Exactly what I was aiming to get at in the original post! A game that is so free of rules that it is created by the gamers themselves. If you get enough people together in an RPG environment plots will indeed form spontaneously. It might take a little nudging to get things started, but once they are on track the game could drive itself indefinatly.
An interesting idea I had for a gaming engine that would cater to -many- different people who enjoy different genres would be an engine that allows multiple points of entry depending on your interest.
Say you liked Descent: Freespace and you love flying around shooting things in a fighter. You'd enlist in a faction and start training the next day. Player two comes along, they don't care as much for shooting things day in and day out, they like to fly around and control the battle from a "safer" place. They could enroll in the academy and become staff on a major battleship. Many functions of the battleship would have to be computer controled, hardly anybody would want to join the game as a cook until the game fleshed out and the real RPGers got interested. So for a while many things would have to be automated, but before long you have would have a battleship that is practically full of RPGers each doing their function and taking orders from somebody.
Take it a step further. Eventually the game would get big enough to allow more control, and those officers who were most respected could be promoted to be in charge of more strategic commands if they so desired. From there, they wouldn't really be involved with the nitty gritty details. They would simply order Battleship CCX-101 to such and such solar system for such and such cause. The twist here is that unlike Master's of Orion or whatever 'Emporor' style game you prefer, you would actually be giving orders to living breathing humans who possess intelligence and inguinity.
Gone would be the days of issuing one line commands to your wing mates and watching the computer AI botch up yet another strike attack. Gone would be the days of ordering a fleet to a system and getting a bunch of numbers back telling you that you lost. You could watch the battle through relay video and moniter it as it is being fought by real humans on opposing sides.
Such a system would be really fun, and could definatly extend far beyond the 'ordered' military set up I described. The concept could go all over the place. People on planets, scientists, mercenaries, traders, guys on street corners selling antiques to tourists. The game would be so much more fun because you would actually be defending something. There would be real players on that planet who have otherwise ordinary lives. Giving the command to surrendor wouldn't be such a thoughtless move anymore.
Well, I think it would make for a wonderful game. As with all RPG type games you would need gamemasters somewhere. I think the best approach would be to distribute them among the players. Have them RP as well, with the purpose of creating missions for people, or giving reason to their gaming experience.
I could go on and on...
I think the single biggest appeal to me with all of this is taking good old fashionied RPG to the modern world of interconnection and real-time multiplay. We aren't quite there yet as far as technology goes, but we are getting close. The thing that appeals is the fact that most of the characters that used to be NPCs in paper and pencil games would become real players with their own missions and ideals. It would make for a much more realistic world since they wouldn't be extensions of your local gamemaster, however creative he/she may be.
You are definatly right, some sort of story has got to be going on here and there to maintain interest for MOST players of a game like this. There would be the pure-breds who play it just to escape reality and they'll be sitting in their virtual room drinking tea not really doing anything. Most, however, are going to want to DO something.
I think the most compelling aspect of this entire idea is that since it is a full multi-player environment set within realistic bounderies the players will in fact create the story. Since it is not real which really in this conversation boils down to the fact that you don't die by screwing up, people will be less hesitant to try out new things.
Obviously some would turn to the criminal aspect, at the same time, think of how many wouldn't mind being a detective solving big crimes. I think it would slowly balance itself out, and create interesting stories all by itself due to the nature of human creativity, freed from survivalistic fears.
So, you really would be able to enter the book/film/theatre/comic world that is so intriguing, without being limited to that book at any time. If you grow tired of whatever line of duty you are in, you can at least attempt to change it. If some person attracts you, you could run off with them. Things that the preset story type game would not consider or allow for.
As far as perfection goes, I never suggested that the word Ultimate should be synonomous with Perfect. I suppose the two can be confused, but they do have their own quirks. I use the world Ultimate, because while it wouldn't be perfect, it could literally become whatever you wanted the Game to become.
It would be interesting to see how research could be programmed into the Game, so that realities could become morphed over time.
If you ever have the chance to pick up The Golden City (author escapes me at the moment, I'm not even 100% sure that is the right title for the first book in a series) it covers this very well. The book contains a alternate virtual reality world that people have access too. It isn't as comic book as Snow Crash, which to me is a good thing. I find the alternative to be much more interesting.
In a sense I disagree with you. I think perhaps the ultimate game (which does not exist yet) is a game with absolutely no plot, yet so complex that it could be confused with reality. For quite some time I have been wishing for a game that allowed a certain amount of escapism, while pitching you into an environment that is next to real.
Such a game would require incredible resources and could only really work in a full multiplayer setting, like Ultima Online, unless some really good AI comes along soon.
Why do I think this would be the ultimate game? In a sense, it would appeal to almost everybody, even the non-gamers out there. Who could resist the temptation to fire up an alternate-life and see what its like to walk around in those shoes. Many people would be able to use such a game to increase their abilities in the real world. Inversely, many would get sucked into it and lose all touch with reality. (Bringing along with it a host of philosophical questions that are better left untouched in this comment.)
It isn't a novel, or new idea, but it is precisely this idea, that I feel, once created will revolutionize gaming, and possibly the world. If you don't think that such a concept would take off, look at the success of a limited attempt at such a game had, The Sims. While comparing it to what I'm talking about here is a bit of a stretch, it contains the same ideals, and freeform nature that made it so popular.
We are getting highly off topic here, so I've changed the subject line accordingly.
One last thing, and on a more personal side, would you mind clarifying some of your personal objections on Microsoft? Do you really honestly equate them to selling hard drugs?
I do not equate the dealings of MS with that of hard drugs. I was making an analogy, it is a weakness of mine.:)
On the grand scale of Bad Things You Can Do to people though, I do feel that Microsoft, (indeed, other software companies in their position as well.) has put themselves up there. One can only guess exactly how many billions of corporate dollars have been spent on these software companies. Such high-level losses bring down losses upon us all, in the long run.
I believe that the practice of closed software development and sale (expecially per-license sale) has gouged the industry. While we look around things appear to be moving along at an incredible clip. Why in just 5 years we've gone from a television to reading www.insert chocolate company.com on candy wrappers and billboards. As fast as its gone, I wonder how much faster it would have gone without the harnass that has been placed on it by the software enterprises.
