Though you may be familiar with Dracula X on the SNES (the watered down version of Rondo released in the States).
It's a good game, actually. It's something like Castlevania 3 in that there are level forks, except that in Rondo the level forks can be hidden within another level (instead of the post-level cross roads). It's also the last Castlevania that harkens back to pre-symphony of the night gameplay.
Gameplay wasn't the only aspect that changed. If you'll remember, Castlevania 1 was and is extremely difficult (I dare you to kill death without any sub weapons). Castlevania 2... all right, maybe thats a precursor to symphony of the night, but Super Metroid came before it. That, and CV2 had the most pitiful bosses encountered (and if it weren't for Galamoth, I'd feel the same way about SotN). Although if you want hard... try to beat Haunted Castle. That game is beastly.
After symphony a lot of their originality kind of fell off. They tried to re-do what they had with that formula and experimented on what variations didn't make it stale and old (where Circle had been quite good, HoD, AoS, DoS, and PoR, can apparently do no better than stand in SotN's shadow. Although at least PoR brought back some level of challenge to the game, it had some rather difficult bossess (and no lame fighting bosses again for screwing up those stupid seals in DoS).
About the only thing I can see this being used for is pixars ever increasing demand for more computer power (with the least possible power consumption). I guess that depends, though. Could supercomputers be used that way? I'm sure pixar would have considered all viable alternatives.
I wonder what they would get if they combined a supercomputer and a mainframe (a waste of space?). Sadly, the more informed will have to answer that:(
The approach. Look at the motivations behind it. For Microsoft it's both an issue of control and of money (which go hand in hand if you're the biggest dog pulling).
For Apple you could say the same, except that they don't hold the same amount of users Microsoft does.
Now, if that's so where does this distinction of 'better than' come into play? Where, there are a fewfacets to consider.
Morality. Does the company in question make any considerations based on morality, regardless of whether or not such considerations may consume company resources without the explicit expectation of a financial or strategic gain? You could also say this is a form of selflessness. The ability to think on equal terms with moral values to real money. In this, the company would have high moral values that would in most cases put monetary value and gain to second place.
There has to be some consideration given to the rights of the users. Does the OS company work to suppress what the user is and is not able to do? Or are they more comfortable with allowing the user to make their own choices?
A company less concerned with user rights would want a monopoly hold on the software their users have available to them. Microsoft has been a pretty good one for that.
I don't know though, I guess if you had to generalize things one might suggest that Apple seems to care a little more about what they are doing than Microsoft. Certainly they are both businesses and are guilty of some business level ambitions.
It's like the difference between a good book and a bad one. If the writer cares about the story (assuming he/she is a competent enough writer), their writing will generally be much more sincere than a writer who's doing it to 'make it big'. Sincerity. That's a good way of saying it, actually.... you could call Microsoft more insincere than Apple.
Clearly we do not understand the properties of our inner earth as well as we would like. Where or how does physics describe this acoustic 'softness' given the circumstances? What of earths gravity? Does gravity truly intensify the closer towards to the center you are? Are there any mathematics that accurately describes all this? Lastly, how does the movement of the earth's magnetic dynamo play into all this.
I'm no expert in physics, but I certainly hope we see answers to these questions in time.
Well, I imagine the horse breeders must have been HORRIFIED.
What we will be seeing here is the ability for anyone with the inclination to create their own music. Music labels must be disgusted at the idea, I'm sure, but I doubt they can stop the information age from taking over. Musical communities/forums will continue to exist, and people will continue to make their own music/parodies/crappy FMVs. Creativity is gaining a much firmer grip on our society now that computers make it so easy. Even an idiot that can't play the piano can use a sequencer and string notes together until a song is produced.
I think part of the problem is our generation (or at least me in particular) does not value the things you can download. I was young when I first started, and it was originally because I was just a kid with no money. How are you supposed to find value in what is so easy to do? It's like videogames. If a game is too easy, its boring. If its damn near impossible to play, beating it feels like a real accomplishment *coughadventuresoflinkcough*. You don't get that kind of feeling from downloading whatever you feel like, you get more of a 'heh heh' feeling of getting one up on the man. Although I'm sure I'm not speaking for everyone here.
I'm still waiting to see what quantum computing will be capable of. I have a feeling much more advanced AI would not be far behind. From where I'm standing I really can't conceive of what those kinds of computers would do. I'll probably be laughing at myself in 10 years or so.
