I made a handwriting system a long time ago with the following goals in mind in designing it:
1. It should NOT be easily readable by a casual observer (for notes I didn't want other people to read). 2. The most commonly used letters should be the simplest to draw, so it should be fairly fast to write, like cursive. 3. Letters should be as umambigious as possible, so even the most scribbled/hurried writing would be distinctly recognizable. 4. Each letter should try to hint to the original latin letter to some degree, whenever possible. Although goal #2 usually would take priority over this one when in conflict. 5. A mid-height clear horizontal marked the beginning/end of a new letter. 6. (just for fun) It should look kinda weird and cool in a sci-fi sort of way, so if someone came across my notes they would be kind of baffled =)
While #2 and #3 might work towards making this an easy-to-OCR handwriting system, #1 and #6 probably makes it moot, at least for the system I made. However, I imagine it wouldn't be too hard to make a less-obfuscated more-practical writing system which try to accomplish similar goals to #2-4 above.
I made a font out of my handwriting system a few years ago. If anyone is curious, here is an image chart of the font. =)
I'm curious what other more "efficient" writing systems may exist out there (other than standard and cursive). Does anyone know of any others?
In the novel, all humans are made immortal and are given literally anything and everything they want (except death). Some people choose to become eternally wired vegetables, and others become uber-sadomasochists to curb off boredom.
Right around the release time there were many posts on the forums that indicated Microsoft required that the PC version be *identical* to the 360 version so that there wouldn't be any contention between the two. Assumign this is true, then I'd say they took the identical requirement quite literally.
It's quite annoying that I can't bind J to journal, I to inventory, etc. =/
The energy amplifier reactor seems to solve most of the problems of nuclear power; the only downside is the initial investment of building a cyclotron =/
Re:I will buy the game if and only if...
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Living In Oblivion
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I miss that procedurally generated universe as well. We still don't have an open-ended space game like it. Some come close, but you can't land on planets seamlessly, or the universe is pre-generated (and therefore limited in scale). The "wormhole" 16-bit overflow bug even added a whole new angle to it.
Frontier was an amazingly huge universe that fit on a single floppy disk. I hope the success of Spore will inspire a new generation of procedurally-generated game content.
From the video, I got the impression that you can always stay where you are, or go back levels, but you have to accumulate accomplishments to proceed to the next "evolutionary step".
I believe a small contributing factor to the demise of E&B was the fact it had, like, 11 subscribers.
It was an active game for the entire time that I played it (nearly up until it closed). I had to turn off the trade channel because it was always so busy it'd scroll off the text I was trying to read from the other channels. The problem is there was so little progression in the plot and game mechanics because the team that ran it (including devs and support) shrunk to something like four people total, thanks to EA.
It had a really good story too. How many other MMORPGs make good and fairly accurate use of Bell's Theorem and other theories of quantum physics / special relativity as part of it's storyline?
Over the past year or so, I've had a few minor problems playing games on my dual-head setup. My main objective was to have my main monitor be for games, while the second would be for IRC (or occasionally, the Web).
The problems I can clearly recall encountering are:
Fullscreen task switching: For some reason, nearly every game I've tried always minimizes when it loses focus while in fullscreen mode. This is very annoying since I just want to hop over to my IRC window, type something quick, and hop right back to the game. Or maybe I want the game to keep running while I'm chatting, while I wait for something to happen (see next item). Also, usually the minimize/restore process can take a lot of time and doesn't always go smoothly (sometimes the audio volume level is bumped around)
Automatic pause on defocus: Some games pause when the game loses focus (ie X3). I guess the idea is that if the game isn't the curretly focused application, then you probably want it auto-paused since you might miss something. With two monitors though, i've still got the game filling one whole screen so this is not always true.
Windowed mode problems: Since fullscreen causes a lot of problems, it seems like the best idea is to try to run things in a maximized window if the game allows it. The problem is that some games won't maximize in windowed mode. For example, EVE Online gives me a list of standard resolutions which I can set the window to, but it can't be resized or maximized. And trying to move the window around is a game in itself since the program likes to grab the mouse pointer when i'm trying to move the window to the top to get it to cover most the screen without cutting off anywhere.
