Blizzard games is they seem quite long-lived. I still know lots of people who play Starcraft and Diablo, years after they were released. Is it possible that they're planning for the game to come into its own performance-wise 6 months or a year from now?
This is a little off-topic, but speaking of RTS interfaces...
It seems to me that the next major leap in RTS games will come with voice control. This article encapsulates it nicely: you choose who you want to act, you tell them what action to perform, and you tell them where to perform it. In the specific application of, say, starcraft, I envision it being something like this:
Nexus Build Probe Probes-On-Screen Mine Ore Zealots-On-Screen Form Squad-1 Squad-1 Move Here [Mouse pointer] Squad-1 Attack Firebats
There would be lots of detail to work out, and probably some fuzzy logic about which target is meant by firebats for example, and there's the problem of specifying certain areas (does 'here' work?) but I think once it was working it would provide a much more fluid interface with the game. This can't be far off, right? Hell, my cellphone already responds to "Call Batman On The Mobile Phone"
I don't use filesharing networks to actually discover new music, but they're great for looking into music you've heard about somewhere else. My favorite is internet radio -- most streams will tell you what you're currently listening to, and then you can download other tracks by the same artist. I found an artist that way a few days ago and ordered his CD...
I guess you're right, but it doesn't seem that significant... from the user's perspective there's not much of a difference between Napster and Gnutella. The searches look essentially the same, you're still downloading from other users, and the concept that makes these services work (every file you download is now available for upload) is still there. Since this article deals with the user bases of sharing services rather than their internal architecture, I think it's fair to refer to them by an umbrella term, and P2P is certainly easier to write than anything else...
OK, I'm not saying that the whack-a-mole approach to artists' rights makes sense, but... isn't this the way an ethical file sharing service *ought* to work? I've always felt that, while it would be in the artists' interests to share their music, it really is a violation of their rights to download their stuff when they don't want me to. In a perfect world, artists would release work under a license that allowed sharing, and then it would be added to the sharing services. Work under a license that didn't allow sharing, however misguided, would also be respected.
Of course, in a perfect world the labels would let the artists make that decision on their own, and that obviously isn't going to happen any time soon.
I realize that setting up a system like this would be technologically and politically dificult -- but I'll be interested to see what happens to AudioGalaxy. If they really become a source of licensed, artist-approved music, that will be a Good Thing, sez I.
At the same time, I have to admit I'm pissed off. AudioGalaxy was where I 'pirated' all my music;-)
The posts that are up so far seem to be saying that this geometric progression isn't actually based on age so much as currency of knowledge -- if you go back and take some more classes, you can start all over. In some jobs, though, value is based on physical ability -- it's those ones that are the real killers.
The biggest example I can think of is professional sports -- how many football players make it past their 30th birthday? At least a tech worker can count on getting a job out of college.
Actors in movies are another high risk field, I guess. I am reminded of Boopsie from Doonesbury -- she started out doing spring break flicks and wound up trying to get by in roles as mothers.
All in all, I'm not very sympathetic for these people -- it's excellent work while they have it. Then again, I'm not very sympathetic for tech workers in this economy either.
There is a company called disappearing inc that gets around this problem nicely. I didn't go way into the tech specs, but essentially: 1) you encrypt the email with a key they send you. This key is never recorded on your drive. You tell them how long you want the message to last. 2) the recipient of the encoded message decrypts the message by requesting the key from disappearing inc. Neither the key nor the plaintext are stored on the recipient's computer. 3) after the set time, disappearing inc deletes the key from their server. At that point the message exists only in encrypted form, and the key does not exist at all.
I thought that was a slick way to get around this problem. The url is www.disappearing.com
I don't know how university research teams work, so there are a few things I am curious about.
What kind of opportunities will this bring to an undergrad at MIT? How sensational would an undergrad have to be to have an important place in the project?
The article says that discoveries made solely by MIT affiliates (or whatever) are owned by MIT. What does this mean in practice? What exactly does MIT do with a patent it posesses?
It seems to me that one of the best applications of free software is to bring the "lowest possible price" for a computer down by another 15% or so. Switching to linux could be another step in making computers accessible to less privileged folks. Do you think that VA Systems will ever offer an ultra cheap PC?
This is reminding me too much of the federal programmers in Snow Crash -- the coding sweatshops with ridiculous beaurocracy, etc. Is there any way for the Feds to create a working environment I wouldn't hate? Barring that, for how long would I agree to work for them? (maybe a guess based on ROTC -- does anyone know?)
I think I'd rather be tens of thousands in the hole when i get out of college than be committed to a job that might suck.
My parents and some of their college friends used to have a celebration every year called Saint Zebra's Day. I have no idea what it was, when it was, or where the name came from, but I'm sure it was vastly more important to all of them than this new years was. I think special days are where you find them.
