"and it's likely this form of advertising will be smashed to bits by Microsoft's pop-up blocker going in to IE6 in XP SP2"
I suddenly had the thought that if Microsoft were like the U.S. government, pop-up advertisers would be lobbying like crazy for them NOT to include a pop-up blocker in the new IE. Good thing Microsoft doesn't need to run for office.
Re:Don't let the religious zealots see this story.
on
Fish with Limbs
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· Score: 1
Actually, allowing people with genetic defects to reproduce is an advantage. The more genetic variation a species possesses, the more robust it is. What seem like defects today may infact save the species at some future date.
Take, for example, the relationship between sickle-cell anemia (recessive genetic disease) and malaria. Individuals who have sickle-cell anemia are immune to malaria, and those who are just carriers are highly resistant.
Ultimately, it benefits us to let anyone and everyone reproduce....or at least store all their genes in a database somewhere.:P
Just a few points: 1. There is a "hold your fire" command in Starcraft; you have to continually hit the "stop" command.
2. Flanking manuevers, ambushes, etc. were all very prevalent in Starcraft. For example, an effective ranged attack unit killing manuever is to use a few units to lure the enemy into a line, and then attack the line from the top or the bottom with melee units.
Real Time Strategy games do have strategy...they just require a certain level of skill in micromanagement before the strategies begin to surface. Novice level games tend to consist mostly of people throwing units against each other...mid-high level games are a different matter.
In fact, Splinter Cell is a good example of internal inconsistency.
You play a character who is supposed to be this highly trained black-ops guy...yet he CAN'T CONSISTENTLY HIT A TIN CAN AT TEN YARDS. Unless you use the sniper rifle, of course.
This basically ruined the game for me...I'd be standing next to enemies and not be able to shoot hit them on the first shot, while they have the ability to hit me repeatedly from thirty or forty yards away. It developed to the point where I was better off grabbing people to kill them, instead of trying to shoot them.
Unfortunately, lower production costs do not lead directly to lower prices. Companies price their products at what they think you can pay. When a company outsources all of its coding to India, it will simply pocket higher margins. And the executives will get bigger Christmas bonuses.
Well, Blizzard has said that it is targeting casual players as well as hardcore players with World of Warcraft, so you might have a decent chance of getting in.
Counterstrike could be very interesting as a spectator sport if you did two things:
1) Have commentary like normal sports...but it has to be recorded and put together afterwards. CS is too chaotic to do realtime commentary in any detail.
2) Have a server recorded replay which is then rendered into a 3d, isometric perspective, full map view point which is displayed picture-in-picture, or full screen when the commentator is talking about overall strategy instead of individual skill. This view can have various information tags attached to each player, etc. etc.
And while he's at it, he might as well ban "Cowboys and Indians", or "World War 2"...and all those other violent make-believe games kids play before they discover first person shooters.
And ban trees and bushes too. We used to pretend sticks were guns and bazookas.
If girls are detail orientated, and prefer sublety and complexity, then why don't girls like strategy games?
Just curious...are you referring to Real-time Strategy Games, or turn-based?
Because being good at an RTS doesn't involve any subtlety - success is a result of memorizing a playbook and practicing each play until you can execute it perfectly. Coming up with new plays is equally tedious: you just keep trying builds until you find a good one.
I know this from playing a hell of a lot of Starcraft...at the upper tiers of skill it devolves into who can micromanage better - which is really a question of who has better hand-eye coordination. Not too much complexity and no subtlety involved.
I think you should get modded up; you have a very interesting point which people should see and get a chance to reply to.
My reply to your post: I think the LOTR movies are very good, but that they still pale in comparison to the depth and beauty of the books. And I don't think I'm going too far when I say that the Lord of the Ring books pound the Matrix into the dust.
The LOTR movies (well, at least the first one...) are loaded with references that only people who have read LOTR will understand and enjoy. The scenes re-added in the extended DVD of Fellowship were generally more of these. The part where Aragorn is singing the Lay of Luthien to himself is a good example. It really adds depth to his character for those of us who know the story of Beren and Luthien, but for everyone else it's an extraneous scene - which is why it was cut out of the theatrical release.
As for the philosophical issues in LOTR, they're there, just not as explicit as in the Matrix. Mostly this is because Tolkien hated allegory. The other reason is that the Wachowski brothers seem to like posing questions, whereas I find Tolkien prefers to answer them. Gollum's role in the story is the most obvious example. The question is asked in Moria (the "It was pity that stayed Bilbo's hand..." scene)and answered in the Two Towers and Return of the King.
