to tell the difference. While it's true that with tiny enough points this may be true, one of the big issues is movement within a 3D world. Essentially, the movement is something like this:
Your current position is (0,0) facing 0 degrees. You are getting 60 FPS. You press the forward key, moving north.
New X Coordinate = old_X + time * Sin(angle) = 0 +.3 + 1 microsecond * 0 = 0 New Y Coordinate = old_Y + time * Cos(angle) = 0 +.3 + 1 microsecond * 1 = 1
You are now at (0,1), which is as you'd expect. Let's mess things up a bit.
Your current position is (3, 6) facing 146 degrees. You are getting 34 FPS. You push the forward key, moving at the angle 146.
New X Coordinate = old_X + time * Sin(angle) = 3 + 0.566666667 *.75011107 = 3.42506294 New Y Coordinate = old_Y + time * Cos(angle) = 6 + 0.566666667 * 0.661311865 = 5.62525661
See what's starting to happen here? Floating point representations of coordinates are vital to preserving the object's exact coordinates. If you used ints for these values, you'd be forced to round and lose a lot of precision. That adds up, especially when these calculations are being performed every 34 seconds. The model would 'jitter' and seem to be very slightly spasming, which would look terrible. Unfortunately floating point numbers are required here.
Unfortunately the Greens (in actuality an extremely authoritarian party, despite their vicious protests to the contrary) oppose the censorship plan but only because it censors things they think should be uncensored. Given a free reign, they would undoubtedly install low-energy mind control chips into the heads of every newborn and have An Inconvenient Truth play on repeat in the minds of every citizen. Minus themselves, of course...
Tony Abbot (The head of the Liberal party- that's the guys NOT in power, for you Americans) visited humble Darwin city recently and it was there that I personally got to ask him, in his public question and answer time, the following question (roughly remembered):
"The Internet is an important part of the lives of many young Australians, as well as Australia as a whole in this modern age- what do you think of (the Prime Minister- Americans would say 'president') Kevin Rudd's plan to censor the Internet?"
His answer began:
"Well, I'm afraid I'm probably going to disappoint you..." and yes, unfortunately, he did.
Paraphrased his answer was: "Stopping child pornography is extremely important to me and the Liberal party and therefore, if we can prove the censorship plan doesn't work, we will oppose it; but only it. We will continue to seek effective means to block 'filth' (his word) from entering our country any way we can. If the filter works, we will support it."
Basically the message I got from his reply is that Tony Abbot believes that the filter will work "well enough" and is too much of a hot potato to oppose politically. The subtext I personally divined from his answer was a little more chilling; that the filter didn't go far *enough* for his tastes, and that he'd personally rather a complete whitelist than a blacklist. Therefore, speaking as a card-carrying Liberal... if you think that voting for the Liberal party in the next election will make the filter go away, you are sadly mistaken.
On a side note, the fact that he himself is an extremely religious man probably doesn't help a great deal, since it seems that too many politicians tend to "trust God about these things" when it's abundantly clear that God knows sweet F-A about the Tubes and how they work.
Other distros? Sure would be nice, but the fact that they're ARM means it probably won't be ready just yet. This, by the way, is fantastic news.
The greatest thing about these laptops is, if they're as good as the article claims, the fact that they're ARM processors means that there won't be a version of Windows out for them for ages/ever.
That means that Microsoft can't just use its market share to bury the Linux versions by heavily discounting the OS, while using their deals with retailers to make sure they only stock the Windows versions, all the while pressuring the laptop manufacturers to increase the specs on them so they can run Windows 7 instead of XP which they're selling for so cheap (to compete with 'free') they're not making any money off it.
I am doing something *similar* to the OP, an iPhone-and-Android-and-PCs semi-remake of an old classic ('Eye of the Beholder' for anyone who's curious), although my project has a few substantial differences:
My game...
