Except that a lot of executed people are innocent, like the members of Falun Gong http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falungong Basically, it's a large sect, which teaches QiGong.
Repression is very hard, and Falun Gong members are sent to prison, and a lot of them have been executed to grab their body parts. I guess that because they practice qigong, they are healthy and provide nice body parts.
Funnily, China government said that Falun Gong was a dangerous sect, probably because you risk your life by following this movement.
In 1996, I had to finish a game that was coded by another guy (who had quit). There was a weird bug, when you took a sword and jump on the same place, after 2-3 minutes, the player passed through the floor and kept falling (reappearing at the top of the screen). My boss wanted to know how much time I would need to fix this bug, but I sincerely told him I didn't know. He immediately asked to remove the sword from the game. In the same game, there were 2 more unfinished levels, that had probably required 3 months of graphic work (they were graphically finished). Since the game had to be released soon, we didn't include these levels (this was 20% of the whole game !).
In another company, a similar fact appeared: we had to release a game and there were some levels to integrate. The levels were simply ignored.
"No matter how much resolve you could muster, it was still difficult to quit Apple if Steve wanted you to stay. You'd have to sit down with him for a reality distortion session, which was often effective at getting people to change their minds. One day, a few of us were talking about strategies to overcome Steve's persuasiveness."
Suppose you have to defend such an opinion. The schema is as following:
1) you defend an opinion that is not yours
2) people argue and show you where your reasoning fails (and you probably get copiously insulted)
3) instead of opening your mind, it enforces you into believing that if everybody is against you, that means that you are probably right
4) your faith increases
In fact, this is used to increase your faith, not to openly debate about your beliefs.
Since the author of NinjaWords submitted it to AppStore, I think he wants to makes some money from it.
This is quite unethical, because it's basically a dump of wiktionary: http://en.wiktionary.org/ (the dumps can be downloaded freely) and frankly, it's not the best dictionary on the Web (see for example http://www.tfd.com/ )
Today, I saw a guy using it to catch his train, the speed was impressive (a lot faster than what I can run, and a lot less tiring). It costs only a small fraction of a Segway, and you can use it everywhere without any problem, and it's easy to store. It's used in France in the metro, where a Segway could not even enter.
BTW, the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. I guess everybody is completely indifferent to Segway, instead of 'hating' it.
It's clear that you already have a job. You did not mention your age, if you are above 25, don't ever try to write games, it's a vocation and you need to start young (I started at 18, I'm now 44).
> I have a lot of experience with games, having played them for most of my adult life, and have always toyed with the idea of making them one day.
Okay, this counts as ZERO EXPERIENCE. Having played with games leads to no experience at all, and it may even be a drawback, since you are accustomed to known schemas, so you won't ever do something original.
The world is full of people dreaming about writing their own games, but only a few are able to write something. Writing a game seems very theoretical when you don't have experience. If you really want to write a game, start NOW, or forget about it !
> I've finally decided to give it my best. What I'd like to know is: what are the best languages to study? What are the minimum diploma or degree requirements that most games companies will accept? Finally, is C++ the way to go? ASP? LUA?"
I have no diploma, and to my knowledge, diplomas are useless for games (I'm a french guy, and in France, it's really important to have diplomas). What you need the most is MOTIVATION. Show that you can accept ANY task, and you'll progress thanks to your dedication.
About the programming language, the replies here show that nobody knows what game programming is. You have several parts: 1) AI/engine coder: you need to know ASM/C/C++ 2) Game coder: you need to know C++ 3) Game scripter: you need to know a scripting language (in general, every company uses a specific language, but I recommend that you try LUA or Python to get the bases). 4) Graphists, etc..
About the salary, game scripter is a little bit more paid than the guy who cleans the toilets, so don't expect to be rich from that (royalties ? Bwahahaha).
About game design, there are several parts: 1) Scenario writer: it's the most gratifying part, but you work only a few months on a game, this means that you won't be able to work full-time. It's a job similar to a novel writer. 2) Scenario scripter: it's the least gratifying part. You are basically a slave who enters tons of code to create a logic in the game (whatever game it may be). Since in the hierarchy, you are below coders, don't expect any pity from them when you'll have some bugs (sorry, I was a coder, and I only helped scripter girls).
My advice: FIND SOMETHING ELSE ! I changed a few years ago, by becoming a.NET developer: better pay, less hours, and better human environment (did I mention that the gaming world is full of bastards ?).
The real problem is that most of the big videogame companies would like to mimic big movie companies.
When they meet investors, they explain that they want to provide an experience similar to a movie, even though in my opinion, these are quite separate domains, but this makes the investors dream (and take out their cash).
I was a game programmer, and I stopped working in videogames mostly because the games I worked on were less and less funny to play as I was going older.
I remember one of my colleagues in 1985, who dreamt about a 'game' where you could walk into a city. I guess he should be happy with Shenmue: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenmue But I still wonder what is funny in doing this ?
With pagerank basically being synonymous with Internet presence there has been a ton of research into gaming the algorithm
You may be right, but don't you think that any major search engine will attract people into bending its results ?