I don't target Microsoft alone on this, they are not the only guilty party, they are merely the most obviously guilty party right now, and thus they are being used as a scapegoat for a lot of malpractice going on out there.
I should say here, I do not have a problem with software that is purchased. As a developer, I know that bread needs to be passed around. What I have a problem with is establishing a closed or protected code base. Since humans, and ultimatly, the corporations they puppeteer are in fact very greedy, inevitably those closed code-bases will be used to lock out other corporations and businesses at the expense of progress.
Please, take the time to read the court transcripts, there is more than enough evidence placed on this case to show that progress has been slowed, and will remain slowed as long as individuals hold the keys to their code.
Now, all of the moral stuff said, I still do have gripes with the way Microsoft products work. You have mentioned that you tire of folks berating Microsoft quality. I'm not going to be one who says everything they produce is rotten. I'll go so far as to say it is satisfactory. I cannot with a clear head though, say that the level of quality I experience using Windows is on par with the MacOS or any *NIX that I've used.
On my computer at home, I use 100% 'free-speach' software. I do this because it makes me feel good to do that. I not only use, but I contribute to these projects, and that makes me feel good too. I feel like I'm a part of a community; a valued member. When I got to work and I have to use NT, or any other 'corporate' software I feel like a 'user' or a 'client' I'm not actively involved with it. I'm just a consumer and I get treated that way by them.
So, do I feel like I have chosen to use inferior products just to spite the corporations? No, not at all. For me I don't feel like I'm stooping down. Expecially once I got over the psychological barrier of using software designed with a different mentality. I found that much of this stuff is GREAT quality. It may not look as pretty, one program many not do all 62,000 things that MS Word does, but so what? I can accomplish all of my tasks using a variety of specialized tools that are lean and stable. So honestly, for me it isn't a sacrifice.
If that makes me rare, then so be it, I've never been accused of being normal before.:)
Yes, I am aware of the fact that the unstable branch has 2.4 test. That is fine for my home machine, not-so-fine for the departmental server at work. I try to stick with debian 2.2.deb packages only for that unless there are no other alternatives.
.. here you are, very likely an experienced linux user (based on lynx, w3m, and mozilla) or at least a seemingly adept Mac/Win user. So why is it a big deal to customize IE for you? Or why is it a big deal to remove VBScripting and Windows Scripting Host?
I don't think you understand where I'm coming from. While I am in fact an experienced Linux user, I also use the MacOS, Windows95, and WindowsNT Server more often than I use Linux. This automatically places me outside of the scope of this rebuttle since I can just as easily turn those features off.
The point I was making is that for the general population, the combination of a hard to configure interface mixed with insecure defaults is a Bad Thing. For guys and gals who can get in there and adjust things, its okay. It isn't preferable, but it is okay. For the ones who are just learning that Microsoft Word is not the OS, it's bad.
My biggest problem is when people insist on using Mozilla or Netscape just because its not IE and not MS. They actually go out of their
way to use a product that they usually admit is inferior in many ways just not to use MS. It doesnt make sense.
So then, if a company sells liquid detergant, also has a blackmarket industry of selling hard drugs, and you don't ethically agree with selling hard drugs -- you are telling me you would go ahead and purchase their liquid detergant anyway with the glaze of saying "well I use the best detergant, it doesn't matter WHO makes it."
I'm sorry, but I, and many others, find that type of comment much more offensive than the amount of offense you seem to take towards somebody stating that they will not support a company with a bad record, even if it means using a slightly inferior product.
You bring up some good points, however there are in fact compelling reasons for 2.4 to be released as soon as possible. One of the biggest reasons I can think of off the top of my head is vastly improved SMP.
For instance, the computer I'm on now is a slightly old Hewlitt Packard dual chip system. I can't even use the SMP in Kernel 2.2, it crashes on boot up when compiled in. That means I either have to choose between running the Debian approved 2.2.17 or downloading 2.4-test5 and crossing my fingers.
Right now I'm crossing my fingers. While the factors are different for other machines, the choice remains the same. Do you run your website with old-tech SMP(or none at all!) or run the risk of being slightly unstable, not fully tested, but with more modern performance?
Delaying 2.4 for 6 months or another year would really set back a lot of people dependant on the newer features of the Kernel. I don't imagine that a fully RT Kernel is going to be rolling around any sooner than that, I could be wrong, but this is a rather massive project. Just developing it is going to be a large project, fully testing it and getting it solid enough for the big-time is going to take lots of time.
I am not the original poster, but I'll add a point or two against IE. Ever since 4.x they have completely trashed any sense of powerful configuration. To configure IE you are required to select vague tabs, hunting around, wondering what M$ decided to call file associations this time. Then you get to the last config tab and it looks like they just gave up on creating an interface and threw everything into a huge randomly ordered list.
Thankfully, IE 5 for the Macintosh spurned this 'innovation' and stuck with the hardened method of a config tree with sub-categories. I can install a fresh version of the browser and have it all configured in a few minutes. I still don't have the Windows version of IE configured the way I want it.
Another thing is that integration between the OS and the WWW is probably one of the creepiest, low-browed things I've heard of. There are just too many security problems associated with the internet to have a major part of your OS interface completely linked with it. This is ironically the problem they are noting with netscape.
I want to be able to browse in an encapsulated environment on a browser that 'utilizes' as few of the exploitable WWW technologies that exist. For this reason I use Lynx or w3m for 90% of my browsing. I fire up Mozilla for those inept pages who have no other way to use it except for javascript.
That right there is the largest concern I have with IE, the tight integration with the OS and filesystem. Not to mention mail, news, office documents, and the core scripting languages of the OS itself. Yes, you can turn a lot of that stuff off, but does it come that way by default?
They have it, in fact they have had it for a long time. I think the simplest HUDs on cars came out around '91 or '92. They used to run an add on television showing a person passing another car and how much scenery changes in the amount of time it takes to look down at your dash meters. The early HUD would print your speed and RPMs.
They are still working on advancing the tech. I think the latest is the oncomming headlight dimmers and pseudo(?) night-vision. Though that is kinda of stretching the HUD concept.
I kind of remember a navigation system that projected on the wind sheild, it was probably on a concept car though. The problem is that a meaningful map is usually rather detailed, expecially in a dense area like cities where they are used the most. So they become distracting.