-.. is substantially higher resolution and visually very pretty (IMHO). -.. 's name is completely different (Tale of Vamadon), takes place in an entirely original campaign world, and features an entirely different and original storyline. -.. has complicated, Baldur's Gate II-style NPCs and dialogue choices rather than the simple hack-and-slash of its predecessor. -.. engine has a large number of enhancements; items can now be inspected, with each having a description, lore behind it, information behind game mechanics, etc. -.. has a built-in 'map' function. -.. has (near) full v3.5 ruleset compatibility (although we may move to Pathfinder if its licence allows free use in games) -.. only lets you generate a 'main' character; all other NPCs are picked up either at the beginning of the game or in the game world, with each having their own personality, backstory, motivations, unique races, etc. -.. has dozens of endings all depending on what your character says and does during the game. -.. features many cutscenes and other such graphical enhancements. -.. has currency, a town, a store where you can buy and sell looted equipment, get optional quests, etc.
In my humble opinion it's about as much a "clone" of Eye of the Beholder as Halo is of Half-Life. That is to say, the only adjectives it has in common with the 'original' are 'First Person Perspective RPG with D&D Rules'. Is that enough to make me 'safe'? Thoughts?
Many other +5 insightfuls have said it before me, but the movie isn't anti-technology. There are many quotes to support this, but the most damning evidence comes from the movie itself- in order to down the Valkaryie bomber at the end, Jake Sully uses... marine grenades. In order to board the ship, he uses... a machine gun. In order to coordinate his attack, he uses... radio communicators.
Without any of these things, the ambush would either fail or be significantly harder to pull off. The Na'vi don't hate their technology- at no point is there even a symbolic rejection of their *tools*. It's simply the behaviour of the humans that offends them.
So the movie is not anti-technology. It is anvilicious on other topics, but it's not anti-technology.
The only thing that might have changed in the last 50 years is that child porn may be more accessible now that it was before
Certainly true. However, one thing I will point out is that while the accessibility of child porn has dramatically increased, before the Internet it was practically non-existent. I mean, where were the big child porn busts in the 50's and the 40's? 20's? There were none, because there was no porn to bust. Instead, people went out and basically had sex with kids. Particularly, say, three hundred years ago (not long ago in the scheme of things)- if you felt that way, then you just did it, since the chances of you getting caught were extremely slim and you could just pay anyone you wanted to hush up (including the cops). There wasn't any child pornography because people could get "the real thing". It's only in modern times that such things have become monstrous in the eyes of the public, and kiddy porn has a much lower chance of getting you arrested vs fiddling up some kids, so...
However- only a total of 3,168,899 votes (source; same page) were cast in the whole state out of a population of 5,402,600 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_(Australia)); subtracting the approximately 110,000 donkey votes that would give about 55% of the citizen-population registered to vote. I don't know where I heard the 25% from, but obviously it was incorrect- although it may have included people ineligible to vote for a variety of reasons, or the estimated illegal/interstate immigrant population (Victoria at the time was experiencing phenomenal population growth and to the best of my knowledge still is), or any number of other factors to blow it out to that number. Or, you know, it might just be wrong.
In any event, doubling the number of people represented by Senator Fielding doesn't change the base premise of my post, in that this is a case of a minority of the population holding vast sway over the majority.
It was actually in the Northern Territory (I'm from the NT).
The parent is, sadly, correct (except for that last bit). The situation was exactly as described and lead to some of the worst legislation in NT history.
As a side note, Australia has a preferential voting system (I want Labour, if not Labour then the Greens, if not the Greens then the Democrats , etc...). This means that while Senetor Fielding polled less than 2% of the popular vote as first choices, due to preferences he won the seat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_electoral_system). The population of Victoria is about five million people, voter turnout rate was about 25%, which means that this man was the first choice for *only* approximately 62,500 people- yet he has vast power in the Australian political system.
In short, we're not all crazy- it's just a minor glitch in our political system. Don't worry. Hopefully next election this issue will go away.
The answer to this is simple. (disclaimer: I'm not a politician but I am interested in politics)
In Australia (much like in other democracies such as America) we have a senate which ultimately writes, discusses and publishes new laws. Instead of directly voting for our Prime Minister (you guys would say President), we instead vote in senate members in our electorates (or 'regional areas'). Since Australia's quite large, these regional areas might cover a fairly large areas including a small city and a few towns.