Bing is still too young to be mastered by spammers, but I bet that if it succeeds in having a few percent of popularity, it will be as much gamed as Google (and it'll probably worst if the algorithm is flawed).
This reminds me about viruses and malware: Windows is the most gamed system, since it's so widely used. Google has the same problem as Microsoft in this area.
As usual, Microsoft uses the policy "announce early, release late".
Compare this to Apple's policy: "announce late, release early"
Microsoft's policy worked several years ago, when they crushed their competitors. But, seriously, who will wait several months to get a console that *may* be better than the current ones ?
Try http://newzbot.com/ It's a search engine for finding free newsgroups server. Just enter the group you'd like to grab, and it will provide you some servers.
Slashdot Mirror
Except that a lot of executed people are innocent, like the members of Falun Gong http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falungong
Basically, it's a large sect, which teaches QiGong.
Repression is very hard, and Falun Gong members are sent to prison, and a lot of them have been executed to grab their body parts.
I guess that because they practice qigong, they are healthy and provide nice body parts.
Funnily, China government said that Falun Gong was a dangerous sect, probably because you risk your life by following this movement.
Here is an article:
http://www.rferl.org/content/Article/1071999.html
In 1996, I had to finish a game that was coded by another guy (who had quit).
There was a weird bug, when you took a sword and jump on the same place, after 2-3 minutes, the player passed through the floor and kept falling (reappearing at the top of the screen).
My boss wanted to know how much time I would need to fix this bug, but I sincerely told him I didn't know.
He immediately asked to remove the sword from the game.
In the same game, there were 2 more unfinished levels, that had probably required 3 months of graphic work (they were graphically finished).
Since the game had to be released soon, we didn't include these levels (this was 20% of the whole game !).
In another company, a similar fact appeared: we had to release a game and there were some levels to integrate.
The levels were simply ignored.
i4i is not a patent troll, since they have a product called x4o since at least 2003: http://www.i4i.com/x4o.htm.
Here is an archive from the same page in February 2003: http://web.archive.org/web/20030207000848/http://www.i4i.com/x4o.htm
It seems their technology began in 1998:
http://web.archive.org/web/19981206121641/http://www.i4i.com/
Extract:
S4 Toolkit for Microsoft Word!
A Head Start for your XML/SGML Development Team
Schedule a NetMeeting Demo Today!
Their first released product dates from 1999.
You can check the whole history here: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.i4i.com
It doesn't seem so easy.
"No matter how much resolve you could muster, it was still difficult to quit Apple if Steve wanted you to stay. You'd have to sit down with him for a reality distortion session, which was often effective at getting people to change their minds. One day, a few of us were talking about strategies to overcome Steve's persuasiveness."
http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Are_You_Gonna_Do_It.txt
I totally agree.
Not possessing an iPhone, I don't see the point of such an application (I have seen tons of 3D viewers on so much platforms).
BTW, their application is not free (sold on AppStore), and they'll probably license it to Apple.
The second prize seems a lot more impressive: http://3d.athens-agora.gr/index_en.html
Shouldn't these prizes reward people that don't write commercial applications ?
Doing this is really similar to Jehovah's Witnesses practices: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jehovah's_Witnesses
Suppose you have to defend such an opinion.
The schema is as following:
1) you defend an opinion that is not yours
2) people argue and show you where your reasoning fails (and you probably get copiously insulted)
3) instead of opening your mind, it enforces you into believing that if everybody is against you, that means that you are probably right
4) your faith increases
In fact, this is used to increase your faith, not to openly debate about your beliefs.
I think you should forget about SQL, it's really not adapted to text search.
Try Lucene, which is a high performance open-source text search engine.
A more complete version with sound and real gameplay is here:
http://www.nihilogic.dk/labs/wolf/
Since the author of NinjaWords submitted it to AppStore, I think he wants to makes some money from it.
This is quite unethical, because it's basically a dump of wiktionary: http://en.wiktionary.org/
(the dumps can be downloaded freely)
and frankly, it's not the best dictionary on the Web (see for example http://www.tfd.com/ )
A free offline Wikipedia already exists for the iPhone:
http://collison.ie/wikipedia-iphone/
So, I really don't see the point of this application.
Is it so lame that it needs so much PR ?
Apple should not even allow such applications to be sold !
First, you start with pirating games.
Since you are a thief, you become a bigger thief, by stealing bigger objects.
Then, you start drug trafficking, and become a consumer too.
Finally, you get caught, and spend several years behind the bars, where you contract HIV.
Isn't that bad for health ?
There is a more stable way to travel: adult kick scooter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kick_scooter
Today, I saw a guy using it to catch his train, the speed was impressive (a lot faster than what I can run, and a lot less tiring).
It costs only a small fraction of a Segway, and you can use it everywhere without any problem, and it's easy to store.
It's used in France in the metro, where a Segway could not even enter.
BTW, the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference.
I guess everybody is completely indifferent to Segway, instead of 'hating' it.
Did you try milk with reduced lactose ?
