Maybe custom, per-set pieces should be reduced, but I would not want to go back to nuthin' but squares and maybe a few wheels. Legos are a cool CAD-ish modeling kit, and spaceships aren't as cool if they're all square and clunky.
I mean, if it was ALL about imagination, we wouldn't even need the bricks, now would we?
Yeah...also the "looseness" of the motors was a problem, given the limited sensing capabilities, it was made worse by not being able to position robots in anything but the roughest terms.
More like "making use of Oracle's software development centre in Beijing"--its a kind of important distinction, otherwise I was wondering what Oracle IDE they were going to use, or database they were planning to build into the distro...
Also, is there any chance that they changed the formula to make it more durable? I remember seeing some super old lego bricks that didn't feel right, even taking age into account...
Or maybe not. But legos last at least throughout a childhood:-)
One thing is, a lot of the jobs at Legolands seem to involve using Legos as 3D pixels, essentially, with a lot less chances for clever "small" work.
I have been more impressed with the creativity shown in whoever designs the sets...the new designer stuff w/ all the joints, some of the Mechs from the Mars series, and the tiny-scale Star Wars stuff are all very cool. (Admittedly the tiny-scale Star Wars stuff I'd seen on the web before, but its definately a nice contrast to the usual minifig scale works)
It's also durable as heck...only the pieces I used as chew toys to help me focus on building (kind of like gum, but much grosser) are any the worse for wear over the years.
When we were kids, really, Lego was one of the few ways kids had of making stuff in 3D...sort of like a physical CAD system. (Which is why I liked having space sets w/ lots of cool wings and engines and ain't one of those people longing for the days of basic bricks only...and I liked space because while we know things today and stuff in castles of yesterday aren't generally covered with little dots, in the future, they might be!)
Now a days I suppose kids have more options, like modelling stuff on computer...not that many do that, but I know a few.
Yeah, Diddy Kong was great...very fair, and the same items always appeared in the same places-- so as long you were more than a split second behind someone, the item would regenerate. Plus you could stack items, up to 3, each level more powerful. Also, great karting, airplanes, and hovercraft modes, and better battlemodes than Mario Kart ever had.
On the other hand, races among good players tended to be decided in the first quarter of a lap or so, it was TOUGH to catch up. And the tiny pipsqueak characters (mouse and turtle) seemed to have a big advantage, at least among the people I was playing.
On the other hand...I don't see the point of HDTV. Seriously. Then again, what do I know, except when I try to pause it, I still find a movie on humble VHS tape to be pretty watchable. I really think its pause and random access that are the big sells of DVDs and CDs over their tape-based cousins, not the clarity, so a format that only offers 'yet more clarity!!!' is going to be tough to market...case in point, DVD Audio still seems to be a niche, and a small one at that.
And without federal prompting, HDTV would also never be much more than a niche, unless there was some even bigger push going hand in hand with the new widescreens.
What's the point for movies? We can watch all but the most weirdly long movies without changing DVDs. Is it supposed to be better quality? Many movies on just one disc? Or only good for, say, distributing software and what not?
I don't recall hearing about those. It'd be interesting to try to write stories like that. I'm pretty sure that you could use bash scripting. As far as I can guess, all you'd really need is a few unneeded loops & code blocks to throw readers off track, plus a generous use of echo & variables. Well, something that could do AT LEAST character graphics would be cool...
Hmmm...I'd say Grand Theft Auto's freeform mode wasn't really abstract...it was more of a "sandbox", still definately about creating chaos and otherwise having fun w/ its physics engine. You probably see stuff like that more often in "software toys" lilke SimCity, where although there's one goal, it's pretty obvious that you can make your own goals as well.
I've heard about some that male/female division before. Pac Man and to a lesser extent asteroids have strong "making order" aspects, and have cross-gender appeal.
Well, I think gaming geeks do come out with plenty of variants of chess (and not just the 'chessboxing' variety) but they never catch on...the classics are just too established.
And Tetris has a similar stickiness, since its simple concept can fairly readily be replicated on all computer systems.