Australia, much like America, has two main political parties- the Labour party (left leaning) and the Liberal party (right leaning). These two parties get most of the seats. However, because senate members vote on laws, sometimes minority parties or independents gain seats.
There are currently 76 seats in the senate. What this means is, in simplified terms, if the Labour party has 38 seats and the Liberal party has 37 seats, then the one remaining seat (held by an independent or a member of an minority party) holds what is called the 'balance of power'. After all, they could just vote against or for any law proposed by the government and block it- 38 vs 38 is a tie, which means the bill is defeated. So, essentially, this person has the power to veto any law they choose... a very powerful position. They cannot *create* new laws directly, but they get the final say as to what passes.
Currently, senator Fielding holds the balance of power in the Australian senate. Senator Fielding is from the state of Victoria and is affiliated with a political party called 'Family First', which is exactly what it says on the tin- immediately love for any scheme which is 'for the children at any cost'. That's why all these insane "For the Children!" laws are getting passed- because politicians on all sides of politics want to scratch his back so that he'll pass or block their various laws of choice. Couple this with a profound lack of understanding regarding the Intertubes, a Telecommunications minister who has a massive, visible erection for Internet censorship (who is by far the most hated minister in his field in living memory) and you have a recipe for massive "For the Children" wankery.
I hope I've explained everything in an easy to understand manner. It's not that Australians are douchebags or that our politicians are all insane, it's just a minor broken bit in what is otherwise a perfectly fine system- a unique race condition which manifests itself regularly but is remarkably damaging when it does.
Slashdot Mirror
"Kdawson, your are an idiot." - I hereby proclaim this to be Sasayaki's law. When insulting someone on the internet, it is likely you will make some horrible spelling or grammar error which results in everyone laughing at you. If you are picking on someone for their own spelling or grammar, the probability of this approaches 1.
This sentance is designated to proof this rule.
To you and I they are. To regular Joe Blow they are FIGHTING THE NAZI-COMMUNIST-TERRO-PEDOPHILES.
Australian here- It's pretty simple really. (Disclaimer: I've posted this before, but it bears repeating)
We have a political system where, instead of directly voting for a prime minister, we instead vote for our local representative; the party with the most seats gets to elect the prime minister. Essentially.
The problem comes when the two main political parties own almost equal seats, but many seats are "safe" seats. Think Texas. Is a Democrat ever going to be elected in a landslide in Texas? Nah. Is a Republican going to take San Fransisco in a landslide? Nah.
So, politicians focus on the marginal seats. Think Florida, which could go either way.
It just so happens a number of those seats are, currently, in and around Adelaide; a highly religious, conservative city known as "The City of Churches". So, politicians on all sides of the political spectrum are metaphorically sucking our version of the Bible Belt's dick in order to get those precious one or two seats, which means they can keep/gain government respectively.
Which means our current administration is pushing through knee-jerk think-of-the-children legislation while the opposition is basically screaming "US TOO BUT BIGGER, BETTER, MORE KNEE-JERKY."
It's pure horseshit and doesn't represent the will of the Australian people at all.
Abbott has refused to speak out against the net filter. Secretly, I would say he quite likes it and will go along with it.
Secretly? (Disclaimer: I have posted this before, but it's worth restating)
Tony Abbot visited humble Darwin city recently and it was there that I personally got to ask him, in his public question and answer time, the following question (roughly remembered):
"The Internet is an important part of the lives of many young Australians, as well as Australia as a whole in this modern age- what do you think of the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's plan to censor the Internet?"
His answer began:
"Well, I'm afraid I'm probably going to disappoint you..." and yes, unfortunately, he did.
Paraphrased his answer was: "Stopping child pornography is extremely important to me and the Liberal party and therefore, if we can prove the censorship plan doesn't work, we will oppose it; but only *this particular thing*. We will continue to seek effective means to block 'filth' (his word) from entering our country any way we can. If the filter works, we will support it."