On an endnote, I you really have to read the books to appreciate Tolkien. The movies are, unavoidably, shallow representations of the actual story.
The difference is, you don't know for a fact that buying a 29-inch over a 27-inch will harm someone.
There's a difference between being not being charitable and being harmful.
Does Nike know that the Indonesian government violently breaks up labor strikes so that the workers will continue to produces shoes at slave wages? Yes, but they keep doing it. That's Greed with a capital G.
My big beef with 3D games on console is the lack of a mouse...analog sticks and direction pads don't allow for the varying rates of turning that a mouse does...
As for Warcraft III, I disliked the fact that the field of view was so small. I prefer the Starcraft scale much much more.
The Manhatten Project scientists actually started a petition to demonstrate the Bomb on an uninhabited island, but it was quashed by General Groves before it could gain momentum.
My favorite tactic in FF Tactics was having two thieves steal experience from each other while walking around with MoveJP(gain job points while moving). They were essentially passing a piece of paper with "14 xp" written on it, and gaining experience.:P
Obviously because Bird realizes he is trying to oppose the gods by reaching divinity (since that is what it would take to stop filesharing) and he fully anticipates failure.
So set a daily/weekly/monthly bandwidth limit per user according to what is acceptable for the network. That works fine and doesn't violate any privacy.
The difference is you have to slog through hours of boring fights using an incredibly limited and backwards combat system to get to the somewhat interesting plot points. And it costs 40 dollars instead of about 20 or less for a DVD.
This only because telemarketers don't have enough money to lobby effectively. The RIAA, on the other hand, is rich enough to buy all the votes they need.
Equal protection is for individuals only. Any claim to equal protection on the part of a company arises from the shaky premise of "corporate-personhood". The Supreme Court, however, has decided that business practices are not protected by "corporate-personhood". See the Nike free speech case, where Nike had been lying to consumers about where their shoes were being made and claimed that was within their rights as free speech. The Federal government is fully within its rights to regulate this under the "thank god they wrote it so vaguely" interstate commerce clause.
Slashdot Mirror
Why run for something you can buy? =P
"and it's likely this form of advertising will be smashed to bits by Microsoft's pop-up blocker going in to IE6 in XP SP2"
I suddenly had the thought that if Microsoft were like the U.S. government, pop-up advertisers would be lobbying like crazy for them NOT to include a pop-up blocker in the new IE. Good thing Microsoft doesn't need to run for office.
Actually, allowing people with genetic defects to reproduce is an advantage. The more genetic variation a species possesses, the more robust it is. What seem like defects today may infact save the species at some future date.
:P
Take, for example, the relationship between sickle-cell anemia (recessive genetic disease) and malaria. Individuals who have sickle-cell anemia are immune to malaria, and those who are just carriers are highly resistant.
Ultimately, it benefits us to let anyone and everyone reproduce....or at least store all their genes in a database somewhere.
Just a few points:
1. There is a "hold your fire" command in Starcraft; you have to continually hit the "stop" command.
2. Flanking manuevers, ambushes, etc. were all very prevalent in Starcraft. For example, an effective ranged attack unit killing manuever is to use a few units to lure the enemy into a line, and then attack the line from the top or the bottom with melee units.
Real Time Strategy games do have strategy...they just require a certain level of skill in micromanagement before the strategies begin to surface. Novice level games tend to consist mostly of people throwing units against each other...mid-high level games are a different matter.
In fact, Splinter Cell is a good example of internal inconsistency.
You play a character who is supposed to be this highly trained black-ops guy...yet he CAN'T CONSISTENTLY HIT A TIN CAN AT TEN YARDS. Unless you use the sniper rifle, of course.
This basically ruined the game for me...I'd be standing next to enemies and not be able to shoot hit them on the first shot, while they have the ability to hit me repeatedly from thirty or forty yards away. It developed to the point where I was better off grabbing people to kill them, instead of trying to shoot them.
Unfortunately, lower production costs do not lead directly to lower prices. Companies price their products at what they think you can pay. When a company outsources all of its coding to India, it will simply pocket higher margins. And the executives will get bigger Christmas bonuses.
Well, Blizzard has said that it is targeting casual players as well as hardcore players with World of Warcraft, so you might have a decent chance of getting in.
Patenting of software strikes me as rather nonsensical.
Do we let writers patent plot contrivances and literary structure? Do we let poets patent new rhyming schemes?
Copyright should suffice to protect proprietary code.
On a side note, this is the kind of crap we get in this country when companies can buy whatever legislation they want from corrupt politicians.