Glitches on secondary screen: I've often seen games and programs which run fullscreen on my primary monitor will affect the secondary monitor's "bounding box" region for where application windows can be moved to. Usually it causes the left half of the screen to be unusable while the fullscreen game/program is up and running.
Slowness: I had one game which gave me a really low framerate unless I first disabled my secondary monitor when I started the game; but once the game was running, i could re-enable the second monitor and my framerate was fine.
The Seam: I haven't really had this problem yet, since I always play games on my primary monitor only; but any even-number of monitors is going to wind up with the problem that the center of your game's action is going to be on the seam between the monitors (unless the game explicitly notices this and compensates). It's too bad there aren't any ATI or nVidia cards which support triple-head monitors so people could do a nice setup with the game action centered on the center monitor.
Generally, I just try to only pick games which will run in windowed mode, and put up with the odd quirks that come up from task switching. I have yet to find a 3D game that runs in windowed mode, properly maximizes, and allows me to task-switch out and back into it without any annoying quirks; or a game which runs fullscreen and doesn't minimize when I task-switch out of it. I just hope as multi-monitor setups become more common, that they will be more thorougly QA-tested in this environment =)
Dual-core processors do help single-threaded games to a small degree. All those other tasks that are running in the background can use one CPU while your game hogs the other CPU for itself.
Of course, as more people get dual-core systems, you can expect games to take advantage of it.
The subject ate the greater-than symbol I originally entered. Guess I'm getting used to the message boards which can handle such complicated substitutions. =P
This is all great, but when is nVidia or ATI going to put out a three-head or four-head card? Some of us have more screens than we should be allowed. =)
At work, it's no problem because I can just use multiple cards for the 2D stuff. But I'm not sure how well that will work with 3D applications which I want to span multiple screens. Stretching a game across an odd number of a horizontal row of monitors works a lot better than across an even number, since the center of an even number of monitors will be on a gap between them.
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I made a handwriting system a long time ago with the following goals in mind in designing it:
1. It should NOT be easily readable by a casual observer (for notes I didn't want other people to read).
2. The most commonly used letters should be the simplest to draw, so it should be fairly fast to write, like cursive.
3. Letters should be as umambigious as possible, so even the most scribbled/hurried writing would be distinctly recognizable.
4. Each letter should try to hint to the original latin letter to some degree, whenever possible. Although goal #2 usually would take priority over this one when in conflict.
5. A mid-height clear horizontal marked the beginning/end of a new letter.
6. (just for fun) It should look kinda weird and cool in a sci-fi sort of way, so if someone came across my notes they would be kind of baffled =)
While #2 and #3 might work towards making this an easy-to-OCR handwriting system, #1 and #6 probably makes it moot, at least for the system I made. However, I imagine it wouldn't be too hard to make a less-obfuscated more-practical writing system which try to accomplish similar goals to #2-4 above.
I made a font out of my handwriting system a few years ago. If anyone is curious, here is an image chart of the font. =)
I'm curious what other more "efficient" writing systems may exist out there (other than standard and cursive). Does anyone know of any others?
The short free online novel The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect goes into the same concepts you bring up.
In the novel, all humans are made immortal and are given literally anything and everything they want (except death). Some people choose to become eternally wired vegetables, and others become uber-sadomasochists to curb off boredom.
Right around the release time there were many posts on the forums that indicated Microsoft required that the PC version be *identical* to the 360 version so that there wouldn't be any contention between the two. Assumign this is true, then I'd say they took the identical requirement quite literally.
It's quite annoying that I can't bind J to journal, I to inventory, etc. =/
The energy amplifier reactor seems to solve most of the problems of nuclear power; the only downside is the initial investment of building a cyclotron =/
Someone has already made a mod that makes the emperor look more like Patrick Stewart
I miss that procedurally generated universe as well. We still don't have an open-ended space game like it. Some come close, but you can't land on planets seamlessly, or the universe is pre-generated (and therefore limited in scale). The "wormhole" 16-bit overflow bug even added a whole new angle to it.