Your story is quite similiar to mine. I havn't been out in the field as long as you, that is the main difference. I got pulled out of college by a small business needing simple help. I grew myself into an integral part of the business. Now that I have moved on, I still get requests from them, and their clients, to come back. I know it will be the same where I am now, once I move on.
Knowledge growth in a company is what you make of it. Managers generally want stuff done; they are not going to "offer" it to you;
I completely agree with this. Every job I've taken so far has been for more menial tasks, and I've worked to create a new job description that far exceeds what I was originally hired for. The problem here is getting the raises you deserve.:)
Thanks for the response, it is good to see others who have forged their own way like I have, and are doing a good job of doing it. I'll take your advice on make my resume more visable.
I saw this posted somewhere, I wish I could remember where. I believe one of the biggest weaknesses that college 'teaches' you is that getting 70% of what you do correct is OK, and pass worthy, even average
Once you get out there on the job, you can make a few mistakes on your first few weeks, but that is it. If you are working at under 99% you are gone and looking for a place to flip burgers. Think about it, if you had an employee that was wrong about something and messed up the business 30% of the time, how long would you keep that employee?
As one who did not attend college here is where I stand. I took the route of working small jobs and learning while I was on the job (+long long hard weekends) instead of paying enough money to purchase a rather nice car for four (+) years.
Do I feel this hampered my 'round knowledge' in any way? Not in the slightest! If anything I am more rounded as a result of not attending college all four years. Why? I've been able to spend my time not only learning massive quantities of information in the computing trade, but many other pursuits as well, more efficiently than I would have in college since I chose them myself. Everything from researching ancient societies, philosophy, painting, photography, sketching, fiction writing, ect. Because I have chosen to work smaller jobs learning things as I go, I now have experience in programming with five languages, high-end 3d content creation, satellite broadcast, networking on 3 different infrastructures in both the small business and the massive corporation scale, database manipulation, SQL/pl, web design, server installation and administration, film scanning and color correction, graphic design, four color print, the list goes on and on. Actual experience, not classes, and enough experience to get a decent job in a majority of the above categories.
As a result, I can either specialize, or walk into a business that needs a 'jack-of-all-trades' and tidy up their automated work flow in a few months.
I'll admit, one can learn a LOT in college if they are willing to throw themselves into it. I just feel that you can also come out just as well, if not better by leaving it aside. You can be just as well rounded too.
So, I don't think your point about college being a necessary boon to your set is really all that accurate. I know that I can sit down with a bunch of artists, listen to how they work and what they do, then design a network, server, and program automated scripts that will make their lives ten times easier -- because I understand what an artist needs. I don't feel that my ability to relate to people who are not computer oriented has been hurt in any way by the fact that I did not attend college.
Now, other trades are an entirely different thing. From what I can tell, law, medicine, physics, and things of that nature are the types of things you really DO need to attend college for. I'm not really talking about that, I have no experience there.
How many of you graduated from college and got your current job(s) as a result of having a degree? On the other end of the stick, how many of you either chose not to take college, or dropped out and went directly into the marketplace?
I am one of the latter. Contrary to what some people have been saying here, the United States education system is NOT satisfactory. I was stuck in classes that took way to long to complete, and learning material that had little or no relevance to what I was looking for in a career.
I dropped out and went straight into the job market. Since then I have had two jobs, both of them have not payed me very well at all. I don't regret that though, because I was able to learn years worth of material in a matter of months since I was learning in the type of environment that suits me best. ie. a stress driven free-form world where you literally have to teach yourself new material or you'll drop off the face of the earth.
Now, if I had continued my education, I would just now be graduating from college with a degree. No doubt I'd snap up a job in no time, however, I doubt that I would have at my disposal all of the knowledge that I have learned, self-taught, on my own.
I am curious to know how you got where you are now. It is a complicated issue, does the education system hamper knowledge for people with right-brained intelligence patterns? No doubt, there are many things I would have learned if I had sticked with college that I do not know now. I'd have to ask myself if I'd be just as personally happy doing it that way, or the way I did. I, like I said earlier, do not have any regrets. I feel like I have accomplished something by driving myself.
The final question would be this. Given the position I am in now. What is the likelyhood of me dropping off my resume at any of of these tech companies that are hurting and scoring a job. What kind of salary should I expect? Most important to me is this last one, how many jobs out there maintain your interest? In your experience have your jobs been lackluster in freedom to grow, or have they been roomy? What is the average 'hurting tech company' going to offer me in the way of knowledge growth and creative interest?
I'm not usually one to whine and scream boycott at the first sign of bad behavior by a corporation. I think this is probably one of the worst things I've seen so far in this string of events. You all can do whatever you want. That is your right. For me, I'm done. I'm not purchasing any packaged music from any of the big three music companies. I don't care how much I like the band.
I know that this does squat. My 150 dollars a year is hardly going to make a dent. That really isn't my point. Personally, I can not with a good conscience endorse their behavior with my dollars any longer.
Like I said, I'm not sure. I know that I have heard the 60 number before. 30 sounds pretty low to me, otherwise you wouldn't be able to detect the 24 fps film discrepancies I was talking about in the above thread. The threshold would be too thin. Seeing rotors and wheels doing that weird effect wouldn't necessarily be proof of a 30 fps limit as they are rotating at a vastly higher rate. It could just as easily be an effect seen at anything over 60 fps. That is just an optical illusion based on something moving at a much faster rate than the fps limit. If we saw things at 400 fps, we might see the same effect yet. I wouldn't know though. I'm not sure of the equations for figuring that out.
This isn't a limitation in the methods used to create movies or special effects. Whether the method used was claymation, models, live sets, computer generated, or animation. Naturally when you move a model through space during filming there isn't going to be any stutter.
What I'm talking about is a limitation in the medium itself, which in this case is film. Film is processed through a projector at 24 frames per second. So, in theory, if you move an X-Wing model across the camera's feild of vision at a rate of 24 inches per second, the model will have moved a full 1 inch per frame.