Oh yeah, those books were pretty cool, often utilizing optical illusions on what not.
Probably cooler than "Choose Your Own Adventure" and "Twist-A-Plots".
There was another, very similar series, that included building up a simple BASIC game...does anyone remember that? (Hopefully I'm not just making it up...) I think it ws a scifi themed book, and depending on what choices you made the ending game would have slightly different features.
That's one thing that was cool about old school BASIC...you could do stuff like that.
Yes, actually the ending sentence that comes right after that Hmm. Suddenly it's gotten pretty quiet around here. REALLY got on my nerves. Anyone who declares victory at the end of their own damn article...
and hell, Windows is the only OS I use on a daily basis, other than some Usenet in a Unix shell account.
Yeah...I'm really tempted by those shuttlecases w/ the integrated handle (like the fragbox) especially since my friend convinced me to put my minitower on my desk rather than on the floor, for catfur reasons...
Just out of curiosity (never played UO, probably never will) does anyone know what the exploit looked like, what you had to do?
I remember Star Control 2, being able to sell more shuttles than you had, so your amount of cash 'wrapped around' to a large positive rather than negative value....frankly, I was just as happy to avoid all the semi-tedious mineral collecting and just go to work on the main story. (Which I used a walkthrough for...sigh, I'm such a wuss gamer. Still, I loved that game.)
For some unknown reason, I have the names of "Ansel Adams" and "Robert Mapplethorpe" mixed up in my head. I was braced for something a bit different when I clicked...
One advantage that DOOM had over later game was in using sprites, it could put TONS of enemies and projectiles on screen. Not only that, but the corpses would STAY THERE, like a gory trail of breadcrumbs marking your path...
Quake and other all-polygone games only really reflected DOOM's "survival-horror"-ish vibe, and didn't have the ability to throw tons and tons of enemies at you. And the "corpses just fade away" shtick was a throwback to 8-bit NES 'punch 'em til they blink' dynamics.
I think the currently released game that comes closest to DOOM's too many enemies, corpses stick around vibe is Halo. Serious Sam tries for some of the same vibe, but still...after all, Master Cheif looks a LOT like the Space Marine...
I tell you, I wish someone would release a cheap and cheerful port of DOOM and DOOM II to the PS2 and addin online capabilities...I'd play that game before one-shot-kill, wait-for-match-to-end junk like SOCOM anyday. PS2 is seriously lacking in the online FPS department...
That's a design decision, not a rule. PHP is designed to be a highly writable language, just as C is. Both suffer from similar problems - reliability and security issues.
Yeah, but in this day and age...I mean, to make this kind of HUGELY dangerous mistake SO EASY to make just to buy some "semantic sugar", save one line of code that you'd need to say get this variable from CGI? The cost/benefit ratio is just not in its favor, which is why the default got dumped.
At least with C, there is a reason beyond semantic sugar why its so vulnerable to buffer overflows, because proper dynamic memory management was expensive, and admittedly maybe some people were willing to sacrfice bounds checking for making the code prettier. But this PHP decision...guh, I wouldn't want to use it in the first place...
How is this a stupid gap? How are variables dangerous? They are only dangerous when misused. All variables are by default dangerous! Call out the troops! Do you understand the issue?
In summary, a default where the global variable namespace of your program is settable by any bozo with a web browser is a poor design. Sure, a good programmer will take steps to make sure he knows where his or her data is coming from, but a language shouldn't encourage such public exposure of fundamental things. (which is why the default changed, according to other posters here)
Guh...that previous comment was NOT flamebait and was NOT offtopic...if you RTFA, this misfeature of earlier versions of PHP is exactly the exploit used to hook into the system.
Frickin' moderators, so many people are so quick on the negative triggers, and not in a helpful way.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe custom, per-set pieces should be reduced, but I would not want to go back to nuthin' but squares and maybe a few wheels. Legos are a cool CAD-ish modeling kit, and spaceships aren't as cool if they're all square and clunky.
I mean, if it was ALL about imagination, we wouldn't even need the bricks, now would we?