Granted, for many people this day could have been the most important of their life -- but not because Y2K has any intrinsic value.
yeah, I think that hacking in the explorative sense is much easier on a system where the vast majority of software is open source. Linux is the most prominent example of such an OS.
I am only in the desktop graphics/publishing world to the extent that I know a few people who do it and I have read a few magazines, but I think this will be great for them, and meaningless for the rest of us. Over 50 percent of desktop publishers use macs, and in fact they do spend quite a bit of time waiting for Photoshop filters to finish. The same goes times 30 fps for digital video people. So this will be worth the extra expense for those professionals, and their software will already support it. For the rest of us, even one 500 mhz G4 is probably more than we need.
Does anyone know exactly what the extent permitted by applicable law is? (Maybe not, since a previous reply mentioned that much of this hadn't been tested in court yet)
Just out of curiosity, how do they pick the sites to check? For example, my hostname is jrstudent.student.university.edu. I am hosting three pages, with zero content. What are the odds that I am counted as one of the Apache users?
Not that I know any of this first hand, but from what I have read in other threads, the cheating does not have to be with trusted values. Mods to the program which dodge and aim for you affect only the client's position -- these are values which only the client can report, and there is no way to check them. It seems to me that it would have been very hard to modify the program to cheat this way before the code was releases, and it will be impossible to check for cheating now.
This year I was trying to buy reprints of Walt Kelly's Pogo comic strip. I found that both Amazon and bn.com had them. At Amazon, there was a desciption and a picture for each of the five books. Bn.com didn't even have separate titles for each one -- volumes 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8 were each just labled "Pogo." I had to check them by ISBN number at amazon to discover what their actual titles were. On the other hand, they were each several dollars cheaper, and could ship several days earlier.
So, of course, I went with the cheaper option. They arrived two days later, right on time -- but the order was screwed up. Instead of volumes 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8, I got volumes 3, 4, 5, 8, and 8. I haven't called customer support yet -- I don't really want to face it.
So it occurs to me that this may be a problem with online shopping in general. Letting the mouse do the walking, a shopper can use service from one site while actually buying from another. This ultimately teaches resailers to be as cheap and shoddy as possible -- the world may not survive!
Or maybe J. Random Customer will have loyalty to sites which provide good service. I would be interested in other people's experiences with this.
That's a great idea -- it seems more practical than the invisible-keyboard scheme. Does anyone know what kind of words-per-minute you can get with sign language?
They taught sign language at my high school. Could this be an alternative to voice recognition?
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Blizzard games is they seem quite long-lived. I still know lots of people who play Starcraft and Diablo, years after they were released. Is it possible that they're planning for the game to come into its own performance-wise 6 months or a year from now?
This is a little off-topic, but speaking of RTS interfaces ...
It seems to me that the next major leap in RTS games will come with voice control. This article encapsulates it nicely: you choose who you want to act, you tell them what action to perform, and you tell them where to perform it. In the specific application of, say, starcraft, I envision it being something like this:
Nexus Build Probe
Probes-On-Screen Mine Ore
Zealots-On-Screen Form Squad-1
Squad-1 Move Here [Mouse pointer]
Squad-1 Attack Firebats
There would be lots of detail to work out, and probably some fuzzy logic about which target is meant by firebats for example, and there's the problem of specifying certain areas (does 'here' work?) but I think once it was working it would provide a much more fluid interface with the game. This can't be far off, right? Hell, my cellphone already responds to "Call Batman On The Mobile Phone"
I don't use filesharing networks to actually discover new music, but they're great for looking into music you've heard about somewhere else. My favorite is internet radio -- most streams will tell you what you're currently listening to, and then you can download other tracks by the same artist. I found an artist that way a few days ago and ordered his CD ...
I guess you're right, but it doesn't seem that significant ... from the user's perspective there's not much of a difference between Napster and Gnutella. The searches look essentially the same, you're still downloading from other users, and the concept that makes these services work (every file you download is now available for upload) is still there. Since this article deals with the user bases of sharing services rather than their internal architecture, I think it's fair to refer to them by an umbrella term, and P2P is certainly easier to write than anything else ...
OK, I'm not saying that the whack-a-mole approach to artists' rights makes sense, but ... isn't this the way an ethical file sharing service *ought* to work? I've always felt that, while it would be in the artists' interests to share their music, it really is a violation of their rights to download their stuff when they don't want me to. In a perfect world, artists would release work under a license that allowed sharing, and then it would be added to the sharing services. Work under a license that didn't allow sharing, however misguided, would also be respected.
;-)
Of course, in a perfect world the labels would let the artists make that decision on their own, and that obviously isn't going to happen any time soon.
I realize that setting up a system like this would be technologically and politically dificult -- but I'll be interested to see what happens to AudioGalaxy. If they really become a source of licensed, artist-approved music, that will be a Good Thing, sez I.
At the same time, I have to admit I'm pissed off. AudioGalaxy was where I 'pirated' all my music
It's good to know that someone is reading the fine print.