Basically the message I got from his reply is that Tony Abbot believes that the filter will work "well enough" and is too much of a hot potato to oppose politically. The subtext I personally divined from his answer was a little more chilling; that the filter didn't go far *enough* for his tastes, and that he'd personally rather a complete whitelist than a blacklist. Therefore, speaking as a card-carrying Liberal... if you think that voting for the Liberal party in the next election will make the filter go away, you are sadly mistaken.
On a side note, the fact that he himself is an extremely religious man probably doesn't help a great deal, since it seems that too many politicians tend to "trust God about these things" when it's abundantly clear that God knows sweet F-A about the Tubes and how they work.
Australian here- I'll explain. It's pretty simple really.
We have a political system where, instead of directly voting for a prime minister, we instead vote for our local representative; the party with the most seats gets to elect the prime minister. Essentially.
The problem comes when the two main political parties own almost equal seats, but many seats are "safe" seats. Think Texas. Is a Democrat ever going to be elected in a landslide in Texas? Nah. Is a Republican ever going to take San Fransisco in a landslide? Nah.
So, politicians focus on the marginal seats. This is Florida, which could go either way.
It just so happens a number of those seats are, currently, in and around Adelaide; a highly religious, conservative city known as "The City of Churches". So, politicians on all sides of the political spectrum are metaphorically sucking the bible thumper's dicks in order to get those precious one or two seats, which means they can keep/gain government respectively.
Which means, in turn, our current administration is pushing through knee-jerk think-of-the-children legislation while the opposition is basically screaming "US TOO BUT BIGGER, BETTER, MORE KNEE-JERKY."
It's pure horseshit and doesn't represent the will of the Australian people at all.
Australian here- It's pretty simple really.
We have a political system where, instead of directly voting for a prime minister, we instead vote for our local representative; the party with the most seats gets to elect the prime minister. Essentially.
The problem comes when the two main political parties own almost equal seats, but many seats are "safe" seats. Think Texas. Is a Democrat ever going to be elected in a landslide in Texas? Nah. Is a Republican going to take San Fransisco in a landslide? Nah.
So, politicians focus on the marginal seats. Think Florida, which could go either way.
It just so happens a number of those seats are, currently, in and around Adelaide; a highly religious, conservative city known as "The City of Churches". So, politicians on all sides of the political spectrum are metaphorically sucking the bible belt's dick in order to get those precious one or two seats, which means they can keep/gain government.
Which means our current administration is pushing through knee-jerk think-of-the-children legislation while the opposition is basically screaming "US TOO BUT BIGGER, BETTER, MORE KNEE-JERKY."
It's pure horseshit and doesn't represent the will of the Australian people at all.
That's not weird at all. In most countries I know of, conspiracy to commit murder or attempted murder carries much the same penalty as murder, by and large (parole conditions etc not withstanding).
What IS weird is that pictures of murders (and movies with with murders in them) are so very, very common- played on our household TVs, in our movie theatres and present on almost any media you can find today... but the mainstream view is that this is harmless, just a fantasy, and not harmful to adults even in gratuitous amounts. I certainly think so.
So why is it then that hand-drawn porn of the Simpsons is considered extremely harmful and dangerous, when the Simpsons are not real people, never were... and in any event are (in a technical sense) ALL over the age of 21 (even Maggie)? There's not even a real "actor" there. Just ink and paper, nothing more. I'll say it again: "Just ink and paper, nothing more."
And yes, IAAA (I Am An Australian).
My DSL goes down (for just a minute or two) daily. It's usually no big deal, but here it apparently would be. Thus this is a game I could never purchase. Let's let our dollars send the message to the publisher that they're living in a dreamworld with such an unfeasible technical requirement.
Let me whip out my Corporate-Speak translator for you.
"Blah blah blah three letter acronym breaks a few times a day. ??? technical stuff, do not want. ... I'm not buying your product, it's a lost sale, therefore piracy. I am STEALING your software as we speak."
My apologies, you are correct. The calculations are made per frame- a simple typo on my part.
Unfortunately, this won't happen. (Disclaimer: I have posted this before, but it's worth restating)
Tony Abbot (The head of the Liberal party- that's the guys NOT in power, for you Americans) visited humble Darwin city recently and it was there that I personally got to ask him, in his public question and answer time, the following question (roughly remembered):
"The Internet is an important part of the lives of many young Australians, as well as Australia as a whole in this modern age- what do you think of (the Prime Minister- Americans would say 'president') Kevin Rudd's plan to censor the Internet?"