If you slow down the rate of the model to 6 inches per second, the motion will be very smooth and the human eye will not detect the fact that it is stop motion. Now take that model and push it towards the camera at a rate of 48 inches a second. There will be huge 2 inch gaps between the frames, where the 2 inch changes become more and more obvious the closer the model gets to the camera since it is moving towards it. This is the same effect as driving past a mountain that is 50 miles away, it appears to be standing still while the telephone poles are whizzing by.
For our final demonstration, take out one of your Star Wars tapes, if you have a VCR that can step through frame by frame it would help. Find a spot where a ship, energy beam, or anything flies close to the camera at a fast pace. Pause the movie, and step through one frame at a time. Notice the effect?
Now, take this same principle and apply it to gaming. If you turn your field of vision 180 degrees, you are going to be moving a lot of pixels around quickly. If you have only 30 FPS you are going to only be capturing a set of pixels for every virtual 'foot' or whatever measurement is accurate, that you traverse. This means an opponent could be lurking in a shadow, and because your FPS is too slow, you missed the frame where he is visable. IF on the other hand you have a card that can push 60-80 FPS, the motion will be very clean, faster than the eye can see, and you will be able to pick out every single 'inch' of territory mid-spin.
This whole topic really isn't technology specific, so where the stuttering originates is not relevant. The point is, dropped frames cause you to lose information.
By the way, the jerkiness caught on film is not easy to detect. You practically have to be looking for it. For all practical purposes it isn't detectable. This is why the film industry really hasn't made strides to convert from 24 frames per second to something higher. There are only a few situations where it is really noticeable. For the most part, your eye is fooled.
So if 24 fps is good for the film industry, why not the gaming industry? Like I have said before, the types of movement going on in a game are practically ALL the types of movement that show up as stuttery in film. Objects moving quickly towards you, ect, be it rockets or opponents. They generally do not film movies the same way a gamer plays a first person shooter, the audience would get sick if they did.:)
Definatly, your FPS is going to be effected by the density of action around you. There is more to it than just action.
It is partially shared by the CPU and the video card. Anything that involves calculation of object positions, their trajectory, collision detection, ect is going to eat into your CPU time. So if you are in the thick of a battle, 12 grenades are on the floor, 3 rockets in the air, 3 players, and 80 nails all of that is going to be eating CPU. This is going to slow down your FPS. Conversely if you are in a scene that is intense with texture and effects it'll slow you down.
So you are right, you want to be pushing more than 60 fps in a still scene so that when you hit action scenes you are still at perceived human maximum. I meant to imply that the fps did not drop below 60 during intense processing scenes, meaning obviously that the fps will be a lot higher most of the time.
Yes, and when a spaceship or some other fast moving object flies past the camera on television or film there is a noticeable drop in motion quality. Watch any Star Wars movie and you'll see what I'm talking about, everything gets jerky when the action is close to the camera.
I believe I saw somewhere that the human eye cannot perceive anything above around 60-70 fps. So, the world around us would be felt at around 65 fps, give or take a number of conditions.(Somebody correct me if I'm wrong about this. Even if I am, the next paragraph still applies.)
High speed, addicted gamers need 'real world' conditions to play in. If they are in the middle of a very fast battle with action flying all around, they can't afford to cut their world down to half the frame rate. You'll be missing half of the detail. Good first person shooters use insane sensativity on their controls, meaning maxing out that fps very quickly. If you've got a high fps you can execute a quick 180 degree turn and see everything WHILE you are turning, possibly tossing off a rocket mid turn. Lower your fps and you might have missed your opponent, lower your resolution and you have the same problem because of 'pixel mud'
Seems insane, but you gotta understand the addicted gamer before it makes sense.
Not so much a responder to your posting, but your signature. I don't think there are any problems with the individual per say. I'll admit that in large groups individuals tend to become followers and lose their uniqueness. This is a social problem, and not really a mark of intelligence. The pure idiot shows it's face in the group itself.
Take any large group of 'followers' whichever annoys you the most. Their beliefs and actions are stupid in your opinion. However, take the time to personally understand the individuals within the group, and you'll find they are not really idiots, they are just trapped in an idiot cause.
Well, some would come back and say that if they let themselves get trapped into an idiot cause then they are in fact an idiot. I'll give them part of that. In a sense that is correct. The mistake they would be making is in taking one aspect of intelligence and exploding it over the entire realm. One can be quite intelligent in one area, and rather dull in another. This does not make a person an idiot, as they would probably blow you away in another category.
I would change your "Kaa's Law" to be something more along the lines of this: Take one person and you will find intelligence. Surround him by a million peers and you will find stupidity.
Man can create, but only God can give life and a soul to a being. This is something that man will never be able to do, as man can never be God.
So growing an internal organ and placing it into a body successfully is not giving life to a creation? Granted, a liver might not have a 'soul' (assuming a body does) but where do you draw the line? What if in 5 years we can grow any major organ and replace them in a human successfully? What if we can grow entire bodies, transplant a brain and have that person function successfully after the operation?
What if we grow a body in a test tube environment that grows up and leads a normal life? In your doctrine this person will never be in Heaven because that person was not created by God, he/she does not have a Soul. Where do you draw the line?
God will never allow us to endow machines with intelligenc
Never? I'd be careful when using the word never. That was the point I was making in the original post. Fundamentalists have been crying Never for a long time, and they have been silenced in the past. They would like us to forget that they ever preached such nonsense, but not everybody forgets. How can you say never? We are quickly heading down a path where the distinction between machine and biological material are VERY blurry.
There are a lot of what ifs out there, and that isn't changing very fast, the what ifs are only getting more and more vast. The other battlecry I hear is this:
Yes, okay we COULD technically invent those things and do those actions, but God will come back first and end this astrocity from ever happening.
Right. That claim failed the test of time as well.
I advise you to read The Ten Commandments Site to learn the truth, and begin your path on the road to enlightenment and rightousness.
I've been down that path once before and it left a stale taste in my mouth.
God wasn't going to allow us to land on the moon either. It would be perverse for our sinful feet to ever touch the soil of the pure heavens.
"...One giant leap for mankind."
God wasn't going to allow us to send anything out of the solar system either, on the same grounds. Our dirty sinful machines, our dirty sinful bodies would never be able to escape this prison we are in, this solar system. Hey, according to the Bible even Satan can't leave earth.
How far away is Voyager now?