Counterstrike could be very interesting as a spectator sport if you did two things:
1) Have commentary like normal sports...but it has to be recorded and put together afterwards. CS is too chaotic to do realtime commentary in any detail.
2) Have a server recorded replay which is then rendered into a 3d, isometric perspective, full map view point which is displayed picture-in-picture, or full screen when the commentator is talking about overall strategy instead of individual skill. This view can have various information tags attached to each player, etc. etc.
And while he's at it, he might as well ban "Cowboys and Indians", or "World War 2"...and all those other violent make-believe games kids play before they discover first person shooters.
And ban trees and bushes too. We used to pretend sticks were guns and bazookas.
Obviously he should've remembered to spray his bullets with teflon first.
If girls are detail orientated, and prefer sublety and complexity, then why don't girls like strategy games?
Just curious...are you referring to Real-time Strategy Games, or turn-based?
Because being good at an RTS doesn't involve any subtlety - success is a result of memorizing a playbook and practicing each play until you can execute it perfectly. Coming up with new plays is equally tedious: you just keep trying builds until you find a good one.
I know this from playing a hell of a lot of Starcraft...at the upper tiers of skill it devolves into who can micromanage better - which is really a question of who has better hand-eye coordination. Not too much complexity and no subtlety involved.
I think you should get modded up; you have a very interesting point which people should see and get a chance to reply to.
My reply to your post:
I think the LOTR movies are very good, but that they still pale in comparison to the depth and beauty of the books. And I don't think I'm going too far when I say that the Lord of the Ring books pound the Matrix into the dust.
The LOTR movies (well, at least the first one...) are loaded with references that only people who have read LOTR will understand and enjoy. The scenes re-added in the extended DVD of Fellowship were generally more of these. The part where Aragorn is singing the Lay of Luthien to himself is a good example. It really adds depth to his character for those of us who know the story of Beren and Luthien, but for everyone else it's an extraneous scene - which is why it was cut out of the theatrical release.
As for the philosophical issues in LOTR, they're there, just not as explicit as in the Matrix. Mostly this is because Tolkien hated allegory. The other reason is that the Wachowski brothers seem to like posing questions, whereas I find Tolkien prefers to answer them. Gollum's role in the story is the most obvious example. The question is asked in Moria (the "It was pity that stayed Bilbo's hand..." scene)and answered in the Two Towers and Return of the King.
On an endnote, I you really have to read the books to appreciate Tolkien. The movies are, unavoidably, shallow representations of the actual story.
I hear that...they should have build inaccuracy into the nade trajectories.
So you mean you already have the FEV virus?!? ...
Can I have a sample?
The difference is, you don't know for a fact that buying a 29-inch over a 27-inch will harm someone.
There's a difference between being not being charitable and being harmful.
Does Nike know that the Indonesian government violently breaks up labor strikes so that the workers will continue to produces shoes at slave wages? Yes, but they keep doing it. That's Greed with a capital G.
My big beef with 3D games on console is the lack of a mouse...analog sticks and direction pads don't allow for the varying rates of turning that a mouse does...
As for Warcraft III, I disliked the fact that the field of view was so small. I prefer the Starcraft scale much much more.
The Manhatten Project scientists actually started a petition to demonstrate the Bomb on an uninhabited island, but it was quashed by General Groves before it could gain momentum.
Heh heh.
:P
My favorite tactic in FF Tactics was having two thieves steal experience from each other while walking around with MoveJP(gain job points while moving). They were essentially passing a piece of paper with "14 xp" written on it, and gaining experience.
Obviously because Bird realizes he is trying to oppose the gods by reaching divinity (since that is what it would take to stop filesharing) and he fully anticipates failure.
So set a daily/weekly/monthly bandwidth limit per user according to what is acceptable for the network. That works fine and doesn't violate any privacy.
The difference is you have to slog through hours of boring fights using an incredibly limited and backwards combat system to get to the somewhat interesting plot points. And it costs 40 dollars instead of about 20 or less for a DVD.
This only because telemarketers don't have enough money to lobby effectively. The RIAA, on the other hand, is rich enough to buy all the votes they need.
Equal protection is for individuals only. Any claim to equal protection on the part of a company arises from the shaky premise of "corporate-personhood". The Supreme Court, however, has decided that business practices are not protected by "corporate-personhood". See the Nike free speech case, where Nike had been lying to consumers about where their shoes were being made and claimed that was within their rights as free speech. The Federal government is fully within its rights to regulate this under the "thank god they wrote it so vaguely" interstate commerce clause.
Amen. One of my friends in highschool used to have his computer strung up in pieces on high tension cables attached near the ceiling of his room.