His answer began:
"Well, I'm afraid I'm probably going to disappoint you..." and yes, unfortunately, he did.
Paraphrased his answer was: "Stopping child pornography is extremely important to me and the Liberal party and therefore, if we can prove the censorship plan doesn't work, we will oppose it; but only it. We will continue to seek effective means to block 'filth' (his word) from entering our country any way we can. If the filter works, we will support it."
Basically the message I got from his reply is that Tony Abbot believes that the filter will work "well enough" and is too much of a hot potato to oppose politically. The subtext I personally divined from his answer was a little more chilling; that the filter didn't go far *enough* for his tastes, and that he'd personally rather a complete whitelist than a blacklist. Therefore, speaking as a card-carrying Liberal... if you think that voting for the Liberal party in the next election will make the filter go away, you are sadly mistaken.
On a side note, the fact that he himself is an extremely religious man probably doesn't help a great deal, since it seems that too many politicians tend to "trust God about these things" when it's abundantly clear that God knows sweet F-A about the Tubes and how they work.
You could also use fixed point arithmetic. :)
Wise beard man. His words are wise, his face is beard.
I don't know anything about the code either, but I can take a stab.
The angles aren't actually the problem, the real problem is points on a Cartesian plane (x and y coordinates)... but angles suffer from the same thing that is the real problem. I'll explain as simply as I can (even for experienced programmers and mathematicians, I have found simple to be better, so don't take that the wrong way).
The exact location of every 3D object in a game is represented by X, Y and Z coordinates. These are currently stored in floating point, so that something can be at x=.5 and be comprehensible to the engine. This means that the object can be almost anywhere without rounding to an integer.
Your idea is that basically with small enough points, the player would be unable to tell the difference. While it's true that with tiny enough points this may be true, one of the big issues is movement within a 3D world. Essentially, the movement is something like this:
Your current position is (0,0) facing 0 degrees. You are getting 60 FPS. You press the forward key, moving north.
New X Coordinate = old_X + time * Sin(angle) = 0 + .3 + 1 microsecond * 0 = 0 .3 + 1 microsecond * 1 = 1
New Y Coordinate = old_Y + time * Cos(angle) = 0 +
You are now at (0,1), which is as you'd expect. Let's mess things up a bit.
Your current position is (3, 6) facing 146 degrees. You are getting 34 FPS. You push the forward key, moving at the angle 146.
New X Coordinate = old_X + time * Sin(angle) = 3 + 0.566666667 * .75011107 = 3.42506294
New Y Coordinate = old_Y + time * Cos(angle) = 6 + 0.566666667 * 0.661311865 = 5.62525661
See what's starting to happen here? Floating point representations of coordinates are vital to preserving the object's exact coordinates. If you used ints for these values, you'd be forced to round and lose a lot of precision. That adds up, especially when these calculations are being performed every 34 seconds. The model would 'jitter' and seem to be very slightly spasming, which would look terrible. Unfortunately floating point numbers are required here.
Phobos == Death Star.
So, obviously they'll need to get a lot lower than *that*. The Rebel snubfighters were only meters above the surface...
Unfortunately the Greens (in actuality an extremely authoritarian party, despite their vicious protests to the contrary) oppose the censorship plan but only because it censors things they think should be uncensored. Given a free reign, they would undoubtedly install low-energy mind control chips into the heads of every newborn and have An Inconvenient Truth play on repeat in the minds of every citizen. Minus themselves, of course...
Regretfully, I agree.
Tony Abbot (The head of the Liberal party- that's the guys NOT in power, for you Americans) visited humble Darwin city recently and it was there that I personally got to ask him, in his public question and answer time, the following question (roughly remembered):
"The Internet is an important part of the lives of many young Australians, as well as Australia as a whole in this modern age- what do you think of (the Prime Minister- Americans would say 'president') Kevin Rudd's plan to censor the Internet?"