God will never let us understand the things that make us who we are. We will never master genetics, we will never be able to perform molecular reconstruction because that would be creation and only God can create. It would be evil and perverse for a sinner race like ours to create things.
Witness the completion of the Human Genome Project, and advanced experiments in the creation of objects on the molecular level. We are only decades(if that) from being able to stick a program into a machine and walk away with a new arm(heart/foot/eye/heck BODY), recently fabricated from 'thin air' before our eyes.
God will never allow us to endow machines with intelligence, nor will he ever allow us to transfer our consciousness to anything other than the organic bodies we possess.
Hmmm, it hasn't happened yet, but let's just put it this way, your fundamentalist sermons don't have a good track record SO FAR.
The only time I have experienced this problem is when running gpm and X at the same time. It was the worst with Redhat. If you touched the mouse after gpm loaded during boot it would screw up X.
I would suggest removing gpm from your init unless you actually need it, that might solve your problems.
Like another guy posted above, I havn't had this problem with Debian at all. I've always had both gpm and X running with no hassles, I can even switch back and forth from X to console, and use the mouse in either interface with no probs. shrug
It would be good to point out that with an established OS that sits nicely in its niche already, updates of that frequency can be afforded.
Linux is not that, it is propelled by a new market now that is not the server market alone. New drivers are being made, new features, ect ect. If your OS performs on most server hardware just fine, and it is going nowhere but the server market, then updating rarely is okay.
Linux has a different ideal however, that has never been denied, and chasing that ideal means rampant development. If you want to observe the more conservative Linux side of the tree, use 2.0.xx, updates there are rare, and many people are still using that for its hardened stability.
Comparing different OSes that cater to different markets and ideals does not work.
Well, if purchased for graphic creation, like it has been said before, it would make a wonderful backend for 3d processing, that is, if somebody can code up the correct interface for it. Since intense 3d rendering is in fact massive fp number crunching it would be excellent for this purpose.
Even then, there are much more efficient ways to put your dollars to work. I see this selling to an entity more interested in its historical value than anything else.
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An interesting idea I had for a gaming engine that would cater to -many- different people who enjoy different genres would be an engine that allows multiple points of entry depending on your interest.
Say you liked Descent: Freespace and you love flying around shooting things in a fighter. You'd enlist in a faction and start training the next day. Player two comes along, they don't care as much for shooting things day in and day out, they like to fly around and control the battle from a "safer" place. They could enroll in the academy and become staff on a major battleship. Many functions of the battleship would have to be computer controled, hardly anybody would want to join the game as a cook until the game fleshed out and the real RPGers got interested. So for a while many things would have to be automated, but before long you have would have a battleship that is practically full of RPGers each doing their function and taking orders from somebody.
Take it a step further. Eventually the game would get big enough to allow more control, and those officers who were most respected could be promoted to be in charge of more strategic commands if they so desired. From there, they wouldn't really be involved with the nitty gritty details. They would simply order Battleship CCX-101 to such and such solar system for such and such cause. The twist here is that unlike Master's of Orion or whatever 'Emporor' style game you prefer, you would actually be giving orders to living breathing humans who possess intelligence and inguinity.
Gone would be the days of issuing one line commands to your wing mates and watching the computer AI botch up yet another strike attack. Gone would be the days of ordering a fleet to a system and getting a bunch of numbers back telling you that you lost. You could watch the battle through relay video and moniter it as it is being fought by real humans on opposing sides.
Such a system would be really fun, and could definatly extend far beyond the 'ordered' military set up I described. The concept could go all over the place. People on planets, scientists, mercenaries, traders, guys on street corners selling antiques to tourists. The game would be so much more fun because you would actually be defending something. There would be real players on that planet who have otherwise ordinary lives. Giving the command to surrendor wouldn't be such a thoughtless move anymore.
Well, I think it would make for a wonderful game. As with all RPG type games you would need gamemasters somewhere. I think the best approach would be to distribute them among the players. Have them RP as well, with the purpose of creating missions for people, or giving reason to their gaming experience.
I could go on and on...
I think the single biggest appeal to me with all of this is taking good old fashionied RPG to the modern world of interconnection and real-time multiplay. We aren't quite there yet as far as technology goes, but we are getting close. The thing that appeals is the fact that most of the characters that used to be NPCs in paper and pencil games would become real players with their own missions and ideals. It would make for a much more realistic world since they wouldn't be extensions of your local gamemaster, however creative he/she may be.
I think the most compelling aspect of this entire idea is that since it is a full multi-player environment set within realistic bounderies the players will in fact create the story. Since it is not real which really in this conversation boils down to the fact that you don't die by screwing up, people will be less hesitant to try out new things.
Obviously some would turn to the criminal aspect, at the same time, think of how many wouldn't mind being a detective solving big crimes. I think it would slowly balance itself out, and create interesting stories all by itself due to the nature of human creativity, freed from survivalistic fears.
So, you really would be able to enter the book/film/theatre/comic world that is so intriguing, without being limited to that book at any time. If you grow tired of whatever line of duty you are in, you can at least attempt to change it. If some person attracts you, you could run off with them. Things that the preset story type game would not consider or allow for.
As far as perfection goes, I never suggested that the word Ultimate should be synonomous with Perfect. I suppose the two can be confused, but they do have their own quirks. I use the world Ultimate, because while it wouldn't be perfect, it could literally become whatever you wanted the Game to become.
It would be interesting to see how research could be programmed into the Game, so that realities could become morphed over time.
If you ever have the chance to pick up The Golden City (author escapes me at the moment, I'm not even 100% sure that is the right title for the first book in a series) it covers this very well. The book contains a alternate virtual reality world that people have access too. It isn't as comic book as Snow Crash, which to me is a good thing. I find the alternative to be much more interesting.
Such a game would require incredible resources and could only really work in a full multiplayer setting, like Ultima Online, unless some really good AI comes along soon.
Why do I think this would be the ultimate game? In a sense, it would appeal to almost everybody, even the non-gamers out there. Who could resist the temptation to fire up an alternate-life and see what its like to walk around in those shoes. Many people would be able to use such a game to increase their abilities in the real world. Inversely, many would get sucked into it and lose all touch with reality. (Bringing along with it a host of philosophical questions that are better left untouched in this comment.)