Frontier was an amazingly huge universe that fit on a single floppy disk. I hope the success of Spore will inspire a new generation of procedurally-generated game content.
From the video, I got the impression that you can always stay where you are, or go back levels, but you have to accumulate accomplishments to proceed to the next "evolutionary step".
So we should be using 'microkilograms' instead of 'milligrams'? =)
Maybe they could take a cue from cellular phone networks? When load increases, increase the cell density and decrease the update range.
I loved Earth & Beyond. I miss it so much.
Yeah, I know. You hated it. Just let me be, okay?
This is neat, but why can't we just have two mouse pointers *right now* using two mice?
Imagine what possibilities that alone would open up.
I believe a small contributing factor to the demise of E&B was the fact it had, like, 11 subscribers.
It was an active game for the entire time that I played it (nearly up until it closed). I had to turn off the trade channel because it was always so busy it'd scroll off the text I was trying to read from the other channels. The problem is there was so little progression in the plot and game mechanics because the team that ran it (including devs and support) shrunk to something like four people total, thanks to EA.
It had a really good story too. How many other MMORPGs make good and fairly accurate use of Bell's Theorem and other theories of quantum physics / special relativity as part of it's storyline?
If you didn't return it, or at least sell it off at a used game shop, then EA doesn't care -- they got your money.
Over the past year or so, I've had a few minor problems playing games on my dual-head setup. My main objective was to have my main monitor be for games, while the second would be for IRC (or occasionally, the Web).
The problems I can clearly recall encountering are:
Generally, I just try to only pick games which will run in windowed mode, and put up with the odd quirks that come up from task switching. I have yet to find a 3D game that runs in windowed mode, properly maximizes, and allows me to task-switch out and back into it without any annoying quirks; or a game which runs fullscreen and doesn't minimize when I task-switch out of it. I just hope as multi-monitor setups become more common, that they will be more thorougly QA-tested in this environment =)
It'd ridiculous that they rely on a backend for something this simple anwyway. This could be easily done with Javascript.
We need more content like that at http://www.lafkon.net/tc/ which make this kind of knowledge accessible, clear, and simple to understand.
Won't many (OpenGL) games be broken in Vista anyway?
3. more important AMD seems far behind Intel in the 65 nm transition
I read recently that using SOI effectively gives the performance of one "scale generation" down. Is there any validity to this?
[LAFKON] - A movie about Trusted Computing
XMLHttpRequest hasn't been around since Internet Explorer 4, it was introduced in Internet Explorer 5.0.
True, but IE4.0 had the Tabular Data Control, which let you do basically the same thing.
And even without the TDC, you could load data in hidden frames.
Dual-core processors do help single-threaded games to a small degree. All those other tasks that are running in the background can use one CPU while your game hogs the other CPU for itself.
Of course, as more people get dual-core systems, you can expect games to take advantage of it.
The subject ate the greater-than symbol I originally entered. Guess I'm getting used to the message boards which can handle such complicated substitutions. =P
This is all great, but when is nVidia or ATI going to put out a three-head or four-head card? Some of us have more screens than we should be allowed. =)
At work, it's no problem because I can just use multiple cards for the 2D stuff. But I'm not sure how well that will work with 3D applications which I want to span multiple screens. Stretching a game across an odd number of a horizontal row of monitors works a lot better than across an even number, since the center of an even number of monitors will be on a gap between them.
Your phone is probably not interfering with the electronics *in* your computer, just your speakers.
The transmitter in your cell phone is creating enough electromagnetic energy to induce a current in the wire coil inside your speakers.
I would like to see a big open ended Virtual world where killing each other off wasn't the goal.
http://secondlife.com/
http://www.there.com/
http://www.activeworlds.com/