His answer began:
"Well, I'm afraid I'm probably going to disappoint you..." and yes, unfortunately, he did.
Paraphrased his answer was: "Stopping child pornography is extremely important to me and the Liberal party and therefore, if we can prove the censorship plan doesn't work, we will oppose it; but only it. We will continue to seek effective means to block 'filth' (his word) from entering our country any way we can. If the filter works, we will support it."
Basically the message I got from his reply is that Tony Abbot believes that the filter will work "well enough" and is too much of a hot potato to oppose politically. The subtext I personally divined from his answer was a little more chilling; that the filter didn't go far *enough* for his tastes, and that he'd personally rather a complete whitelist than a blacklist. Therefore, speaking as a card-carrying Liberal... if you think that voting for the Liberal party in the next election will make the filter go away, you are sadly mistaken.
On a side note, the fact that he himself is an extremely religious man probably doesn't help a great deal, since it seems that too many politicians tend to "trust God about these things" when it's abundantly clear that God knows sweet F-A about the Tubes and how they work.
Other distros? Sure would be nice, but the fact that they're ARM means it probably won't be ready just yet. This, by the way, is fantastic news.
The greatest thing about these laptops is, if they're as good as the article claims, the fact that they're ARM processors means that there won't be a version of Windows out for them for ages/ever.
That means that Microsoft can't just use its market share to bury the Linux versions by heavily discounting the OS, while using their deals with retailers to make sure they only stock the Windows versions, all the while pressuring the laptop manufacturers to increase the specs on them so they can run Windows 7 instead of XP which they're selling for so cheap (to compete with 'free') they're not making any money off it.
Obviously this is when Adama and the fleet landed on Earth. BSG was right all along!
My eye is now firmly fixed on this thread.
I am doing something *similar* to the OP, an iPhone-and-Android-and-PCs semi-remake of an old classic ('Eye of the Beholder' for anyone who's curious), although my project has a few substantial differences:
My game...
- .. is substantially higher resolution and visually very pretty (IMHO). .. 's name is completely different (Tale of Vamadon), takes place in an entirely original campaign world, and features an entirely different and original storyline. .. has complicated, Baldur's Gate II-style NPCs and dialogue choices rather than the simple hack-and-slash of its predecessor. .. engine has a large number of enhancements; items can now be inspected, with each having a description, lore behind it, information behind game mechanics, etc. .. has a built-in 'map' function. .. has (near) full v3.5 ruleset compatibility (although we may move to Pathfinder if its licence allows free use in games) .. only lets you generate a 'main' character; all other NPCs are picked up either at the beginning of the game or in the game world, with each having their own personality, backstory, motivations, unique races, etc. .. has dozens of endings all depending on what your character says and does during the game. .. features many cutscenes and other such graphical enhancements. .. has currency, a town, a store where you can buy and sell looted equipment, get optional quests, etc.
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In my humble opinion it's about as much a "clone" of Eye of the Beholder as Halo is of Half-Life. That is to say, the only adjectives it has in common with the 'original' are 'First Person Perspective RPG with D&D Rules'. Is that enough to make me 'safe'? Thoughts?
Many other +5 insightfuls have said it before me, but the movie isn't anti-technology. There are many quotes to support this, but the most damning evidence comes from the movie itself- in order to down the Valkaryie bomber at the end, Jake Sully uses... marine grenades. In order to board the ship, he uses... a machine gun. In order to coordinate his attack, he uses... radio communicators.
Without any of these things, the ambush would either fail or be significantly harder to pull off. The Na'vi don't hate their technology- at no point is there even a symbolic rejection of their *tools*. It's simply the behaviour of the humans that offends them.
So the movie is not anti-technology. It is anvilicious on other topics, but it's not anti-technology.
The only thing that might have changed in the last 50 years is that child porn may be more accessible now that it was before
Certainly true. However, one thing I will point out is that while the accessibility of child porn has dramatically increased, before the Internet it was practically non-existent. I mean, where were the big child porn busts in the 50's and the 40's? 20's? There were none, because there was no porn to bust. Instead, people went out and basically had sex with kids. Particularly, say, three hundred years ago (not long ago in the scheme of things)- if you felt that way, then you just did it, since the chances of you getting caught were extremely slim and you could just pay anyone you wanted to hush up (including the cops). There wasn't any child pornography because people could get "the real thing". It's only in modern times that such things have become monstrous in the eyes of the public, and kiddy porn has a much lower chance of getting you arrested vs fiddling up some kids, so...