It isn't a novel, or new idea, but it is precisely this idea, that I feel, once created will revolutionize gaming, and possibly the world. If you don't think that such a concept would take off, look at the success of a limited attempt at such a game had, The Sims. While comparing it to what I'm talking about here is a bit of a stretch, it contains the same ideals, and freeform nature that made it so popular.
One last thing, and on a more personal side, would you mind clarifying some of your personal objections on Microsoft? Do you really honestly equate them to selling hard drugs?
I do not equate the dealings of MS with that of hard drugs. I was making an analogy, it is a weakness of mine. :)
On the grand scale of Bad Things You Can Do to people though, I do feel that Microsoft, (indeed, other software companies in their position as well.) has put themselves up there. One can only guess exactly how many billions of corporate dollars have been spent on these software companies. Such high-level losses bring down losses upon us all, in the long run.
I believe that the practice of closed software development and sale (expecially per-license sale) has gouged the industry. While we look around things appear to be moving along at an incredible clip. Why in just 5 years we've gone from a television to reading www.insert chocolate company.com on candy wrappers and billboards. As fast as its gone, I wonder how much faster it would have gone without the harnass that has been placed on it by the software enterprises.
I don't target Microsoft alone on this, they are not the only guilty party, they are merely the most obviously guilty party right now, and thus they are being used as a scapegoat for a lot of malpractice going on out there.
I should say here, I do not have a problem with software that is purchased. As a developer, I know that bread needs to be passed around. What I have a problem with is establishing a closed or protected code base. Since humans, and ultimatly, the corporations they puppeteer are in fact very greedy, inevitably those closed code-bases will be used to lock out other corporations and businesses at the expense of progress.
Please, take the time to read the court transcripts, there is more than enough evidence placed on this case to show that progress has been slowed, and will remain slowed as long as individuals hold the keys to their code.
Now, all of the moral stuff said, I still do have gripes with the way Microsoft products work. You have mentioned that you tire of folks berating Microsoft quality. I'm not going to be one who says everything they produce is rotten. I'll go so far as to say it is satisfactory. I cannot with a clear head though, say that the level of quality I experience using Windows is on par with the MacOS or any *NIX that I've used.
On my computer at home, I use 100% 'free-speach' software. I do this because it makes me feel good to do that. I not only use, but I contribute to these projects, and that makes me feel good too. I feel like I'm a part of a community; a valued member. When I got to work and I have to use NT, or any other 'corporate' software I feel like a 'user' or a 'client' I'm not actively involved with it. I'm just a consumer and I get treated that way by them.
So, do I feel like I have chosen to use inferior products just to spite the corporations? No, not at all. For me I don't feel like I'm stooping down. Expecially once I got over the psychological barrier of using software designed with a different mentality. I found that much of this stuff is GREAT quality. It may not look as pretty, one program many not do all 62,000 things that MS Word does, but so what? I can accomplish all of my tasks using a variety of specialized tools that are lean and stable. So honestly, for me it isn't a sacrifice.
If that makes me rare, then so be it, I've never been accused of being normal before. :)
Yes, I am aware of the fact that the unstable branch has 2.4 test. That is fine for my home machine, not-so-fine for the departmental server at work. I try to stick with debian 2.2 .deb packages only for that unless there are no other alternatives.
I don't think you understand where I'm coming from. While I am in fact an experienced Linux user, I also use the MacOS, Windows95, and WindowsNT Server more often than I use Linux. This automatically places me outside of the scope of this rebuttle since I can just as easily turn those features off.
The point I was making is that for the general population, the combination of a hard to configure interface mixed with insecure defaults is a Bad Thing. For guys and gals who can get in there and adjust things, its okay. It isn't preferable, but it is okay. For the ones who are just learning that Microsoft Word is not the OS, it's bad.
My biggest problem is when people insist on using Mozilla or Netscape just because its not IE and not MS. They actually go out of their way to use a product that they usually admit is inferior in many ways just not to use MS. It doesnt make sense.
So then, if a company sells liquid detergant, also has a blackmarket industry of selling hard drugs, and you don't ethically agree with selling hard drugs -- you are telling me you would go ahead and purchase their liquid detergant anyway with the glaze of saying "well I use the best detergant, it doesn't matter WHO makes it."
I'm sorry, but I, and many others, find that type of comment much more offensive than the amount of offense you seem to take towards somebody stating that they will not support a company with a bad record, even if it means using a slightly inferior product.
For instance, the computer I'm on now is a slightly old Hewlitt Packard dual chip system. I can't even use the SMP in Kernel 2.2, it crashes on boot up when compiled in. That means I either have to choose between running the Debian approved 2.2.17 or downloading 2.4-test5 and crossing my fingers.
Right now I'm crossing my fingers. While the factors are different for other machines, the choice remains the same. Do you run your website with old-tech SMP(or none at all!) or run the risk of being slightly unstable, not fully tested, but with more modern performance?
Delaying 2.4 for 6 months or another year would really set back a lot of people dependant on the newer features of the Kernel. I don't imagine that a fully RT Kernel is going to be rolling around any sooner than that, I could be wrong, but this is a rather massive project. Just developing it is going to be a large project, fully testing it and getting it solid enough for the big-time is going to take lots of time.
Thankfully, IE 5 for the Macintosh spurned this 'innovation' and stuck with the hardened method of a config tree with sub-categories. I can install a fresh version of the browser and have it all configured in a few minutes. I still don't have the Windows version of IE configured the way I want it.
Another thing is that integration between the OS and the WWW is probably one of the creepiest, low-browed things I've heard of. There are just too many security problems associated with the internet to have a major part of your OS interface completely linked with it. This is ironically the problem they are noting with netscape.
I want to be able to browse in an encapsulated environment on a browser that 'utilizes' as few of the exploitable WWW technologies that exist. For this reason I use Lynx or w3m for 90% of my browsing. I fire up Mozilla for those inept pages who have no other way to use it except for javascript.
That right there is the largest concern I have with IE, the tight integration with the OS and filesystem. Not to mention mail, news, office documents, and the core scripting languages of the OS itself. Yes, you can turn a lot of that stuff off, but does it come that way by default?
They are still working on advancing the tech. I think the latest is the oncomming headlight dimmers and pseudo(?) night-vision. Though that is kinda of stretching the HUD concept.