It's difficult to find organic milk, but milk with reduced lactose is easy to get.
I'm lactose intolerant, and my body doesn't support standard milk.
As it's mentioned in another reply, Wolfenstein is not in 3D, but in pseudo 3D http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfenstein_3D
The real 3D games ancestors are:
- Elite (1984, first 3D) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_(video_game)
- Rescue on Fractalus (1984, first voxel) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rescue_On_Fractalus
Torrent anyone ?
Just burn your CDs at the lowest possible speed. I suggest 4x or 6x.
Burning a CD at 16x (or more) generally makes it unreadable on other CD drives.
>I've recently decided to go back to college.
It's clear that you already have a job.
You did not mention your age, if you are above 25, don't ever try to write games, it's a vocation and you need to start young (I started at 18, I'm now 44).
> I have a lot of experience with games, having played them for most of my adult life, and have always toyed with the idea of making them one day.
Okay, this counts as ZERO EXPERIENCE.
Having played with games leads to no experience at all, and it may even be a drawback, since you are accustomed to known schemas, so you won't ever do something original.
The world is full of people dreaming about writing their own games, but only a few are able to write something.
Writing a game seems very theoretical when you don't have experience.
If you really want to write a game, start NOW, or forget about it !
> I've finally decided to give it my best. What I'd like to know is: what are the best languages to study? What are the minimum diploma or degree requirements that most games companies will accept? Finally, is C++ the way to go? ASP? LUA?"
I have no diploma, and to my knowledge, diplomas are useless for games (I'm a french guy, and in France, it's really important to have diplomas).
What you need the most is MOTIVATION.
Show that you can accept ANY task, and you'll progress thanks to your dedication.
About the programming language, the replies here show that nobody knows what game programming is.
You have several parts:
1) AI/engine coder: you need to know ASM/C/C++
2) Game coder: you need to know C++
3) Game scripter: you need to know a scripting language (in general, every company uses a specific language, but I recommend that you try LUA or Python to get the bases).
4) Graphists, etc..
About the salary, game scripter is a little bit more paid than the guy who cleans the toilets, so don't expect to be rich from that (royalties ? Bwahahaha).
About game design, there are several parts:
1) Scenario writer: it's the most gratifying part, but you work only a few months on a game, this means that you won't be able to work full-time. It's a job similar to a novel writer.
2) Scenario scripter: it's the least gratifying part. You are basically a slave who enters tons of code to create a logic in the game (whatever game it may be). Since in the hierarchy, you are below coders, don't expect any pity from them when you'll have some bugs (sorry, I was a coder, and I only helped scripter girls).
My advice: FIND SOMETHING ELSE ! .NET developer: better pay, less hours, and better human environment (did I mention that the gaming world is full of bastards ?).
I changed a few years ago, by becoming a
The real problem is that most of the big videogame companies would like to mimic big movie companies.
When they meet investors, they explain that they want to provide an experience similar to a movie, even though in my opinion, these are quite separate domains, but this makes the investors dream (and take out their cash).
I was a game programmer, and I stopped working in videogames mostly because the games I worked on were less and less funny to play as I was going older.
I remember one of my colleagues in 1985, who dreamt about a 'game' where you could walk into a city.
I guess he should be happy with Shenmue: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenmue
But I still wonder what is funny in doing this ?
Real life is so fucking boring !
Firefox has a MSI version that can be deployed on a whole domain: http://www.frontmotion.com/Firefox/index.htm
In fact, games are expensive when they are licensed, probably 95% of the cost of a game comes from the license.
I have been a game developer for a long time, and it was known that 50% of the budget of a game was used for marketing.
Ubisoft is also well known for messing games, because they want to build the cheapest possible games (see the pitiful experience of Splinter Cell with the Shangai team http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/2830/postmortem_tom_clancys_splinter_.php ).
With pagerank basically being synonymous with Internet presence there has been a ton of research into gaming the algorithm
You may be right, but don't you think that any major search engine will attract people into bending its results ?
Bing is still too young to be mastered by spammers, but I bet that if it succeeds in having a few percent of popularity, it will be as much gamed as Google (and it'll probably worst if the algorithm is flawed).
This reminds me about viruses and malware: Windows is the most gamed system, since it's so widely used.
Google has the same problem as Microsoft in this area.
As usual, Microsoft uses the policy "announce early, release late".
Compare this to Apple's policy: "announce late, release early"
Microsoft's policy worked several years ago, when they crushed their competitors.
But, seriously, who will wait several months to get a console that *may* be better than the current ones ?
Simply because grepping 500 million pages is slow.
Try http://newzbot.com/
It's a search engine for finding free newsgroups server.
Just enter the group you'd like to grab, and it will provide you some servers.
For searching code, use Code Search: http://google.com/codesearch
It's a lot more relevant.
But I agree that the new Google is irritating, with its pitiful attempts to correct spelling.
This is what you get when you dumb down the interface.
Ada was created by a french team: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_(programming_language)
Four teams competed to create a new language suitable for the DoD, and the french team won.