Well spotted! I had read that figure somewhere and forgotten where. To try and clear it up, I did some research....
According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-by-state_lower_house_results_for_the_2007_Australian_federal_election voter turnout *amongst those registered to vote* was about 95% (3.26% informal vote, meaning a "donkey vote"; a vote where the voter attended but which is not recognized by the electoral commission, such as voting for Adolf Hitler, Big Bird or drawing a smiley face on the voting form).
However- only a total of 3,168,899 votes (source; same page) were cast in the whole state out of a population of 5,402,600 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_(Australia)); subtracting the approximately 110,000 donkey votes that would give about 55% of the citizen-population registered to vote. I don't know where I heard the 25% from, but obviously it was incorrect- although it may have included people ineligible to vote for a variety of reasons, or the estimated illegal/interstate immigrant population (Victoria at the time was experiencing phenomenal population growth and to the best of my knowledge still is), or any number of other factors to blow it out to that number. Or, you know, it might just be wrong.
In any event, doubling the number of people represented by Senator Fielding doesn't change the base premise of my post, in that this is a case of a minority of the population holding vast sway over the majority.
It was actually in the Northern Territory (I'm from the NT).
The parent is, sadly, correct (except for that last bit). The situation was exactly as described and lead to some of the worst legislation in NT history.
As a side note, Australia has a preferential voting system (I want Labour, if not Labour then the Greens, if not the Greens then the Democrats , etc...). This means that while Senetor Fielding polled less than 2% of the popular vote as first choices, due to preferences he won the seat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_electoral_system). The population of Victoria is about five million people, voter turnout rate was about 25%, which means that this man was the first choice for *only* approximately 62,500 people- yet he has vast power in the Australian political system.
In short, we're not all crazy- it's just a minor glitch in our political system. Don't worry. Hopefully next election this issue will go away.
The answer to this is simple. (disclaimer: I'm not a politician but I am interested in politics)
In Australia (much like in other democracies such as America) we have a senate which ultimately writes, discusses and publishes new laws. Instead of directly voting for our Prime Minister (you guys would say President), we instead vote in senate members in our electorates (or 'regional areas'). Since Australia's quite large, these regional areas might cover a fairly large areas including a small city and a few towns.
Australia, much like America, has two main political parties- the Labour party (left leaning) and the Liberal party (right leaning). These two parties get most of the seats. However, because senate members vote on laws, sometimes minority parties or independents gain seats.
There are currently 76 seats in the senate. What this means is, in simplified terms, if the Labour party has 38 seats and the Liberal party has 37 seats, then the one remaining seat (held by an independent or a member of an minority party) holds what is called the 'balance of power'. After all, they could just vote against or for any law proposed by the government and block it- 38 vs 38 is a tie, which means the bill is defeated. So, essentially, this person has the power to veto any law they choose... a very powerful position. They cannot *create* new laws directly, but they get the final say as to what passes.
Currently, senator Fielding holds the balance of power in the Australian senate. Senator Fielding is from the state of Victoria and is affiliated with a political party called 'Family First', which is exactly what it says on the tin- immediately love for any scheme which is 'for the children at any cost'. That's why all these insane "For the Children!" laws are getting passed- because politicians on all sides of politics want to scratch his back so that he'll pass or block their various laws of choice. Couple this with a profound lack of understanding regarding the Intertubes, a Telecommunications minister who has a massive, visible erection for Internet censorship (who is by far the most hated minister in his field in living memory) and you have a recipe for massive "For the Children" wankery.
I hope I've explained everything in an easy to understand manner. It's not that Australians are douchebags or that our politicians are all insane, it's just a minor broken bit in what is otherwise a perfectly fine system- a unique race condition which manifests itself regularly but is remarkably damaging when it does.