Yeah...also the "looseness" of the motors was a problem, given the limited sensing capabilities, it was made worse by not being able to position robots in anything but the roughest terms.
Using Oracle software to create the product
More like "making use of Oracle's software development centre in Beijing"--its a kind of important distinction, otherwise I was wondering what Oracle IDE they were going to use, or database they were planning to build into the distro...
Huh, all I've noticed is some slight discoloring.
:-)
Also, is there any chance that they changed the formula to make it more durable? I remember seeing some super old lego bricks that didn't feel right, even taking age into account...
Or maybe not. But legos last at least throughout a childhood
One thing is, a lot of the jobs at Legolands seem to involve using Legos as 3D pixels, essentially, with a lot less chances for clever "small" work.
I have been more impressed with the creativity shown in whoever designs the sets...the new designer stuff w/ all the joints, some of the Mechs from the Mars series, and the tiny-scale Star Wars stuff are all very cool. (Admittedly the tiny-scale Star Wars stuff I'd seen on the web before, but its definately a nice contrast to the usual minifig scale works)
It's also durable as heck...only the pieces I used as chew toys to help me focus on building (kind of like gum, but much grosser) are any the worse for wear over the years.
When we were kids, really, Lego was one of the few ways kids had of making stuff in 3D...sort of like a physical CAD system. (Which is why I liked having space sets w/ lots of cool wings and engines and ain't one of those people longing for the days of basic bricks only...and I liked space because while we know things today and stuff in castles of yesterday aren't generally covered with little dots, in the future, they might be!)
Now a days I suppose kids have more options, like modelling stuff on computer...not that many do that, but I know a few.
Yeah, Diddy Kong was great...very fair, and the same items always appeared in the same places-- so as long you were more than a split second behind someone, the item would regenerate. Plus you could stack items, up to 3, each level more powerful. Also, great karting, airplanes, and hovercraft modes, and better battlemodes than Mario Kart ever had.
On the other hand, races among good players tended to be decided in the first quarter of a lap or so, it was TOUGH to catch up. And the tiny pipsqueak characters (mouse and turtle) seemed to have a big advantage, at least among the people I was playing.
RTFA. High Definition TV. HTH.
Mea culpa, Indeed I shoulda RTFA.
On the other hand...I don't see the point of HDTV. Seriously. Then again, what do I know, except when I try to pause it, I still find a movie on humble VHS tape to be pretty watchable. I really think its pause and random access that are the big sells of DVDs and CDs over their tape-based cousins, not the clarity, so a format that only offers 'yet more clarity!!!' is going to be tough to market...case in point, DVD Audio still seems to be a niche, and a small one at that.
And without federal prompting, HDTV would also never be much more than a niche, unless there was some even bigger push going hand in hand with the new widescreens.
What's the point for movies? We can watch all but the most weirdly long movies without changing DVDs. Is it supposed to be better quality? Many movies on just one disc? Or only good for, say, distributing software and what not?
Do you mean something like ASCII art?
Well, yeah, VT100 etc stuff...
It's just that simple "command line" games lack a certain visceral impact.
I don't recall hearing about those. It'd be interesting to try to write stories like that. I'm pretty sure that you could use bash scripting. As far as I can guess, all you'd really need is a few unneeded loops & code blocks to throw readers off track, plus a generous use of echo & variables.
Well, something that could do AT LEAST character graphics would be cool...
Hmmm...I'd say Grand Theft Auto's freeform mode wasn't really abstract...it was more of a "sandbox", still definately about creating chaos and otherwise having fun w/ its physics engine. You probably see stuff like that more often in "software toys" lilke SimCity, where although there's one goal, it's pretty obvious that you can make your own goals as well.
I've heard about some that male/female division before. Pac Man and to a lesser extent asteroids have strong "making order" aspects, and have cross-gender appeal.
Well, I think gaming geeks do come out with plenty of variants of chess (and not just the 'chessboxing' variety) but they never catch on...the classics are just too established.
And Tetris has a similar stickiness, since its simple concept can fairly readily be replicated on all computer systems.
Oh yeah, those books were pretty cool, often utilizing optical illusions on what not.