I kind of remember a navigation system that projected on the wind sheild, it was probably on a concept car though. The problem is that a meaningful map is usually rather detailed, expecially in a dense area like cities where they are used the most. So they become distracting.
Knowledge growth in a company is what you make of it. Managers generally want stuff done; they are not going to "offer" it to you;
I completely agree with this. Every job I've taken so far has been for more menial tasks, and I've worked to create a new job description that far exceeds what I was originally hired for. The problem here is getting the raises you deserve. :)
Thanks for the response, it is good to see others who have forged their own way like I have, and are doing a good job of doing it. I'll take your advice on make my resume more visable.
Once you get out there on the job, you can make a few mistakes on your first few weeks, but that is it. If you are working at under 99% you are gone and looking for a place to flip burgers. Think about it, if you had an employee that was wrong about something and messed up the business 30% of the time, how long would you keep that employee?
Do I feel this hampered my 'round knowledge' in any way? Not in the slightest! If anything I am more rounded as a result of not attending college all four years. Why? I've been able to spend my time not only learning massive quantities of information in the computing trade, but many other pursuits as well, more efficiently than I would have in college since I chose them myself. Everything from researching ancient societies, philosophy, painting, photography, sketching, fiction writing, ect. Because I have chosen to work smaller jobs learning things as I go, I now have experience in programming with five languages, high-end 3d content creation, satellite broadcast, networking on 3 different infrastructures in both the small business and the massive corporation scale, database manipulation, SQL/pl, web design, server installation and administration, film scanning and color correction, graphic design, four color print, the list goes on and on. Actual experience, not classes, and enough experience to get a decent job in a majority of the above categories.
As a result, I can either specialize, or walk into a business that needs a 'jack-of-all-trades' and tidy up their automated work flow in a few months.
I'll admit, one can learn a LOT in college if they are willing to throw themselves into it. I just feel that you can also come out just as well, if not better by leaving it aside. You can be just as well rounded too.
So, I don't think your point about college being a necessary boon to your set is really all that accurate. I know that I can sit down with a bunch of artists, listen to how they work and what they do, then design a network, server, and program automated scripts that will make their lives ten times easier -- because I understand what an artist needs. I don't feel that my ability to relate to people who are not computer oriented has been hurt in any way by the fact that I did not attend college.
Now, other trades are an entirely different thing. From what I can tell, law, medicine, physics, and things of that nature are the types of things you really DO need to attend college for. I'm not really talking about that, I have no experience there.
How many of you graduated from college and got your current job(s) as a result of having a degree? On the other end of the stick, how many of you either chose not to take college, or dropped out and went directly into the marketplace?
I am one of the latter. Contrary to what some people have been saying here, the United States education system is NOT satisfactory. I was stuck in classes that took way to long to complete, and learning material that had little or no relevance to what I was looking for in a career.
I dropped out and went straight into the job market. Since then I have had two jobs, both of them have not payed me very well at all. I don't regret that though, because I was able to learn years worth of material in a matter of months since I was learning in the type of environment that suits me best. ie. a stress driven free-form world where you literally have to teach yourself new material or you'll drop off the face of the earth.
Now, if I had continued my education, I would just now be graduating from college with a degree. No doubt I'd snap up a job in no time, however, I doubt that I would have at my disposal all of the knowledge that I have learned, self-taught, on my own.
I am curious to know how you got where you are now. It is a complicated issue, does the education system hamper knowledge for people with right-brained intelligence patterns? No doubt, there are many things I would have learned if I had sticked with college that I do not know now. I'd have to ask myself if I'd be just as personally happy doing it that way, or the way I did. I, like I said earlier, do not have any regrets. I feel like I have accomplished something by driving myself.
The final question would be this. Given the position I am in now. What is the likelyhood of me dropping off my resume at any of of these tech companies that are hurting and scoring a job. What kind of salary should I expect? Most important to me is this last one, how many jobs out there maintain your interest? In your experience have your jobs been lackluster in freedom to grow, or have they been roomy? What is the average 'hurting tech company' going to offer me in the way of knowledge growth and creative interest?
I know that this does squat. My 150 dollars a year is hardly going to make a dent. That really isn't my point. Personally, I can not with a good conscience endorse their behavior with my dollars any longer.
I'm out
Like I said, I'm not sure. I know that I have heard the 60 number before. 30 sounds pretty low to me, otherwise you wouldn't be able to detect the 24 fps film discrepancies I was talking about in the above thread. The threshold would be too thin. Seeing rotors and wheels doing that weird effect wouldn't necessarily be proof of a 30 fps limit as they are rotating at a vastly higher rate. It could just as easily be an effect seen at anything over 60 fps. That is just an optical illusion based on something moving at a much faster rate than the fps limit. If we saw things at 400 fps, we might see the same effect yet. I wouldn't know though. I'm not sure of the equations for figuring that out.
What I'm talking about is a limitation in the medium itself, which in this case is film. Film is processed through a projector at 24 frames per second. So, in theory, if you move an X-Wing model across the camera's feild of vision at a rate of 24 inches per second, the model will have moved a full 1 inch per frame.
If you slow down the rate of the model to 6 inches per second, the motion will be very smooth and the human eye will not detect the fact that it is stop motion. Now take that model and push it towards the camera at a rate of 48 inches a second. There will be huge 2 inch gaps between the frames, where the 2 inch changes become more and more obvious the closer the model gets to the camera since it is moving towards it. This is the same effect as driving past a mountain that is 50 miles away, it appears to be standing still while the telephone poles are whizzing by.
For our final demonstration, take out one of your Star Wars tapes, if you have a VCR that can step through frame by frame it would help. Find a spot where a ship, energy beam, or anything flies close to the camera at a fast pace. Pause the movie, and step through one frame at a time. Notice the effect?
Now, take this same principle and apply it to gaming. If you turn your field of vision 180 degrees, you are going to be moving a lot of pixels around quickly. If you have only 30 FPS you are going to only be capturing a set of pixels for every virtual 'foot' or whatever measurement is accurate, that you traverse. This means an opponent could be lurking in a shadow, and because your FPS is too slow, you missed the frame where he is visable. IF on the other hand you have a card that can push 60-80 FPS, the motion will be very clean, faster than the eye can see, and you will be able to pick out every single 'inch' of territory mid-spin.