Actually I'd have to say I'm a bit nervous about what the music/software industry would try to do when quantum computers become commonplace. Thats fear of the unknown for you.
If that's partly aimed at me, are you asking why I feel it's relevant to compare Bush to the FBI? Even if little encouragement was needed, do you believe that he's, oh, I don't know, defended the right of the public to know what really goes on? There's a Dune quote that I feel is appropriate for this situation.
"We witness a passing phase of eternity. Important things happen but some people never notice. Accidents intervene. You are not present at episodes. You depend on reports. And people shutter their minds. What good are reports? History in a news account? Preselected at an editorial conference, digested and excreted by prejudice? Accounts you need seldom come from those who make history. Diaries, memoirs and autobiographies are subjective forms of special pleading. Archives are crammed with such suspect stuff."
Certainly, it's difficult for 'something corrective' to be done about this. That isn't what I'm suggesting. I was stating my discontent with such phenomena in general. Of course there isn't a whole lot I can do about it, but that doesn't mean I have to pretend to like it. It saddens me to see even part of the nasty things that have come about from the selfishness of those in power. As for me, I'm just another blabbering face in the crowd shouting my opinions as if they really mattered (gotta love ego).
There were some very good points made regarding the way the FBI already was before Bush became involved and encouraged/empowered them to become even more invasive. I'd quote more Dune/Herbert stuff at you guys but frankly, there's too much that could be applied here (so I won't burden your poor eyes, my comrades).
Luck of the draw, my friend. Anyway, anyone with more than two firing brain cells should realize Bush has been the worst thing for this country, surpassing even Nixon.
And yes this is relevant, since Bush is part of the reason such 'authorities' are able to abuse the privacy of US citizens with little regard to consequences (except where public image itself is concerned). So yes, I have to say that such activities make me more than a little uncomfortable.
If by "classified" they mean mean "stuff that makes us look bad". Gotta love politics and public image. Perhaps Bush taught them a few too many unwholesome lessons of corruption?
Slashdot Mirror
Sounds kind of like a giant spiral fractal. So it took a year just to calculate this?
Am I the only one who thinks that sounds a bit paradoxical?
Looks like someone has never heard of Rondo of Blood
Though you may be familiar with Dracula X on the SNES (the watered down version of Rondo released in the States).
It's a good game, actually. It's something like Castlevania 3 in that there are level forks, except that in Rondo the level forks can be hidden within another level (instead of the post-level cross roads). It's also the last Castlevania that harkens back to pre-symphony of the night gameplay.
Gameplay wasn't the only aspect that changed. If you'll remember, Castlevania 1 was and is extremely difficult (I dare you to kill death without any sub weapons). Castlevania 2... all right, maybe thats a precursor to symphony of the night, but Super Metroid came before it. That, and CV2 had the most pitiful bosses encountered (and if it weren't for Galamoth, I'd feel the same way about SotN). Although if you want hard... try to beat Haunted Castle. That game is beastly.
After symphony a lot of their originality kind of fell off. They tried to re-do what they had with that formula and experimented on what variations didn't make it stale and old (where Circle had been quite good, HoD, AoS, DoS, and PoR, can apparently do no better than stand in SotN's shadow. Although at least PoR brought back some level of challenge to the game, it had some rather difficult bossess (and no lame fighting bosses again for screwing up those stupid seals in DoS).
In before tl;dr
About the only thing I can see this being used for is pixars ever increasing demand for more computer power (with the least possible power consumption). I guess that depends, though. Could supercomputers be used that way? I'm sure pixar would have considered all viable alternatives. I wonder what they would get if they combined a supercomputer and a mainframe (a waste of space?). Sadly, the more informed will have to answer that :(
The approach. Look at the motivations behind it. For Microsoft it's both an issue of control and of money (which go hand in hand if you're the biggest dog pulling).
For Apple you could say the same, except that they don't hold the same amount of users Microsoft does.
Now, if that's so where does this distinction of 'better than' come into play? Where, there are a fewfacets to consider.
Morality. Does the company in question make any considerations based on morality, regardless of whether or not such considerations may consume company resources without the explicit expectation of a financial or strategic gain? You could also say this is a form of selflessness. The ability to think on equal terms with moral values to real money. In this, the company would have high moral values that would in most cases put monetary value and gain to second place.