The biggest example I can think of is professional sports -- how many football players make it past their 30th birthday? At least a tech worker can count on getting a job out of college.
Actors in movies are another high risk field, I guess. I am reminded of Boopsie from Doonesbury -- she started out doing spring break flicks and wound up trying to get by in roles as mothers.
All in all, I'm not very sympathetic for these people -- it's excellent work while they have it. Then again, I'm not very sympathetic for tech workers in this economy either.
--Jack
There is a company called disappearing inc that gets around this problem nicely. I didn't go way into the tech specs, but essentially:
1) you encrypt the email with a key they send you. This key is never recorded on your drive. You tell them how long you want the message to last.
2) the recipient of the encoded message decrypts the message by requesting the key from disappearing inc. Neither the key nor the plaintext are stored on the recipient's computer.
3) after the set time, disappearing inc deletes the key from their server. At that point the message exists only in encrypted form, and the key does not exist at all.
I thought that was a slick way to get around this problem. The url is www.disappearing.com
--Jack
I don't know how university research teams work, so there are a few things I am curious about.
What kind of opportunities will this bring to an undergrad at MIT? How sensational would an undergrad have to be to have an important place in the project?
The article says that discoveries made solely by MIT affiliates (or whatever) are owned by MIT. What does this mean in practice? What exactly does MIT do with a patent it posesses?
Thanks,
Jack
It seems to me that one of the best applications of free software is to bring the "lowest possible price" for a computer down by another 15% or so. Switching to linux could be another step in making computers accessible to less privileged folks. Do you think that VA Systems will ever offer an ultra cheap PC?
--Jack
This is reminding me too much of the federal programmers in Snow Crash -- the coding sweatshops with ridiculous beaurocracy, etc. Is there any way for the Feds to create a working environment I wouldn't hate? Barring that, for how long would I agree to work for them? (maybe a guess based on ROTC -- does anyone know?)
I think I'd rather be tens of thousands in the hole when i get out of college than be committed to a job that might suck.
--Jack
My parents and some of their college friends used to have a celebration every year called Saint Zebra's Day. I have no idea what it was, when it was, or where the name came from, but I'm sure it was vastly more important to all of them than this new years was. I think special days are where you find them.
Granted, for many people this day could have been the most important of their life -- but not because Y2K has any intrinsic value.
--Jack
yeah, I think that hacking in the explorative sense is much easier on a system where the vast majority of software is open source. Linux is the most prominent example of such an OS.
So someone got to that four minutes after the story was posted.
Shocked, shocked am I!
I never had a chance.
I am only in the desktop graphics/publishing world to the extent that I know a few people who do it and I have read a few magazines, but I think this will be great for them, and meaningless for the rest of us. Over 50 percent of desktop publishers use macs, and in fact they do spend quite a bit of time waiting for Photoshop filters to finish. The same goes times 30 fps for digital video people. So this will be worth the extra expense for those professionals, and their software will already support it. For the rest of us, even one 500 mhz G4 is probably more than we need.
Does anyone know exactly what the extent permitted by applicable law is? (Maybe not, since a previous reply mentioned that much of this hadn't been tested in court yet)
Jack
Just out of curiosity, how do they pick the sites to check? For example, my hostname is jrstudent.student.university.edu. I am hosting three pages, with zero content. What are the odds that I am counted as one of the Apache users?
--Jack
Not that I know any of this first hand, but from what I have read in other threads, the cheating does not have to be with trusted values. Mods to the program which dodge and aim for you affect only the client's position -- these are values which only the client can report, and there is no way to check them. It seems to me that it would have been very hard to modify the program to cheat this way before the code was releases, and it will be impossible to check for cheating now.
--Jack
This year I was trying to buy reprints of Walt Kelly's Pogo comic strip. I found that both Amazon and bn.com had them. At Amazon, there was a desciption and a picture for each of the five books. Bn.com didn't even have separate titles for each one -- volumes 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8 were each just labled "Pogo." I had to check them by ISBN number at amazon to discover what their actual titles were. On the other hand, they were each several dollars cheaper, and could ship several days earlier.
So, of course, I went with the cheaper option. They arrived two days later, right on time -- but the order was screwed up. Instead of volumes 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8, I got volumes 3, 4, 5, 8, and 8. I haven't called customer support yet -- I don't really want to face it.
So it occurs to me that this may be a problem with online shopping in general. Letting the mouse do the walking, a shopper can use service from one site while actually buying from another. This ultimately teaches resailers to be as cheap and shoddy as possible -- the world may not survive!
Or maybe J. Random Customer will have loyalty to sites which provide good service. I would be interested in other people's experiences with this.
--Jack
That's a great idea -- it seems more practical than the invisible-keyboard scheme. Does anyone know what kind of words-per-minute you can get with sign language?
They taught sign language at my high school. Could this be an alternative to voice recognition?
--Jack