This whole topic really isn't technology specific, so where the stuttering originates is not relevant. The point is, dropped frames cause you to lose information.
By the way, the jerkiness caught on film is not easy to detect. You practically have to be looking for it. For all practical purposes it isn't detectable. This is why the film industry really hasn't made strides to convert from 24 frames per second to something higher. There are only a few situations where it is really noticeable. For the most part, your eye is fooled.
So if 24 fps is good for the film industry, why not the gaming industry? Like I have said before, the types of movement going on in a game are practically ALL the types of movement that show up as stuttery in film. Objects moving quickly towards you, ect, be it rockets or opponents. They generally do not film movies the same way a gamer plays a first person shooter, the audience would get sick if they did. :)
It is partially shared by the CPU and the video card. Anything that involves calculation of object positions, their trajectory, collision detection, ect is going to eat into your CPU time. So if you are in the thick of a battle, 12 grenades are on the floor, 3 rockets in the air, 3 players, and 80 nails all of that is going to be eating CPU. This is going to slow down your FPS. Conversely if you are in a scene that is intense with texture and effects it'll slow you down.
So you are right, you want to be pushing more than 60 fps in a still scene so that when you hit action scenes you are still at perceived human maximum. I meant to imply that the fps did not drop below 60 during intense processing scenes, meaning obviously that the fps will be a lot higher most of the time.
I believe I saw somewhere that the human eye cannot perceive anything above around 60-70 fps. So, the world around us would be felt at around 65 fps, give or take a number of conditions.(Somebody correct me if I'm wrong about this. Even if I am, the next paragraph still applies.)
High speed, addicted gamers need 'real world' conditions to play in. If they are in the middle of a very fast battle with action flying all around, they can't afford to cut their world down to half the frame rate. You'll be missing half of the detail. Good first person shooters use insane sensativity on their controls, meaning maxing out that fps very quickly. If you've got a high fps you can execute a quick 180 degree turn and see everything WHILE you are turning, possibly tossing off a rocket mid turn. Lower your fps and you might have missed your opponent, lower your resolution and you have the same problem because of 'pixel mud'
Seems insane, but you gotta understand the addicted gamer before it makes sense.
Take any large group of 'followers' whichever annoys you the most. Their beliefs and actions are stupid in your opinion. However, take the time to personally understand the individuals within the group, and you'll find they are not really idiots, they are just trapped in an idiot cause.
Well, some would come back and say that if they let themselves get trapped into an idiot cause then they are in fact an idiot. I'll give them part of that. In a sense that is correct. The mistake they would be making is in taking one aspect of intelligence and exploding it over the entire realm. One can be quite intelligent in one area, and rather dull in another. This does not make a person an idiot, as they would probably blow you away in another category.
I would change your "Kaa's Law" to be something more along the lines of this:
Take one person and you will find intelligence. Surround him by a million peers and you will find stupidity.
So growing an internal organ and placing it into a body successfully is not giving life to a creation? Granted, a liver might not have a 'soul' (assuming a body does) but where do you draw the line? What if in 5 years we can grow any major organ and replace them in a human successfully? What if we can grow entire bodies, transplant a brain and have that person function successfully after the operation?
What if we grow a body in a test tube environment that grows up and leads a normal life? In your doctrine this person will never be in Heaven because that person was not created by God, he/she does not have a Soul. Where do you draw the line?
God will never allow us to endow machines with intelligenc
Never? I'd be careful when using the word never. That was the point I was making in the original post. Fundamentalists have been crying Never for a long time, and they have been silenced in the past. They would like us to forget that they ever preached such nonsense, but not everybody forgets. How can you say never? We are quickly heading down a path where the distinction between machine and biological material are VERY blurry.
There are a lot of what ifs out there, and that isn't changing very fast, the what ifs are only getting more and more vast. The other battlecry I hear is this:
Yes, okay we COULD technically invent those things and do those actions, but God will come back first and end this astrocity from ever happening.
Right. That claim failed the test of time as well.
I advise you to read The Ten Commandments Site to learn the truth, and begin your path on the road to enlightenment and rightousness.
I've been down that path once before and it left a stale taste in my mouth.
"...One giant leap for mankind."
God wasn't going to allow us to send anything out of the solar system either, on the same grounds. Our dirty sinful machines, our dirty sinful bodies would never be able to escape this prison we are in, this solar system. Hey, according to the Bible even Satan can't leave earth.
How far away is Voyager now?
God will never let us understand the things that make us who we are. We will never master genetics, we will never be able to perform molecular reconstruction because that would be creation and only God can create. It would be evil and perverse for a sinner race like ours to create things.
Witness the completion of the Human Genome Project, and advanced experiments in the creation of objects on the molecular level. We are only decades(if that) from being able to stick a program into a machine and walk away with a new arm(heart/foot/eye/heck BODY), recently fabricated from 'thin air' before our eyes.
God will never allow us to endow machines with intelligence, nor will he ever allow us to transfer our consciousness to anything other than the organic bodies we possess.
Hmmm, it hasn't happened yet, but let's just put it this way, your fundamentalist sermons don't have a good track record SO FAR.
I would suggest removing gpm from your init unless you actually need it, that might solve your problems.
Like another guy posted above, I havn't had this problem with Debian at all. I've always had both gpm and X running with no hassles, I can even switch back and forth from X to console, and use the mouse in either interface with no probs. shrug
Linux is not that, it is propelled by a new market now that is not the server market alone. New drivers are being made, new features, ect ect. If your OS performs on most server hardware just fine, and it is going nowhere but the server market, then updating rarely is okay.
Linux has a different ideal however, that has never been denied, and chasing that ideal means rampant development. If you want to observe the more conservative Linux side of the tree, use 2.0.xx, updates there are rare, and many people are still using that for its hardened stability.
Comparing different OSes that cater to different markets and ideals does not work.
Well, if purchased for graphic creation, like it has been said before, it would make a wonderful backend for 3d processing, that is, if somebody can code up the correct interface for it. Since intense 3d rendering is in fact massive fp number crunching it would be excellent for this purpose.
Even then, there are much more efficient ways to put your dollars to work. I see this selling to an entity more interested in its historical value than anything else.
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