There has to be some consideration given to the rights of the users. Does the OS company work to suppress what the user is and is not able to do? Or are they more comfortable with allowing the user to make their own choices?
A company less concerned with user rights would want a monopoly hold on the software their users have available to them. Microsoft has been a pretty good one for that.
I don't know though, I guess if you had to generalize things one might suggest that Apple seems to care a little more about what they are doing than Microsoft. Certainly they are both businesses and are guilty of some business level ambitions.
It's like the difference between a good book and a bad one. If the writer cares about the story (assuming he/she is a competent enough writer), their writing will generally be much more sincere than a writer who's doing it to 'make it big'. Sincerity. That's a good way of saying it, actually.... you could call Microsoft more insincere than Apple.
Clearly we do not understand the properties of our inner earth as well as we would like. Where or how does physics describe this acoustic 'softness' given the circumstances? What of earths gravity? Does gravity truly intensify the closer towards to the center you are? Are there any mathematics that accurately describes all this? Lastly, how does the movement of the earth's magnetic dynamo play into all this. I'm no expert in physics, but I certainly hope we see answers to these questions in time.
Well, I imagine the horse breeders must have been HORRIFIED. What we will be seeing here is the ability for anyone with the inclination to create their own music. Music labels must be disgusted at the idea, I'm sure, but I doubt they can stop the information age from taking over. Musical communities/forums will continue to exist, and people will continue to make their own music/parodies/crappy FMVs. Creativity is gaining a much firmer grip on our society now that computers make it so easy. Even an idiot that can't play the piano can use a sequencer and string notes together until a song is produced. I think part of the problem is our generation (or at least me in particular) does not value the things you can download. I was young when I first started, and it was originally because I was just a kid with no money. How are you supposed to find value in what is so easy to do? It's like videogames. If a game is too easy, its boring. If its damn near impossible to play, beating it feels like a real accomplishment *coughadventuresoflinkcough*. You don't get that kind of feeling from downloading whatever you feel like, you get more of a 'heh heh' feeling of getting one up on the man. Although I'm sure I'm not speaking for everyone here. I'm still waiting to see what quantum computing will be capable of. I have a feeling much more advanced AI would not be far behind. From where I'm standing I really can't conceive of what those kinds of computers would do. I'll probably be laughing at myself in 10 years or so. Actually I'd have to say I'm a bit nervous about what the music/software industry would try to do when quantum computers become commonplace. Thats fear of the unknown for you.
If that's partly aimed at me, are you asking why I feel it's relevant to compare Bush to the FBI? Even if little encouragement was needed, do you believe that he's, oh, I don't know, defended the right of the public to know what really goes on? There's a Dune quote that I feel is appropriate for this situation.
"We witness a passing phase of eternity. Important things happen but some people never notice. Accidents intervene. You are not present at episodes. You depend on reports. And people shutter their minds. What good are reports? History in a news account? Preselected at an editorial conference, digested and excreted by prejudice? Accounts you need seldom come from those who make history. Diaries, memoirs and autobiographies are subjective forms of special pleading. Archives are crammed with such suspect stuff."
Certainly, it's difficult for 'something corrective' to be done about this. That isn't what I'm suggesting. I was stating my discontent with such phenomena in general. Of course there isn't a whole lot I can do about it, but that doesn't mean I have to pretend to like it. It saddens me to see even part of the nasty things that have come about from the selfishness of those in power. As for me, I'm just another blabbering face in the crowd shouting my opinions as if they really mattered (gotta love ego).
There were some very good points made regarding the way the FBI already was before Bush became involved and encouraged/empowered them to become even more invasive. I'd quote more Dune/Herbert stuff at you guys but frankly, there's too much that could be applied here (so I won't burden your poor eyes, my comrades).
Luck of the draw, my friend. Anyway, anyone with more than two firing brain cells should realize Bush has been the worst thing for this country, surpassing even Nixon. And yes this is relevant, since Bush is part of the reason such 'authorities' are able to abuse the privacy of US citizens with little regard to consequences (except where public image itself is concerned). So yes, I have to say that such activities make me more than a little uncomfortable.
If by "classified" they mean mean "stuff that makes us look bad". Gotta love politics and public image. Perhaps Bush taught them a few too many unwholesome lessons of corruption?