Probably cooler than "Choose Your Own Adventure" and "Twist-A-Plots".
There was another, very similar series, that included building up a simple BASIC game...does anyone remember that? (Hopefully I'm not just making it up...) I think it ws a scifi themed book, and depending on what choices you made the ending game would have slightly different features.
That's one thing that was cool about old school BASIC...you could do stuff like that.
Cool, thanks for the information.
Though it was funny, I thought UO prided itself on a 'closed economy' that shoulda been free of such stuff.
On the other hand, it would be really difficult to get something like that really working well...
Yes, actually the ending sentence that comes right after that
Hmm. Suddenly it's gotten pretty quiet around here.
REALLY got on my nerves. Anyone who declares victory at the end of their own damn article...
and hell, Windows is the only OS I use on a daily basis, other than some Usenet in a Unix shell account.
Yeah...I'm really tempted by those shuttlecases w/ the integrated handle (like the fragbox) especially since my friend convinced me to put my minitower on my desk rather than on the floor, for catfur reasons...
Just out of curiosity (never played UO, probably never will) does anyone know what the exploit looked like, what you had to do?
I remember Star Control 2, being able to sell more shuttles than you had, so your amount of cash 'wrapped around' to a large positive rather than negative value....frankly, I was just as happy to avoid all the semi-tedious mineral collecting and just go to work on the main story. (Which I used a walkthrough for...sigh, I'm such a wuss gamer. Still, I loved that game.)
For some unknown reason, I have the names of "Ansel Adams" and "Robert Mapplethorpe" mixed up in my head. I was braced for something a bit different when I clicked...
One advantage that DOOM had over later game was in using sprites, it could put TONS of enemies and projectiles on screen. Not only that, but the corpses would STAY THERE, like a gory trail of breadcrumbs marking your path...
Quake and other all-polygone games only really reflected DOOM's "survival-horror"-ish vibe, and didn't have the ability to throw tons and tons of enemies at you. And the "corpses just fade away" shtick was a throwback to 8-bit NES 'punch 'em til they blink' dynamics.
I think the currently released game that comes closest to DOOM's too many enemies, corpses stick around vibe is Halo. Serious Sam tries for some of the same vibe, but still...after all, Master Cheif looks a LOT like the Space Marine...
I thought Wolf3d had better music, some neat remixes of patriotic tunes in there.
I remember being surprised when I saw a Wolf3D level editor and realized you could completely edit a level with a tile based editor...
I tell you, I wish someone would release a cheap and cheerful port of DOOM and DOOM II to the PS2 and addin online capabilities...I'd play that game before one-shot-kill, wait-for-match-to-end junk like SOCOM anyday. PS2 is seriously lacking in the online FPS department...
That's a design decision, not a rule. PHP is designed to be a highly writable language, just as C is. Both suffer from similar problems - reliability and security issues.
Yeah, but in this day and age...I mean, to make this kind of HUGELY dangerous mistake SO EASY to make just to buy some "semantic sugar", save one line of code that you'd need to say get this variable from CGI? The cost/benefit ratio is just not in its favor, which is why the default got dumped.
At least with C, there is a reason beyond semantic sugar why its so vulnerable to buffer overflows, because proper dynamic memory management was expensive, and admittedly maybe some people were willing to sacrfice bounds checking for making the code prettier. But this PHP decision...guh, I wouldn't want to use it in the first place...
How is this a stupid gap? How are variables dangerous? They are only dangerous when misused. All variables are by default dangerous! Call out the troops!
Do you understand the issue?
In summary, a default where the global variable namespace of your program is settable by any bozo with a web browser is a poor design. Sure, a good programmer will take steps to make sure he knows where his or her data is coming from, but a language shouldn't encourage such public exposure of fundamental things. (which is why the default changed, according to other posters here)
Guh...that previous comment was NOT flamebait and was NOT offtopic...if you RTFA, this misfeature of earlier versions of PHP is exactly the exploit used to hook into the system.
Frickin' moderators, so many people are so quick on the negative triggers, and not in a helpful way.